Was this a normal childhood?

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I’ve come face to face with feelings about my past recently, I think because friends have children now and I see how they behave with them. I really want objective opinions and to be told if I’m being too sensitive and looking for issues.

A few examples:

1. Often hit and dragged up stairs to bed if I wouldn’t sleep. This I think was usual when I was a child in the 80s
2. Left alone regularly/left with grandparent/sent on school trips while my parents and brother went on holidays/camps where he was able to further his particular sporting skill
3. No recollection of spending time with either parent without the other. I found this hard as often wanted my mum to myself. This of course may be attention seeking and my own problem rather than something they did wrong.
4. Zero independence allowed...ban on us cooking in the house (my mum would cook or sort dinner). Not allowed to do own washing when we got older. Strangely we were mocked for this at the time (and still now sometimes!), often being told that we never helped out and we were treated like hotel guests.
5. When I could drive i would buy my own food (I was underweight due to recovering from an eating disorder) and told that it wasn’t allowed in their fridge. I was stuck living there at this point doing my a levels.
6. Constantly told how lucky we were and how much our parents had given up for us (we went to an independent school). This made me feel massively worried about the impact on them financially although looking back they have had many holidays and no mortgage and lived without working for the majority of our childhood.

Are these just normal things? I felt so insecure as a child and constantly looked for re assurance. It could be that I was just a difficult and they drew the short straw with having a child like me. Am I making more of this than there is? Obviously there was good stuff too but I’ve just posted about the things I’ve gone over in my head lately.

Your parents sound very much like mine and I experienced most of those things myself. I think times have changed and things are different now. But, I don't think my childhood was great. My parents were controlling and not always pleasant, I never felt happy, secure and loved. So from that perspective I don't think it was great.

This was not my experience of childhood. I can see why you felt insecure.
But regardless of whether it’s ‘normal’ or not it has clearly upset you for a long time. Have you talked it through with any friends? Would you consider speaking to a professional?

It sounds lonely and dysfunctional to me. I hope you recognise that you deserved a kinder and more supportive set up and that you have one now.

I think people parent better nowadays tbh and your post resonates because since having kids I recall having regular night terrors / nightmares and asthma attacks ( yes they smoked in the house/car, it was the early 80s and My mum and dad basically being irritated and inconvenienced by them and putting me back in my own bed, alone, I never once was allowed in their bed for reassurance/ cuddles. They aren't bad people, that's just how things were done.

Missing bracket, sorry

Sorry not sure if my response has come across as a bit snippy. As @keepingbees said it was controlling behaviour and abusive. I would have found that very distressing.
It’s very hard to define ‘normal’ because everyone has vastly different experiences and to some your childhood would sound idillic. But in my opinion and experience it was very abusive and I can see why you felt second best to your sibling and as though you didn’t matter.
Not allowed to keep food in the fridge? When you were recovering for an eating disorder? Why on earth not? What difference would it make to anyone?

Apart from number 1 and fridge stuff (I left at 18) that was pretty much mine

I think lonely definitely sums it up!

I never once felt important to my parents other than when I did well academically and I could tell they were proud.

I never felt like ‘me’ around my partners. Never ever. I was always feeling embarrassed, defensive, angry, hurt, confused. Sometimes happy and weirdly I always knew I was loved. But I never felt like they would do anything for me like some people feel about their parents. I never felt I could rely on them and never felt comfortable being myself. It was lonely.

Parents not partners!

KmoKmo The eating disorder was never really acknowledged. It was recently actually I was at the GP and they mentioned now how I am in the right BMI. I asked what my lowest weight had been and when I got in the car I sobbed over it. My parents never helped. Although I think they must have been very scared.

As for the food..they only ate certain foods and didn’t want anything else in their fridge. Also they didn’t like me spending money on food that they thought was expensive and that would cause a row for example strawberries or avocados etc. In fairness I was having hand outs from them at this point to save for university so I guess it was fair enough. The biggest thing to me was the lack of independence. I felt like I couldn’t make any decisions myself, not even a decision about when to wash my pants!

I wouldn't say that was good or normal parenting in the 1980s. I was a parent in the 70s & 80s and I didn't do any of those things.

I think the food thing is really strange, it would never have occurred to me that a child should buy their own food. No wonder you had an eating disorder, you poor soul.
They sound awful parents.

Ada this was me buying food I wanted to eat...extra things that I wanted to try or fancied buying.

