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.

I just feel so sad robin

I hear you.

I can remember wanting to do all these things and being completely held back.

I also asked was I such a difficult child ???

I felt like I was stopped at every turn.

So now I often feel like a rabbit caught in the head lights when I try and do something new.

BUT I know my parents loved me.

I was able to make peace with dad about 6 months before he passed.

He was always scared something would happen to me - he let his anxiety effect his parenting.

But in the 6 months before he died I just stopped trying to prove anything to him.

I don't know how it happened but we'd chat away.

And if he said anything s bit off I'd just laugh and say 'I don't know what you mean ' ha ha.

Because I was so relaxed with him he relaxed and my confidence grew.

I was so happy to have that time.

Exactly @Badcat666

You felt proud and your confidence grew.

Like your Lovely mum 😊
(And she sounds great by the way)
I was a better parent because of my parents - I just did the exact opposite to them.

That's not normal op, unfortunately it's seems to have been the norm in the 70's and 80's.

I knew my mum loved me but she was just emotionally distant, I never felt I could ask for anything so I never did it was like I was an inconvenience to her. Me and my sister were also smacked quite a lot if we stepped out of line which being a very sensitive child as I was made me internalise a lot of my feelings out of fear of being told off. I was terrified of the dark and had lots of nightmares for years but I was never allowed in my parents bed, I had to stay put in my room.

I desperately wanted time with my mum but she was always cleaning, cooking or at work and just seemed annoyed by usual kids stuff I was just left to my own devices and quite lonely as a child.

I don't blame her even as an adult as I know it was just the done thing, we were very working class and she was just doing what her mother had done. She always told us she loved us and that we could pursue a life we wanted and we did have some fun times, I just wished she spent more time with us instead of keeping the house looking nice, I really needed so much reassurance as a child which I just didn't get.
I know she probably would have been a better parent if she had a better husband, she did everything in the house my dad did zero, he came home from work and just drank, the pub and betting shop came before anything. Poor mum must have been so stressed as dad didn't do any parenting, any housework and left all responsibility to her. I used to envy my cousins who had dad's who actually showed an interest in them, I actually disliked my dad and to know that at such a young age is terrible.

So it's no surprise as an adult I suffer from anxiety and have such low self esteem.

But I do think it was just the done thing back then, mostly I was happy it's only when you're an adult and have children of your own you realise how wrong it was.

I definitely won't be repeating their mistakes, I make a point of listening to my ds and his feelings, I spend time with him, we go for days out, he goes to lots of activities, I pay attention to his school work and I let him sleep in my bed when he's scared.
But inevitably I will make mistakes maybe he'll be on mumsnet in the future moaning about me 😂

Although not all the same, some of what you describe has echoes for me, particularly the housework and food bits.

My Mum would no doubt claim she’d have loved more help with the housework but, in truth, was (and is) way too much of a control freak / perfectionist to actually allow it. With the result that my brother and I both had to learn the domestic stuff by trial and error, once we were living independently. Although it never directly came up, I can absolutely imagine my Mum’s reaction (to bringing my own food back to the house) being the same as yours when I was a teenager.

I’ve made a point of encouraging my DC to get involved and to put washes on occasionally, plan, prep and cook meals, load the dishwasher etc. Why wouldn’t you encourage your kids to be independent? Ironically, this was exactly what my Mum’s Mum did for her!

They sound like my parents who were/are very controlling. I had a lovely grandmother living with us and she was my real.parent really.

No childhood is perfect. Or no parents. Because life is not perfect.

But as an adult you can leave behind the problems and attitudes of childhood and live your own life and be your own person. Afterall you can't change any of it.

Once you understand your upbringing leave it behind and become the person you want to be.

I was a child of the 60s and 70s and I feel horrified at some of the things which went on, yet as pp have said, I have no doubt my parents loved me. I think you have to look back over the generations and see how parenting has changed, and how it’s not so much about ‘fault’ as about not having the role models.

During the time I grew up I think it was pretty normal that families were quite patriarchal. Dad was head of the household, his word was what went. If my siblings or I were deemed to have misbehaved we’d be punished by him when he got home from work. For things deemed serious that was caning which seems horrifying now.

Overall though I think the hardest thing was the feeling that children and young people had no voice, or very little voice. We were expected to behave in a certain way and fulfil parental expectations. My parents were very traditional and distrustful of many things so I rarely went out socially until I left home for university.

It’s impossible to look objectively at one’s own childhood though, and we are all products of the age we lived through. Many things about my childhood seem unpleasant but like I say, I know I was loved and I have good memories too, plus I’ve no doubt it’s made me more resilient. As a teacher I come across some kids now who don’t seem to have any consequences at home for unkind behaviour, they are pretty much allowed to do as they please and have what they want which ultimately is a very poor blueprint for functioning in the real world.

No such thing as a perfect parent; I’m sure 99% of us do our best and I’ve no reason to think it would be any different over the years- I’m sure most parents do their best even though what that ‘best’ looks like will have changed over the generations

Thanks for the replies. It is hard to know where the line is drawn between it being the way things were done back then and actually abuse or neglect.

I do think it was partly the time. I'm 50 now and my mum was bloody vicious. She was quick with her hands and when that started to hurt her she used to use wooden spoons, hair brushes walking sticks anything really. I used to go to school with bruises but nothing was ever said. My sister and I had to help clean the house from quite a young age even though my mum didn't work, my job was ironing and hoovering, my sister's was dusting and we both shared the washing up. My mum did the washing as we had a twin tub and it took all day.

