Things I feel really pissed off about thirty years later …

[Retortsit]

So I don’t know if anybody else finds it helpful to just share, even if there’s nothing useful anyone can say or do, but I do.

I had a really difficult relationship with my parents in a lot of ways and it’s a shame as they definitely weren’t horrible people and they meant well. I’m now in my 40s and I’ve become a lot more mellow as I’ve got older.

The summer I did my GCSEs my mum got absolutely obsessed with me finding a job, and when no paying ones were available she decided that I wasn’t going to spend the long summer sat on my arse and I was ordered to do some voluntary work, which sounds very noble except the place she sent me to were not best pleased to have a teenager under their feet and let me know about this. They were absolutely awful to me, and I told both my parents over and over that it was horrible and I was really unhappy, but they ignored it. (I think that they put it down to teenage strops, and it probably did sound like that but I really was treated very badly.)

I went past the place the other day and felt renewed feelings of pissed-offness. And I’m wondering if I’m alone with this or whether some people harbour some resentment with stuff like this … I mean, on the surface I can see she thought she was doing a good thing but I have a bit of a teenage frustrated reaction still!

So, your mum wanted you out of the house and doing something productive in your holidays? If you didn’t have the role at the charity shop, what would you have done otherwise?

It wasn’t a charity shop.

I probably wouldn’t have done anything, which I don’t think is too terrible for a sixteen year old who has just finished exams. I can tell from the ‘tone’ of the above message you think my mum was right and I was very wrong, and maybe that’s true, but I think anyone who has undergone an experience where they have been bullied and not been listened to probably feels frustration and pent up upset and I think that’s probably what I’m experiencing.

I get it.
I was bullied badly in secondary school. I still live in the same area and my children got to secondary age the same school was their catchment school.

It was a different place in many ways 30yrs later, obviously different pupils and and mainly different staff. It was the best choice for the area at the time, but I really struggled with the idea of sending them there and felt really anxious doing the tour.

Hi @HoppingPavlova I can relate. I love and like my parents now (I am in my 40s) but in many ways they were crap parents.

Nothing terrible, no abuse but a constant belittling of my experiences and feelings, total deafness to what I was telling them about my life. I was highly highly motivated to work so that wasn't an issue but problems at school, rough treatment by other adults, tough times with friends / boyfriends they couldn't have cared less and made sure I knew it. They also really resented spending money on me at all. I was made to feel like an inconvenience until I was about 30 at which point they decided they wanted a relationship and started making an effort.

We have a good relationship now, mostly, but I will never really trust them or bring them in to my inner world.

I also parent my own child very differently in the hope it will go better over all.

Personally, I don't think she needed to be doing anything productive. She's just done her GCSEs and will be going on to do her A-Levels or some other qualification.... Why can't she have a month or so during the summer to just relax and have fun? They don't get those years back, soon enough it will be working full-time until retirement, but they can't even enjoy a summer of doing nothing at 16?

Oh, I get that. My secondary school, which was just awful in the 90s, has transformed and is now the best school in the area. I don’t live there any more, but if I did, there is no way I’d send my children there when they got to that age, I just couldn’t!

I think the thing is that as a child you are relatively powerless, and humiliations and upsets just have to be put up with.

I get you op. I had some dubious moments with my parents too, I think you accept them when you're a child, too busy to process them in my 20s, but I think a lot of these feelings resurface when you have dc of your own, as it really brings to the surface how you'd never do the things they did to you, to your own dc.

My mum has since died, so I'll never have the opportunity to voice my feelings to her (not that I think I would), but I still find myself getting either annoyed or upset sometimes)

Sorry, X posts!

@Pootleplum I can relate to some of that.

Mine meant well, they certainly weren’t stingy and they did love us, but god they were difficult to talk to. I think one of the things with both my mum and dad was that they’d automatically assume I was the problem in any sort of upset or conflict and while I am POSITIVE I didn’t always handle situations well, I never felt that they had my back or that they would help resolve situations. So if I’d had an argument with my friends my mum would get very theatric and start shrieking about how I was always falling out with people and so on … which probably was true but no more or less so than any other girl the same age.

