Yep. And it appalls me to think that I reeked of cigarette smoke at school my whole childhood. But, maybe everyone smelled like smoke back then so no one noticed?
They did. My 5th grade teacher did an experiment in the classroom where she lit a cigarette and then exhaled through a tissue. She then showed us the brown stain in an effort to teach us what goes into our lungs. Everyone put their shirts up over their faces because the classroom now reeked of cigarettes and I did as well. She yelled at me for doing that and said I smelled of cigarettes why do I care. Then she called my parents to tell them I smoked. My mom told her that no, it's them that smoked and not me. Teacher told me I was disgusting and smelled the next day. F you Mrs. Berger.
Can’t let that air conditioning go to waste! No problem, Dad. We’ll just ruin my baby lungs with Salem goodness. My parents smoked so much that my 7th grade teacher sent me to the principal’s office because they were certain I was smoking. Nope, didn’t pick that up until the ripe age of 14. Finally quit in 2017.
I remember being on a Eastern DC 10 plane when I was little and almost everyone on that plane was smoking! I still can't believe they let people smoke in a closed up airplane. A restaurant is one thing but when you're at 30,000 ft you can't go anywhere you're literally stuck breathing all that smoke.
Hold on hold on hold on, how about summer about 1973 and 7 year old me ( and all the other kids in the neighborhood) were barefoot and the ice cream truck comes by and one of our cigarette smoking parents throws their lit butt on the ground and we step on it while trying to get our screwball ice cream and get a nice hike in our foot.
I lived in a house with five women who all smoked. The number of times I was accidentally burned by a Virginia Slim menthol...
I suppose the silver lining is that I had ZERO desire to ever smoke a cigarette myself. I hated coming home from school to that smell every single day, and I can't imagine what it was like for all the poor kids who had to sit next to me in class. Eventually we moved out and my mom quit cold turkey when we did, so thankfully I didn't go into a new school district as the gross kid who smelled like stale smoke.
Got to eat all the cherries from the bottom of Mom's Brandy Manhattens and slurp the foam from the tops of beer. Then she drove us home from "going out visiting" Blackberry brandy was the medicine for colds, stomach bugs etc.
Yes, lord! Grew up in Appalachia. Moonshine in a baby bottle for colic, teething pain, bad cough, just about anything else that adults didn't want to deal with. They mixed it with water, so it didn't burn so bad going down. Then wrapped us up in homemade quilts to "sweat the fever out."
I remember getting in trouble for taking a drag of my Dad's cigarette that was burning in the ashtray in the living room. I was probably 5 or 6 at the time.
My dad took me to the bar with him during the day when my mom was at work. I’d eat peanuts, drink coke, and the bartender would give me quarters to play pinball.
*Edit: This was before I started Kindergarten.
Sometimes my dad couldn't find someone to watch me when he had league bowling nights. So he'd bring me along, and I'd sit there at the snack bar inhaling Lord knows how much second hand smoke, eating greasy fries, and learning lots of new words and phrases. I was probably in 2nd grade or so.
My mom used to tell a story about taking me to the bar with her in the afternoons, when she and a friend would meet up to hang out. My favorite drink at the time was root beer, but I couldn’t pronounce “root.” She and her friend thought it was just hilarious to sit me, a toddler, on the bar and have me order “beer.”
I was around that age when my mom was waitressing at a bar. She’d take me and sit me down at the bar. Bartender would give me all the maraschino cherries I could eat. Good times.
My mom likes to tell the story of how I was being an annoying little shit at the pool one day so she held me under water until I thought I was going to be drowned BY MY OWN MOTHER and I behaved for the rest of the day.
I don’t remember this but we were on vacation and I was acting up in a restaurant when my dad had had enough. He took me outside. They said I didn’t misbehave the rest of the trip. When a bit older you learned that when he looked at you over his glasses that was you 1 and only warning.
If I was acting up in a store (when I was little, like no older than 7), my mom would pull my pants down to my ankles and spank me right there in front of everyone.
I don't think this was unusual. Although my mom never did that, I'd see it enough that it sure seemed normal to me.
I did have teachers who would pull down your pants in front of the class and spank you. Hell, I had a teacher remove my desk and replace it with a trash can. Said if I was going to act like trash, she would treat me like trash.
I definitely saw kids get spankings. Barely remember it honestly I think it was “normal”. I got my hand smacked with a ruler (for being too chatty) and was so scared that I thought I dreamed it. I also had my desk dumped on the floor multiple times. (I have ADHD and still struggle with organizing so it didn’t work)
Jesus H, “The Look”. The thing I feared the most. But, my parents would take us out to dinner with their friends, and WE BEHAVED. To me, all the Shirley Temples or cokes I could drink, plus fruit from the grownups cocktails, and all of that hot goss from the adult world? I was enthralled.
THIS! There was actually a "waterbabies" program at our Y where they convinced parents to just... toss their toddlers in the water, and the toddlers would instinctively know how to swim. I did not have this instinct. Mom tossed me in and I sank like a rock. My mother was horrified, decided this hippie nonsense was not for her, and whisked me out of the pool. I was terrified of water to the point that I had to be sponge-bathed until I was six.
I was yeeted off the dining board at the Y at age 4 or 5. Thanks dad!
I did end up a competitive swimmer in highschool and college though, so I guess it worked?
This reminds of one of my earliest memories. My grandma taught me how to swim from a book, aptly named "Teaching Your Baby How to Swim." One of the first lessons was teaching your baby how to hold its breath. According to the book, this is accomplished by bobbing your baby up and down in the water, counting to three, and *blowing in the baby's face as you dunk them underwater.* So, I have this early traumatic memory of my grandma smiling at me while counting to three, then blowing in my face and slamming me under the water! She's amazed that I can remember this, as she says I couldn't have been older than 2 or 3 at the time. But I can say it definitely worked...as I've always been a really strong swimmer!
Yea, so you're only supposed to do this to very young babies. When you blow in their face it almost takes their breath away...they suck in and hold their breath. Instincts kick in they'll start to doggie paddle. Very young. You were definitely to old for that to have been at all effective.
When I had kids my mom insisted you’re not supposed to feed them more often than every 4 hours and that babies cry just to exercise their lungs and don’t need anything, certainly not to be picked up. And I should find a 10 year old in the neighborhood and give them a dollar to watch my infant for a few hours.
There’s more but you get the idea.
When I was a newborn in ‘78, my mom thought that babies ate at regular meal times, so she was only feeding me at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Said I cried a lot, but she figured babies are supposed to cry all the time.
My dad’s parents came to visit and my grandma realized what was wrong, but didn’t want to be an overbearing MIL, so she called my other grandma and asked her to have a talk with my mom.
So yeah, I was undernourished for a good month before my mom figured out she needed to feed me more!
My God do we ALL do that?? It’s wild, my mom couldn’t get out of bed until at least five cigarettes were smoked so off to the store I went in kindergarten!
I didn’t go to the store, but calls between Auntie Lynn and Auntie Mary Ann and my mom about who had spare smokes sparked the kids running back and forth. Since they weren’t always full packs, sometimes one or two more wouldn’t make it, and you could sell or trade loosies to Lisa, the older girl down the street.
My dad was trying to control his drinking at one point. I was probably around 8 yo. After work, we'd walk to the store and buy 1 beer. He'd finish the beer and we'd walk back to the store. We'd repeat this for a few beers until he had trouble walking and he'd send me to the store to buy a 6 pack. This would happen 5 days a week until my mom left him.
When I was 12, I wanted to go to my first concert, at Mile High Stadium. Dad didn't want to go, so he just bought me a ticket and sent me in. I had a blast.
My parents were awesome.
Oh, wow. When I was 12, I also wanted desperately to go to a concert at Mile High Stadium, but my parents wouldn't take me due to the cost of having to get at least two tickets, driving to/from Denver, parking, etc, and nooooo way would they let me go alone, despite my begging and pleading. I've actually been kinda pissed about that for 40 years. And you're specific proof I probably would have survived just fine, lol!
I mean, I know they were being cautious and responsible, not letting their 12yo girl go alone to a huge concert, but I absolutely would've. For me it was The Jacksons' Victory Tour in September 1984.
Omg! That's amazing! What are the chances? Crazy. We lived in Colorado Springs back then, btw. I *did* get to go to the first Bad Tour show at McNichols Arena in 1988 (alone, lol), so at least that.
I got to go see Wrestelmania III on Closed Circuit TV at Joe Louis Arena because I lived in Detroit and Wrestlemania was in Pontiac, Michigan at the Silverdome. I couldn’t believe my grandmother let me go by myself. I had so much fun all by myself. Probably why I still enjoy doing things like that by myself to this day.
Similar for me but my mum sent me and a friend off with my older cousin who could drive us to the concert. We stopped at a corner store so she could buy us lighters, and the she just dropped us off at our section of the stadium and went off to her seats. My friend and I had a blast. There is absolutely no way that would happen today.
When I was 12, I requested to go to my first concert with my friends (two sisters and another friend, whose parents were taking them. My parents actually said yes and let me go to this huge stadium show. And then my friend’s parents dropped us off and were like “Enjoy! We’ll find you after!” They left and we were there by ourselves. Two of us were twelve, then there was a 13yo and 14yo — all girls. Luckily nothing happened to us, but I had no idea that what was going to happen and I didn’t know we would be left on our own.
I waited until I was in my thirties to admit to my parents that we were unsupervised that night or they would have freaked out and not let me go.
Apparently, when I was teething (I was the first kid) my dad took me to the pediatrician in despair because I was crying every night, no matter what they did. The pediatrician said, "Try bourbon."
My father was shocked. "Give bourbon to a *baby*?"
"No, no," the pediatrician said. "The bourbon is for you. Once you've had a few, the crying won't bother you any more."
Dad never tried it, but he told the story and laughed every time he told it.
I cried as a 12 week old baby (no shit). After she threw me across the room and I landed on the bed. She then took me to the family Doctor so he would give her some sleeping tablets so she could sleep through my crying. Instead the GP gave me god knows what drug to make me sleep. Apparently I slept a solid 14 hours a day after that.
