Did you get coddled when you were a teenager?

[NovaKart]

I always felt like my mother cared a lot about me so we're very close but I think she wasn't such a good parent really beyond that. I was mostly raised alone in front of a TV set. That's what I looked to for company and even now I often have the TV on just for the noise to feel like someone is around. My older sister is a lot older than me and was mostly out of the house when I was little before she moved away and my younger half sister is a lot younger than me so I didn't have a lot of family around.

I was mostly left to myself so if I wanted to have cereal or popcorn for dinner and just told my mom when she got home we didn't have any homework that was just fine.

At my father's house, it was a lot more structured and I went there a lot too but we were never as close. I stayed with my mom more. They were probably better parents in a way but to this day, when I go there, I feel like they just don't care about me. I'm just a guest. Even now when I'm there I feel nervous, like I'm always doing something wrong. They will find a problem with the way I'm eating, I'm coughing too loudly, they don't like the way I sit, the clothes I'm wearing, etc.

They're the typical WASP family. You just sit there at the dinner table and try to act like you're normal people and put on a nice front while drinking a lot of red wine and trying to forget how much you resent each other. I end up looking at the overpriced crap my stepmother's cocaine addicted designer brought in that is supposed to show we're a sophisticated family living in Kentucky.

I do care about them a lot because they are my family but I really can't stand them for longer than a couple days. I don't know why I'm sharing something this personal.

Anyway, there's one really strange thing about living at my father's house. We had an actual human skull that me and my sister used to play with when we were kids. My father got it in medical school. Once my sister brushed its teeth to try to make them shinier. It seemed totally normal to us at the time but looking back on it, it does seem really weird. He never let us put it up for Halloween decorations because he thought it was disrespectful. Actually, he might have just thought the neighbors would think that was just too weird.

 

[BenitoChavez]

I was given everything I ever needed, and most of what I wanted, so you could say I was coddled. But then again I was the youngest of 7 kids so I didn't get a lot of attention from my parents, so I grew up to be fairly independent. Plus being teased by my siblings taught me to have a thick skin.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Anyway, there's one really strange thing about living at my father's house. We had an actual human skull that me and my sister used to play with when we were kids. My father got it in medical school. Once my sister brushed its teeth to try to make them shinier. It seemed totally normal to us at the time but looking back on it, it does seem really weird. He never let us put it up for Halloween decorations because he thought it was disrespectful. Actually, he might have just thought the neighbors would think that was just too weird.

I've been reading random reddit stuff a lot these past couple of weeks, and I've learned that kids say/do the weirdest things. Sometimes it's cute weird; sometimes it's WTH weird; sometimes it's plain demonic creepy weird.

 

[Zack]

I've been reading random reddit stuff a lot these past couple of weeks, and I've learned that kids say/do the weirdest things. Sometimes it's cute weird; sometimes it's WTH weird; sometimes it's plain demonic creepy weird.

90% of the time it's a lie told for karma.

 

[cybrxkhan]

90% of the time it's a lie told for karma.

I know.

But I know from experience some of them must be true. I had some pretty weird thoughts going through my head growing up. Thankfully I grew up. In my defense, I didn't know they were weird.

 

[Goodfella]

I do care about them a lot because they are my family but I really can't stand them for longer than a couple days. I don't know why I'm sharing something this personal.

Personal posts make the forum more interesting.

 

[timtofly]

As long as you are not making a point?

I was the oldest of six, and I was never "coddled" unless being left alone to one's own desire is a form of coddling. I was practically allowed to leave the house and explore the world, since I could walk. The only time I had to tow the line was out in public (with the family) and then I endured the punishment, for being assertive in public. Probably why I shy away from being outgoing in public, but not afraid to do so online.

The weirdest thing about growing up was I could basically go any where I wanted (guess they did not think I would be brave enough to go far enough to get lost) but I could not go into any other kid's house, which translated in my mind (do not make any friends). I figured out early that if they had no clue where I was, how would they know if I had gone into another house or not. So I never asked for permission to do things, seeing as how I already figured out what was allowed and what was not. Yes, I went into other people's houses and they never found out.

My question about being "coddled" is there such a thing as a strong parent child bond? I don't seem to have one with my parents, although despite my upbringing, somewhat of a bond formed much later in life with my parents. I have three children, and raised them totally different than I was raised, but sometimes, I wonder if there is even a bond with them.

Happy Fathers Day.

 

[Borachio]

My question about being "coddled" is there such a thing as a strong parent child bond? I don't seem to have one with my parents, although despite my upbringing, somewhat of a bond formed much later in life with my parents. I have three children, and raised them totally different than I was raised, but sometimes, I wonder if there is even a bond with them.

