Crazy shit your parents did

[Anonymous]

This is so much more interesting than the private school thread. In fact, I didn't think there were this many people in w
dC I'd be interested in meeting.

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My dad used to scream in my face that I was ugly. I was 4, 5 years old at the time.

When I was 9 he started screaming--in front of me and a houseful of guests we had for Thanksgiving--that I was ugly and "no one would ever take me to prom"--said in a tone that implied that not going to prom was, like, truly tragic.

When I got engaged to DH, I called my dad (my mom is dead) to tell him that "SoandSo proposed!" He snickered and said, "with what? a ring? to really get married?" like implying it was fake or DH was leading me on or joking me or something.

Dad is a shithead.

My dad would announce to the family if I had gained or lost any weight, opening up the floor for comments from my younger sisters. they'd buy cookies and ice cream and let me eat some every day and then scream at me for being "fat". I was actually always on the thin side but my family are very very thin and pretty while I was only thinnish and average. Dad and mom are shitheads here too.

This is the pp you quoted. Oh yes, I was chubby as a kid. Big surprise that this treatment developed into actual obesity later in life, but somehow I've managed to become college educated, professionally successful, married to a successful man, etc. What is odd is that everyone in my family is overweight/obese to some degree. I was hardly an outlier. I chalk it up to 2 things. One, my dad is abusive, period, and abusive people will beat you with whatever they can. Second, my family was very blue collar growing up, and my father could not conceive of a world in which I could, as a fat woman, be successful, since college/white collar life was beyond his imagination and also, apparently fat women never get married.

He is not completely out of my life. He should be. Especially now that I have children. However, I never see him in person or talk on the phone--emails only, roughly once every two months--and he's not allowed near my kids. It upsets him--he has mellowed out in his old age and is very lonely--but he knows I hold the upper hand. He often asks why I am so mean to him and "who raised me to be that way." You did, dad!

I just want to point out that you're not being "mean" by not speaking to or allowing your children to be around an abusive asshole. You're being a good mother. And as far as him having "mellowed"....I'm willing to bet that if you were to have more contact with him he would just start abusing you again. Seriously, you are doing the right thing by having very low contact. Please don't let anyone tell you you're being "mean".

[Anonymous]

They let me drink the watered-down remnants of their evening rum and Cokes or Scotch and sodas. I LOVED it. I never did become a liquor drinker as an adult though, even in college - I prefer beer and wine, and even that I don't drink in large amounts. Sometimes permissiveness works out well, I guess? Go figure.

[Anonymous]

I am actually reassured by how crazy this thread is. I posted pages ago about how my mom gave me a carton of Salems as a present. She was crazy. I am not going to say different.

There was so much more. I did all the chores at our house, once it was clear my mom was nuts, I became like a kid and a mom and a housekeeper, and kind of a slave since there was no choice and the adults told me they wouldn't keep me if I didn't perform. I forged my dad's signature on all permission slips and report cards. He never knew what was up.

He signed me up for sports because he though I was fat (no), but he never took an interest in my playing or skills and would forget me at practice. Once I was so forgotten at soccer I had to walk down the road and knock on a farmer's door (the school was semi-rural) and ask him to call my dad. It was dark. He came to pick me up and his excuse was he thought the other girl's dad gave me a ride and must have taken me out to dinner or something. He never even worried about me. But he was so embarrassed at the Look of Death and Retribution the farmer gave him. The Simpson's did an episode like this, only not as bad.

In high school the AP kids had a hook up to a football player who had porno on VHS and we're looking for an unsupervised house where they could watch it. So I invited all the Ivy bound kids over and we watched Debbie Does Dishes and some movie about a guy trying to 'convert' a lesbian. My dad was upstairs - he had no questions or clue. He never even looked in!

[Anonymous]

FoxEmerson wrote:I'm not going to list the things my parents did because after reading this, I realise mine were almost quite 'normal'. It's clear that a lot more people suffered from bad parenting than I realised. A LOT more.
To the Asian person who said "they would save the white kids first" lol - seriously!?
To the person who's mother left her on the roadside and said she'd look like a prostitute... WTF!
To the person who was left alone looking at model cars and then driven home by a salesperson... did your mother seriously forget you? How is that even possible?

Are there any parents reading these posts that are thinking, "oh oh, that's me?" or is this something we can hopefully consign to the past and say, "we aren't our parents". Because, I really don't want to believe that anyone with kids today is anything like our parents were!

Am I wishful thinking?

