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?!

BTW Jacksmama, I liked your outrage and felt very validated!!

One bit of me would like to send you around to my mum's as a sort of MN ballistic missile!!

I think jolly's story is shocking along with the OP's and many others here

My mum meant well but from age 9-10 my sister and I were treated like little adults, expected to do a lot of cleaning, housework and laundry (to adult standards). She would "expect" us to know what to do, including random things like washing skirting boards and we would have to play an awful guessing game with her to try and guess what we hadn't done that we "should have damn well known she wanted doing". (This was all conveyed by shouting, tears and drama. My sister is convinced she had mental issues and TBH mum probably was severely depressed).

Christmas was always a battlefield cos she was so busy and badtempered, I remember being age 9 and frightened to death of watching TV on Christmas Eve afternoon in case she caught me enjoying myself .

Another year she fell out with us just before Christmas, refused our presents on Christmas Day and wouldn't take any pleasure in ours nor would she be friendly all day, the atmosphere was terrible. I was 10 then. My dad was powerless to control any of this because he was weak and didn't want to be caught in the crossfire, so he pretty much ignored all the misery and blocked it out.

My teen years were a misery, we never went anywhere or did anything nice and she hit me until I was 16 (I would never have dreamed of retaliating) and only stopped because I told her she was never to hit me again. We weren't allowed much in the way of pretty clothes or items, everything had to be ugly or functional. We weren't made to feel special in any way. She was a tyrant over homework but didn't take much interest in our results unless they were bad, as it was another excuse to vent her temper. Worst of all I think was that she would mimic me and make me feel stupid if I tried to voice my opinion.

She had an awful childhood herself and I think she struggled to do ours any differently.

I am going to do my DC's differently though because I am acutely aware of the pain it causes.

Nowadays she is very very nice and is incredibly generous and helpful. There is no admittance of the past but I take it that she is trying to make amends and leave it at that.

It upsets and annoys me so much from time to time but then I think how happy I am, married with DC1 on the way and I can't be upset for long

Sorry for long waffle. Reading other's stories brings it back

oh twinset, I realise my earlier post came across as a bit critical of you , I meant to apologise earlier but got caught up in teatime and small children.

sorry ; i realised you were comparing experiences after i posted.

my expereinces are nothing in comparison but my low self esteem is entirely down to the fact that all my life I was told I was an accident and an awful child and how mum wished she'd never gotten pregnant with No4. I didn't find out until a couple of years ago that she and my dad didn't use any form of contraception other than withdrawal, so I was more of an inevitability than an accident. Still hurts that I have gone through my life feeling utterly undervalued.

some of the stories on here are heart wrenching though

Cottonlawn, you poor love, I had all this as well, especially the cleaning and Christmas stuff, and I do understand how awful the tension must have been.

PS I have a theory that all these mums would have benefited greatly from Prozac.

Thank you, Virgin, poor you, as well. Your experience re the blizzard situation would not have been out of place in our house. Instead of looking for the positives (ie having sensible children who did the best they could in an unusual situation) and being proud, it would have been just another reason for my mum to hit the roof too.

You are completely right about the tension. We lived on a knife-edge trying to predict and prevent situations that would set her off.

Days would go by when she would refuse to speak to any of us for some minor misdemeanor (ie not hanging a coat up) and we would tiptoe round trying to make amends and like you were, pathetically (sadly) trying to be friends again. She would suddenly decide to rant about the state of the garage at say, 9.30pm on a school night, and have us out there tidying it up no matter how long it took.

I agree with you re the Prozac!

In the 70's there were "latchkey kids" whose mothers worked and who had to let themselves in and fend for themselves until their mothers got home from work.

Society in general didn't think much of this, but tbh it was probably an economic necessity for some folk. But you didn't have a key! This was not normal.

Your father and stepmother did not treat you properly or show you enough love as a child and this was problem that in my view they can never really atone for.

Unsuprisingly you would like to believe that your own interpretation is at fault and that they did love you and care for you as you deserved. But this is not the case.