Just want to clarify it definitely wasn’t a case of me having to buy my own food.

But surely Jamz a parent will buy the food that the child wants to eat? That's part of good parenting, making sure your child eats a good balanced diet, enjoys their meals, learns how to cook.

I want to be fair in what I post so that I get objective views...my parents definitely bought us food and made nice meals. They weren’t necessarily what we always wanted to eat and as we got older the problems started really because I always wanted to eat a bit more and wanted to try different foods which granted were often more expensive. They would say that it was expensive to buy different meals for each of us so we just had what they would have. And that’s why I started buying extra things with spare money I had. And that’s when they got cross.

To be fair they had a very healthy diet it was more than I was eager to put on weight and wanted to eat more. For instance I had read avocados were good for weight gain and healthy so I would try those kinds of things. The point being that my parents found these things unnecessary and expensive and didn’t want me buying them.

In fact often these things were already in the house but only my dad was allowed them which makes me laugh now!

But we always had a balanced diet.

OMG
That's awful.
Sounds like they were taking all their frustrations out on you.

It's not normal.

I guess you don't have such a great relationship with them now?

I loved being with my kids.

As they grew I encouraged them to experiment in the kitchen.

I set healthy boundaries but encouraged independence.

At 16 my son went ti London for the weekend with a group ( some in their early twenties)

I always encouraged them in things they were interested in and reassured them when they wobbled.

I feel sad for my mum because I think she was very stressed and anxious...she didn’t want mess at all ever. I think that’s why she didn’t like us cooking for instance. And why she wanted to control the washing. But then she’d often snap and say she did everything around the house...even though I would loved to have got on with all that myself once I got to 14/15. It was confusing

Also if the kids came shopping they d always put stuff in the trolley- sometimes Id take stuff out lol

But we were all very close and I'd just talk to them and listen to what they said.

And didn't like a mess either.
But I sat on my hands because if you don't ,
you have kids who grow up scared to attempt anything - just like me .....

I find that there are lots of examples of children in the 80s and 90s whose parents didn't know how to parent. And as such this meant that they suffered dysfunctional borderline abusive childhoods.

I was one of those children. My parents were outwardly good parents and I have good memories of my childhood. But I also remember feeling (and being told) that I was worthless for minor misdemeanors.

However if I look back at their childhoods and the ways their parents disciplined them then I can see where they went wrong. Parenting is a learned behaviour and they had terrible teachers themselves.

I just feel so sad robin

I know my mum never meant to hurt us. She said a few weeks back that she hasn’t been a great mother had she and that she wished she hadn’t put on my brother so much with his sport (I did think how about me not even in the picture! Haha). But she clearly knows she was uptight and never wanted to relax with us or let us just grow independently.

I feel a mix of anger and sadness. I can’t imagjne not hearing my children, really hearing them. Respecting their choices and who they grow into...giving them the space they need as well as the security of needed teenage rules! I would just do it so differently.

dottie both of my parents had rubbish parenting, truly rubbish. Not physically abusive but masses of neglect emotionally and both were put on at a young age. I guess you copy.

Holy crap, no that is not normal, not normal at all.

Grew up in the 70s/80's and only really crappy thing we had was being made to sit at the table until we ate the food we were given as we were pretty poor and mum couldn't pander to all our whims (poor but clean!)

We were a family of 9 but we all had one to one with mum cuddle times and dad would take me and my little brother and older brothers night fishing (to give mum a break).

When I got to 14 (i was one of the youngest) I took over cleaning the house and cooking Saturday and Sunday as mum was a work (LOVED IT!) and when I was little the older siblings would load the machine and hang it on the line (older brothers were very "cool" and I remember one brother washing his "disco shirts" in the bath upstairs so they wouldn't get ruined in the machine!) , they also helped mum with all the cooking (like peeling the spuds/ chopping/ shelling the peas from the allotment etc)

We had some very shitty times but we all knew we were loved.

Sending you big hugs traffic xx

@Badcat666
Love it.
That's so good.

@Robin2323 thank you, looking back I never realised we were poor until l got to my teens when mum couldn't by me hip clothes.

My mum was bought up by her nan and grandad as her mum was a terrible mum so knew she how not to treat all of us.

I still remember trying to learn how to light the coal boiler whilst watching my big brother do it, I was so chuffed the first time I got it right! A little thing to some but God I felt proud as punch lol