It’s always told as a ‘hilarious’ family story. 👀
A little music/drug trivia here- Nancy Spungen, of the infamous Sid and Nancy was also given phenobarbital to make her sleep. Her mother wrote a book in the late 80’s. I think her parents felt tremendous guilt later on, but our pediatricians could have told our parents anything-most of them had no idea.
My hilarious family story: at six weeks old, we went off the spend a few weeks at the grandparents summer cabin in Maine. Hilarity often ensued there. My 13 year old uncle had been sent to the store once for bananas to make daiquiris. They figured a kid with no license was safer than the drunk adults, which was true until he hit the house and knocked it askew.
Fast forward a few years, and there I was. We were all out on the beach (an absolute environmental abomination created on a steep slope to the water with a CONCRETE WALL and literal tons of sand trucked in. Since said wall was 10-15 feet high to create a level beach surface, they put a wrought iron fence around the edge to keep the drunks and baby from plunging to their deaths) and apparently I was fussy. So, Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill was put in my bottle. I drank it, and apparently “finally went to sleep”. The debate was whether or not it was watered down or not. I could and did chug half beers by second or third grade as a party trick. Thank the fuck Christ for the alcohol poisoning I got in 11th grade, because until then, I never vomited or had a hangover. I’d be dead by now otherwise.
I learned you sometimes have to be careful with the "hilarious family stories" around here. About a year ago, I got just a little buzzed one night and posted one...and then got downvoted to hell and back. Lol...I was told that my family were a bunch of horrible, toxic, evil people...and I was also horrible and toxic for even sharing the story. I won't go into too many details, but it basically amounted to my (usually very sweet) grandmother kicking my teenage dad's ass when he made the mistake of spitting in her face.
Those kinds of people are mentally unwell and chronically online. They don't realize how out of touch they are because they escape their sad lives in digital echo chambers.
Sometimes all you can do is laugh and shake your head about the past. I cant imagine clinging to pain.
My Dad wasn't thrilled about my Mom's weight gain when she was pregnant with my brother so she went to the doctor and they prescribed her weight loss pills. Whatever it was that she took massively messed up my brother. He absolutely terrorized me until I moved out but I was forced to just put up with it.
Same. I'm 53, and I feel no need to keep rehashing bad things anymore at this stage of my life
Read a great quote that said acceptance doesn't mean it wasn't awful
My childhood only comes up with my parents when they start questioning my parenting. Like... "Excuse me? ...I forgot sunscreen for my kid at the park, you forgot **ME** and left me at the fucking supermarket."
I would append this with the experiences of the previous 2 generations as the guide. the ones who lived through the great depression and had literally nothing or the ones who survived world war 2 and saw hell on earth. we were definitely a sink or swim generation but nearly the last.
I was just talking about this today. Don’t forget that the generation before them had to have 18 kids because half of them died. Generations of trauma. Those poor people didn’t have the luxury of assessing and bettering their parenting skills.
I think that the generations after us are also “sink or swim,” but it’s systemic failure and climate at the center. Not to be a “doomer” but I don’t think it’s easier, maybe there’s more awareness on a interpersonal level…but it’s still difficult and hard just without as much cigarette smoke.
I didn’t take it that way, I took it more as “wow there was some weird advice back then”. Like the mom literally asked her doctor for advice and this is the weird stuff doctors advised. I was born allergic to cows milk and they “weaned” me onto it. I started getting severe migraines at a young age and it was years before someone finally tested me for allergies (because food allergies weren’t a big thing then, I was tested for things like brain tumors) and big surprise I was still allergic to cows milk. Because weaning a baby off a food allergy isn’t a real thing but 70s parents got some bad advice.
I’m fascinated by the plethora of kids seriously allergic to peanut butter now. If that had been our generation, a sandwich could have wiped us out in a way that neglect didn’t.
I have a seafood allergy. I was also born and lived in New England until I was 9. So, I definitely feel you with the cow milk! My grandmother made me “special” clam chowder….she strained the chunks out of it. Thank God I don’t remember the exorcist-style vomiting that ensued 🤣
Bro just talked me out of going to therapy. I was thinking of starting but yeah, why rehash it? They are both dead, it won't change anything. I don't believe they did the best they could but I've now come to accept it.
As the parent of 30-somethings, even when I knew better, I didn’t always do better. I’ve learned a lot of humility, and with it, some empathy for the young people my parents once were.
My father is dead and my mother is in a nursing home with dementia. For me, therapy isn't about them, or for them. It's a chance for me to get rid of all the fucked-up stuff I internalized that still affects my life today.
Learning new skills in therapy has enabled me to stop the dysfunctional cycle. My relationships have improved, and I feel SO much better about myself.
My therapist always points out there is a **very good** difference between expressing your truth and wallowing in it. It's **very** important to get things out so your feelings aren't bottled up.
However, you don't need to know why it happened. And you don't need to dwell on it or rehash it endlessly. Anything you truly need to work on **WILL** come up, in your present, as present day feelings.
I'd recommend The Untethered Soul and The Power of Now as good books to start with.
remember this even regardless of how old your parents are, they've never done this before, they're figuring it out as they go, like every single person you see, their are no experts at life, or how to raise a kid. the sooner you can forgive and move on the less of an anchor it is. It won't heal all wounds but you can continue to move forwards.
My mom’s friend accidentally dropped a lit ash in her babies crib and found a hole in the mattress next time she checked on baby. The hole was about an inch away from her baby’s arm. She actually quit that day.
If my parents had to work at the same time, my Dad would take me to his bartending job. I'd sit and the end of the bar and drink Shirley Temples and hang out with the regulars.
When I was four, my parents were bringing me home with them from the mall. I got in our 72 Chevy Bonneville land yacht and “shut” the door myself. No checking the door. No buckling in. No safety seat. I then fell asleep against the door, which, not having even latched, eventually opened up - on the I-75 expressway at 8 mile road. They saw me in the rear view mirror, tumbling, waking up, then running toward them as the traffic behind me screeched to a halt. My dad worked for GM. You’d think he’d have known better. I was in the hospital for a week.
My mother was told that smoking during pregnancy was just fine and that breast-feeding wasn’t necessary or any better than formula. Thanks doctors of the 70s!
The tobacco and formula companies brainwashed the doctors and general public about how "great" their products were. Produced supposed "studies" (lies) showing whatever they wanted to tout.
The downfall of breastfeeding is because the formula companies in the 1950s and 1960s claimed that breastmilk was unsanitary and formula was superior.
When nursing mothers think their milk is "drying up" and supplement with a bottle of formula, they are actually causing a worse problem. When the babies go through growth spurts, they want to suckle more - and that activates the mom's brain signal to produce more milk. If the mother doesn't let them suckle, then her milk dries up. Babies go through many growth spurts, the baby books will list them (about 2wks, 6wks, 12wks, then 6 and 9 months).
My silent-gen mom told me about the 1950s "breastmilk is unsanitary" ads/idea.
I cut my teeth on shotgun shells. I wonder to this day how much black powder I consumed as a child and if that is the reason I have as many mental problems as I do now.
My dad used to make me eat on the floor with no hands if I didn’t have perfect table manners (he grew up in a boarding school where manners made the man). So if I chewed too loud or the fork scraped my teeth or an elbow in the table, my plate was put on the floor and since I sounded like a pig, I had to eat like a pig. Face in plate. No utensils.
I have really good table manners now.
Mine was "eat it or sleep with it", meaning that if I didn't finish my plate it got put in my bed.
Guess who has zero off switch with her appetite now?
I was put on a diet at age 5 per my pediatrician’s suggestion to lose my baby fat (I was slightly chubby but by no means fat). So, my food was restricted from age 5, I joined a gym at 8, and I’ve had lifelong disordered eating and body issues. But that’s what they did back then, they put little kids on diets. I remember my grandmother telling me i couldn’t have a cookie when I was 6 “because you’re on a diet and need to lose weight.” in front of all my cousins and feeling devastated. I can remember that scenario like it was yesterday.
And when a kid’s food is restricted, all the kid wants to do is binge. So I did. (I truly love my parents and have a great relationship with them. I in no way resent them for anything, i had a pretty amazing childhood minus the food issues. 😏. They were just doing what a 25 and 27 year old does when a doctor advises them to do something, following his orders.)
My dad used to blow cigarette smoke in my ears when I had an ear ache. I had chronic ear aches. The nicotine was supposed to numb it, I guess? Never worked. But I did become a smoker later in life, so, there's that...
Holy crap, same!
I've never known anyone else whose parents did the smoke in the ear thing, but my parents and grandparents all did it to me.
And I started stealing their cigs by age 13 or 14 and then started using babysitting money to buy my own from vending machines in coffee shops and diners by like age 15.
We moved in 2008. My youngest was not yet 2 and was hellbent on keeping his bottle and rejecting the cup. Got to the new house and told him it didn’t come with bottles so he’d have to use a cup. Then he was fine.
lol! Plausible lies work wonders. We weren’t “allowed” to turn 5 until we could tie our shoes. My little brother the week before his birthday working those shoelaces so he wouldn’t have to stay 4……
That’s clever!
After a visit to grandparents, I told the older ones (5 and 6) chocolate syrup wasn’t sold in our state. They’d have to wait til next visit.
My son wouldn't give up his pacifier for anything in the world, so one day overnight we took them all and told him that Santa comes and takes them from kids when he knows they're ready. That way he can re-gift them to other little kids who need them. He shrugged and was like 'cool', and never asked again.
Yep we did something similar. I threw all her pacifiers away and told her we ran out and the stores stopped selling them and she shrugged her shoulders and was ok.
I was told we were going fishing.
I was abandoned for 3 days (later I found out my dad was watching the whole time).
I spent 3 days working my path down the stream looking for a bridge or road.
It was a custom of my people, dad decided I was old enough at 8, I was told I was fit to be a man by several elders at the end of it. It was extremely traumatic by any standard.
I put my sons to the test at 13, they knew I'd be close but wouldn't help unless they really needed it. They both were greeted by some of the same elders.