The parent-child relationship is interesting. An overbearing parent can be as bad as an indifferent one, I think.

Yet the relationship must be one of the most important we experience.

A good one is possibly one that is simply taken for granted - like the air you breathe. So maybe it's not a bad thing that you're uncertain whether there is a bond or not?

Which isn't to say that people should take each other for granted. I don't think they should. I think there's a subtle difference between taking the relationship and taking the person for granted.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Coddled, no. Ignored by my mother? Yes. My dad spent time with me when he was home, and even gave up part of a hockey game to take me to a theatre rehearsal once (considering Gretzky was still an Oiler then, that was major). My grandfather never coddled anyone, and my grandmother pretty much raised me. She was good to me during my teen years, but I wouldn't call it coddling.

 

[Quackers]

I don't think I was coddled growing up, it was even worse then that. Once I got to secondary school (Age 11), I was basically left to do my own thing. I didn't really have any guidance after that. I was free from any adult input. I wouldn't outright call it neglect because all my material needs food, warmth, shelter, clean house, clean clothes were all met. It was an absence of parenting.

 

[Borachio]

all my material needs food, warmth, shelter, clean house, clean clothes were all met.

Must be a British thing, Mr Q. This was pretty much my experience, too.

"You're alive, fed, and clean. What more could you want?"

I don't think it was willful neglect at all, though. I don't think my parents got as much as enough food and warmth themselves when they were young. Never mind any other sort of input. So, I don't think they knew how to do anything else but provide the basics for their own children.

 

[downtown]

I think it is far to say that I was, but not by my parents. My dad was mentally ill, and by this point, he became occasionally abusive, and we (my siblings and I), had to babysit him more than he parented us. He died when I was 19. We dealt with some real *grown-up stuff* then. My mom would have been too busy to spoil us, and that wasn't her temperament.

But that was pretty much it, since I grew up in fantasy land. My hometown was so safe nobody even bothered to lock their car doors, let alone their houses. Nobody was poor. We had the most screwed up family of anybody we knew, an any kind of exposure to social problems, poverty, divorce, and really, all kinds of real-life, grown-up issues, was mitigated. The problems of the world were pretty academic, because we had so little exposure to them.

I moved to Washington DC right after high school, and have spent virtually my entire adult life living i major US cities, which couldn't have been a more different experience than where I grew up.

 

[Traitorfish]

Pretty sheltered, but it's hard to tell how much of that was my parents and how much was my own aversion to the world outside of my bedroom. My parents aren't particularly overbearing by nature, and I was the oldest of five children, so I could probably have exercised a lot more freedom if I'd wanted it. (As it is I spent my entire adolescent indoors playing video games.)

 

[Hygro]

Coddled? Dunno, I had a weird childhood, it's hard to say. I was pretty sold on good behavior most of the time. My mother took the time to explain things very rationally, I thought that was cool, but it meant I was highly averse to doing anything against most rules because I'd have a very long, interwoven narrative of all the kinds of consequences play out in my head: how people would feel, who would be affected how, what kind of trouble one could get in, what kind of permanent injury one could suffer, and so forth.

 

[Farm Boy]

I'd say yes. Never really made a habit out of cooking for myself or doing my own laundry. Though I certainly can do those things, they're just not on my list of things I think of doing.

 

[warpus]

No, but they weren't tough enough on me. They allowed me to make my own mistakes and to do things that make me happy, within reason.

If they had the money, I bet I would've turned out a bit spoiled.. but mind you they are not materialistic parents at all, so maybe not.

All in all their parenting methods seem balanced enough in retrospect.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Positively mollycoddled!

 

[Pegasus_77]

I was highly averse to doing anything against most rules because I'd have a very long, interwoven narrative of all the kinds of consequences play out in my head: how people would feel, who would be affected how, what kind of trouble one could get in, what kind of permanent injury one could suffer, and so forth.

I am also afraid to break the rules. Guess I cant be a boss since I am not that adventurous enough.

 

[Pegasus_77]

I'd say yes. Never really made a habit out of cooking for myself or doing my own laundry. Though I certainly can do those things, they're just not on my list of things I think of doing.

I learned how to fry an egg when I was a second grader. I then loved cooking. it made me feel great when my parents praised me for it.

 

[timtofly]

Perhaps this is a left over from concepts of hunter/gatherer and domestic mentalities. HG minded people do not coddle their children, while D minded people do. They both have strengths and weakness, but not in a complimenting way. Neither mentality has a better way of doing things over the other and both are equally helpful and harmful if implemented via the strengths or left to the weaknesses.