Somehow you need to move on from this. The right counsellor would really help. It sounds as though you have done a fab job in turning lots of your experience into a positive for your own children - something many people would find difficult if not impossible to do.

Your own past was neglectful if not abusive. Your parents are highly unlikely to ever acknowledge this and you will need to find a way forward independently of them.

Give yorself massive credit for not repeating the cycle with your own children.

No worries daisy I did not take it as a dig.

I think you can make a negative echildhood positive by ensuring that your child has a very different experience.

therein lies the problem twinset; everytime I have a parenting crisis I feel like I'm turning into my mother

I have had some counselling in the past but it felt very self-indulgent and made me more unhappy tbh. I felt very odd talking f2f to a stranger who couldn't say a lot back. I think doing something positive with your life can be a good therapy and that's what I have tried to do. We do have choices in life as adults and that allows us to move on.

I will however be putting my mother quite gleefully in a home at the first available opportunity, so I am not entirely a perfect child!

op, I'm in my 40's and wasn't brought up anything like this way in the 80's

definately not normal, no wonder your confused

I think parents can do horrible things. At the moment, my own are a bit like the living Dead. I really hope my own kids don't have to find dh and me as I find my parents.

This summer, I got very very angry with my father for his appalling behaviour. I may as well have tried to have it out with a dustbin. The thing that has changed is that I (briefly) no longer felt as though I had to drink on his behalf, and I now have no expectations of either of my parents whatsoever.

It's not a pretty sight, and I don't like spending too much time with them, although the dcs like to be with their grandparents.

Your parents indulged in some pretty weird behaviour, and as lots of other people here have said, IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT. There is no reason why you might do the same, and you do not live under the same influences as they do. It's taken me a long time to learn that!

Sorry, I sound like a ranting mad woman. Still too close for comfort.

Twelvedays I do the same, am always questioning myself asking am I turning into my mother. I am known on here for over analyzing and navel gazing and I think that comes from having a shadow hanging over me that I desperatly want to avoid turning into.

bohemianbint
I had to respond, because your post struck a chord with me.

I grew up in the seventies and eighties (now nearly 40!). I was regularly left out on the doorstep after school - in all weathers (rain, snow etc.) until my mum got home. Some nights it would be 1 hour, sometimes 2 or 3. But I was never given a key. I can remember ONCE my next door neighbours taking pity on me and inviting me in when it was really windy but most of the time I just sat and sat and sat on that doorstep.

My brother was packed off to boarding school, which I now see was emotional cruelty too.

She often went out at night until the early hours, when she would come in drunk and wake me up to accuse me of something (which she would promptly forget the next day that she had done). Before I was 'trusted' to be left in the house alone at night, I would get dragged around various pubs with her whilst she 'pulled' various blokes and got drunk.

Even during the summer holidays when she wasn't working (she was a Teacher) she'd put my brother and I in all day 'play centres.' I really hated those places!

I think what hurts the most about it all is that she has refused to ever see the upset she has caused, and just bangs on all the time about her terrible childhood.

In answer to your question about how you can harden up about your experiences - I don't think you ever can TBH.

this is all really helpful in helping me to see things as they really are. I'm talking to DH about it who had no idea about any of this stuff and is finding it hard to reconcile this with the people he knows. (It's very difficult when everyone in the world thinks your parents are goodness personified, because they're always seen to be going out of their way for everyone. Except us.)

It's made me remember that we were also left in cars all the time, for hours, either while my SM went to work or went shopping. To the point that one time my brother actually had to wee in a plastic bottle. And then got bollocked for it.

I remember coming back from visiting my mother when I was 6, and I'd been given a watch and a ring as a present. When I got in the house I was taken straight to the bathroom and made to put soap on my finger to get the ring off, and I never saw either of those things again. We were interrogated about what had gone on while we were away and were bollocked for what we said. My brother had the shit kicked out of him aged 7 for crying in the night because he missed his mother. We had our post taken and read, I had my diaries stolen and it was generally shit.

It's suddenly triggered off all kinds of memories! Well, it is helping to harden me up, to some extent. I'd forgotten how foul they were.

Twinset - me too. I often drive myself mental over analysing things (hence MNing excessively!) and I'm suddenly starting to realise why...