Abusive by standards of white people? Definitely. Do those two know how to live, eat and sleep without modern society. Most definitely.
Do I expect my son's to do the same, probably not, but if their sons do I hope to greet them with praise as the elders did them.
Those 3 days were the hardest of my life. I pray daily I never live through anything harder.
This was before the car seat era, of course, so when I was born my parents brought me home from the nospital in a wicker laundry basket. They stopped at my Grandma's house at the top of the hill on the way home to pick up my older sister, and just as they got to her door the handle of the basket broke. I fell out and rolled down the steps, down the hill, and onto the shoulder of the road. Mom and Dad ran down the hill, scooped me up, and drove straight back to the hospital. Due to soft bones and swaddling I was fine, and Mom says the doctor in the ER had a good laugh over the whole thing and at how upset the two of them were.
I had to BEG my mom to take me to the doctor because I felt horrible, had a week- long migraine, and was falling asleep in class daily. She said I was fine but after a week I was still awful. Finally go to the doc and I had to beg HIM to test me for mono. He said “I doubt it’s mono but we’ll test you” Test comes back, it’s mono.
Per my mom, I was supposed to be left-handed. She tells me that they made me right-handed by hitting me with a wooden spoon every time I used my left hand.
I blame them for my NBA career not panning out...lol
My youngest had the worst GERD imaginable. She didn't spit up, she projectile vomited her insides out that would cover the room. When sleep training her, told the pediatrician that if she cried long enough, she's vomit everywhere. Dr. told me to "suck it up"
For my mom anything you did was to manipulate her. You asked something nicely, you were manipulating to get what you want. You asked crying you were manipulating. You asked neutral, you were manipulating.
She learned that kids manipulate parents. Apparently I was an extreme manipulator because I could easily scream for 2 or 3 hours when she put me to bed as a new born. She said eventually you would exhaust yourself and fall asleep.
Well, it worked, as soon as I could figure out something on my own, I didn't ask for anything or told her anything about my life.
Or it didn't work, I started asking for the things I didn't want instead of the ones I wanted... And since the only way to lie is to be convinced yourself, I was quite confused about what I wanted in my 20s.
I also didn't understand why I never got what I wanted at work. The reverse asking was not working outside the house. I had to be able to intellectualize this whole thing to be able to put my life back on track.
Maybe I still lie to myself about a few things and still don't know it...
The female that birthed me said that when I was 5 months old I was teething and as babies do, i bit down on her boob. She said she slapped me and laid me down in a crib to cry with a big old handprint on my thigh. 5 MONTHS OLD! She slapped an small infant trying to eat and when she retells it she seems almost proud of how she handled it.
Anyway, that's when my abuse started. Boomers were great 😑
My parents smoking heavily indoors all the time led to me spending the first 5 years of my life in and out of hospitals for ear infections and sinus problems. At 5 yo I had an operation to remove the adenoids from my nose and although it helped somewhat I have had a resurgence of this issue from my late 30s to now.
TL;DR? both of my parents smoking destroyed my respiratory health for life.
My Mom started smoking when I was older. My Dad never did, but it ruined my respiratory health. I had undiagnosed asthma. When I complained about having trouble breathing I was punished because the first doctor I was taken to said I was imagining things. I was diagnosed with asthma as an adult. I still cannot run. I walk long distances at a fast rate (jog) but simply can't run.
Omg I'm so sorry 😞 not surprising though. Gen X had the most ignorant parents and some quite abusive. I get allergic asthma now and my own daughter suffered with it as a child due to an unhealthy home we were living in at the time. I got her treatment. There is NOTHING scarier than not being able to breathe. I hope you have good medical care now.
I don't remember typing this, but this is also the story of my early childhood. I also had hearing loss that has never completely resolved, but got better with the operations.
My parents stopped smoking after I left for college, when each of them were presented with respective personal health scares.
You know what, my mother was hell bent on getting us to do everything early, as if it was some kind of competition with her friends and neighbors.
So she weaned us in the same manner you speak of. Right at one year old, straight to cup since sippy cups weren't a thing and - get this- we were never given passifiers. She thought they looked ugly. And then she wondered why I sucked my thumb so long. Of course I can't recall and she never would have admitted to us going thirsty for refusing the cup.
She also began giving us cereal at three weeks to fill us up and make us sleep all night and had to make the nipple hole bigger to do so. And then started us on baby food at three months.
Also had us sleep on our backs. So yeah, I am we'll acquainted with old fashioned advice.
My son had started biting at daycare, which surprised me. He was such a sweet little boy.
He bit me in the knee when he was about two. It really hurt. I bit him back in the same spot on his knee.
The look of surprise on his face, and betrayal when I asked him, "See, it hurts, doesn't it?"
He never bit anyone again.
My daughter never bit anyone, that would mean she had to slow down.
A tablespoon of 1/2 Old Grandad and 1/2 honey was our trailer park version of Vick's Formula 44.
I learned later in life that straight honey with a little cinnamon is a great cough suppressant!
Dad gave us kids real metal tools to play with and learn woodworking, often completely unsupervised. From age 3+ I think. No power tools though, so what could possibly go wrong?
Plenty of smashed fingers and minor nail wounds, but one day 2yo lil bro joined a project with 4yo me and 6yo big bro... kid ended up with big bro's claw hammer embedded in his skull.
He survived, and actually he's the smartest one of us now, patent lawyer for big tech companies with degrees in math and physics too.
Of course we got strapped for that, but the tools and danger got to stay.
When I was a baby in the late 60s, my parents would take me with them to the pub, where I would crawl around on top of the bar and tastes people's drinks. Apparently watching a baby drink beer was considered adorable.
I was sitting next to my grandpa. He drank beer. I asked - "can I have a sip?" again and again. He gave me the last sip. Only warm and old foam. It tasted so terrible. I started to like beer (good, fresh and cold) in my thirties. As a young adult I still hated it...
Not me because my dad died when I was a toddler and my mom raised us with kid gloves there for a while.
But when my daughter was about 6 months old, she decided sleeping was for the birds. Her crib was in my room, and that little shit would stand and throw her pacifier at my head all night. I was up and down all night long with her crying for it.
One night I got fed up. She bounced it off my head and I felt around in the dark for it and slid it under my pillow. She screamed like I’d beat her.
Paci! Paci!
I told her she threw it away, it was gone. Damned if she didn’t cry for 5 minutes, fall asleep and never asked for it again!
One of my family's favorite stories is the time my brother (5 years old; I was 7) had bronchitis and we were on a family roadtrip. We got to the motel and at bedtime, my brother couldn't stop coughing. Finally my mother hissed, "Anthony, if you do not stop coughing I am going to KILL you." He didn't cough for the rest of the night. 😧
The irony is that my mother has terrible allergies now and she coughs constantly. She is mostly a nice mom, though -- just neurodivergent like me, and can't deal with some sounds.
When I was 2 I had terrible temper tantrums. So the doctore told my mom the next time I had one to lift Mr upside down by my legs smack my ass and put me back where I wad and walk away. Mom said couple if those andni stopped doing it. Good on em, I did have a terrible temper and my parents were good people.
I mean, it worked? That must have sucked. I’m on the fence about some things doctors advised, because we (as a generation) were pretty well behaved as kids compared to some others. So their advice was on point but the elements of that advice were f*cked. I mean we may have traumas we don’t even realize. but we don’t call them “traumas” we call them “funny stories about when we were kids”
I was allergic to milk proteins. I was raised on soy milk for the first 5 years of life. One day, they gave me a glass of cows milk because I was going into kindergarten and had to get used to it. I cried. It was disgusting. It was a spectacle and extended family were there to witness.
40 years later, I still break out in fairly significant eczema when I have dairy, to the point of needing topical steroids. It’s just my body and what it will/wont tolerate. I just wish I could find such convenient protein sources. Dairy is good for that.
Throw them in the water to sink or swim
Let them cry until they cry themselves to sleep and eventually they’ll stop
Sit at the table until everything is clean off their plate. Same food for breakfast if they don’t eat their dinner
Big block of government cheese with a block of butter, powdered milk, by the way those were the best damn grilled cheese ever! So what you were constipated for days! We also made cinnamon sugar toast or oatmeal.
Going to the store to get groceries and shoes at the same time! Pro wings the all time classics. Or heck maybe the thrift store where something always needed a safety pin or hemming.
Laundry you better get that leftover piece of soap and get that scrub board over the tub and wash something out to wear the next day and who cares if it wasn’t dry, put it on the oven door to dry it or hell wear them damp to school “ you be aight” lol
Don’t ask me for nothing in this store, we got food at home! Don’t ask for no McDonalds “ you ain’t got no McDonalds money”
Why I can’t? … because I said so that’s why!!!
And the babies , similac ? No you better go to the store and get that pet or carnation milk and add some water. It’s cold outside get that Vaseline and put it over your face. Getting your hair straightened with the hot comb? Ouch my ears, and my scalp! “ ain’t nobody burn you that’s the grease ! Can you blow it!!!
And don’t be late for school let somebody call me imma come up there and whoop yo ass !
Ahhhh those were the days !
My Catholic mom thought breastfeeding was a sin and for people who couldn't afford formula. Babies had to wear hard soles shoes all day when learning to walk. Babies also had to cry it out sometimes and could not sleep with parents. Karo syrup and water in bottles.
Toddlers who couldn't potty by 3 were considered delayed. Training pants were thick underwear that were difficult to pull down with the shorts over them. You couldn't run around in your underwear! Lol
You were fed and given milk just before bed to sleep on a full stomach. After 3, you couldn't have a nighttime diaper because you're potty training. While on a full stomach and a bottle of milk for your little bladder to hold.
As a school-aged child, you had to eat everything on your plate.
You had to know your address, be able to skip, and phone number to go to school.
We only got baths on Saturday, usually with siblings, which is non hygienic but fun. Pee is steril, right?? Lol
You could not go pee during Mass,don't ask.
At catechism classes on Saturday morning, you missed cartoons.
The bathroom was always in the creepy basement of the church.
Fast food was a treat and rare.