I explained it in my post. It's totally possible, why are you so shocked? We went to the store. She went to look at Whatever, I went to look at model cars because Whatever was boring, and back in the olden days, kids didn't need to be tied to theri parents in public places, like a small town dime store. She found her Whatever, browsed some more, I assume, paid for her items and left, forgetting that I had gone with her to the store that day. Maybe she thought I was home with my dad and siblings. The point is that nobody would make a huge deal about then. She forgot, the cashier stepped in, the problem was solved. She wasn't neglecting me, she just made a silly mistake. which now seems "crazy."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:


She also left me in cars while she ran errands when I was very young....and beat me with wooden spoons and hair brushes....but I think that was fairly typical 70's parenting from what I have read here.

No.

I agree - typical 70s (at least for me!!!). Common for my childhood- all of this.

Yep. My mom smacked me with a plastic spatula. It stung.

[Anonymous]

Highly encouraged us to stay on the beach from 9 am to 6 pm, with sunscreen #2 on, with no water, only soda. WTF? Dehydration and burn much?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We got spanked, sometimes with the wooden spoon. My kids have gotten the same on occcasion. I don't understand the wire hanger thing, though. Do you unravel it so it's one long piece of wire? That seems like it might cut someone.

Wire hanger, belt, bread board, hairbrush. Usually the belt, I think. And we were complete goody-goody kids.

It was the style at the time.

[Anonymous]

My mom believed in "sun baths." Was told by pediatrician to put me, a preemie, in direct sunlight - outside if possible - to prevent jaundice. It worked, I guess. I should add that this was 1967 and we lived in Alabama.

I also recall being gooped up with iodine and baby oil and attempting to tan next to my perpetually tanned (and 1/2 Italian) mom. I was maybe 6. That continued, forever until my mom switched us to Hawaiian Tropic (oil) and had me bake in the sun on one of those silver, reflective blankets that were a thing apparently in the summer of '79.

Really, truly, I can say that the only warning I ever got about tanning was not to get sunburned. Just crazy to think about purposely subjecting a young child with perfect, healthy pale skin to all that sun.

My mom was advised by her country doctor to NOT stop smoking when pregnant with me; he told her that a cigarette a day would help keep her weight down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nothing too crazy, but my mom used to *regularly* leave me at home after dinner starting at about 8/9 to go to our neighborhood bar (Tunnicliff's). Like, um, priorities??

Ha ha - my mom used to go to Tunnicliffs on THe Hill too. I remember sleeping across tow chairs!

[Anonymous]

Much lighter than many of the posts here, but my parents used to spontaneously drive to NJ (we lived/they still live in Montgomery County) for lunch all the time. As in literally wake up, decide they wanted a nice lunch out, and get in the car. They are Indian immigrants and apparently there's no good Indian-Chinese food in DC

[Anonymous]

When I was about 14, I just stopped sleeping at night. Couldn't rest, and we had a huge grandfather clock in the hallway that would announce every half hour. Just made it worse for me.

One night, my mom gave me two pills and a huge glass of water. I fell right to sleep, and didn't have trouble after that. Turns out she gave me valium. Of course, she could have taken me to a sleep therapist, but this did the trick.

[Anonymous]

Some of these stories are tough. On the other hand, I wonder what our parents' stories stories would be. The benign neglect I went through in my own childhood is really nothing compared to the abject poverty and hunger that both my parents went through during the Great Depression. My father worked as a fruit and vegetable picker from when he was 12 until he joined the navy (illegally, but they took him) at age 15. My own mom, the oldest of 7, was regularly sent by HER mom to grocery stores to try to buy food on credit after my grandfather drank his coal mining wages. She still talks about the shame of that.

So in general, although I didn't have a perfect childhood, my parents did a lot better than their own, and I'm grateful for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mother had us go out on a small boat once (8 kids and her) without life jackets. None of us could swim.

Starting when I was about 13, I would spend all day during summer vacation, in an 11 ft row boat with a 6 horsepower engine exploring the Chesapeake Bay. The only life preserver in the boat was an old seat cushion. I had a great time and caught zillions of fish, but it seems crazy now. My parents didn't think twice about me drowning, they only wanted to know which direction I was heading that particular day.

[Anonymous]

E.T. was on tv the other night, and DH and I found ourselves watching it. Never realized all the "neglect" in that movie. 12-year-old Elliot being "drunk" at school and mom not being totally surprised, as she gets the phone call and notices empty beer cans all over the kitchen floor. Then leaving preschooler Gertie home alone when she went to go pick him up from school! "I need you to be a big girl and stay out of trouble, ok?" Lol, ok, mom!