Summarize your unconventional formative years and how they got you where you are now

[Publisher]

Poor. Bombastic. Violent. Lots of violence.

By age 4, I was mature well beyond my years.

My pleasures were reading, working, and athletics. Athletics saved me. Boxing, wrestling, football, distance running, tennis, soccer (hated it & still dislike it, but I played it well). Loved boxing. Was an undefeated amateur who received “training” in exchange for being a sparring partner for two local professional boxers. Loved boxing. (My parents came to one fight, witnessed the brutality, and-unknown to me at the time-threatened my manager and trainer if they didn’t stay away from me. That was the end of my greatest enjoyment in life.)

Worked since I was 10 or 11 years old. Loved work.

Unlimited energy. I never got tired during my first 60 years of life. Never.

Always a leader.

Never knew what Heaven was until I moved to The South. Truly Heaven on Earth.

Most of what formed me and most of what I experienced cannot be written here. I have had an interesting life.

[OctoberKate]

Just wanted to echo the appreciation for folks sharing these stories. I had a very conventional upbringing. Like we could’ve been the models for a Norman Rockwell painting. My husband… not so much. His upbringing echoes the themes of some of the folks here, lots of children, absent parent, little to no money, lots of having to manage on your own because no one else could help.

What this has meant for us, as a couple, has been that sometimes we have wildly different expectations. We’ve been married for 23 years, and I think overtime we’ve worked most of these things out. But it still sometimes catches me by surprise when I think “of course it’s like this” and then I realize he’s thinking “why would you do that?” or that it just never occurred to one of us to do or approach something the way the other one automatically does.

And it can be little things - like in my family of origin, eating dinner together every night was a big deal. You didn’t miss dinner. And if there were sports or theater practice or work late at the office then dinner was just later. We sat down together as a family, and discussed our day, and everyone had to share something. Even when my sister was a four year old in preschool, she was expected to share about her day. Consequently, this has always been my expectation. We eat dinner together, and we talk. My husband, on the other hand, grew up in a family where the one parent at home was often working odd hours, kids were responsible for managing food for themselves, some of the older siblings had substance abuse issues, and it was just easier and preferred to be hiding out on your own than front and center in the family.

So while I’ve tried to be less rigorous than my parents, and I’m fine with spouse or kids being sociable and having dinner out with friends, it is still important to me that if people are eating at home, to have dinner together as a family as much as possible. And it’s taken my husband a LONG time to get why this matters to me, particularly when sometimes he just wants to “do his own thing” at home, like grab some leftovers and fiddle with whatever he’s working on instead of waiting for dinner to be ready and sitting with me. But as he’s learned that I care, I’ve also learned that sometimes we can all eat dinner while watching a movie or a game and it’s still togetherness. Or that sometimes everyone’s mental health is preserved if we can just do our own thing and not have to coordinate with each other.

So, anyway, sorry for blathering on. I think what this thread has really shown me in some detail is that I really need to remember that my husband was raised differently, and to remember to give some added grace sometimes when the things I expect as “normal” don’t happen or are questioned.

[Publisher]

I do have some happy childhood experiences which have affected me throughout life.

My family’s love of animals–dogs and cats.

Although we had little, it was well known that my family would care for any abandoned animal. Despite working full-time, I remember my mother waking up every two hours to feed milk via an eyedropper to a litter of abandoned kittens.

Our 120 pound Golden Retriever, Missy, was allowed to roam the town. Occasionally, a family on the other side of town would find her and ask if they could keep her for the night. To the best of my knowledge, she was always permitted to do a sleepover. Several times I remember her being delivered to our home riding in the front seat of a police car. Apparently, the cops would take her on patrol with them for an hour or two before returning her (probably near the end of their shift). (Her father, also–of course–a Golden Retriever named Clyde, was always in trouble. Would steal Thanksgiving turkeys off of neighbors screened-in porches. The cops got tired of his antics, paw printed him, and placed him I the local jail. Made the owners, our neighbors, come and bail him out. True story. Happened more than once.)

When we put Missy on a strict diet, she gained weight. Turned out that we were not over feeding her, the neighbors around town were. Learned that she had several daily stops for breakfast.

[MWolf]

After I finished my undergrad and masters At Hebrew U, I returned to the USA to do my PhD in the mid 1990s, and have been here ever since.

[coolguy40]

I grew up middle class with 5 kids. My dad got his degree in his 30s, so he was behind the curve moneywise. By the time he started earning it, we were pretty much grown-up. I followed in his footsteps, sort of. After college I started out in banking, which I absolutely detested. I finally went back to school in my 30s to get my masters degree in IT. I’m now starting to make money, and my daughter is 19.

[college_query]

I am the youngest of 4 children. Between kindergarten and 1st grade my family moved to overseas, where my father worked for USAID. I was there for 1st grade - first half of 6th grade before we moved back to the US.

We got home leave every 2 years, so two trips back to the US during that time. We spent our other vacation time traveling the world.

I was there when a war broke out, and was evacuated to another city.

When we moved back to the US, because I was so young when I left, I was not familiar with many things like US currency and popular television shows. I often felt like a fish out of water, and think growing up overseas gave me a different perspective on the US.

Not 100% sure how my upbringing got me where I am now, but has definitely inspired my children. My oldest child was inspired by my upbringing and her grandparents and took Arabic in college. She was able to get a corporate transfer to an overseas office, where she’s lived for the past 7 years. She’s getting married this summer and plans to remain there.

