Were these aspects of my childhood 'normal'?

[dootdoot]

I'll start by saying that I have an excellent relationship with my parents now. I love them very much, we're very close and I don't hold any of these things from my childhood against them but there's certain aspects of it that, as I get older, I don't think are normal. Also, my parents weren't flush with cash when I was a child but we had a 4 bedroom detached home and went on at least one foreign holiday a year, usually a U.K. based holiday as well.

Firstly, hygiene. My mum constantly told me off for using too much shampoo/conditioner. I remember this from early primary school and if she felt I'd used too much too quickly she wouldn't buy more until she next felt like it. I also wasn't allowed face wash once I started getting bad skin because it was too expensive. I was never taught to wash my face at night, never chased up about teeth brushing etc.

When I first started to wear bras my mum only bought me one because she felt that was all I needed and bras were expensive. I wore that bra 7 days a week, to school, to PE, to sports (no sports bras either) and it rarely got washed because I had to wear it.

I was expected to make my own packed lunch from about 8 onwards. I wasn't allowed to get school dinners because they were too expensive. If I didn't make it I didn't eat lunch which happened often.

I don't know how normal these things are or if I'm building them up in my head because i see other parents on here discuss the way they treat their children and it's very different? There are other examples of similar things but I don't want to overload this post. Basically I feel my mum was sometimes really tight about basic things that I don't feel should've been places to scrimp

I think those are normal things sadly in families where there are financial difficulties. You had the big house and holidays but that doesn’t mean someone has enough day to day spending money. If anything it sounds like they maybe overextended themselves with the house and holidays and that meant they weren’t able to afford necessities like toiletries, which is sad. You’d have hoped they’d have reined in the holidays if things were that tight but people don’t always make rational choices (and sometimes you can go on a holiday one month and then lose your job the next).

They do sound a little remiss about helping you with personal hygiene but many parents are the same. I had wonderful caring parents in most respects but for reasons I’ll never understand they showed me how to brush my teeth a few times and then stopped asking/checking, I must not have realised I was supposed to be brushing them each day as I vividly remember in primary school going weeks without brushing them, having plaque all over my teeth and another child mentioning my breath on one occasion. As an adult I have rubbish teeth, discoloured and have had a lot removed, which is down to that lack of dental hygiene as a child.

But they did the best they could at the time with what they knew, parents aren’t perfect and in the context of a loving relationship not everyone gets everything right, I think you have to try and let it go and accept you can’t change the past and in terms of the awful things that could have happened, small lapses in hygiene are pretty minor. What’s the reason you’re trying to find out if this is normal or not now?

Four bedroom detached and holidays sounds pretty comfortable to me

No those things arnt normal, but I often hear of rich parents being very tight with money for some reason. weird.

Some of the things probably were a bit tight but honestly nothing jumps out as being really bad if you get me. She would have been from a different era where conditioner/face wash wouldn't have been a thing. The lunches was a bit mean but maybe they thought it was a bit of "tough love" and went a bit far. Not saying you shouldn't be upset about it, just that she may have simply got it wrong.

Sounds more to me like your parents focused on ‘big ticket’ things like the house and holidays and less so on the daily expenses and routines. It’s not normal in my view to limit personal care products and underwear. Also being lax around things like teeth brushing etc would suggest to me they were not overly involved in day to day parenting. Did you get attention and your needs met in other ways? For example quality time as a family, regularly cooked decent meals, support with schoolwork etc?

It sounds to me like there was some neglect there OP. I don't think a large house and a holiday once a year negates that.

I grew up in a similar environment with financially comfortable parents, but there was a fair bit of neglect and abuse (I went through similar shit with mother point blank refusing a bra because they were too "grown up" - I was 13). Enough to cause a lifetime of poor MH for my siblings and me.

I do believe my parents tried their best and as I say, I love them very very much. I think my mum struggled with having young children. The holidays thing was very important to my mum so she got a "break". She talked about this a lot and I look back now at some of the lovely holidays we had and think that we probably couldn't really afford them at the time.

I was the youngest of three and the only girl and I think by the time some of these things came around she either didn't want to deal with them or didn't know how to. I know they're quite minor things really but I did overall feel like a bit of a burden at times? When my cousins started having children and being absolutely in love with them and cuddling them etc I remember thinking that my mum must've cuddled me like that when I was little but I don't remember it.

The lunch thing does bother me, basically I was often expected to do things at the same time as my oldest sibling. So when he (5 years older) started being expected to make his own lunch, so was I. I feel my mum was sick of having to do the things that came along with young children and I was expected to grow up quicker to accommodate that.

I realise I've only mentioned my mum here. She was a stay at home parent when I was a child and then started working part time when I went to primary school. My dad worked full time my whole life and wasn't very involved in the daily household stuff like toiletries

How long ago was this?

Did your mum suffer with depression at all, or did you get the feeling that life was overwhelming for her?

I feel my mum was sick of having to do the things that came along with young children and I was expected to grow up quicker to accommodate that.

Exactly this.

Also, in my experience people who behave like that do it out of laziness. How clean e.g. was your house? Did she use to keep it clean or was there dust on furniture or dirth in the bathroom sink etc?

I think it’s within the realms of normal/neglectful. I think lots of people will have similar type of stories!

Similar in my childhood, big house but low level neglect. Often no toiletries in house; didn’t own a sports bra until after I left home; Made own breakfast and lunch.

Was a mix of a depressed and uninterested mother and there being pockets of time where there was very little cash, due to high interest rates.

I don’t have much contact with my parents these days.

I think how you interpret depends on whether you otherwise felt lived and cared for. I did not and so the lack of care and consideration has more significance for me than if I had been.

Could it be that your mum didn’t have access to family money? Just housekeeping which might not have been enough?

