Can I just ask if this was "normal" in late 80's and can you please help me toughen up so I don't care?

[bohemianbint]

Don't want to sound like a whiner as I've sorted most of my issues out from my childhood (which was pretty shitty.) But recently a few things have come up and I need to deal with them so I can be the best I can be for my family.

We got engaged earlier this year - and got two cards from friends. No one will talk to us about our wedding (because we're not as conventional as they think we should be?) We're having to save and remortgage our house to pay for ours.

My (half) sister just got engaged. Her house is full of cards and she's planning a big princess wedding which will be paid for by my parents.

Which has brought up a few things, but specifically:

1. From about age 10 (brother) and 12 (me) we were locked out of the house from 3pm when school finished until half 5pm when my parents got in. All the time, all weathers. I got a key at 14 but my sister nicked it and I was not given another until I was about 16. Occasionally if it was really bad they would leave the garage unlocked and a drink inside.I guess my sister was either at nursery or my grandparents.

1. Parents took my sister away to Lapland on holiday at Christmas and left us behind.

Was this fairly standard 80's parenting? If it was anyone else I'd say it was bang out of order, but my parents managed to rationalise everything and what they did was "right" and "normal" without question.

I know it's not the biggest deal, and out of context these things were a long time ago and don't sound that bad. But I've just realised things have not actually changed and I need to find a way to stop coming off the phone feeling like shit because they are so indifferent to me and my kids. The last 12=18 months things have really starting being noticeable, but they cover themselves so you think its you going mad. Like they'll invite us to things that we can't really do because we have two tiny children, then act like we're being funny when we can't go. We invited them over at christmas and first they refused, then they came for 20 minutes, wouldn't have a drink, looked really uncomfortable and left. It just doesn't make you feel great, especially when it's obvious that they don't want to spend time with your kids either.

How can I deal with this and harden up?!

I'm a bit confused - was it your mum and dad that did 1 and 2 and current stuff, or mum and step-dad?

Did you have a tricky time as a teenager with them?

I'm not sure about your first point. My next door neighbour who is 70 mentioned a while ago that when her dc's were young (they are my age ie 40-is) she worked nights and would sleep in the house and the dc's were left to play in the garden - all day. I was a bit surprised by this, but she (the neighbour) seemed to think this was quite normal.

I was a child in the 70's and I had to bring my younger brother back from school and look after him until my Mum got back from work. We now know he had adhd, so wasn't an easy boy. I hated, hated, hated this stage of my life and look back on it now with disbelief. My dd1 is 9 and older than I was at this stage and I've only recently got my head around her walking to school without me.

My Mum also took my brother on holiday without me, in general he was the favourite and I would spend evenings with my Mum and brother snuggled up together and me on the floor. My Mum says I was cold, but I don't remember anyone every hugging me.

It didn't seem to me that other families lived like us or like it sounds you did and yet I have a feeling it was going on more than we think.

If it helps, I find it very hard to let it go.

Sorry - dad and step mum that brought me up. Had hell as a teenager, always beign told I was "just like my bloody mother."

Am also a bit boho too!

The thing is it was "normal" for you.

You must see someone to talk about your childhood to allow yourself to reconcile it with the expectation you have of how it "should" have been. Then you will be able to start to move away from the hurt that it caused you.

I finally saw someone about things that happened in my childhood and now it is in the past where it should be and needs to be. I wish I'd done so sooner.

"How can I deal with this and harden up"

I think you need to stop expecting these people to be there for you to be honest, hard as it may sound. They clearly didn't and don't see you as important as the child they had together. Was this your step-mum's influence do you think, or was your dad just as mean?

Which is a bloody hard thing to come to terms with I know. Perhaps counselling if you have not already had some? A counsellor will help you to move forward and not let their bad behaviour and parenting effect the good life you have now with your partner and kids.

As far as the funding of your wedding goes I would say don't expect anything from them and unless you are prepared or able to go to them and make them talk about the wedding then I would be inclined to just get on with the planning of it without including them.

