What where the worst things you had to endure as a child?

[candleflame]

This thread brought back many memories.
I'm not as old as some of you here but at home being cold most of the time and the joy when i was 14 and we got central heating. I still love central heating
Having to go to bed at about 7pm EVERY night - school night ,weekend, holidays. I was the only one of the kids in our street who had to go to bed that early and to hear them still playing out especially in the summer holidays and light nights was horrible. The reason was all children need 10 hours sleep said my mother.
Being compared very unfavourably with my 7 years older brother's talent with maths. He went on to do it at university- I failed o level.
Being told by my father that I was thick and his temper- he still has his temper now age 92!

As a result my kids had flexible bedtimes, hot houses and are always treated as equally as we can do.
 

[SwissGill]

Guyana and Graham

I'm sorry you had to grow up like you did. It makes everything I had to endure seem trivial.

Gill

[Graham47]

Guyana and Graham

I'm sorry you had to grow up like you did. It makes everything I had to endure seem trivial.

Gill

Ah thanks Gill, but to be honest it all comes out in the wash as they say.

It left me with a determination to raise my kids with far more patience and kindness that I ever had so I guess that's a good enough plus. It does annoy me however when people use their own childhood experiences as an excuse to be rotten with their own kids. It's just not on as far as I'm concerned. 

[Rishile]

My mum's beef stew.  I always hated onions (still do) and to be told 'there are no onions in your bit' when I knew it all came out of the same pot and the onions were cut small.  Did she think I was stupid or was she?  So, being told either eat it or go hungry - I went hungry.

Rishile

[derekwg]

 Restored mid 19th century warehouse's on Gloucester Docks.

I pressed the wrong button.

[Guyana]

Yes, thanks Gill. It left me with a dislike of the effects of drink which has stayed with me. I'm not by any means teetotal, but I always say that my inheritance was spent in a pub, - before I got it.  As a Police Officer I saw only too often what overindulgence can do.

[Treetotal]

Having to use the outside loo on a cold winter night and watching out for the spiders 
Carol

[Yasmina4]

Aged 8.  Having my tonsils removed at the hospital in dollis hill London.  The nurses were nuns, comin kf humourg round after the operation to be told by one of the. Nuns that "we enjoy having you here so much, we only took one tonsil out.  We will keep you here longer so we can take the other one out later !". It may be a sense of humour failing on my part but what a thing to say to a child.  Sandre

[Viktoria]

 It is true, we either use our childhood experiences to be better or be just as bad.
My parents had lived through the great depression of the late 1920`s and early 1930`s.

Consequently they had a real fear of those conditions coming back and so Dad especially was very "frugal"---. I am not wasteful and look for bargains but I am very generous. I feel sorry for my grandchildren when they are struggling when in fact they have much much more than I ever had at their age.However society was not so mercenary in my young days and envy and "must have " were not really emotions we felt. All the glamour was in a country far away across the Atlantic and so well beyond our experience. Dad was frugal and we went without the most basic things but my word, as my friends from  similar backgrounds say"W e could cook on a candle and make a meal  from next to nothing".  However we were  never left alone,never went hungry, never dirty,  and had to behave well or else we were smacked. I think it did us good to know without any doubt just what the perameters were.                                                                                                 Mum and Dad went without just as we kids  did . No drinking, both had seen what that did to families  when neighbours` children went without   because fathers had drunk their wages away .                                                                                                                                    I truly do not think many people are really as poor as they think. They have never had to make one egg go between six people as did my mother in law`s family and she lived to well over 100.  It is all comparitive. It must be hard when things like Christmas toys are advertised on T.V in your living room, months before Christmas. Can you imgine todays` children being overjoyed with a new ( made by Mum ) outfit for their doll, or a wooden garage ( made byDad) , some sweets, a brand new penny and perhaps a little colouring book.? We were and all because we only got a little something on our birthdays and something at Christmas. Ofen, dressing gowns( home made)   were our presents and necessary things like slippers.But we survived.We were loved and that was the most important thing and  the children who were not so well cared for get my sympathy.
We all only get one childhood and anyone who makes a child continually unhappy has a lot to answer for. It is to the great credit of those children when they show great generosity of spirit just as we`ve seen here in this topic. There that`s me all sounded out! Viktoria.