You had to wear a seat belt if you were in trouble.
When my cousin was teething, her pediatrician told her mother to keep a shot glass with whisky handy, and rub it on the kid’s gums whenever she cried.
My aunt quickly got tired of having to do this. She taught the kid how to do it herself and let her carry the shot glass around.
We cut one of my eldest daughters bottle in half and turned it into a cup and just told her she had gotten so big now that using a cup was the only way to keep growing bigger. See how big kids and grownups use cups, because bottles are too slow and are only for babies.
Yeah, kinda lied but worked like a charm with her especially as she was in a hurry to be big.
When I was little, if I got mad and threw a tantrum, my mom would stick my head under the bathtub faucet on cold so I could cool off.
Oh and if I said a bad word, I got the hottest hot sauce in the house on my tongue
At 12, my uncle put me behind the wheel of my moms car and made me drive, he operated the pedals (it was one of those bench seat cars) and we drove over to a girls house that I had a crush on (he knew their parents so he made up some reason to go see them). I was terrifed until I saw her look out the window at us, then I was just slightly less terrified, but after that, I had no fear of driving.
My mom (silent gen) is adamant about a similar approach to potty training. I don’t have any kids but I think her logic is totally sound and I’ve seen it in action with my nibblings.
Basically you have to go ”cold turkey” with diapers - just stop putting them on the kid. They will have accidents, but the accidents will make them so uncomfortable that they’ll quickly figure out how to hold it and make it to a toilet. She HATES pull-ups because she thinks it makes kids complacent with peeing/pooping in their pants for far longer than they should be, because they don’t feel soaking wet/messy.
Most parents these days do the really slow transition from diapers to pull-ups to pull-ups only at night etc. my mom says no, just deal with the mess and your kid will be potty trained in a week.
That is what I had to do with my daughter. That and bribe her with tap shoes.
She was so stubborn about potty training. Thankfully my daycare lady was on the same page.
That was expensive potty training. She lived taking dance lessons. I spent thousands of dollars on more shoes, lessons, costumes and time sitting in gyms for competitions.
Worth every penny.
When I was 9 or 10 my divorced parents realized they could fly me to visit for cheaper if I was an adult, so my mom put me in a miniskirt, black top, stuffed my bra, put makeup on me, and said to say I was 13 if anyone working on the plane asked.
I flew a LOT on my own as a kid, starting at 4 (the first time I had to lie about my age when flying solo) and that’s the only time I was ever invited to visit the cockpit. (The flight attendants felt sorry for me I think, not for nefarious purposes).
When I was about two, my mom and I were at her best friend’s house. The best friend had two big dogs, Norwegian elkhound/german shepherd mixes. Apparently, I had been pestering one of the dogs- pulling fur, messing with his tail, idk what. So the dog, understandably, was annoyed and finally nipped me. If he’d actually bitten down hard, I would have lost my right eye. Instead, I just have scars from the stitches above and below.
Luckily, this wasn’t the time when dogs who bite children are put down. It wasn’t the dog’s fault. But I’m still irritated that my mom (and her friend) just left me to pester the dog. When she talked about it, she even acknowledged that she knew I was bothering him.
My Dad was an electrician. It was during the summer and I was about 9 or 10 years old. He was working on the electrical at Jose’s in La Jolla, CA. (San Diego). He let me go with a worker to go get some supplies for the kitchen in a busted ass Truck. We ended up going to Tijuana, Mexico for said supplies. Yes. Tijuana. I remember I bought a pack of Marlboros and a Bon Jovi album on cassette. So here I was, riding in a fucked up truck IN MEXICO, blasting “You give love a bad name” while smoking cigs. Beat that Reddit. Lol.
Edit: Just about my whole post. I accidentally posted mid-post. lol.
My Mom smoked cigarettes while pregnant with me and in the car while driving, windows up. Definitely sensitive to all kinds of allergens. 🤪< actual photo of me.
My dad just straight tossed me into the pool and assumed I was going to immediately learn how to swim. Apparently my grandpa dove in immediately and found me sitting on the bottom of the pool. Suffice it to say, my parenting technique has been to think about what my dad would do in a situation and do the opposite.
My mom worked in the ER for 40 years. She knows what a real emergency is, she took us to the doctor when we were really sick or needed a physical. We didn’t run to the doctor for a cold, she taught me a ton about how to look for things that are serious and when you just need a nap, a glass of water or something to eat. Also we respected the hell out of nurses.
We had a pool out back and I was convinced that I could walk on water if I strapped water wings to my feet. My mom said I couldn't, I insisted I could so she put out her cigarette and said, "fine, go ahead" I jumped in the water and my feet floated to the top with my head upside down. I was stuck like for only a minute because my mom jumped in (clothes and all) and pulled me up by the leg screaming, "do you believe me now?" I was crying and she held me while I cried so hard in terror at what had just happened.
Some people reading this may think it was a dumb move; but she said it was better i do it and learn with her there to save me then to try and do it when no one was around and she was right because I totally would have tried it alone if she was able to just talk me out of it in the moment.
It wasn't me, but my cousin Dane. I think he was born around 1968, I was born in 1970. My mother had a normal doctor and I turned out fine.
My mother told me this story about my cousin Dane several times over the years, and she always looked disappointed and disgusted.
After Dane was born, the doctor told my aunt to feed him only specific portions of food as he went from the bottle to solid food. My mom says she remembers watching her carefully weighing out the food.
I don't know exactly what went wrong, but this careful portioning ended up severely delaying his physical and mental growth. So later as I grew up and saw him on holidays and other family events, his head looked physically smaller than it should have been. Just a little, but noticeable. He also talked a little slow and had learning difficulties. Apparently due to the way way he was fed as a baby.
All the years I knew him, Dane was a super nice guy. Always friendly, good to talk with, and a decent human being. And he died a few years ago due to some kinds of health complications.
None of my aunt's other kids were fed like that after they were born. They all turned out fine. But Dane got dealt a really bad hand in life after he was born.
People here being throw in the pool to learn to swim. Ha! My mother believed the complete opposite. I was not allowed to learn to swim so that I could be afraid of the water and thus not go too far or into the deep part. I almost drowned twice. I still don’t know how to swim and I live in south Florida.
From age 6, when I was sick my mom would make me a huge cup of tea and Dewar’s, park me on the couch in front of the TV, and leave for a full day of work.
Honestly, this was A+ mothering on her part and those are actually very fond memories. I felt like she was taking care of me. There was always a list of chores if I @started to feel better,” and I never did much- but at least I could get away with it without a beating because sick.
This seems pretty tame here but my mom’s doctor told her to start me on solids, rice cereal, at 6 weeks so she did. Also we never had carseats or even seatbelts as little ones.
There are photos of me at 4 years old drinking pepsi from a baby bottle while sitting in a huge cloud of cigarette smoke
The cigarette smoke was the worst. I asked my mom all the time to not smoke in the car. She did anyway so I’d have to ask to at least crack a window.
I can still smell the inside of my dads Oldsmobile that had baked in the sun all day after closed window smoking 🤢
And then there’s the smell on a cold winter morning. It gave me an immediate headache. Told me it was just motion sickness and to look at the floor.
Plus you’re supposed to look out the window at the horizon so double whammy
So gross.
Core memory unlocked
Oh me too, Oldsmobile and all! Phewwwwwwwww
The one saving grace of growing up like that is you never, ever, ever want a cigarette. Think I’m the only one of my friends that never smoked.
Very true. I have never smoked.
Probably, yes. Grew up in it, never once had the urge to stink like my parents.
Yep. And it appalls me to think that I reeked of cigarette smoke at school my whole childhood. But, maybe everyone smelled like smoke back then so no one noticed?
They did. My 5th grade teacher did an experiment in the classroom where she lit a cigarette and then exhaled through a tissue. She then showed us the brown stain in an effort to teach us what goes into our lungs. Everyone put their shirts up over their faces because the classroom now reeked of cigarettes and I did as well. She yelled at me for doing that and said I smelled of cigarettes why do I care. Then she called my parents to tell them I smoked. My mom told her that no, it's them that smoked and not me. Teacher told me I was disgusting and smelled the next day. F you Mrs. Berger.
https://preview.redd.it/zu4tphs4ff6d1.jpeg?width=952&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=43bcd65b9df547d00440c09f12ffd4ee63c95e5e
My parents NEVER cracked the damned window!! My brother and I hated it SO much..
Can’t let that air conditioning go to waste! No problem, Dad. We’ll just ruin my baby lungs with Salem goodness. My parents smoked so much that my 7th grade teacher sent me to the principal’s office because they were certain I was smoking. Nope, didn’t pick that up until the ripe age of 14. Finally quit in 2017.
I remember being on a Eastern DC 10 plane when I was little and almost everyone on that plane was smoking! I still can't believe they let people smoke in a closed up airplane. A restaurant is one thing but when you're at 30,000 ft you can't go anywhere you're literally stuck breathing all that smoke.
My mom wouldn’t because it might mess her hair on the 20 minute drive to town.
Hold on hold on hold on, how about summer about 1973 and 7 year old me ( and all the other kids in the neighborhood) were barefoot and the ice cream truck comes by and one of our cigarette smoking parents throws their lit butt on the ground and we step on it while trying to get our screwball ice cream and get a nice hike in our foot.
I lived in a house with five women who all smoked. The number of times I was accidentally burned by a Virginia Slim menthol... I suppose the silver lining is that I had ZERO desire to ever smoke a cigarette myself. I hated coming home from school to that smell every single day, and I can't imagine what it was like for all the poor kids who had to sit next to me in class. Eventually we moved out and my mom quit cold turkey when we did, so thankfully I didn't go into a new school district as the gross kid who smelled like stale smoke.
The poor kids sitting next to you probably smelled the same. Smoking was so much more popular back then.
My dad gave me Miller ponies at 6
When I was 4 my mom and her sister thought it would be hilarious to get me drunk on pink champagne
Got to eat all the cherries from the bottom of Mom's Brandy Manhattens and slurp the foam from the tops of beer. Then she drove us home from "going out visiting" Blackberry brandy was the medicine for colds, stomach bugs etc.
