I had a similar experience. My mother never went to see my teachers with the reasoning there was no need as I did not struggle like my sister (my mother always went to my sister’s parent teacher nights). Other than that there was no acknowledgement for my abilities which made me think they were not important and didn’t matter and it left me desperate for recognition of any kind. And yes this was dealt with in therapy.

None of that is minor.

I got chewed out for writing something out of frustration, over something that was said or done that I felt was unfair. So, I gave them one LESS thing to track me, I decided never to diarize ANYTHING again with regards to my life. At least, nothing while I was a teenager. Of course, I would really rather forget my teens anyway, so no big loss.

None of that is minor and reading it just made me realize (at 34 yo) why I also have a sense of suspicion and being judged all the time. I've always wondered why I naturally feel that way. My mother also gave too little privacy and I learned early on to lie and hide things bc she was watching and would tell everyone in our family. I had no one to go to so I didn't go to anyone, thus never learning how to properly cope with difficult situations.

I feel the same way. I went to live with my grandparent after a stay in Juvenile detention because of a abusive stepdad. My Grandmother would constantly search my room for everything. Not allowed to go to parties or stay out very late.

Ha. This is just like my mom. I said that I was going out to a park with some friends to hang around and play basket-ball. Found out afterwards that she followed and watched me for 4 hours

I can relate to this! My mother never would say anything positive about me, even though I was a good kid (good grades, good athlete, involved in lots of extracurricular activities). But when I made a mistake, whoa... she would tell EVERYBODY, all of her siblings, my grandma and all of her friends and embellish things to make it sound more "juicy". It got to the point that people started to think I was this crazy out of control kid. Everyone thought once I moved out I was going to end up with a bunch of kids, divorced and poor. Well, jokes on them. I got my masters degree, have been married to one man for 23 years, have a great career in IT and didn't have kids until I was in my late 20's. To this day people are still shocked that I "got my life together" 🙄.

NONE OF THAT IS MINOR AT ALL!!! I had similar exp, tho it was my adoptive mom doing it. And I wasn't allowed to have friends over and I wasn't allowed to go to friends houses until I was 17 except maybe 8 times a year for a birthday or something. Now she wonders why I have next to no friends and why I hang onto the ones who r a-holes...

I'm 51 and my mom does the exact same stuff. She buys me things like stress reliever books and journals and then complains that I haven't written in them. Umm, how do you know that? Do you think I'm stupid enough to write my honest feelings and emotions? So I write in the books and I write things like, "I can't be honest here."

If I close my door and I’m not changing my mom will bust in. Everyone else will knock but she won’t. They frequently go through my phone, No music with curse words and if they find curse words they’re gonna force me to listen to Christian music, they have gone through my room before, they come in the bathroom when I’m in the shower and just stand, they make me tell them whoever I’m on call with and if I don’t they’ll grab my phone and check, they talk about my life to their friends, they get their friends to talk to me and get information and they do a lot of other stuff as well. They say I don’t get privacy Bc I’m theirs and they own me therefore I don’t get privacy.

I'm 44 and I went through that as well. Have two younger sisters. One is 42 and the other just turned 35.....I'm the only one that ended up with problems. To my knowledge they didn't get into it with anyone else. If they did, it was without us around. To be honest, as much as that caused me.problems, what I had the most trouble with was associating with my peers. I was bullied every single day of my public school life and I know what it's like to grow up friendless. Compared to that, the lack of privacy means nothing.

I check up on my kid. But as long as she is safe and she knows I'm here if she needs me, she has her own space. Granted, yes, I check her history and such. But thats because she's only almost 9. And the internet is a dangerous place for such a young girl to have unfettered access. Hell, its dangerous for an adult.

The being the brunt of my parents jokes to other people about private things was a big one for me too.

My mom was like this, basically spot on on everything you said. Not surprisingly I have cut her out of my life. It's such damaging and toxic behavior.some of her last words to me before I cut her out were that I needed to grow my hair out and wear makeup and stop wearing hoodies to hide my thin body. I am a mother myself and do not understand how she could have been so toxic. I make a point to be very loving and supportive of my 16 yr old son.

Ugh, my mom did this to us too. We weren't allowed privacy. According to her, privacy was "a privilege, not a right" and I guess the damned Supreme Court agrees with her 🙄 Somehow we were never able to gain that privilege...I've been told to write into journals as part of therapy and I cannot do it. I have such a block about writing anything personal down because I have such a fear it will eventually be used against me cuz that's exactly what she did to us.

Just a random funny story. Mom went through my backpack once when I was in my early twenties, found my white-out in my art and writing supplies, and accused me of sniffing glue to get high. I basically told her she was being crazy, and that if I wanted to get high, I wouldn't have to sniff glue, because I had a steady job and could afford real drugs if I so desired... lol

This was me as a child. And yes it does leave very long lasting scars. Being a 40 yr old adult living with their mother due to a disability, I still have no privacy. Constant snooping, cannot go out with friends, if I do its no drinking and constant phone calls and a damned curfew. It's basically abuse

Not one part of that horror story is minor buddy. Don't minimize having to go through that, I think it could lead to huge trust issues. I wish you well though fwiw.

Doesn't sound minor to me.

Omg that's horrible and I was cringing as I read this. Privacy is important for all of us

None of that is minor. Your parents were treating you like properry rather than a human much less their child. My.mom did similar things and used it against me until I cut contact for other reasons.

