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What’s something about your childhood that you thought was normal at the time but realised as an adult that it wasn’t? [Serious] [NSFW]
What’s something about your childhood that you thought was normal at the time but realised as an adult that it wasn’t? [Serious] [NSFW]
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Getting hit by my parents, I thought it was universal.
when i was a kid i thought that all the korean candy stores were free. like you could go in, take what you wanted and leave. i would make friends with other korean kids, take them to my favorite candy stores and tell them to help themselves. which they did.
so apparentleeeee, whenever we’d visit my family in korea, my dad would talk to all the candy shop owners in the neighborhood and tell them to put anything me or my friends took, on a tab. maybe it was because i barely even spoke korean, but that whole situation just seemed perfectly fuckin normal to my oblivious little self.
Playing with mercury bare hands, eating tylenol tabs as candy (no one ever told me it was medicine), eating grass and weeds, buying alcohol at 15 and drinking it at school, or loose cigarrets for my parents. Pretty sure there is more, the 90s in Mexico was a little crazy
Not getting presents at Christmas or birthdays. I didn’t know we were poor.
When it would rain we would put pots and pans down to catch the drips . I would be sent to go have a slumber party with cousins whenever the electricity would get cut off due to non payment. I thought it was common place for people to go thru stuff like that.
In hindsight I realize that what I thought was “freedom” was actually neglect. Kids aren’t supposed to be left to themselves in such a degree that they end up raising themselves. From personal experience doing so leads to a lot of misunderstandings on how things are supposed to be.
Having a room full of dictionaries. I was baffled when I met kids in secondary school (as an adult doing a teacher training course at the time) who didn’t even understand the basics of how to use one in their own language, let alone a two-language one. My dad was a translator so growing up it was just a normal thing, and I would sometimes just take one and look up random words in different languages for fun.
My mother telling me I could change my father for the better.
getting the belt for making a noise at home.
being emotionally manipulated, pitted against your siblings and lied to by your parents to “toughen you up”
not being able to eat every day.
Being afraid all of the time.
Having a cooler in the car. My parents always packed one, there were cokes and waters in it. The weird part was there was also always beer in it. Didn’t matter if we were going 12 hours or 1 hour, they packed a cooler. Didn’t realize how much my mom was drinking until years later when she become a non-functioning alcoholic.
Getting locked out of my house for playing the whole day.
Every one of these threads highlight terrible things that happened as kids. I’m going to do the opposite because I had awesome parents.
They had me enrolled in summer classes at the science center for my entire childhood. My parents were never rich, about dead center of the middle class. But they were thrify in general and got lucky with assuming a very affordable mortgage (it was the 80s, that was possible back then). So they spent some money to get me signed up for daily science classes during the summer, every summer, through middle school. These were hands on and fun and really helped foster my love of science.
I now have a PhD and run my own lab. I have them to thank for this.
Blowing in my mom’s interlock device lol
That I was being verbally, emotionally, physically and psychologically abused for my own good by a narcissistic piece of shit that wasn’t even related to me and it was up to me to not cause drama and hinder my parents with my issues
I was told that by a certain person that being gay gives you cancer, diseases and stuff like that. Yeah, turns they are just a homophobe piece of shit.
My dad would drink and drive literally everyday. When I was young I loved grabbing him a fresh from the cooler because it was my dad and I didn’t know any different. I still him even though it was fucked up
My mother gaslighting me and manipulating me at every turn, then taking credit for anything good I did and turning my every moment into a chance for people to praise her.
Everything.
actually liking your parents/siblings/family. Almost everyone I know can’t stand the people they grew up with, which I find strange.
My Mom used the bathroom as a form of control. Both showering and using the potty.
You know what’s really weird. That I had to ask my Mother to take me to the bathroom even as a teenager. Not permission to use it. She had to be there. I thought this was completely normal for non adults.
When I got my period. My Mother acted like it was the most embarrassing thing in the world. I was not given pads or tampons. I had to use my little sister’s diapers and pull ups. I didnt even know pads existed
being happy
The doomsday cult I grew up in
monogamy
Mom being angry all the time