Oh, and podrick - your post was very succint and insightful.

(sorry, am going back and randomly picking things up as I go!)

jacksmama - bless you! Having kids really does make a difference to how you view things, I'm just glad I haven't turned into one of those "it didn't do me any harm" parents...

bohemianbint my mother had a bad childhood, mainly at the hands of her stepmother.

Interestingly my mum now feels sorry for her stepmother and invites her to tea occaisionally (twice as year perhaps as she is not local). My mother can see now that life wasn't that easy for her stepmother either.

However, for me and my Dad, this is very difficult as we can never forgive this woman for the dreadful things she did to my mother. The fact that life was difficult for her was no excuse for her behaviour. If your dh is like me and my dad then he may find it very difficult to see your stepmother and father again once he knows how they treated you.

Whilst my mother's experience was awful, and has left its scars, she took some big positives from it somehow. She has a happy and positive personality and an inner strength that comes from knowing that she can survive in the harshest of circumstances. She has made a big success of her life after a challenging start.

One thing I think can be difficult if your parents were not loving is that they are your natural reference point for what is normal.

Here is my recipe for "toughening yourself up so you don't care"
1.Recognise that your father and stepmother did not care for you properly - your interpretation is not at fault, it is their actions that were at fault

1. Get some support for yourself, prefereably professional and friends/family - but make sure it is the right support
2. Accept that your father and stepmother are unlikely to want to discuss the past with you without putting an imaginary spin on everything which paints themselves in a better light and they are highly unlikely to say sorry
3. If they did not show you love as a child you cannot go back and change this by building a relationship with them now. You are never going to get the emotional support all of us would like from our parents - you need to find it elsewhere.
4. Keep building on the positives and it sounds as though you are already doing a great job on this

And I would rephrase toughening yourself up so you don't care to something like building yourself up so that you can focus on the positives going forward.

How is your dh reacting?

podrick - thanks, I was talking to DH last night saying we need to decide how moving on works practically and what you are saying is spot on.

DH is surprised, I think, because he's only up until the last year or so seen the rosy side of my parents, although they have got worse over the last year and it's good to have him as an impartial observer to back me up. He's quite angry and said that he also has second thoughts about letting them look after his kids if that's how they treated us. I don't think they would be like that with them (partly because they never see them anyway!) but they do continue to do nothing child centred with them, and just drag DS1 round the shops, or get on with chores, rather than do anything worthwhile with him. Exactly the same as when I was a kid. I think they just don't relate to kids, and possibly don't really like them? I dunno.

The funny thing is, I think my step-mother's childhood was quite happy? She had a difficult relationship with her dad but her mum was absolutely wonderful, and used to stand up for me as a kid when SM was being horrible. I don't think my dad's upbringing was that bad either, again my gran was amazing. My mother, on the hand, had the shittest upbringing you can imagine and she and her siblings were all quite damaged, which probably explains why she abandoned us.

They won't change now, or accept any responsibility. They really won't. I have to really get that in my head and move on. Thank you for taking the time.

HAve a great day

TheTwelveDAISYofChristmas....thanks for the sympathy. yes, I was treated like that, and worse, but you know what, on days like today (having had a wonderful xmas and so feeling charitable), I cannot honestly say I wish away the childhood I had as it has made me the me I am now, and put me on the life-path to meet my wonderful DH and so give me the wonderful children we now have, and make the mum I now am and (so they all said over xmas) I am apparently a pretty awesome mum, so am not wanting me to be any different ((and I am quite liking the me I am)).

this thread has been quite healing for me too bohemianbint, although I had a parenting wobbly this morning that has scared me senseless as I said some very hurtful things to my six year old DS . I am determined NOT to turn into my mother though so will put it behind me and do better in future.
Wishing you lots of thick skin vibes in dealing with the year ahead and good luck with planning your wedding.

at psycho....you sound so positive and upbeat; good for you for not letting the barstools grind you down.

I ditto everything jacksmama has said.

I've found this an incredibly difficult thread to read, it reminds me too much of DP's upbringing.