As I got older, my mum stopped hitting me and began using verbal abuse, going on and on screaming and shouting for hours at a time.

I never knew what would set her off and it could be for any minor infringement, a spot of dirt on my skirt, a towel folded wrongly, I was late home from school...........

Through all of this, my mum used to say that she only shouted and hit me because she loved me.

We were never left in the house on our own until I was 17. My mum always wanted to know how every second of our day was filled, who we'd spoken to, she tried to (& sometimes succeeded)to break up friendships on one hand but took us everywhere we wanted to go on the other. If we brought friends home, we were never left on our own she had to be involved.

I left as soon as I was able. As I've got older I have realised that my mum was deeply unhappy and took it out on us, particularly me. I think that she had a narcissistic personality type and my dad enabled that. The result is that I see my mum and dad on a fairly regular basis, but I don't trust them and don't tell them anything private. The sad thing is, my mum would be heartbroken if she knew I felt this way.

As an adult my friends have let me know how abnormal my mum's behavior was and how they all knew what was going on but as kids didn't know what they could do to help except be there.

I am not the same with my son. I did not want him to wake up in the morning and be scared to get out of bed. He is disciplined, but fairly.

So, I think there were lots of us who were treated terribly by our parents, one way or another, but despite that have gone on to have successful family's of our own. I like you was terribly insecure as a kid but I used my mum as an example of how not to be and found strength to be my own person.

Thanks. I’m only 35 so it was late 80s/early 90s this was going on. I can see that parents can only do what they think to be best at the time though.

It makes me mad and breaks my heart hearing these tails.

I can twice remember seeing a parent ranting at their sons.

The child and young person ( with learning difficulties) in both cases, just stood quietly and took it.

I guess if they answered back worse come.

I understand that the parent was a very unhappy person but to focus all their frustrations with such venom on a defenceless child.

I hope now years later both these young men have escaped and living happily lives.

Children are a gift and I thank my lucky stars I was so blessed.

I am very close in age to you (born 1985) and I think your parents were toxic and abusive. I'm amazed (and disappointed) that so many people seem to think their treatment was "normal". It wasn't.

I recommend the book 'Toxic Parents' by Susan Forward and the Stately Homes thread.

Oh Traffic_Jams, my mother was controlling like that, mocked me for 'never lifting a finger indoors' but would not allow me to do things, also went on about the 'sacrifices' that were made for me.

No child should ever have to be grateful for being housed, clothed, fed and given a modicum of affection.

I sympathise with you.

I am really surprised at the number of people saying that this kind of behaviour was normal back then - I honestly don't think it was! I was a child of the 60s and so lived through the years you are describing as a young adult. I worked with children on and off for a few years and honestly never saw the type of thing you are describing.

Op, your parent's behaviour was abusive . Please don't convince yourself that this was the norm because it wasn't.

I definitely recognise the spirit of what you say, even if the exact details are different. I grew up in the early-mid 80s and into the early 90s.

I always say I was raised rather than loved. I was fed, clothed and sent to a good school. Got a good education, was never kept cold or dirty. But we I have siblings were seldom cuddled and never told we were loved. Praise was restricted to academic achievement. We were also smacked if we were 'naughty' as younger children. The words 'I love you' were never uttered at home. Ever. I can't use them with my parents now and they don't say it to me. It just doesn't feel right to say it. (In contrast, I have no problem saying 'I love you' to my husband or close friends!)

My parents were both controlling and mood tyrants. My mother was distant, but if something happened that she didn't like day-to-day family/kid stuff like not eating greens or being giggly and silly she would first go very quiet, then she'd get upset and burst into tears and run out of the room. Then my father would swing in with the 'look what you've done to your mother' stuff. He'd get angry and shout. Sometimes we'd get a smack. After about an hour of being in the doghouse, us kids would be sent up to my parents' bedroom to say sorry to my mother. She'd sit there and sniff and sob and stare out of the window while we apologised, then there'd be a sort of grudging truce. I'd be so relieved that she was talking to me again that I often overcompensated with the apologies.

My father was stressed with his job and had a short temper at home. He had no time for kid silliness. He would shout and bang doors. He could be very patient, but only if we were showing interest in something he knew about. Like DIY or maths.

Neither of them were social people, so we weren't allowed to be either. My parents never had people over, or dinner parties or anything like that. If there was a street party or BBQ in the summer we wouldn't go. My siblings and I could sometimes have a single friend over, perhaps on a birthday. But it was never much fun. And of course you grow up not being a very sociable kid because of it. Secondary school was hard for me because of this.

As a child I internalised all of that. When things go wrong I always seek fault with myself first; this continues to happen to this day (and I've had a lot of therapy). I can be somewhat obsessive about seeking reassurance. I struggle with people and crowds, and prefer my own company... and then I get lonely.

What's more, I had the epiphany-like realisation a few months ago that all of my physical health maladies were externalisations of suppressed stress and anxiety; IBS, stomach aches, eczema, migraines.

I also very much relate to what @imjustanerd says about feeling like an inconvenience, and the smacking leading to a fear of being told off or shouted at. Of course, sometimes a telling-off was justified but the scale of the response always seemed disproportionate.