It does sting when you aren’t listened to.

@Zaliea both my parents had a bit of a ‘get a job’ obsession. It wasn’t so much about money as about just working for the sake of it. I nearly failed all my a levels because of it

I had a Saturday job and did a few extra shifts in summer, but otherwise nothing. Cycling and camping and meeting up with friends. Great memories.

Of course if doing absolutely nothing I agree, and could see the mother's point of view. Though a shame they didn't believe you were badly treated, OP.

Yes, it's awful that she just didn't want to hear you.

I never could send my kids to the nearest school as I went there and when we did the school visits, I had horrible memories. They are not me, but still. They went to other schools.

YANBU to be pissed off OP. Did your folks work and not want you home alone… I was required to help at home, during the holidays, DM was sahp though so easier I guess.

A lot of teens just sign on in the summer hols, no intention of job hunting as they’ll be going on to higher Ed and just want a break and some cash.

And personally, during the exam years, unless the child actively wants to work and has the time management skills to cope, I think it's the wrong priority and not something parents should push. Our working lives are long enough.

Yes, I find this very sad; and reminds me of an occasion when my sister and her mate got into some trouble at sixth form college. Her mate's parents defended their child whilst my dad basically said, 'yes, she caused it, she's trouble...'. My sister was expelled and her friend was allowed to stay on.

It's called 'emotional neglect', and it does echo down the years. I feel sorry for you and totally get how it still hurts to be ignored, forced into unsafe situations and metaphorically thrown under a bus by the very people who should cherish you. Really sorry OP.

I hear you all. My mum had massive hang-ups that prevented her from allowing me to be me. I wanted to join the brownies, guides, air cadets - all refused. "I'm not buying a uniform for you to decide in 5 minutes you don't like it". I even got a hand-me down brownies uniform from my friend's sister, but no apparently I'd "hate being in a room with loads of screaming girls". She refused to sign the premission form for me to get free music lessons. Luckily the teacher felt sorry for me and said he'd pretend he lost the chit and gave me an instrument. I played it for 8 years through primary and secondary and was in a few school bands and ensembles. Mum never came to watch and in the end I had to give up because I got no help at all from her and was paying for busses to attend practice and it was too much. I played the double bass laterally and I had to give up a place in the Youth Orchestra because my dad worked weekends and my mum refused to drive me to practices. Even just for a little while until I found other parents that would. I find more recently that I am sad and disappointed that it appeared she had no interest in me and the things I loved, or took pride in my achievements. She was a grade 8 pianist at school so I always felt excellence in music was merely what was expected not an achievement and she hated playing anyway. A lot of her issues was down to her own Narc mother and the fact she spent her childhood being wheeled out to various clubs and associations to suit her mother's hubris.

Mine did have the 'get a job' obsession too. I remember being sent at 14 or 15 (which seems very young now) to go around the shops asking for application forms.
My grandparents weren't happy about this and engineered for me to 'work' (thinly disguised) for them for pocket money.

I don't think mine were used to having me at home as I boarded for a couple of years in early teens, well from around 11 years.

I did like the Saturday job I had when I was 16, but I'd rather not have been working in all honesty and I wasn't even allowed time off for exam revision and felt tired a lot.

.Mum never came to watch and in the end I had to give up because I got no help at all from her and was paying for busses to attend practice and it was too much. I played the double bass laterally and I had to give up a place in the Youth Orchestra because my dad worked weekends and my mum refused to drive me to practices.

That's a bit shit really. You did well to get as far as you did with an unsupportive, and even obstructive, parent.

Agree. Although we live in a different borough I could have NEVER sent my kids to my old primary school. I could never even now bear to enter its premises and I’ve not had to set foot in there since 1973!

I'm almost 43 and I can still remember my mum and granny talking together and criticising my hair when I was 10 years old. I have naturally curly hair and my granny and mum actually both questioned how dare I want to leave the house with curly hair. Whilst clutching their pearls probably.