My younger child followed in both his grandfather’s steps: my dad retired as a federal employee and had a long and distinguished civil service record; my FIL was a corporate director of personnel and benefits. My S works for the federal government and investigates benefit fraud.

And my father’s work for USAID and later as a career civil servant in the federal government, and my S’s current service has definitively impacted how I feel about current events.

[1214mom]

Funny - you moved around a lot so you have a “travel bug.” I moved around a LOT, and I think that may be why as an adult I have not moved very much. I love to travel, but I would not be happy moving every couple of years, for example.

[1214mom]

I hope your son manages to keep his federal job!

[mathmom]

Well I have lived in the same town since 1989 and the same house since 1999. The sabbatical was just a semester. Moving is easy if you move to a community where you have a community of people who haven’t been there forever. Universities are good that way, the foreign service has that whole community, even if it’s harder to make friends with the locals. (Interestingly when my family was in Uganda my brother played soccer in the summer with Ugandan kids and actually probably had a better handle on some parts of the local politics than my Dad did!) After college I spent a few years in Pasadena while my husband was finishing up his PhD and had an instant community with grad students. It would be much, much harder to do now. But we are taking two or three overseas trips now that my youngest is overseas, and at least one to see my other kid who refuses to travel anymore.

[mathmom]

My brother’s dog was like that. My SIL finally had to ask everyone she knew to please stop feeding him, he was not starving!

[Lindagaf]

I really appreciate all these stories. I feel that my childhood was easy compared to some of you.

Some of my unconventional childhood was conventional. I had two sets of loving grandparents who did very conventional grandparent-y things. I think my mom’s rebellion was partly a product of the time in which she was a young woman in the late 60’s and early 70’s.

I feel in a way that I had two totally separate childhoods. When I lived with mom and the soapstone pipe man, we were very unsupervised. We ran around in our farmer neighbor’s beet field with the farmer’s kids, and we caught crawdads in a disgusting creek. When I was with my dad for vacations, we went to the beach and Disneyland. I preferred the beet field to the beach. I am still a sucker for Disneyland though.

I am glad I had those experiences as a kid. When my mom passed away I found a letter grandma had written to her, in which she was clearly concerned about how we were being raised. I’d like to tell her that I turned out fine… ish😉. Most of us do.

[MWolf]

Thank you for starting the thread - it’s really a fun thread and a great way to see how other people grew up.

[bajamm]

I grew up in a small town along the Mississippi. We did not have a lot of money, though no one in town had a lot of money, and so we didn’t think much of it.

My mom stayed home and my dad was the sole bread winner. Dad sold insurance and taught high school.

I had a paper route that covered half the town when I was in upper elementary and junior high. My younger sister had the other half of the town when she was in 3rd and 4th grade. We won trips to the amusement park three hours away by selling more subscriptions to the paper. Our cousins (siblings to each other) filled in for us when we couldn’t do the route. It gave us all spending money.

There was a ferry that went back and forth across the river all day every day in the summer time. We would ride that ferry back and forth all day until it was time to do the afternoon route. Mom and dad had no clue. We would take our bikes and ride around another state, get ice cream for lunch at an ice cream stand in the other state, and just enjoy ourselves. As long as we were back by 3 or 3:30 pm to do the paper route mom did not keep close tabs on us.

Those were great summers.

We moved to another town between 9th and 10th grade for dad’s job. That ended the great summers. The river is still in my blood though.

[MWolf]

@OctoberKate

it is still important to me that if people are eating at home, to have dinner together as a family as much as possible.

There have been studies that show that, all things being equal, kids who grow up in families that eat together as a family at least a few times a week, are emotionally healthier and have better family lives themselves when they grow up.

[HImom]

We always tried to have dinner together and other meals on weekends as well. when I was growing up with my 3 brothers & 3 sisters, we always tried to have dinner together. That was about the only meal we could manage to gather at as everyone had such different schedules.

Even after we were grown with families of our own, dad would often have dinners at his place and we’d all try to come with our families so the cousins could gather and run around together.

[MaineLonghorn]

I grew up in the southern Church of Christ (coc). Non-instrumental, one cup communion, no Sunday School, no paid pastor, and of course no alcohol, dancing, short hair for women, or shorts. I don’t think any of my school friends belonged to this “non-denominational” (ha, that’s what the coc calls it) church. I could never go on weekend Girl Scout trips because I couldn’t miss church on Sunday. I wasn’t allowed to go to most movies or school dances. I really felt like an outsider in a lot of respects.

I recently joined an excoc forum on Reddit. It’s fascinating to learn that I’m not the only person from that background who is a perfectionist and got stomach aches constantly as a kid. That’s what happens when the theology is based on “works” - everything is about rules and “avoiding the appearance of evil.” So I tried to be perfect due to that teaching, PLUS as a girl, I hated the idea that I was supposed to be subservient and decided I would do really well in school and go into a predominantly men’s field of work.

The dichotomy is that my dad, even though he was a staunch church member, always encouraged me to go into engineering. He also took me to lots of UT sporting events starting when I was 3. I have one younger sister and no brothers. I often wonder if things would have been different if I’d had a brother. Would Dad have treated me differently?

In a way, I’m thankful for my upbringing, because when I finally went to a healthy church, the difference was striking and I developed a true faith. I am so glad I escaped that church when I was 22. It may not technically be a cult, but it’s close.