Was my mum inappropriate when I was a child?

[Sockonthefloor]

I have recently had some talking therapy and it has made me think again about my mother's behaviour when I was a child. I hadn't thought of it for years but now that I have again I am becoming increasingly annoyed and upset with her as I feel it might have been abusive. But I just don't know.

When I was growing up, it was just her and me. My dad left when I was 6, and we moved into a small flat with one bedroom. My mum made huge sacrifices for me, including sleeping on a sofa bed most nights for over ten years and working two jobs to keep food on the table.

But the more I think about her behaviour sometimes, the more I worry that there was a sexual element that I either didn't realise at the time or wanted to ignore. Examples are as follows:

• She kept what I now know was a vibrator in the bedside drawer in my room (the only bedroom). I can't remember when I realised what it was, but I was told not to touch them and that they were for grown ups, and I do remember knowing what it was at some point.
• She kept a pair of VHS videos in the sock drawer (this was the mid 90s). When I was old enough to be left at home alone I watched them out of curiosity, and discovered that they were porn. This was my first exposure to anything like that, and I think as a result I had an unhealthy relationship with porn in my teens.
• She was naked round the flat a lot. At the time I didn't think anything of it but now I wonder why that was. Sometimes she slept in my bed with me whilst naked, and although I must stress that I can remember absolutely no sexual physical contact on these occasions, why would she do that?? She also didn't respect my privacy in this regard at all, and would often come into the bathroom when I was using it, well into my teens when I was not a little girl any more.

My mum has always been a great mum. And I remember nothing that you would say was actual acts of abuse. But the more I think of it the more confused I become about why she would have exposed me to these things and behaved in this way. I don't know what to do about it. Should I mention it to mum? I get that she was an adult and I get that we lived in a tiny flat. But why did she not hide things more? And the nudity thing bothers me too now. It's a fine line between having no body shame (fine) and being inappropriately undressed (not fine).

It was principally @Sockonthefloor‘s bedroom, @Boomer55. And the vibrator was in the bedside table beside her bed. There must have been other, more suitable places that the vibrator and the porn videos could have been kept.

If having porn of any kind somewhere in the house that your kid steals and secretly watches is abuse, I’m gonna say that makes every single father alive and large number of mothers, abusive.
Find a different therapist who doesn’t just caste around for other people to blame for every single thing that goes wrong in your life.

How old were you that you were unsupervised and able to be at home watching videos? She must have trusted you to be at home alone so she probably thought you weren’t going to meddle with her things.

People got hold of stuff like that back then by buying it. You are behaving like she did something terrible. She just had some porn.

Maybe mum had (undiagnosed?) ASD and simply couldn't sleep in clothes.

Sounds more like you were living in a small space than any deliberate attempt to expose you to it.

Sounds as though there was very little space and your mums boundaries were slightly compromised because of this. I really don’t think sleeping naked or walking round naked in front of you is a problem at all, particularly as there was so little privacy. I wouldn’t leave a vibrator or videos in an area that my children would find. It’s not abusive but I wouldn’t choose to expose my children. If she has been a good mother, I would acknowledge that she has made mistakes, and learn from them if you have your own family. Maybe try and forgive her and be kind to yourself as you didn’t have it easy as a child.

privacy wasn't a think with my grandmother, similar situation to you. It bothered me alot. But my grandmother was a nurs, i stayed at hers alot and in a tiny place, if I' having a shower and she needed a wee, there was no second bathroom.

No red flags here OP. I can see you're unsettled. This sort of nudity is very common in some cultures and families.

it carried on.

😂 that’s quite a wild twist from ‘I stole her stuff and secretly watched it all the way to 19’

I think all pf that is perfectly normal. Where else should she keep a vibrator or some videos ?
I'm very comfortable naked we all see nakedness in our home there is absolutely nothing sexual

How old were you at the time?