Why would you want to harden up? None of this was your fault - the first thing you need to do is believe that. NONE of it was your fault. I have wasted a lot of emotional time trying to work out what I did.
Deal with this by being the best parent you can be. I deal with it by believing what goes around comes around.(and it does...)
Don't allow your parents behaviour to effect you now, let it go and live your life xx
I wish you all the best.

no its not normal. i don't think it was normal for that time either.

my mum was insane, but i always had a warm house to go into, food, friends houses, other houses. in fact at that time, if i had been left outside it would have been the talk of the area, and my mother as mad as she as, wouldn't have allowed that - it was all glo white curtains and clean windows, what happens indoors is no one elses business.

if your paretns fuck you up, please find the strength to ignore them and when contact is absolutley necessary, be formal and polite

you wouldnt accept this kind of behaviour from a stranger - would you?

no not normal, IMHO, but I got treated similar so I am biased.

altho, having said that, my treated similar was by my aunt and uncle....they bought me up as my mother is mentally ill and in a home/hospital and so could not, and they used to take their children on hols and leave me behind with neighbours/girls brigade leader (twice that happened!), my uncles brother and his family (and not an actual relation to me).......they never took me!

part of me could understand if they wanted to spend time with just their children, but their children were 11 and 13yrs older than me, so not as tho I was encroching(sp?) on their family time..........they had had a lot of that before I was even placed with them (I was 18mths then, so their children were then 13yrs and 16yrs!)

You have my sympathy...........it is a horrid horrid feeling, feeling somehow less worthy in their eyes, but I am not sure really what you can do about it, as they will simply seemed stunned that (a), they did anything wrong and (b), that you can possibly be bothered by something that actually is not wrong in their eyes.

I know this as I tried, and got that exact response!

I have had much counselling for it (plus some about my mother), and the conclusion I have come to is that I can either try and change my aunt, or my reaction to her.

now, I can never ever change my aunt, nor my childhood, so I am now in the (admittedly extremely hard) process of trying to change my reaction to her. It is not fun, nor easy, and you will often find me here ranting about it, but it is getting easier and less hurty (iygwim), and so one day, (hopefully soon), I can take my own advice and start just at my aunts antics, and it just wont bother me.

I am not there yet tho!

Your step mother obviously had issues with you from the start - poor you

What they did wasn't right, and Ron offers good advice - you don't want to let what they did and do ruin the rest of your life.

It sounds like you must be very like your biological mum, and that irritates your dad/step-mum. I am much more like my dad was and my mum and dad were opposites - it's no wonder my mum and I aren't on the same wavelength.

for what it's worth I think you were treated like shit and you should get some counselling to help you come to terms with it.
It was and is not normal behaviour to act like this to children.

Not normal. A part of you will always care but now it's time to shift the focus so it's all about YOU and YOUR FAMILY, the one you have with your husband to be and put your old family firmly in the background as far as they affect your life. See them when you have to, be civilised and dignified then walk away to your happy home with your lovely kids and build on that. Good luck!

Personally I think the hardest thing to reconcile about poor parenting is the lack of accountability - never being heard - never eharing someone say: 'You know what? You're right - what I/we did was not right and we should have done better.'

It doesn't sound as though you are ever going to get that - most of us don't.

It wasn't uncommon to have no childcare back in the day. I got a key when I was 11. But being locked out of the house is mean, even by those standards.

When parents rationalise what they did it leaves you not knowing whether you have a right to feel angry or negative about them or not. It is hard - moving on - because as long as they are around and you are trying to get something from them it will never be over. You have to stop expecting or looking for anything from these people and somehow acceot that they will never see the situation as thier fault.

No it isn't normal at all. My mum did some pretty awful things to me as well and although she has never apologised or addressed it she has kind of 'made up for it' by helping me so much with my ds's. I look back now and see she was terribly depressed at the time. So I've moved on from it. If you can't move on from it can you ask your GP to refer you to somebody to speak to?

I don't think it was normal either
I was born in '74
I remember having a key from the age of 11, or it being left under the mat
And I remember going round friend's houses in the holidays and we'd be in and out without ever locking the door
but to be locked out? no

No, they didn't treat you "normally" then, and they're not doing so now.

They were and are shit parents. And they're never going to admit or acknowledge that, so you just have to accept it and take steps to ensure that you don't repeat those destructive patterns with your children. Counselling might help, as might having a read of this book

They sound horrible.
If i were you I would put it all down in a letter and send it to them.