Sounds very similar. DM had a very "poor" mindset...they were working class and low income but not as poor as they made out.

Conditioner, nice shampoos, bras, stationery, school lunches, fruit and even "nice" sanpro were all too expensive ... but she thought nothing of new cushions, flowers, rugs, sofas etc etc.

We are no contact now btw.

I don’t know how old you are, OP, but if you’re middle aged like me, things were often quite different for our parents growing up. Mine were baby boomers which meant rationing was in place in their early years. Things like conditioner and face wash were unknown. Showers weren’t common and baths were often just once or twice a week. Clothes were worn several times unless visibly dirty.

My parents raised me the same, limiting toiletries and changes of clothes despite the fact they were reasonably comfortably off. I do understand where they were coming from, but they were also a bit neglectful in other ways so perhaps that’s part of it. One of the things I never stop treasuring as an adult is the ability to have as many showers as I like and wash my clothes similarly.

My mother also had the trauma of sudden loss of family income during her childhood and I have more recently started to see how that’s affected her. She lives in terror of bills arriving, for instance, and seems convinced she’s always half a step from financial ruin despite actually being very comfortably off (a lot more so than me). She will never spend on herself and lives extremely frugally, which is partly why she has built up such savings. She won’t change now which is irritating but I do understand a bit how growing up under rationing and then in some poverty made her like this.

How long ago was this?

I'm in my early 20s so fairly recently really.

Did your mum suffer with depression at all, or did you get the feeling that life was overwhelming for her?

I think that life was overwhelming for her. She has some physical health issues and suffered from anxiety at various times in my life.

she use to keep it clean or was there dust on furniture or dirth in the bathroom sink etc?

Chores was a thing I was going to mention in my OP but didn't because everyone has different ideas of what children should be expected to do. In my opinion, my siblings and I were asked to do too much. Hoovering, ironing, cleaning the bathrooms, dusting, dishes, recycling and some more were our shared responsibilities from the time I was in primary school

I recognise elements of this. We had no money and a tiny, overcrowded house and I'm the eldest of a big family, but what I recognise in your post is the personal hygiene stuff.

In my case, my father didn't get that hands-on with us, and my mother? I think no one ever taught her basic hygiene stuff herself. For instance, she grew up with no loo at all, not even an outdoor one for instance, when she and my father started going out, when she was 20, there was still no toilet in the house and they just went up the field at the back. So no basic toilet hygiene to pass on. A friend, when I was about eight and sharing a cubicle, tactfully told me about wiping yourself when you'd had a wee.

And as we had an outdoor loo but no bathroom when I was small, so teeth-brushing, hairwashing etc had to take place in the kitchen sink, I think that probably contributed to dental hygiene and personal hygiene suffering. (To this day, I think my mother still thinks it's normal for men doing manual work to only wash thoroughly once a week, 'for mass'.)

I don't blame her -- she just had no idea, as well as having far too many children for the income of our household.

@LizziesTwin definitely not, my parents have completely joint finances

I don’t know, maybe it was the era? By todays standards not good, although my 12 year old daughter has the option to get food at school or make her own packed lunch, some dats she doesnt eat lunchbecause ‘school food is horrible’

I’m similar. My mum wouldn’t buy clothes for us as teenagers as we “could earn our own money” my sister was relentlessly bullied at school and called shit shoes. We were also expected to buy our own toiletries and sanitary products as well. I always paid for my own school meals and worked evenings, weekends and school holidays to meet my living expenses.
I also had to pay for my own transport to college and a school trip. Unsurprisingly I didn’t do very well at school.
My mum had frequent exotic holidays and probably has assets over 1.5 million. Sometimes I feel quite bitter about it and do wonder if she would have been reported to social services for neglect if it had been now.

Not sure how old you are op, but growing up, we also had a 4 bed house, occasional holidays abroad but very little spare cash.
The holidays were always camping and the few times we went abroad, it was camping in France, so not expensive. I didn't stay in a hotel or go to a restaurant until I was an adult on a work trip!
And the house they bought when they could afford it, but in the late 80s, with the huge interest rates, they were paying something like 17% interest at one point, and the house was in negative equity, so couldn't have sold anyway.

I understand though, as I only had one school shirt, one bra, and I remember someone at school when I was a teenager saying I smelt bad (only one shirt!). But it was a school where the uniform was expensive, and they couldn't afford (or didn't see the need to spend that amount perhaps) to buy me more.

I think also, they came from a generation where you made do with little, and being frugal was the norm. They've relaxed a bit over the years, and I too have a great relationship with them, but they are still a little tight!

Oh, and I used to have to walk a mile to get the school bus (and get myself ready, make my own breakfast, lock up the house etc) when I was 9.

Oh I see your only early 20s... not a 70/80s kid. Yeah I do think neglectful

It’s probably why your parents could afford a 4 bed detached house and holidays abroad and in the uk every year.

I got to visit my grandparents in london once a year and all my friends were jealous I got what they perceived as an amazing holiday. They lived in a tiny high rise council flat, it really wasn’t amazing, I never went into london, just got to go to my grandmothers various cleaning jobs with her. No one I knew went on over seas holidays, maybe an odd pontins holiday. But we all had shampoo and basic hygiene products and my parents made sure we had food and lunches every day as well as always always wore clean clothes. We obviously weren’t allowed to waste things, but if we ran out they bought more. We had to put extra layers on if we were cold, turn lights off when leaving rooms to save on electricity, but I think that’s fairly normal in any house.

Sending a child to school with no lunch because they didn’t make it from age 8 is 100% child neglect. My 8yo makes her own lunches, but I make sure I check them each day and that she has enough food in them. I don’t like my own mother at all she’s a nasty narcissistic bitch but she would would never let any of her children go to school dirty or hungry, for that, I could never fault her.