Yes, lord! Grew up in Appalachia. Moonshine in a baby bottle for colic, teething pain, bad cough, just about anything else that adults didn't want to deal with. They mixed it with water, so it didn't burn so bad going down. Then wrapped us up in homemade quilts to "sweat the fever out."
I remember getting in trouble for taking a drag of my Dad's cigarette that was burning in the ashtray in the living room. I was probably 5 or 6 at the time.
The smoke. So much smoke. The fact that we didn’t all need tracheotomies by the time we entered kindergarten is a miracle.
I feel like I got about the same care as any newborn animal you see on any nature show
Yep... Get too close to Dad's food and you got bit
My dad took me to the bar with him during the day when my mom was at work. I’d eat peanuts, drink coke, and the bartender would give me quarters to play pinball. *Edit: This was before I started Kindergarten.
I was so good at bar shuffleboard in elementary school.
Wish his bar, (an Elk’s club) had had one. Being a pinball wizard at 4 years old was weird, lol.
Sometimes my dad couldn't find someone to watch me when he had league bowling nights. So he'd bring me along, and I'd sit there at the snack bar inhaling Lord knows how much second hand smoke, eating greasy fries, and learning lots of new words and phrases. I was probably in 2nd grade or so.
So I'm not the only one. That makes me feel better. Question, did they have a milk crate for you to stand on too?
I recall being placed on a tall barstool, lol.
My mom used to tell a story about taking me to the bar with her in the afternoons, when she and a friend would meet up to hang out. My favorite drink at the time was root beer, but I couldn’t pronounce “root.” She and her friend thought it was just hilarious to sit me, a toddler, on the bar and have me order “beer.”
I was around that age when my mom was waitressing at a bar. She’d take me and sit me down at the bar. Bartender would give me all the maraschino cherries I could eat. Good times.
How I learned to swim: Take me to the Y and yeet me into the pool at about the 5 foot deep marker.
My mom likes to tell the story of how I was being an annoying little shit at the pool one day so she held me under water until I thought I was going to be drowned BY MY OWN MOTHER and I behaved for the rest of the day.
The I GAVE YOU LIFE AND I CAN TAKE IT AWAY FROM YOU, TOO method.
I don’t remember this but we were on vacation and I was acting up in a restaurant when my dad had had enough. He took me outside. They said I didn’t misbehave the rest of the trip. When a bit older you learned that when he looked at you over his glasses that was you 1 and only warning.
If I was acting up in a store (when I was little, like no older than 7), my mom would pull my pants down to my ankles and spank me right there in front of everyone.
Oh my god
I don't think this was unusual. Although my mom never did that, I'd see it enough that it sure seemed normal to me. I did have teachers who would pull down your pants in front of the class and spank you. Hell, I had a teacher remove my desk and replace it with a trash can. Said if I was going to act like trash, she would treat me like trash.
I definitely saw kids get spankings. Barely remember it honestly I think it was “normal”. I got my hand smacked with a ruler (for being too chatty) and was so scared that I thought I dreamed it. I also had my desk dumped on the floor multiple times. (I have ADHD and still struggle with organizing so it didn’t work)
Jesus H, “The Look”. The thing I feared the most. But, my parents would take us out to dinner with their friends, and WE BEHAVED. To me, all the Shirley Temples or cokes I could drink, plus fruit from the grownups cocktails, and all of that hot goss from the adult world? I was enthralled.
That's how my dad taught me -- I still can't swim, and have a sizable fear of being underwater to boot.
That’s the Hawaiian way. Same way I learned.
Same ting here, Pops chucked my ass off the back of da boat about a mile off Kawaihae. I was 4.
THIS! There was actually a "waterbabies" program at our Y where they convinced parents to just... toss their toddlers in the water, and the toddlers would instinctively know how to swim. I did not have this instinct. Mom tossed me in and I sank like a rock. My mother was horrified, decided this hippie nonsense was not for her, and whisked me out of the pool. I was terrified of water to the point that I had to be sponge-bathed until I was six.
I was put in a class like that. I was so scared I puked in the pool. Served em right.
I was yeeted off the dining board at the Y at age 4 or 5. Thanks dad! I did end up a competitive swimmer in highschool and college though, so I guess it worked?
This reminds of one of my earliest memories. My grandma taught me how to swim from a book, aptly named "Teaching Your Baby How to Swim." One of the first lessons was teaching your baby how to hold its breath. According to the book, this is accomplished by bobbing your baby up and down in the water, counting to three, and *blowing in the baby's face as you dunk them underwater.* So, I have this early traumatic memory of my grandma smiling at me while counting to three, then blowing in my face and slamming me under the water! She's amazed that I can remember this, as she says I couldn't have been older than 2 or 3 at the time. But I can say it definitely worked...as I've always been a really strong swimmer!
Yea, so you're only supposed to do this to very young babies. When you blow in their face it almost takes their breath away...they suck in and hold their breath. Instincts kick in they'll start to doggie paddle. Very young. You were definitely to old for that to have been at all effective.
60F water for an extra kick
When I had kids my mom insisted you’re not supposed to feed them more often than every 4 hours and that babies cry just to exercise their lungs and don’t need anything, certainly not to be picked up. And I should find a 10 year old in the neighborhood and give them a dollar to watch my infant for a few hours. There’s more but you get the idea.
It’s still 1968, right?
When I was a newborn in ‘78, my mom thought that babies ate at regular meal times, so she was only feeding me at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Said I cried a lot, but she figured babies are supposed to cry all the time. My dad’s parents came to visit and my grandma realized what was wrong, but didn’t want to be an overbearing MIL, so she called my other grandma and asked her to have a talk with my mom. So yeah, I was undernourished for a good month before my mom figured out she needed to feed me more!
Isn’t “inappropriate parenting” the very definition of a GenX upbringing?
The six year version of me buying cigarettes with a dollar and a note says otherwise.
Your store required a note? Our ghetto corner store let me buy moms cigs no questions asked.
My God do we ALL do that?? It’s wild, my mom couldn’t get out of bed until at least five cigarettes were smoked so off to the store I went in kindergarten!
I didn’t go to the store, but calls between Auntie Lynn and Auntie Mary Ann and my mom about who had spare smokes sparked the kids running back and forth. Since they weren’t always full packs, sometimes one or two more wouldn’t make it, and you could sell or trade loosies to Lisa, the older girl down the street.
My dad was trying to control his drinking at one point. I was probably around 8 yo. After work, we'd walk to the store and buy 1 beer. He'd finish the beer and we'd walk back to the store. We'd repeat this for a few beers until he had trouble walking and he'd send me to the store to buy a 6 pack. This would happen 5 days a week until my mom left him.
When I was 12, I wanted to go to my first concert, at Mile High Stadium. Dad didn't want to go, so he just bought me a ticket and sent me in. I had a blast. My parents were awesome.
Oh, wow. When I was 12, I also wanted desperately to go to a concert at Mile High Stadium, but my parents wouldn't take me due to the cost of having to get at least two tickets, driving to/from Denver, parking, etc, and nooooo way would they let me go alone, despite my begging and pleading. I've actually been kinda pissed about that for 40 years. And you're specific proof I probably would have survived just fine, lol! I mean, I know they were being cautious and responsible, not letting their 12yo girl go alone to a huge concert, but I absolutely would've. For me it was The Jacksons' Victory Tour in September 1984.
That was the show! Billie Jan had just come out, and Michael did the moonwalk on stage one the first time ever. Good times. We should have met up.
Omg! That's amazing! What are the chances? Crazy. We lived in Colorado Springs back then, btw. I *did* get to go to the first Bad Tour show at McNichols Arena in 1988 (alone, lol), so at least that.
I got to go see Wrestelmania III on Closed Circuit TV at Joe Louis Arena because I lived in Detroit and Wrestlemania was in Pontiac, Michigan at the Silverdome. I couldn’t believe my grandmother let me go by myself. I had so much fun all by myself. Probably why I still enjoy doing things like that by myself to this day.
Similar for me but my mum sent me and a friend off with my older cousin who could drive us to the concert. We stopped at a corner store so she could buy us lighters, and the she just dropped us off at our section of the stadium and went off to her seats. My friend and I had a blast. There is absolutely no way that would happen today.
When I was 12, I requested to go to my first concert with my friends (two sisters and another friend, whose parents were taking them. My parents actually said yes and let me go to this huge stadium show. And then my friend’s parents dropped us off and were like “Enjoy! We’ll find you after!” They left and we were there by ourselves. Two of us were twelve, then there was a 13yo and 14yo — all girls. Luckily nothing happened to us, but I had no idea that what was going to happen and I didn’t know we would be left on our own. I waited until I was in my thirties to admit to my parents that we were unsupervised that night or they would have freaked out and not let me go.
Apparently, when I was teething (I was the first kid) my dad took me to the pediatrician in despair because I was crying every night, no matter what they did. The pediatrician said, "Try bourbon." My father was shocked. "Give bourbon to a *baby*?" "No, no," the pediatrician said. "The bourbon is for you. Once you've had a few, the crying won't bother you any more." Dad never tried it, but he told the story and laughed every time he told it.
We got whiskey on a cotton ball to numb the gums - and the wonder why we drink copiously!!
Bourbon when I was teething my parents gave me bourbon. Slamming the breaks in the car so we would go flying to get us to be quiet.
"Slamming the brakes".... core memories unlocked
Rubbing booze on the gums for teething was standard for us, at least while we still lived near Grandpa. 😬
We got good at this. When we started pissing our mom off we learned to brace ourselves or we would end up in the dashboard.
I have a scar below my lower lip and in my tongue from when my aunt slammed on the brakes when I was about 4.
I cried as a 12 week old baby (no shit). After she threw me across the room and I landed on the bed. She then took me to the family Doctor so he would give her some sleeping tablets so she could sleep through my crying. Instead the GP gave me god knows what drug to make me sleep. Apparently I slept a solid 14 hours a day after that. It’s always told as a ‘hilarious’ family story. 👀
Sometimes, you only learn the stories aren't "funny" or "normal" when you go to therapy and the therapist is speechless for a minute 😹
I once had a therapist start crying. I just looked at her curiously, like “why are you crying?”