Thank you - it's so nice to be validated as I can't really talk to anyone about it in real life. My brother won't discuss anything from the past (much like my father) and no one else gets it, or even ever knew.

My SM was always quite heavy handed but my dad never hit me until I was 16, and he snapped and kicked shit out of me. He tried again a year later, got me up against a door by my throat, but I said "go on then, hit me, and I'll be going to the police this time" and he stopped and never did again. I was desperate to leave home, legged it off to university at 18 and rarely went back for the best part of 10 years. I've accidentally ended up living round the corner again and for a couple of years I thought they'd changed and I started to let things go. But since having kids it's all come to the fore again; they're so controlling. I've called them on it a few times and my SM has just got so angry and defensive, whilst my dad just stays calm and treats me like I'm some kind of lunatic for having any emotion about anything. So I've given up on the idea of broaching it with them. I just really don't think they give a shit - although it's like they need to be seen to be doing the right thing so that no one thinks ill of them.

I had decided to look into some counselling, and to just stop relying on them for any sort of support. As soon as I do anything how I want to, if it doesn't fit with their expectations I get frozen out. We're just goign to crack on with the wedding and just send them an invite like everyone else. I don't even care if they come anymore. Where it'll really show up is when they actually do cough up and arrange everything for my sister, I don't see how they can style that one out to anyone.

Thanks for all the feedback. I'm really trying to get my head straight to move on, and even though it might sound dramatic we're actually trying to sell our house and move far away so it doesn't impact on us so much.

You have to tell them how you feel though and a carefully constructed letter (maybe worked on over many days) lets you do that without you getting sidetracked or interrupted as happens in a verbaL DISCUSSION.

So sorry,it sounds shit, it really does.

I think you need to consider how you feel about it rather than measuring it against some undefined 'norm'. If it upsets you then it's of concern to you and you need to take it seriously, not try to convince yourself how you should feel.

I was a teenager in the 80s and my mum was a SAHM so we were never locked out. But we were left in the car while they did the food shopping - for about an hour at a time -and my parents did leave us at home as young teenagers to take care of the house and younger siblings while they went away for a few days. We also had to walk to school and back in all weathers - it was in the next village and about forty minutes walk away. All things that I look back on now I'm a parent with a mild sense of disbelief.

Have you been on the toxic parent threads?
The "but we took you to stately homes..." ones?
Do read them, your parents are not normal, they are horrid...these threads discuss the toxic parent thing in detail.

you should go to counselling but don't expect your paretns ever to admit or even see what they did was mean and cruel, they will think you are in the wrong...because they decided that about 30 years ago and won't change their minds now.
Confronting them would upsent you and make them feel more righteous, so get counselling to help you and take it from there

1 and 2 bang out of order.

Does your half-sister have children already like you?

I only ask as I wonder whether the older generation see a couple who have children together as "already married" and thus are less excited?

Don't suppose you can move away can you?

Thanks moondog. I'm just nervous about doing it as they would probably just ignore it, or pretend they didn't get it, or get really angry which is what happened last time I spoke to my SM, and it seemed to damage things further. I bought my dad a book last year for father's day that he is supposed to fill in and write about his thoughts and memories about me, but I'm sure he'll never do it. I thought perhaps if he had to think a bit about me as a child he might connect to something, or me, but I don't think he cares. He has my sister and she doesn't remind him of part of his life he obviously wants to forget, and me and my childhood is part of that. My brother doesn't cop it so badly but that's because he's younger, is less like my mother, doesn't rock the boat and buggered off to the other side of the world as soon as he could!

Bohemian - I don't think you're being dramatic wanting to move far away - who would want that kind of reminder just around the corner?

And don't stress about the wedding - it's not compulsory to have a huge do and invite everyone - when I married DH we spent about £1000 including a very nice Armani suit he still wears for work, and it was the nicest wedding I've ever been to Do things your own way and don't look over your shoulder at your half-sister or 'parents'. And repeat after me: 'it's not me it's them, it's not me it's them'.

I'll keep this brief.

My childhood was shite. I get naff all from my parents, my Dad lavishes gifts on step brother and sister (houses, cars, businesses). Its not going to change. I cant change them. its taken me til I am almost 40 to realise this.

My friends are my family (and of course dh and dcs).

I am so much happier now that I have let go and expect NOTHING.