Recall something (wrong) your parent did when you were a kid

[Jaime4004]

My parents are fabulous (though I didn't always think so in my teen years ). One thing that I always remember is when I was 10 and had a check up with my doctor, my mother asked him how my weight was. He said it was fine, but my only thought was "my mother thinks i'm fat!" It was totally benign and not intended that way, but 10 yr old brains aren't so mature. So I make sure to not ever comment on my 11 yr old DD's weight.

 

[tvguy]

We had a creek next to our house, with a vacant lot covered in tall dry grass. In those days, the fire department used to come by and burn off all the vacant lots every year, but they hadn't done that yet. Dad was mad they hadn't been out yet, so he dropped his lit cigarette in the field. Well, of course it caught fire, and before we could call the fire department the fire jumped the creek and burned up part of our backyard fence.
Best part is, my mom worked graveyard shift and was sleeping in a bedroom just 10 feet from where the firemen were taking axes to the burning fence, and it never even woke her up. Took my dad about half an hour to replace all the burned up fence boards.

 

[ZephyrHawk]

Unfortunately none lighthearted enough to share here

Generally this.

 

[missnic]

Nothing horribly awful.. but mine let me play outside, unattended. They even allowed me to walk to/from school alone. I don't think I ever even owned a bike helmet. That wasn't a thing until I had outgrown riding bikes for transportation. Oh, and they made me walk around on a broken foot for 3 days. I unknowingly broke my foot at school, on the playground. It apparently didn't bother me until I had to take out the garbage that night. Then it hurt REEEEALLLY bad. Of course they thought I was just trying to get out of that. But a few days later it really did actually hurt. Went to the dr, and it was broken.

 

[Chocolate Cake]

My parents were (for the most part) people who followed rules. They were very loving parents, but very serious about raising us right.

Therefore, these two things really stand out:

My dad sometimes allowed us to sit on his lap while he drove and steer as he pressed the pedal. I am talking we were about 5 and 6 years old. I loved it!

And the biggest "I can't believe he did that" moment of my life was when we were cut off by a driver who beeped the horn at us for a very long time prior to cutting us off. It made my dad so angry. My dad rushed to pass him again (pretty darn fast) and told me to give him the finger out the window!!! Which, of course, I gladly did. He made me promise never to tell my mom, and I never did

 

[Tiffylv]

.

 

[Mizzoufan]

If you had asked me twenty years ago i would have listed pages and pages, Today and two kids later I'm so grateful for everything they did.

 

[low-key]

my dad spanked me when I was wrong


shame, shame, shame

 

[mnrose]

Too many to mention from my Dad. But, probably the worst was picking my brother up after school drunk as a skunk and driving him home. At one point, he drove off the road and into the ditch. He went along driving in the ditch as if it were the road. He hit a culvert and got stuck. My brother jumped out and set off for home on foot (a distance of several miles, and because there was no way he was getting back in the car with good old dad, he went through the corn fields so my Dad couldn't find him). I remember my dad coming home and telling my mom that he "lost" my brother. Egads. Anyway, my brother showed up a short while later. He dropped out of his after school activity rather than have to depend on Dad to pick him up.

True story.

 

[tigercat]

The biggest thing was not believing my 2 younger sister and I about my brother when they would leave us with him.
tigercat

 

[DeaverTex]

My parents were both pretty good, but there are a couple of things that I've always kind of resented. As far as my Mom goes, now that I'm grown I'm certain that she had a severe problem with bipolar disorder. Of course, back in the day that was a personal failure and just not talked about.

My dad was practical and down to earth to the point of excess. He was never slow to remind me that I couldn't do things (hit a baseball, be a pilot, etc.) for one reason or another. They were always valid reasons, but I darned well wish he hadn't been so eager to keep me from having foolish ideas. On a lighter note, he also failed rather miserably at teaching me to ride a bike, and he never could understand why I didn't just get on the darned thing and pedal off. It took me nearly 50 years to overcome him telling me that I obviously had no sense of balance.

Mrs. Tex and I now, of course, are absolutely PERFECT parents!! Just ask Tex Jr.

 

[EMom]

I can tell one heck of a story about my best friend's mom. Her husband died in an accident. He was in his late 30s and she was mid 30s. My older sister was best friends with one of her daughters and I was best friends with another daughter. So the two of us were at their house a lot.

My older sister and parents went to the funeral, but I didn't. When my parents came home from the funeral, they were muttering.
"Damnedest thing I ever saw."
"Never thought I'd live to see the day..."
"Beats all I've ever seen."
"I saw it and I can still hardly believe it."
It went on like that. I knew SOMETHING awful had happened at the funeral. My elementary school brain went to strange places such as the casket falling down and the father tumbling out. WHAT could have been so terrible?