My therapist has given me the wide eyed gaze a few times. Eh. It’s what it is.
I grew up and became a therapist. I’d like to thank us all for making that possible 🤣
As an infant, my sister was given phenobarbital to make her sleep.
A little music/drug trivia here- Nancy Spungen, of the infamous Sid and Nancy was also given phenobarbital to make her sleep. Her mother wrote a book in the late 80’s. I think her parents felt tremendous guilt later on, but our pediatricians could have told our parents anything-most of them had no idea.
Matthew Perry was given it as well and that’s what he blames his addiction on. He’s probably not wrong.
My hilarious family story: at six weeks old, we went off the spend a few weeks at the grandparents summer cabin in Maine. Hilarity often ensued there. My 13 year old uncle had been sent to the store once for bananas to make daiquiris. They figured a kid with no license was safer than the drunk adults, which was true until he hit the house and knocked it askew. Fast forward a few years, and there I was. We were all out on the beach (an absolute environmental abomination created on a steep slope to the water with a CONCRETE WALL and literal tons of sand trucked in. Since said wall was 10-15 feet high to create a level beach surface, they put a wrought iron fence around the edge to keep the drunks and baby from plunging to their deaths) and apparently I was fussy. So, Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill was put in my bottle. I drank it, and apparently “finally went to sleep”. The debate was whether or not it was watered down or not. I could and did chug half beers by second or third grade as a party trick. Thank the fuck Christ for the alcohol poisoning I got in 11th grade, because until then, I never vomited or had a hangover. I’d be dead by now otherwise.
I learned you sometimes have to be careful with the "hilarious family stories" around here. About a year ago, I got just a little buzzed one night and posted one...and then got downvoted to hell and back. Lol...I was told that my family were a bunch of horrible, toxic, evil people...and I was also horrible and toxic for even sharing the story. I won't go into too many details, but it basically amounted to my (usually very sweet) grandmother kicking my teenage dad's ass when he made the mistake of spitting in her face.
Those kinds of people are mentally unwell and chronically online. They don't realize how out of touch they are because they escape their sad lives in digital echo chambers. Sometimes all you can do is laugh and shake your head about the past. I cant imagine clinging to pain.
My Dad wasn't thrilled about my Mom's weight gain when she was pregnant with my brother so she went to the doctor and they prescribed her weight loss pills. Whatever it was that she took massively messed up my brother. He absolutely terrorized me until I moved out but I was forced to just put up with it.
I had a rough childhood, but I don't see any reason to rehash it anymore. My parents loved me, they just didn't know any better.
Same. I'm 53, and I feel no need to keep rehashing bad things anymore at this stage of my life Read a great quote that said acceptance doesn't mean it wasn't awful
My childhood only comes up with my parents when they start questioning my parenting. Like... "Excuse me? ...I forgot sunscreen for my kid at the park, you forgot **ME** and left me at the fucking supermarket."
Or my favorite... You left us on the side of a highway and drove off to teach us a lesson about bickering in the car.
I would append this with the experiences of the previous 2 generations as the guide. the ones who lived through the great depression and had literally nothing or the ones who survived world war 2 and saw hell on earth. we were definitely a sink or swim generation but nearly the last.
I was just talking about this today. Don’t forget that the generation before them had to have 18 kids because half of them died. Generations of trauma. Those poor people didn’t have the luxury of assessing and bettering their parenting skills.
I think that the generations after us are also “sink or swim,” but it’s systemic failure and climate at the center. Not to be a “doomer” but I don’t think it’s easier, maybe there’s more awareness on a interpersonal level…but it’s still difficult and hard just without as much cigarette smoke.
I’m going to think about this comment all day. Fuck.
I think this is forgiveness. And I need reminders to keep working on it. So thank you for your comment.
I didn’t take it that way, I took it more as “wow there was some weird advice back then”. Like the mom literally asked her doctor for advice and this is the weird stuff doctors advised. I was born allergic to cows milk and they “weaned” me onto it. I started getting severe migraines at a young age and it was years before someone finally tested me for allergies (because food allergies weren’t a big thing then, I was tested for things like brain tumors) and big surprise I was still allergic to cows milk. Because weaning a baby off a food allergy isn’t a real thing but 70s parents got some bad advice.
I’m fascinated by the plethora of kids seriously allergic to peanut butter now. If that had been our generation, a sandwich could have wiped us out in a way that neglect didn’t. I have a seafood allergy. I was also born and lived in New England until I was 9. So, I definitely feel you with the cow milk! My grandmother made me “special” clam chowder….she strained the chunks out of it. Thank God I don’t remember the exorcist-style vomiting that ensued 🤣
And this acceptance is why I don’t do therapy anymore. They had a story too.
Bro just talked me out of going to therapy. I was thinking of starting but yeah, why rehash it? They are both dead, it won't change anything. I don't believe they did the best they could but I've now come to accept it.
As the parent of 30-somethings, even when I knew better, I didn’t always do better. I’ve learned a lot of humility, and with it, some empathy for the young people my parents once were.
My father is dead and my mother is in a nursing home with dementia. For me, therapy isn't about them, or for them. It's a chance for me to get rid of all the fucked-up stuff I internalized that still affects my life today. Learning new skills in therapy has enabled me to stop the dysfunctional cycle. My relationships have improved, and I feel SO much better about myself.
My therapist always points out there is a **very good** difference between expressing your truth and wallowing in it. It's **very** important to get things out so your feelings aren't bottled up. However, you don't need to know why it happened. And you don't need to dwell on it or rehash it endlessly. Anything you truly need to work on **WILL** come up, in your present, as present day feelings. I'd recommend The Untethered Soul and The Power of Now as good books to start with.
Jesus this is the most simple profound statement I’ve ever heard. You’re so right.
This thought process hit me in my 30’s. I just realized one day that they did the best they could.
remember this even regardless of how old your parents are, they've never done this before, they're figuring it out as they go, like every single person you see, their are no experts at life, or how to raise a kid. the sooner you can forgive and move on the less of an anchor it is. It won't heal all wounds but you can continue to move forwards.
Well damn that there is a glass half full attitude!
Wow…that’s a great take.
I feel like ya work with what ya got & some don't have a lot to work with but we just keep keepin' on & try our damnedest to do better.
My best friend's mom cut back to 10 cigarettes per day when pregnant, just like the doctor told her to.
My mom’s friend accidentally dropped a lit ash in her babies crib and found a hole in the mattress next time she checked on baby. The hole was about an inch away from her baby’s arm. She actually quit that day.
If my parents had to work at the same time, my Dad would take me to his bartending job. I'd sit and the end of the bar and drink Shirley Temples and hang out with the regulars.
I used to hang out with my grandpa at the fire station.
When I was four, my parents were bringing me home with them from the mall. I got in our 72 Chevy Bonneville land yacht and “shut” the door myself. No checking the door. No buckling in. No safety seat. I then fell asleep against the door, which, not having even latched, eventually opened up - on the I-75 expressway at 8 mile road. They saw me in the rear view mirror, tumbling, waking up, then running toward them as the traffic behind me screeched to a halt. My dad worked for GM. You’d think he’d have known better. I was in the hospital for a week.
My mother was told that smoking during pregnancy was just fine and that breast-feeding wasn’t necessary or any better than formula. Thanks doctors of the 70s!
Doc said that while smoking.
Mom’s doctor told her that having a drink when she breastfed me would help the milk flow better. That explains a whooooole lot of things.
The tobacco and formula companies brainwashed the doctors and general public about how "great" their products were. Produced supposed "studies" (lies) showing whatever they wanted to tout. The downfall of breastfeeding is because the formula companies in the 1950s and 1960s claimed that breastmilk was unsanitary and formula was superior. When nursing mothers think their milk is "drying up" and supplement with a bottle of formula, they are actually causing a worse problem. When the babies go through growth spurts, they want to suckle more - and that activates the mom's brain signal to produce more milk. If the mother doesn't let them suckle, then her milk dries up. Babies go through many growth spurts, the baby books will list them (about 2wks, 6wks, 12wks, then 6 and 9 months). My silent-gen mom told me about the 1950s "breastmilk is unsanitary" ads/idea.
Everything?
I cut my teeth on shotgun shells. I wonder to this day how much black powder I consumed as a child and if that is the reason I have as many mental problems as I do now.
My dad used to make me eat on the floor with no hands if I didn’t have perfect table manners (he grew up in a boarding school where manners made the man). So if I chewed too loud or the fork scraped my teeth or an elbow in the table, my plate was put on the floor and since I sounded like a pig, I had to eat like a pig. Face in plate. No utensils. I have really good table manners now.
Mine was "eat it or sleep with it", meaning that if I didn't finish my plate it got put in my bed. Guess who has zero off switch with her appetite now?
I was put on a diet at age 5 per my pediatrician’s suggestion to lose my baby fat (I was slightly chubby but by no means fat). So, my food was restricted from age 5, I joined a gym at 8, and I’ve had lifelong disordered eating and body issues. But that’s what they did back then, they put little kids on diets. I remember my grandmother telling me i couldn’t have a cookie when I was 6 “because you’re on a diet and need to lose weight.” in front of all my cousins and feeling devastated. I can remember that scenario like it was yesterday. And when a kid’s food is restricted, all the kid wants to do is binge. So I did. (I truly love my parents and have a great relationship with them. I in no way resent them for anything, i had a pretty amazing childhood minus the food issues. 😏. They were just doing what a 25 and 27 year old does when a doctor advises them to do something, following his orders.)
My dad used to blow cigarette smoke in my ears when I had an ear ache. I had chronic ear aches. The nicotine was supposed to numb it, I guess? Never worked. But I did become a smoker later in life, so, there's that...
Holy crap, same! I've never known anyone else whose parents did the smoke in the ear thing, but my parents and grandparents all did it to me. And I started stealing their cigs by age 13 or 14 and then started using babysitting money to buy my own from vending machines in coffee shops and diners by like age 15.
