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 am upbeat and positive today.

I may not be tomorrow.

it is hard getting over a shit childhood, and sadly, it does have a ripple effect thoughout your life and into you childrens lives as you make up for so much that was done worng by you, but I can truly say that it gets easier eventually to start to look on the more positive side of it, rather than always dwell on the negative.

but like I said.....I have had a wonderful xmas with my family and friends that I choose to spend time with, and that does help with the healing process

Why are you remortgaging to pay for a wedding which, presumably, you will invite these people to?

I'd say F-it and go to Vegas (if you want to spend the money) and, if you don't, go to a nice registry office.

I didn't have anywhere NEAR the sort of crap you had to deal with but felt our families (both Dh and me) would cause more problems than anything else, so we buggered off on our own and it was PERFECT.

Remember, your wedding day is about YOu and your DH and your life together. No one and nothing else.

TSS xx

BB, I agree with a lot of what has been said.

Of course you don't know what is normal because what you got is all that you knew and your parents did not teach you what was normal. This is not your fault. If you ask around your friends whether these things happened to them I think you will realise that what happened was not normal. I think this is the way to learn what is normal - by asking people you know now who seem like they had normal childhoods. I also think it is very important that you do make a conscious effort to learn about what is normal and how normal people behave with their children in order to help you break from subconsciously carrying on the crap role models you were given. The most important thing you have to do is not make the same mistakes with your own children as you know. This is harder to do than people think and I felt myself repeating history and got a therapist. It is taking me a lot of therapy to break out of it.

Like others have said it is very important for you to know that how they treated you was not your fault, it was entirely theirs.

Also that you might be able to find explanations for their behaviour but although their behaviour can be explained it can not be excused.

I also agree very strongly with others that deciding not to expect anything from your parents is very liberating and a relief. Hoping for them to behave the way you want and getting dissappointed and hurt every time is like banging your head against a brick wall. It is hard to accept that you didn't have the parents you wanted and never will but once you accept it that is the beginning for you to be able to move on from what hurt you. I think you have to grieve a bit first though, for what you never had but should have had.

As well as what others said, please think about these questions:

• Would you do the things your parents did to you, to your own children? (Of course you wouldn't, that tells you it is wrong).

• How would you feel if you imagine somebody doing those things to your children? (Incredibly angry I'm sure and very sad for them - this tells you that you are justified in feeling angry and sad for yourself)

Give yourself permission to feel the feelings for yourself, you have to feel it before you can heal it.

• If you yourself did what they did to you, to your own children how crap would you think you were? (you would feel like a shit parent - so that is what they were, shit parents)

• And following on from the last question - knowing that they are shit parents and shit people do you really care what their opinions are of you or how they feel about you? If they are so crap that they can treat a child like that then their opinions are worthless.

I agree with others - try to find what you need in your life from other people who are capable of giving you what you need. Your parents are not capable. They are deficient. There is something wrong with them. There is nothing wrong with you.

I found it very helpful to write to people who hurt me about what they did and how I felt and how it has affected my life and what the consequences were for our relationship (I set boundaries for how much contact I wanted). I needed to express how I felt. I needed to let them know that there were consequences for their behaviour (that because of it our relationship was irreparably damaged and I didn't want much contact) But I did this knowing that they would not accept any blame or say sorry or try to make me feel better. If you do it wanting these things I think you will just get more hurt. You have to be ready for them to ignore what you have said/act like what happened was 'nothing'/make excuses for themselves/deny things.

I'll stop rambling/ranting on now.

Good luck. You deserve all the good things in life just as much as anyone else does.

psycho - that's exactly how I aspire to feel, sometimes it works, sometimes not, more often it does though! I'm so glad you had a lovely Christmas.

I just want to say (in case I'm coming across as slightly self absorbed) that I'm really grateful to everyone for posting on here and I'm so sorry so many people have had a shit time too. Here's to moving on and forgiving in the New Year. Or moving on, at least!

serious with regard to the wedding, we really want it to be a positive thing with people we care about there. Odds are the ones who don't may not make it and to be honest that's fair enough, preferable even. But it will be amazing to be in a room where everyone has made the effort to come because they love us and want to spend time with us. (And we're planning on doing it insanely cheaply!)

BB, sorry - I have asked this before, and I know the wedding isnt the main point of the thread, but was it your thread before that indicated you were already legally married and this wedding would be the celebration?

Can I just ask some quick additional questions? Was it normal in those days to:

• Leave your kids in the car while you go off and do something for up to an hour? How old did the kids have to be before this was considered ok? Did all parents do this? (in the 70s and 80s)

• If your child was being naughty in the car, stop the car, put the child out by the side of the road and then drive off just far enough to scare the child, then come back and get them

• Take your child into a shop and then forget they were with you and leave the shop, only remembering later when meeting up with your wife and she asks where you are (this happened about 3 times)

These don't seem like really awful things compared to other things that happened but they still niggle me as to whether this was normal or not

Leave your kids in the car while you go off and do something for up to an hour? How old did the kids have to be before this was considered ok? Did all parents do this? (in the 70s and 80s)

I think my parents did this a few times but tbh I didn't mind very much - I would just read my book or listen to the radio a bit. I think they did this from when I was about 5 or 6. I think quite a lot of parents probably did this.

• If your child was being naughty in the car, stop the car, put the child out by the side of the road and then drive off just far enough to scare the child, then come back and get them

This was not normal. This was cruel even then and I think other parents would have howled in protest had they known what was going on.