At some point, I asked my sister what had happened at the funeral to make my parents carry on so. Turns out, the widow brought a DATE to her own husband's funeral. She said he was a family friend, but everyone knew he hadn't been her husband's friend and she acted like he was a date and not just a friend. Very cozy.

Within a week, my sister and I would spend the night at their house and when we awoke, the mom would be "out getting doughnuts for breakfast." My sister later explained that the mom had really spent the night with her boyfriend. My parents were clueless about that part as she swore my sister and her oldest DD to secrecy.

She turned out to be one of those women who had to have a man at all times and defined herself by what man she was with. And there could not be more than a few days between one relationship ending and another beginning. She had seemed like an average SAHM, but was actually a hot mess. More than once, she sacrificed the well being of her children to keep a man.

Unfortunately, her belief system made an impression on her daughters and they went on to have messed up relationships with men. Always had to have a man, even if it came at a heavy price. Without going into detail, I can say with certainty she ruined my friend's life. Had her father not died, her life would have been so different. He had been a stabilizing presence.

As much as her daughters modeled their behavior after their mom's, my sister and I were horrified and learned a lesson. If there is a man in our lives that makes it better, fine. But we are just fine with not being in relationship. And I'd never put a boyfriend ahead of my children.

 

[WorldWacky]

Man, some of these stories are really heavy.
I remember my mom making me bite down on a bar of Ivory soap because I wouldn't stop saying "poopy." I was six. That's about as bad as it got thankfully. Boy was that awful! Especially because I pulled away instead of just biting down. Took a while to get all of that off the back of my front teeth!

 

[indimom]

My parents were pretty typical 70s parents. I got a few spankings and had to hold soap in my mouth if I sassed, but very infrequently.
But, we still give dad grief for one particular parenting "fail."

I was probably about 6-8 years old. It was winter and dad was watching football. I was playing and kept getting between dad and the tv. He warned me several times...
He finally lost his temper, scooped me up, carried me up the stairs to the back door, and threw me out into a snowdrift in just my pajamas and socks. Then closed and locked the door.
(Just long enough to scare the crap out of me, then opened the door and let me back in.)

I CLEARLY remember seeing his face through the door as he closed it and hearing the lock turn. I'm sure it would be considered abuse by today's standards, but he certainly got my attention... and I played on the other side of our large finished basement after that.

 

[Disneychick75]

My mom getting bottles of 365 diet pills from our doctor neighbor- they didn't last the year. She was a nervous mess. My dad was a busy lawyer and had trouble remembering our ages and grades in school.

 

[DawnM]

I remember when I was very young my mom would tell me she hated me and sometimes I wasnt allowed to call her mom I had to call her Mrs. (our last name) I think I grew up pretty much knowing my mom was a bit nuts, she would go crazy over anything and take away my favorite books and smash my toys. You never knew what would set her off it could be the tiniest thing My mom has mellowed over the years but I do think there is a mental illness there. Especially now that I have my own kids I see how unnatural that is to treat a (young) child that way.

I "liked" your post, although I don't really like it, I can just relate.

I typed up more specifics, but now really don't want to share it as it is too personal. She is mentally ill. I can't fix it.

 

[Jaya]

Having my three younger sisters. Sigh. Life would have been so much smoother without them - LOL.

 

[Goofy_Disney_Dad]

Having my three younger sisters. Sigh. Life would have been so much smoother without them - LOL.

Okay, I giggled a bit on that one.

 

[winterman]

I was the middle of 3 kids. My mother once said that she only had a third child (my brother) because she wanted a boy for my father. I was hurt because I took it to mean that if my brother had been born before me, she wouldn't have had me. Interestingly, 40+ years later my brother and I talked about that incident. He thought she was saying that she didn't want a boy and only had one to please my father. Funny how we both remembered all those years later but both interpreted it differently.

 

[mnrose]

Man, some of these stories are really heavy.
I remember my mom making me bite down on a bar of Ivory soap because I wouldn't stop saying "poopy." I was six. That's about as bad as it got thankfully. Boy was that awful! Especially because I pulled away instead of just biting down. Took a while to get all of that off the back of my front teeth!

We didn't all have Leave it to Beaver childhoods. That's why when people say "let's go back to a simpler time" I just laugh. Seriously. We just didn't talk as much "back then" about how imperfect our lives actually were. What I experienced with my family was by no means that "unusual."