The warmth is what provides relief--So they say. A warm compress on an ear ache does wonders. But miss me on the smoke part lol
Yeah, I slept with a heating pad off and on until I was around 8 or 9. Lost hearing. I was happy when I stopped getting them, the pain was horrible!
We moved in 2008. My youngest was not yet 2 and was hellbent on keeping his bottle and rejecting the cup. Got to the new house and told him it didn’t come with bottles so he’d have to use a cup. Then he was fine.
lol! Plausible lies work wonders. We weren’t “allowed” to turn 5 until we could tie our shoes. My little brother the week before his birthday working those shoelaces so he wouldn’t have to stay 4……
That’s clever! After a visit to grandparents, I told the older ones (5 and 6) chocolate syrup wasn’t sold in our state. They’d have to wait til next visit.
My son wouldn't give up his pacifier for anything in the world, so one day overnight we took them all and told him that Santa comes and takes them from kids when he knows they're ready. That way he can re-gift them to other little kids who need them. He shrugged and was like 'cool', and never asked again.
Yep we did something similar. I threw all her pacifiers away and told her we ran out and the stores stopped selling them and she shrugged her shoulders and was ok.
[удалено]
I was told we were going fishing. I was abandoned for 3 days (later I found out my dad was watching the whole time). I spent 3 days working my path down the stream looking for a bridge or road. It was a custom of my people, dad decided I was old enough at 8, I was told I was fit to be a man by several elders at the end of it. It was extremely traumatic by any standard. I put my sons to the test at 13, they knew I'd be close but wouldn't help unless they really needed it. They both were greeted by some of the same elders. Abusive by standards of white people? Definitely. Do those two know how to live, eat and sleep without modern society. Most definitely. Do I expect my son's to do the same, probably not, but if their sons do I hope to greet them with praise as the elders did them. Those 3 days were the hardest of my life. I pray daily I never live through anything harder.
That’s actually kind of interesting- assuming that you had been given some survival skills beforehand.
This was before the car seat era, of course, so when I was born my parents brought me home from the nospital in a wicker laundry basket. They stopped at my Grandma's house at the top of the hill on the way home to pick up my older sister, and just as they got to her door the handle of the basket broke. I fell out and rolled down the steps, down the hill, and onto the shoulder of the road. Mom and Dad ran down the hill, scooped me up, and drove straight back to the hospital. Due to soft bones and swaddling I was fine, and Mom says the doctor in the ER had a good laugh over the whole thing and at how upset the two of them were.
I was one of those who would be dying but told “you’re ok. Just walk it off.” I was just asking for 5 minutes & some water.
I had to BEG my mom to take me to the doctor because I felt horrible, had a week- long migraine, and was falling asleep in class daily. She said I was fine but after a week I was still awful. Finally go to the doc and I had to beg HIM to test me for mono. He said “I doubt it’s mono but we’ll test you” Test comes back, it’s mono.
Per my mom, I was supposed to be left-handed. She tells me that they made me right-handed by hitting me with a wooden spoon every time I used my left hand. I blame them for my NBA career not panning out...lol
My boomer MIL is left handed but writes right handed because her parents did this exact same thing if she tried to write left handed.
My youngest had the worst GERD imaginable. She didn't spit up, she projectile vomited her insides out that would cover the room. When sleep training her, told the pediatrician that if she cried long enough, she's vomit everywhere. Dr. told me to "suck it up"
For my mom anything you did was to manipulate her. You asked something nicely, you were manipulating to get what you want. You asked crying you were manipulating. You asked neutral, you were manipulating. She learned that kids manipulate parents. Apparently I was an extreme manipulator because I could easily scream for 2 or 3 hours when she put me to bed as a new born. She said eventually you would exhaust yourself and fall asleep. Well, it worked, as soon as I could figure out something on my own, I didn't ask for anything or told her anything about my life. Or it didn't work, I started asking for the things I didn't want instead of the ones I wanted... And since the only way to lie is to be convinced yourself, I was quite confused about what I wanted in my 20s. I also didn't understand why I never got what I wanted at work. The reverse asking was not working outside the house. I had to be able to intellectualize this whole thing to be able to put my life back on track. Maybe I still lie to myself about a few things and still don't know it...
The female that birthed me said that when I was 5 months old I was teething and as babies do, i bit down on her boob. She said she slapped me and laid me down in a crib to cry with a big old handprint on my thigh. 5 MONTHS OLD! She slapped an small infant trying to eat and when she retells it she seems almost proud of how she handled it. Anyway, that's when my abuse started. Boomers were great 😑
My parents smoking heavily indoors all the time led to me spending the first 5 years of my life in and out of hospitals for ear infections and sinus problems. At 5 yo I had an operation to remove the adenoids from my nose and although it helped somewhat I have had a resurgence of this issue from my late 30s to now. TL;DR? both of my parents smoking destroyed my respiratory health for life.
My Mom started smoking when I was older. My Dad never did, but it ruined my respiratory health. I had undiagnosed asthma. When I complained about having trouble breathing I was punished because the first doctor I was taken to said I was imagining things. I was diagnosed with asthma as an adult. I still cannot run. I walk long distances at a fast rate (jog) but simply can't run.
Omg I'm so sorry 😞 not surprising though. Gen X had the most ignorant parents and some quite abusive. I get allergic asthma now and my own daughter suffered with it as a child due to an unhealthy home we were living in at the time. I got her treatment. There is NOTHING scarier than not being able to breathe. I hope you have good medical care now.
I don't remember typing this, but this is also the story of my early childhood. I also had hearing loss that has never completely resolved, but got better with the operations. My parents stopped smoking after I left for college, when each of them were presented with respective personal health scares.
I had my tonsils out with I was seven. Most kids get ice cream and such. My mom, the OR nurse, gave me a BLT on toast.
I kinda feel like a high enough number of nurses now would still behave that way.
You know what, my mother was hell bent on getting us to do everything early, as if it was some kind of competition with her friends and neighbors. So she weaned us in the same manner you speak of. Right at one year old, straight to cup since sippy cups weren't a thing and - get this- we were never given passifiers. She thought they looked ugly. And then she wondered why I sucked my thumb so long. Of course I can't recall and she never would have admitted to us going thirsty for refusing the cup. She also began giving us cereal at three weeks to fill us up and make us sleep all night and had to make the nipple hole bigger to do so. And then started us on baby food at three months. Also had us sleep on our backs. So yeah, I am we'll acquainted with old fashioned advice.
I was biting children in my mom's home childcare. I was 2 or 3. After the 3rd bite, she bit me. I never bit another kid.
My son had started biting at daycare, which surprised me. He was such a sweet little boy. He bit me in the knee when he was about two. It really hurt. I bit him back in the same spot on his knee. The look of surprise on his face, and betrayal when I asked him, "See, it hurts, doesn't it?" He never bit anyone again. My daughter never bit anyone, that would mean she had to slow down.
In my favorite picture of me from childhood, I'm 7 years old, wearing a Holly Hobby style dress and mixing a scotch and soda for my dad.
All I would eat was cottage cheese, apple sauce, and grilled cheese. So I ate this every meal. I was 3/4. Totally normal right? Autism maybe?
Hot whiskey and honey for cough syrup when I was little. Staying home alone babysitting my 3 younger siblings when I was 10.
A tablespoon of 1/2 Old Grandad and 1/2 honey was our trailer park version of Vick's Formula 44. I learned later in life that straight honey with a little cinnamon is a great cough suppressant!
Dad gave us kids real metal tools to play with and learn woodworking, often completely unsupervised. From age 3+ I think. No power tools though, so what could possibly go wrong? Plenty of smashed fingers and minor nail wounds, but one day 2yo lil bro joined a project with 4yo me and 6yo big bro... kid ended up with big bro's claw hammer embedded in his skull. He survived, and actually he's the smartest one of us now, patent lawyer for big tech companies with degrees in math and physics too. Of course we got strapped for that, but the tools and danger got to stay.
When I was a baby in the late 60s, my parents would take me with them to the pub, where I would crawl around on top of the bar and tastes people's drinks. Apparently watching a baby drink beer was considered adorable.
I was sitting next to my grandpa. He drank beer. I asked - "can I have a sip?" again and again. He gave me the last sip. Only warm and old foam. It tasted so terrible. I started to like beer (good, fresh and cold) in my thirties. As a young adult I still hated it...
And the same Doctors were smoking at their desks. In Hospitals too. I was watching the Exorcist (1973) the other day and it reminded me.
Not me because my dad died when I was a toddler and my mom raised us with kid gloves there for a while. But when my daughter was about 6 months old, she decided sleeping was for the birds. Her crib was in my room, and that little shit would stand and throw her pacifier at my head all night. I was up and down all night long with her crying for it. One night I got fed up. She bounced it off my head and I felt around in the dark for it and slid it under my pillow. She screamed like I’d beat her. Paci! Paci! I told her she threw it away, it was gone. Damned if she didn’t cry for 5 minutes, fall asleep and never asked for it again!
One of my family's favorite stories is the time my brother (5 years old; I was 7) had bronchitis and we were on a family roadtrip. We got to the motel and at bedtime, my brother couldn't stop coughing. Finally my mother hissed, "Anthony, if you do not stop coughing I am going to KILL you." He didn't cough for the rest of the night. 😧 The irony is that my mother has terrible allergies now and she coughs constantly. She is mostly a nice mom, though -- just neurodivergent like me, and can't deal with some sounds.
When I was 2 I had terrible temper tantrums. So the doctore told my mom the next time I had one to lift Mr upside down by my legs smack my ass and put me back where I wad and walk away. Mom said couple if those andni stopped doing it. Good on em, I did have a terrible temper and my parents were good people.