A total lack of privacy is not minor, its major...even kids need privacy and the space to be themselves and make the choices we learn and grow from.

Not minor

That's not minor, that's basically stalking.

That is so sad I would never ever crack a joke about my kid in front of them or act that they sound like lunatics

Checking music depends on the age, but the rest is beyond wrong.

No, it’s not minor and it’s not ok. My mother did the same to me. I always said I would never do that to my kids. I have a son who is now in his 30’s and the biggest piece of respect to him was to allow him privacy and to be himself with his own ideas and interests.

I am so, so sorry that this was your start in this life. No irony or stuff. I am just bigheardet sorry.

that is too extreme like really weird extreme

The only thing that sounds minor is the talking about you to others while you’re there, but in context with the other behaviour absolutely major. Even if not in context, it’s not appropriate after age of 3 or 4 when a child im starts really paying attention to your conversations

Kids need boundaries of course, but as they get older you need to start widening them. Give them space to grow and mature and learn for themselves. My Nan used to say children are like springs, if you try and hold it too tightly, eventually it will let loose and go wild. If they can’t make any decisions for themselves it can be overwhelming when they have complete freedom.

Oh, lord was this my childhood. I also couldn't bring up their names around each other, had to lie about seeing my dad to my mom, it was so toxic and sad. It took my mother getting a terminal illness for them to bury the hatchet, and when my mom died, my dad regretted all of that time wasted hating each other :(

This is quite sad. My parents are the complete opposite, teaching me a 3 hour long life lesson when ever I breathe. I don’t think I like it either way tbh

Especially #2. I have a difficult relationship with food because my parents insisted we eat everything on our plates.

It’s sad because a lot of the time it’s not on purpose. My besties mum was very insecure because of her mother growing up, and she genuinely tried not to let it affect her daughter. But her behaviour was always very…..on display. Like she was always very clearly unhappy and didn’t eat much, as a result my bestie now has body dysmorphia

I was raised like this. When I had my son I was determined to not be that parent. I told him, as long as he was respectful, he could tell me if I made him angry and why and he could tell me if he thought I was wrong or made a mistake about something. We had, and still do, an amazing open relationship where he always felt he could talk to me about anything.

I don't understand punishing kids over grades. It just pushes kids to cheat and pay more attention to the grades and not the material they're learning. If kids are struggling then there's likely other causes and not their other activities.

Or glossing over anything good and focusing in and hammering away on anything not good." You got an A in biology, we'll whoopty freaking do...but you got a D in math and you have to do better and blah blah blah go get the belt..."

I feel this one. My folks tried all manner of punishments to make me get better grades. Found out in my late 20s I have ADHD, along with some related issues. No amount of punishment was going to help. Not a fun time to go througj.

Denying is the worst imo because is just makes the accusers out as liars when all we wanted was an apology :(

I have done something like "here is a good place for my birthday, it costs ___ for 5 people, and it would be fun!" They laugh, and said "Ok, maybe!" I just felt silly. It sucked.

One trillion percent this. About 5 years ago my parents sold some property & my dad asked us to send him a break down of all our debt. When I was going over it with him he was like "how did you get so far in debt?" Like. Very disappointed voice. "You never talked to us about money. You never talked to us about saving. You never talked to us about investing. Not once. Money was never brought up." He didn't even have to think about. He said "you're right." That alone blew me away. In wasn't an unmanageable amount but my parents were the type they paid credit cards in full every month. Also, In my family it's "ours" not "theirs & mine." I think that's really messed my brother & I up, if I'm being honest. We didn't have to take responsibility. We also didn't know my dad was going to run off with a mistress & screw us either. It kills me watching my mom having to pinch pennies. I give her gifts all the time. I bought her a new car & that felt amazing.

I’m worried my sister is doing this one, the twins are nearly 11 and can’t use a microwave or anything. Its a massive contrast to me and her at 5&9 making pancakes unsupervised and alone at home. She says the upbring we had made her paranoid etc, but we never burnt the house down or f****d up, we learned so many life skills ahead of people our age out of necessity. Maybe she wants them sheltered for that reason though. They are at the point now where they wanna walk to school alone but can’t, I’ve tried to convince her. They need some freedom or they won’t survive out here in this shithole of a world

I’m so sorry. I hope your doing on now and away from your abusive mother

I can relate. My mother started asking me why I couldn't be more like my sister from the time I can remember. I was born on her 4th birthday, but we are polar opposites. She never went outside, never got dirty, was never noisy, in other words, perfect. I was very independent, a daddy's girl, but not in the traditional sense. I was a tomboy who wanted to do everything with him, and my mother hated it. Until the day she died, she hated it.

No baby it’s not your fault. Don’t ever believe that . It’s the insecurity and the immaturity of the parent saying this to you .

My parents let me eat how much I wanted all the time, which was always too much. The most they did was show me a diet I should do at the age of like, 9 but never truly helped me stick with it. Now that I'm older, I hate myself and how unhealthy I am, but due to some issues, I've never been able to get on a diet. Please help your kids stay healthy so that they don't end up like me...

Damn now I wish I had a Reddit account so I can be this persons friend.

My parents haven't taught me to do anything but instead of it being because they didn't want me to grow up they just... didn't teach me anything. Then i annoyed my parents foe being useless

my mom in a nutshell.

I feel your pain. I haven't seen my abusive sibling since 1993. I was forced to talk to him in 1999 when my father died, and the police had to get involved. This was over the phone. Jerry Springer meets Cops.