• Take your child into a shop and then forget they were with you and leave the shop, only remembering later when meeting up with your wife and she asks where you are (this happened about 3 times)

This is semi-normal in one particular context. I have done this myself as a parent of a newborn, however I would excuse it by saying I had pg brain at the time and temporarily forgot the new one had actually arrived. However I think I remembered well within 5 minutes. I can't imagine I would have done this with a child, and I don't think forgetting your offpsring for more than about 90 seconds is acceptable. However in the 70s and 80s I think most parents would have laughed it off.

from OP -
being locked out of house after school - not normal. more usual for kids to be "latch key" kids - i.e. be in house by themselves for a bit.

not being taken on holiday - not normal.

from today's post

left in car for an hour - we didn't have a car, suspect that it wasn't that unusual

driving off and leaving kid at side of the road - not normal. agree with boffin that would have been regarded as cruel at that time.

forgetting child was with you - depends if deliberate or not - some people can be scatterbrained.

my parents did the driving off thing too.

Until one day when I was about 13, brother 11 and sister was about 4. They put us out in the woods in a foreign country, and I thought, sod this, and took us off to hide behind a tree so they'd brick it when they came back. It worked; that was the last time they did it.

to the op, regarding theoriginal post
this was not normal parenting in the eighties, now, or ever.
normal parents try to treat their kids equally. they mightnot succeed, but they try.

DH found this in the times. Seems times have changed! I'm going to make an appointment with my GP today.

Link didn't work.

BB - couldn't follow your link but best of luck with GP, hope things get better for you

try again!

That was a very interesting summary. Thansk for the link, BB.

I have to say I am pretty gung ho as a parent, benign neglect being my philosophy, but I would not leave young kids in any of these circumstances apart from the McCann one (although my kids were a bit older). Perhaps my kids are livelier and more mischevious than other people's?

I had a really bad injury as a child that left me half blind, probably as a result of neglect. (Was in a bedroom alone with a pair of scissors aged 3.)

Makes me aware what can happen.

I had a really bad injury as a child that left me half blind, probably as a result of neglect. (Was in a bedroom alone with a pair of scissors aged 3.)

Makes me aware what can happen.

Sorry to say this BB, and aware I am not in possession of all the facts, but this sort of thing even happens to well cared for children. Children find their way to disasters.

I just found this thread again and am [aaaahhhhhh, there is no emoticon for how upset I feel] at what some of you have gone through. Bohemian - who leaves a child alone in a bedroom with a pair of scissors??????????????? [aaaahhhhhh emoticon, take two]
And BoffinMum (sorry, I'm not from the U.K., what's a boffin?) I would gladly go charging into your mum's as an MN missile if you needed it... I have no problems expressing outrage over incomprehensible treatment of little children. In fact, I can't even read the Baby P or Jamie Bulger threads because they make me mental. I completely embarrassed myself on another thread recently when the OP asked "what would you do if you found yourself married to one of Jamie Bulger's killers" and I said "stab him to death with scissors". Obviously I didn't really mean it, but another part of me did.

A boffin is someone who reads a lot of books and knows clever stuff, usually to be found working in a university, often in a research lab.

It's not worth going for my mum. She's just misguided, frankly. She had no clue she was being a shit parent at the time, and she still can't see my point of view. So what would be the point of it? The past can't change and I don't really need her now.

She is still going in a bloody nursing home though. Although I will at least select one that doesn't smell of wee.

Hey thanks! Then I'm a boffin too! LOL!
There's a TV show here called "Bones", about a forensic anthropologist who's incredibly brainy (although a bit short on tact and common sense) and my husband often calls me "Bones"...

Boffin - lol re the nursing home! I wonder if things will be different in the future when my parents actually need help from their children?

They have now said they will give a bit of money to us for the wedding but haven't said when, or how much, and in truth I think they've only said it because they don't want to look shoddy in front of everyone at our threadbare wedding.

Another question re 80's parenting: Was it also the norm to make children sit alone at a table for hours until they ate everything on their plate? And to serve up the leftovers at every meal afterwards until they were gone? Or, in my case, I was a vegetarian for the first 5 years of my life until I went to live with dad and SM, when I was forced to eat meat most days, often resulting in me either sitting for hours, or eating it and being sick. And then being told off for "making myself sick." Loads of food issues have stuck with me for years.

This also happened to DH, (although perhaps not as hardcore as me and he wasn't veggie and forced to eat meat!) so again, this may have been fairly widespread?

Tbh I have only skimmed over this thread as I have found it too upsetting to read it all. I hope you dont mind if I add my experience. My mum used my nana as childcare which was fine as she was lovely. However she got alzheimers when I was seven, she got bad quickly and changed so much. From being a lovely person she started having outbursts of smashing up the house and kicking our cat. My mum was well aware of this but still used her to care for us. My nana would hit us when she had these outbursts and she once chased me around the house with a knife till I locked myself in the bathroom, I was about 9. I did tell my mum about this and she had words with her . She then died when I was 11, my mum didnt allow us to have a key she thought 'latchkey kids' was bad parenting. So like op it meant sometimes I was locked. Sometimes only 10-15 mins other times up to an hour. Sometimes neighbours would invite us in, although we didnt really know them. If the wheather was bad I would 'break in'as the the back door key was often left in the lock, so if I put my hand through the letter box on the back door I could turn the key but this had the effect that it would cut my arm so I would only do it if I was desperate. Once my dad came home early and demanded to know how I had got into the house, when I told him he went mad and threated to call the police on me for 'breaking in'.
Sorry for waffling on, like op this has only recently started to upset. I think having kids has made me realize I could never treat them like it. Its quite difficult to realize that my mum didnt care enough to try and look out for me