Then you don’t sleep in bed with your child? I hate sleeping in clothes and find it uncomfortable but it’s not appropriate to sleep naked in bed with your child, wear some knickers and a bra at the very least!

You were apparently old enough to be left home alone. How old was that?

You found and watched a parent’s porn stash. It’s not ideal, but not at all unusual. And even less surprising in the constricted living conditions you describe.

Owning a vibrator also isn’t inappropriate. It sounds like she kept it in the most appropriate place available.

Also nothing wrong with sleeping naked.

There’s a truly bizarre MN trend where people fixate on pretty standard things from their childhood, conclude that their (generally pretty normal) parents were remiss in some way, and want us to help analyse their ‘trauma’. Nobody seems to just get over anything, anymore. Why is that?

I think it was inappropriate in the sense of she could have hidden them better but you're right not inappropriate in the sense of she was sexually abusing OP which is kinda what I'm reading from her post.

I'm glad you can see you are overreacting.
At 12 you should know better than to use things that dont belong to you.
Plenty of kids will be in houses with age inappropriate media, alcohol etc but know not to access them

Christ stop making a big deal of nothing. You snooped where you were told not too and found something and now blame her. I sleep naked and my daughters climb in bed with me in the morning. Absolutely nothing sexual at all.

What's she supposed to do, sleep on the sofa or make her kid?

Agreed.

She didn’t allow you to see it. You took them and watched them without permission when she was out. There is a huge difference.

The fact that she ‘must have gone out of her way to get it’ isn’t relevant. She was an adult and perfectly entitled to watch adult material. Just because she was a parent that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t have been allowed to seek an outlet for her sex drive. She’d already given up a hell of a lot to bring you up alone, and I don’t think you could expect her to give up on her libido as well.

It is far from ideal for an adult woman to have to share a bedroom with her daughter for years and for neither of you to have the privacy you wanted. But I can’t see anything here that was abusive and she wasn’t behaving sexually towards you.

Where? OP has said the other options in their little one bed flat were the kitchen, lounge and bathroom. I don’t think any of those places are more appropriate than a bedside drawer.

My vibrator is in my knicker drawer in my bedroom. My dc (when they lived at home ) could have been nosy and found it, they each had their own room. Was that wrong ?

You say your mum was a great mum and she clearly made a lot sacrifices to raise you. It sounds like your trying to find trauma where there is none and that makes me feel quite sorry for your mum

She was presumably naked around the flat a lot because she didnt have any private space, she sacrificed that for you. She hid her porn and vibrator in your shared drawers because she didnt have space of her own.

Not everyone is perfect, and they may not be choices you would have made but it doesnt sound like your mum was being malicious or trying to harm you.

lol lots of parents get a sofa bed 😂 you’re saying it like thats weird? It’s funny how if this was Op saying shes in a one bed with a child what should she do with sleeping arrangements she’d be told to give up the room for her child and get a sofa bed! What happened to it not being ok to share a bed with a child unless it’s the child’s CHOICE and they have their own bed they can go to if they want to which I see spouted constantly on here

I think the problem may have been that she didn’t have any privacy either.
She slept in a shared space and shared drawers with her daughter. If she wanted a vibrator and porn, she either kept them in the only place that a visitor wouldn’t go rooting through, or kept them in drawers in the bedroom and asked her daughter to respect her privacy.
Presumably you never encountered her using the vibrator or watching the porn which suggests that she did maintain boundaries.
I’m also assuming that your children have their own bedrooms, as do you. Although you do mention appreciating the sacrifices she made, perhaps you are not fully appreciating how little privacy she as an adult had when you were growing up. The alternative would have been for her to not have a vibrator or porn. But why shouldn’t she?

It almost seems like you are looking for a reason to perhaps explain why you’re experiencing emotional difficulties, and why you’re having talking therapies - but there is nothing in what you’ve said that for most of us would cause an issue. It does sound though like you’re angry at your DM, and maybe this is part of a bigger picture?

Another case of therapy conjuring up demons that don't exist.