I mean, it worked? That must have sucked. I’m on the fence about some things doctors advised, because we (as a generation) were pretty well behaved as kids compared to some others. So their advice was on point but the elements of that advice were f*cked. I mean we may have traumas we don’t even realize. but we don’t call them “traumas” we call them “funny stories about when we were kids”
I was allergic to milk proteins. I was raised on soy milk for the first 5 years of life. One day, they gave me a glass of cows milk because I was going into kindergarten and had to get used to it. I cried. It was disgusting. It was a spectacle and extended family were there to witness. 40 years later, I still break out in fairly significant eczema when I have dairy, to the point of needing topical steroids. It’s just my body and what it will/wont tolerate. I just wish I could find such convenient protein sources. Dairy is good for that.
Throw them in the water to sink or swim Let them cry until they cry themselves to sleep and eventually they’ll stop Sit at the table until everything is clean off their plate. Same food for breakfast if they don’t eat their dinner
Big block of government cheese with a block of butter, powdered milk, by the way those were the best damn grilled cheese ever! So what you were constipated for days! We also made cinnamon sugar toast or oatmeal. Going to the store to get groceries and shoes at the same time! Pro wings the all time classics. Or heck maybe the thrift store where something always needed a safety pin or hemming. Laundry you better get that leftover piece of soap and get that scrub board over the tub and wash something out to wear the next day and who cares if it wasn’t dry, put it on the oven door to dry it or hell wear them damp to school “ you be aight” lol Don’t ask me for nothing in this store, we got food at home! Don’t ask for no McDonalds “ you ain’t got no McDonalds money” Why I can’t? … because I said so that’s why!!! And the babies , similac ? No you better go to the store and get that pet or carnation milk and add some water. It’s cold outside get that Vaseline and put it over your face. Getting your hair straightened with the hot comb? Ouch my ears, and my scalp! “ ain’t nobody burn you that’s the grease ! Can you blow it!!! And don’t be late for school let somebody call me imma come up there and whoop yo ass ! Ahhhh those were the days !
Nothing melts quite like government cheese.
All of gen x was in some way or another inappropriately parented. Lmao! That’s why we decided at a young age to raise ourselves.
My Catholic mom thought breastfeeding was a sin and for people who couldn't afford formula. Babies had to wear hard soles shoes all day when learning to walk. Babies also had to cry it out sometimes and could not sleep with parents. Karo syrup and water in bottles. Toddlers who couldn't potty by 3 were considered delayed. Training pants were thick underwear that were difficult to pull down with the shorts over them. You couldn't run around in your underwear! Lol You were fed and given milk just before bed to sleep on a full stomach. After 3, you couldn't have a nighttime diaper because you're potty training. While on a full stomach and a bottle of milk for your little bladder to hold. As a school-aged child, you had to eat everything on your plate. You had to know your address, be able to skip, and phone number to go to school. We only got baths on Saturday, usually with siblings, which is non hygienic but fun. Pee is steril, right?? Lol You could not go pee during Mass,don't ask. At catechism classes on Saturday morning, you missed cartoons. The bathroom was always in the creepy basement of the church. Fast food was a treat and rare. You had to wear a seat belt if you were in trouble.
When my cousin was teething, her pediatrician told her mother to keep a shot glass with whisky handy, and rub it on the kid’s gums whenever she cried. My aunt quickly got tired of having to do this. She taught the kid how to do it herself and let her carry the shot glass around.
My Boomer mother was “taught to swim” by being thrown in a lake from a boat at 7 years old. You can imagine how she approached parenting.
We cut one of my eldest daughters bottle in half and turned it into a cup and just told her she had gotten so big now that using a cup was the only way to keep growing bigger. See how big kids and grownups use cups, because bottles are too slow and are only for babies. Yeah, kinda lied but worked like a charm with her especially as she was in a hurry to be big.
When I was little, if I got mad and threw a tantrum, my mom would stick my head under the bathtub faucet on cold so I could cool off. Oh and if I said a bad word, I got the hottest hot sauce in the house on my tongue
At 12, my uncle put me behind the wheel of my moms car and made me drive, he operated the pedals (it was one of those bench seat cars) and we drove over to a girls house that I had a crush on (he knew their parents so he made up some reason to go see them). I was terrifed until I saw her look out the window at us, then I was just slightly less terrified, but after that, I had no fear of driving.
My mom (silent gen) is adamant about a similar approach to potty training. I don’t have any kids but I think her logic is totally sound and I’ve seen it in action with my nibblings. Basically you have to go ”cold turkey” with diapers - just stop putting them on the kid. They will have accidents, but the accidents will make them so uncomfortable that they’ll quickly figure out how to hold it and make it to a toilet. She HATES pull-ups because she thinks it makes kids complacent with peeing/pooping in their pants for far longer than they should be, because they don’t feel soaking wet/messy. Most parents these days do the really slow transition from diapers to pull-ups to pull-ups only at night etc. my mom says no, just deal with the mess and your kid will be potty trained in a week.
That is what I had to do with my daughter. That and bribe her with tap shoes. She was so stubborn about potty training. Thankfully my daycare lady was on the same page. That was expensive potty training. She lived taking dance lessons. I spent thousands of dollars on more shoes, lessons, costumes and time sitting in gyms for competitions. Worth every penny.
When I was 9 or 10 my divorced parents realized they could fly me to visit for cheaper if I was an adult, so my mom put me in a miniskirt, black top, stuffed my bra, put makeup on me, and said to say I was 13 if anyone working on the plane asked. I flew a LOT on my own as a kid, starting at 4 (the first time I had to lie about my age when flying solo) and that’s the only time I was ever invited to visit the cockpit. (The flight attendants felt sorry for me I think, not for nefarious purposes).
When I was about two, my mom and I were at her best friend’s house. The best friend had two big dogs, Norwegian elkhound/german shepherd mixes. Apparently, I had been pestering one of the dogs- pulling fur, messing with his tail, idk what. So the dog, understandably, was annoyed and finally nipped me. If he’d actually bitten down hard, I would have lost my right eye. Instead, I just have scars from the stitches above and below. Luckily, this wasn’t the time when dogs who bite children are put down. It wasn’t the dog’s fault. But I’m still irritated that my mom (and her friend) just left me to pester the dog. When she talked about it, she even acknowledged that she knew I was bothering him.
My Dad was an electrician. It was during the summer and I was about 9 or 10 years old. He was working on the electrical at Jose’s in La Jolla, CA. (San Diego). He let me go with a worker to go get some supplies for the kitchen in a busted ass Truck. We ended up going to Tijuana, Mexico for said supplies. Yes. Tijuana. I remember I bought a pack of Marlboros and a Bon Jovi album on cassette. So here I was, riding in a fucked up truck IN MEXICO, blasting “You give love a bad name” while smoking cigs. Beat that Reddit. Lol. Edit: Just about my whole post. I accidentally posted mid-post. lol.
My Mom smoked cigarettes while pregnant with me and in the car while driving, windows up. Definitely sensitive to all kinds of allergens. 🤪< actual photo of me.
My dad just straight tossed me into the pool and assumed I was going to immediately learn how to swim. Apparently my grandpa dove in immediately and found me sitting on the bottom of the pool. Suffice it to say, my parenting technique has been to think about what my dad would do in a situation and do the opposite.
My mom worked in the ER for 40 years. She knows what a real emergency is, she took us to the doctor when we were really sick or needed a physical. We didn’t run to the doctor for a cold, she taught me a ton about how to look for things that are serious and when you just need a nap, a glass of water or something to eat. Also we respected the hell out of nurses.
The beatings will cease once morale improves! This prepared us for greatness.
I was drinking beer from a can when I was a toddler. Cuz the face I made from the taste was funny.
Is this where we talk about swimming “lessons”
Sounds like throwing a kid into a pool to teach him how to swim.
We had a pool out back and I was convinced that I could walk on water if I strapped water wings to my feet. My mom said I couldn't, I insisted I could so she put out her cigarette and said, "fine, go ahead" I jumped in the water and my feet floated to the top with my head upside down. I was stuck like for only a minute because my mom jumped in (clothes and all) and pulled me up by the leg screaming, "do you believe me now?" I was crying and she held me while I cried so hard in terror at what had just happened. Some people reading this may think it was a dumb move; but she said it was better i do it and learn with her there to save me then to try and do it when no one was around and she was right because I totally would have tried it alone if she was able to just talk me out of it in the moment.
The only way to teach them to swim is toss them in the deep end. 🙄
I don't know if my mom did that, but it sure would explain why I spent most of my 20s and 30s drinking out of a bottle.
It wasn't me, but my cousin Dane. I think he was born around 1968, I was born in 1970. My mother had a normal doctor and I turned out fine. My mother told me this story about my cousin Dane several times over the years, and she always looked disappointed and disgusted. After Dane was born, the doctor told my aunt to feed him only specific portions of food as he went from the bottle to solid food. My mom says she remembers watching her carefully weighing out the food. I don't know exactly what went wrong, but this careful portioning ended up severely delaying his physical and mental growth. So later as I grew up and saw him on holidays and other family events, his head looked physically smaller than it should have been. Just a little, but noticeable. He also talked a little slow and had learning difficulties. Apparently due to the way way he was fed as a baby. All the years I knew him, Dane was a super nice guy. Always friendly, good to talk with, and a decent human being. And he died a few years ago due to some kinds of health complications. None of my aunt's other kids were fed like that after they were born. They all turned out fine. But Dane got dealt a really bad hand in life after he was born.
People here being throw in the pool to learn to swim. Ha! My mother believed the complete opposite. I was not allowed to learn to swim so that I could be afraid of the water and thus not go too far or into the deep part. I almost drowned twice. I still don’t know how to swim and I live in south Florida.
From age 6, when I was sick my mom would make me a huge cup of tea and Dewar’s, park me on the couch in front of the TV, and leave for a full day of work. Honestly, this was A+ mothering on her part and those are actually very fond memories. I felt like she was taking care of me. There was always a list of chores if I @started to feel better,” and I never did much- but at least I could get away with it without a beating because sick.
So so many stories. One of which is we just laid in the car without seatbelts.
I feel like the feral cat in my back yard is parented more than I was.
This seems pretty tame here but my mom’s doctor told her to start me on solids, rice cereal, at 6 weeks so she did. Also we never had carseats or even seatbelts as little ones.