Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I remember my childhood as not being the happiest time of my life. I wish I were one of those people who could look back on childhood with fondness. I came from a dysfunctional family, and it only got worse as I got into my teens. I wish I had been one of those rebellious children, but I was a very shy child who just put up with it instead of rebelling.
For the most part, I remember it. Pieces chip off though. I still get crushes, but I can't explain it, they don't give me the joy they used to in a way.
I remember my childhood as not being the happiest time of my life. I wish I were one of those people who could look back on childhood with fondness. I came from a dysfunctional family, and it only got worse as I got into my teens. I wish I had been one of those rebellious children, but I was a very shy child who just put up with it instead of rebelling.
Look at it this way, many people who have had happy childhoods tend to feel like their best days are behind them once they get to adulthood. (not all people, though)
If your life is happier now than your childhood was, that is awesome. I like that my days seem even just a bit simpler now than when I was growing up.
Last edited by TJenkins602; 04-03-2014 at 11:22 AM..
Reason: your, not you're.
Re: bullying, I think that most people get bullied at some point. It sucks, but it's a reality of being human that there is a pecking order
Actually this so-called pecking order is often created by insecure people in positions of power who abuse those positions by abusing their underlings to feed their egos. Decent benevolent people don't see the world that way don't get a taste of power and use it to bully people or don't use their advantages and rub it others faces but they actually have a great deal of humility or want to go out help others. So yeah their is a command chain of sorts in the professional world based around seniority or skills and abilities. But that's about as far as it goes and it's no excuse for being a jerk if your in a higher position. And socially there is no pecking order. At the end of the day bullying is lame at the age of 13. Why would anyone think it's cool at the age of 30? It's pathetic
Also, I don't blame people wanting to distance themselves from a troubled chilhood as far as possible. Nothing wrong with that. The only part of my childhood I miss was the era of entertainment I grew up in. I'm actually enjoying being an adult. Yeah there are more responsibilities but also more autonomy. A person doesn't have to deal with d!cks and ******es if they don't want to, they can cut them out of their life freely. Also it seems that IME adults are not concern with the petty crap that kids and teens are. They recognize that there is a bigger world out there and they have more serious obligations. Hell I have a far better social life now than I did when I was a kid.
My first "crush" was on Annette Funicello, one of the original Mousketee
Mine was Cheryl Holdridge, one of the Mouseketeers as well. She didn't have the career that Annette did regarding tv and the movies. Still IMO she was drop dead beautiful.
I was born in 1950. Until Bill Mazeroski hit the home run to beat the New York Yankees in the 1960 World Series, for some reason I don't really remember a lot about my childhood, but when I got involved with little league baseball, YMCA basketball, Young America football, and Boy Scouts, that all changed. I met new people, made lots of friends. I grew up in Colorado Springs as a kid and if there was one thing that I will always remember it was taking horses up to the 5 mile marker on the highway leading up to the top of Pikes Peak. Another time our scoutmaster took us up Pikes Peak around the halfway point to watch the Pikes Peak Hill Climb. That was a thrill! A bigger thrill (though at the time I didn't realize it) was our 7th grade class driving to Air Force Academy stadium to see President Kennedy give the commencement address to the graduating cadets.
But there is one instance (which I've told here on City Data before on a different forum) that opened me eyes to the unfortunate, an ordeal I still think about to this day.
The guys I ran with all went to the same parochial school, the same church, played on the same little league baseball team, Young America football team, and the YMCA basketball team. But there's a story here. It's about a guy on our baseball team that I will call "Jerry." He was a good kid, a good player. He was shy, quiet, didn't seem to really open up to the other guys on the team. And he was poor. He was the only kid on the team that initially didn't wear baseball cleats, but Keds tennis shoes instead. His jeans always had patches on them. He would get teased about it from time to time and it irritated him. But he kept his temper about him.
Our baseball coach just happened to be our scoutmaster. About a couple weeks before Thanksgiving various Boy Scout troops in the Colorado Springs area delivered groceries to needy families in the area. It was set up by the city and various stores donated food, others some clothing and the scout troops would distribute them to needy families. Our scout troop rode in the back of the scoutmaster's flatbed truck. Our fourth stop just happened to be two blocks from where I lived. The scoutmaster told us all to get out of the truck and go to the front door. We did and imagine our surprise when Jerry opened the door. Our scoutmaster led us all in the house and what we saw I think about to this day. It just didn't register to me or anyone else why we would go into a house that didn't have a tv set. Or a couch. They had a radio though and some chairs. It was poor that I couldn't comprehend. They had each other and not a lot of anything else.
As we walked back to the truck I don't remember anyone saying a word, the Scoutmaster certainly didn't. He didn't need to. It was later that I found out that our Scoutmaster (who also was our baseball coach) bought cleats for Jerry around the halfway point of the season. None of us knew it at the time though. Our scoutmaster sent us in there for a message. Message received!
The next day my dad asked me how the previous night went and I told him about the visit to Jerry's house. He just smiled. He knew that the Scoutmaster took us in the house for a reason. He knew.
That's when I started to grow up and the advice my dad gave me that day I still remember; it's never left me in fact. "Don't judge someone until you have walked in their shoes."
We moved house when I was age 4 years 7 months. I remember quite a lot from the old house, I could now draw the floor plan from memory. But I can't remember any winters there, so I think my memory doesn't quite go back to fourth birthday. Oddly, I can remember some dreams I had then.
When we moved, we only lived in that house for a year, before moving again. I remember many things very vividly from that year, age 4.7 to 5.7, which included kindergarten.
My child hood was pretty bad. I was pushed around from on house to another. My family was dysfunctional at best. One side of the family was always arguing with the other side and I was in the middle all by myself.
I spent my adult years has a working 12-16 hours a day 6-7 days a week. After I retired, I could see that the reason I did that was to not allow me the time to think about my childhood. Now that I'm retired, I can see it all now.
My mother has always told me what a great childhood I had and I just stare at her. Just in the last few years have I been able to tell her my real feelings and she just says that my memory is wrong.
My childhood wasn't that great to be honest. I dealt with bullying that made me dislike everyone. Now, I'm very cynical because of that.
I'm really sorry to read these words. I hate it that bullying caused you to be cynical today. I wish you peace in your life. I know that sounds like a cliche', but I do. Things that were done to you as a child changed you as a person. I hope you can find your way back to the person you were meant to be. It stinks that people can't realize the damage they do when they beat another person down repeatedly.
I can remember back to when I was three years old. My younger brother is three years younger, and I distinctly remember when my Mom and Dad brought him home from the hospital. I also remember peering into his crib and thinking he was the ugliest thing I'd ever seen. LOL! Of course, that feeling passed (and of course he wasn't ugly!), but I had been replaced as the "baby" of the family---so I am sure it was my first pangs of feeling jealous/envious. It's weird how well I still remember having those feelings.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