I was brought up my entire life being told by my parents that I was 'difficult' and 'argumentative'. In reality, I had different opinions to my parents and didn't just agree with them. Even now my parents act all surprised when I don't share their opinion on something.

When I was 16 (many, many years ago), my mum thought I should become a trained nursery nurse (back in the day it was an NNEB course). Although the nearest college to offer that was 10 miles away, because it was a different county to where I lived the county council would only pay for the 1 college in Somerset that offered the course which was just short of 40 miles away. This meant that my week days were spent living in a dedicated B&B and only going home at weekends. I felt so pushed out from the family and many times I told mum I didn't want to be on the course, I wasn't interested in the course and I wanted to drop out, do my A levels and go on to uni, but "people like us don't do that, that's for the middle classes" apparently.

Years later when DD got her uni place (the 1st in the family to ever go), the comment from mum was "you could have gone to uni if you had wanted to". It was the only time I ever felt real anger towards her and even now, 14 years later I still seethe when I remember that comment.

I can relate to what you're saying. I wanted to go to FE college and was asked how I was going to finance that then! At 16. Then told that they didn't care what I did but I was not 'sitting at home all day.' A little bit of career advice would have been nice!

I think I'm still bitter about it now and don't really know how to guide my DC's. I tend towards being too lenient as I know how soul destroying some jobs can be.

I really should have got over it but I don't think I will at my age!

I totally get it. I had numerous things happen to me when I was younger that would happen to my teenage daughter over my dead body, and it all still makes me a bit angry to think about. Just need to try to shake it off as there’s no point in harbouring it but you can’t help your feelings OP.

My mother was challenging to say the least, very unsupportive and seemed to relish in negative things that happened to me. Never congratulated me on anything positive or strides I had made despite her best efforts to quash any self esteem out of me.

But the only way I can console myself on it without resentment is that I didn't do that to my children. Revenge is best a dish served cold. In an oddly positive way!

When I was at school, over forty years ago there was a school play that my sister was in. I went to see her and offer some moral support. Now I was badly bullied at school and didn’t have many friends so I went alone, which was a really big deal for shy, bullied me.

Anyway my seat was beside a group of older kids that I didn’t know, who spent the whole play making stupid comments, larking around and generally being twats.

The following day whilst queuing outside the PE changing rooms waiting for the lesson, the teacher came out and from nowhere demanded my seat number from the night before. I stammered it out, and she launched into a tirade in front of everyone about how I’d ruined the whole play with my groups behaviour. I tried to proclaim my innocence but she just silenced me, then delivered the killer blow, she told the rest of the class not to speak to me again after what I’d done. I was then sent to the headmaster.

I proved to the head I wasn’t involved, and he summoned the teacher and told her he was satisfied I didn’t do it, no apology of course, and that was that. Except it wasn’t as the teacher had given the entire class a perfect reason to exclude and bully me even more than they already did. I lost the very few friends I had that day. The unfairness still infuriates me to this day.

I get it OP. It’s the feeling that you have no autonomy over what goes on in your life and everyone else knows best/ has a plan for you that you don’t want or endorse.

This really resonates with me - and makes me feel better about my own feelings towards my parents, who are now mid 80s. (I'm almost 60)

As others have said, they continually dismissed my feelings (mother in particular) and cut me off saying things like "Oh you're always so difficult". It's taken me years to realise that the constant criticism, constantly telling me I was being awkward, constantly telling me I was 'too sensitive' or 'touchy' was really emotional abuse. They are still doing it. My mother talked the other week about what a 'happy family' we were and what a happy childhood we'd all had and was upset when I said to her that I was actually profoundly unhappy as a child.

I feel guilty about the fact that I do not think I will miss them when they die and that actually it will be a relief in many ways not to have to see them several times a week, not to continually be criticised and made to feel shit about myself. This is sad, because they were not bad parents and they tried hard to give us a very middle class upbringing and providing well for us.

It's just that they continually made me feel that they were irritated by me and that I was in the wrong.