Parents who didn't teach basic life skills

[Hilltop]

Yep, add me as another one.  I was never taught how to cook or do laundry.  I was told I would break things so I couldn't touch anything in the kitchen, the laundry, use the stereo, I remember being scared getting a snack from the kitchen at night if I was hungry as I thought I would get in trouble.

I was never allowed to play sports or have an interest or participate in any school activities.  I think it was the cost and also they didn't want to put in the time to get me to those activities.  I was told if I wanted to play sport I would have to find my own transport arrangements to get there and back, it was all too hard.

Even learning to drive.  I got one lesson and was told my attitude was too poor for them to teach me.  When I asked what attitude I had they wouldn't tell me they just told me to work it out.  I spent my teenage years reading self help books trying to work out what my bad attitude was about.  I eventually paid for my own driving lessons from my part time job.  When I think about this I still feel a tug in my heart thinking of my young self so confused wondering what I had done or said to not get any more driving lessons, it was so cruel.

My mother kept my hair really short as well, I think it was easier for her and would laugh when the mailman called me a boy.  I wasn't taught about personal grooming at all.  My dad did tell me to strive to look like a super model as that's what all women should strive for, I now find it all so bizarre and see how wrong it is.

[SparkStillLit]

I WAS taught to cook, clean, launder, maintain the house- stuff my mom thought women should do. Nothing about tampons or pads, I was given a book about that and had to work it out on my own. Not allowed to go to a salon or cut my hair. I have curly hair, but my mom decided that my hair was "long and straight and beautiful" so she brushed it with a bristle brush and cut my hair and fringe straight across. WELL you can just imagine!!!! My hair was past my hips so not so bad, though huge and heavy, but my fringe!!!!!!
I was in my 30's before I realized I had curly hair. I honestly always just braided it or wrapped it up. I finally got it cut shorter, and my stylist said something about it being curly, and I was puzzled. She turned my chair right around and said, "you didn't know you had curly hair??? Because it's not just a little bit curly. It's....pretty dang curly." I had to explain. NOW I treat it gently and embrace the craziness.
Sports? Mom never supported the ones I wanted to do. I did them anyway. She wanted me to do cheerleading, and be rodeo queen. I played basketball and swam. She refused to take me to morning swim practice, so I got up at the asscrack of dawn and I walked to and from. She tried to force me off the team, but I stayed. Basketball was at school (swim was off campus, didn't have a pool, used the community college pool), but basketball she would "forget" to pick me up after games and leave me there at midnight and 1am. Sometimes the coaches would just take me home, though I'm sure they weren't supposed to. I'd call and call and call. I think she would turn off the ringer, because surely my dad would have woken?
I rode hunt seat and not western. She hated that. My dad would drop me, the trailer, and the horse at shows in the wee hours so he could go to work. I would sleep on her back with sweats over my show gear. My mom might show up later. She hated my horse, though. My horse didn't really like anyone but me, either, and most decidedly not my mom. Kind of like a cat I had later. The cat would hear my mom and wait at the door, growling. I had to keep him in the bedroom when she visited. Anyway.
She always tried to force me to do the stuff she wanted. I wasn't allowed to "make decisions", whatever that meant. (Anything she wanted). She laid my clothes out for me until I moved out, but I wouldn't wear them after about 4th grade, even if she laid out my favorite outfit or what I had planned to wear. HUGE ROWS about this. No makeup, which I of course wore anyway, which she then degraded in the car after I couldn't fix it (I'm sure it was fine. Or fine enough for gross 80s makeup). I didn't get to choose my university courses the first time in, or any of that, and she tried to force me to join a sorority and we had a giant row over it until my dad pointed out that if I didn't want to do it, he would save thousands, so what was the big deal. She didn't even know, she never went to university.
I had very little in the way of useful life skills when packed off to university. I learned on the fly. And NOT very well, because HERE I AM. Right??
Oh, oh HEALTHCARE. Heaven above. My mom "didn't believe in doctors". We had ACCESS to very good healthcare, but she refused to use it. I'm serious about this, I think I'm probably lucky to be alive. I know of at least one instance where I had fallen from high up in a tree, on to some rocks (some bushes on the way probably saved my life), and I was knocked unconscious FOR AT LEAST 30 MINUTES if not more. When I got conscious again, I had no short term memory for quite some time. It was Halloween. I also vomited. Geeeee, can anyone say, at the LEAST, brain swelling????? I SHOULD HAVE  BEEN IN THE GOSH DAMN HOSPITAL AND MONITORED BY PROFESSIONALS. But nope. She had it handled. I have had other serious concussions. I'm sure I probably have brain damage. Not that it could have been prevented, but WHO DOESN'T TAKE THEIR UNCONSCIOUS KID TO THE ER????? OR CALL 911 or whatever was the equivalent back then??????
I had chronic bronchitis and pneumonia a few times per winter. Untreated asthma. She would get frustrated with my coughing in my sleep and shove a cough drop in my mouth. Luckily I sleep with my teeth clenched, and I'd wake with it stuck to my inner cheek. No doctor. No choking to death on a cough drop in my sleep, either. I mean, pardon my crudity, but WTF???
Now, if I get sick I deal with it right away, I have an inhaler, my asthma is very mild but sickness stirs it up and I try not to let it get to pneumonia (it's happened a time or 3). I certainly don't sleep with cough drops. I use health care, my kids use health care, I cannot even *envision* fiddling about with an unconscious or even seriously concussed child without a trip to the doc. She used to berate me about how I always took my kids to their pedi or how they took "so much medicine"! Probably antibiotics for ear infection or something. That's another one. I have such bad scarring on my ear drums that every new doc asks if I had tubes. Nope. Just never saw a doc for my ear infections. Had them into teens.

[nanotech]

Not taught to swim or ride a bike.
Not taken to dentist even when in pain.
Not taught to drive
Not taught to cook
Not taught very good hygiene skills.
Not taught to clean my nails.
Not allowed to do dance classes ( The exams cost too much) No one ever took me because I'd  been 'scared' at four - so they never tried again. At 12 I went on my own  with my friend. That was a great dance school. I loved it so much. But when the teacher wanted to put me in for the cha cha exam, I got told 'We are not paying for any exams! Just keep going, but tell your teacher, no exams!' I didn't know  how to tell the dance teacher, I was so embarrassed, so I just stopped going. I always think that if I'd kept on going with the ballroom dancing it could have been so good for my confidence. And maybe I wouldn't have had the time or the need then, to go to the youth club a couple of years later and been pursued by that abuser who ruined much of my teen years.
Or maybe I went to both clubs, was socialised more and wasn't vulnerable to his 'charms'.

No one came to see me in school productions. My mum would tell me that she HAD been there, sitting around the back'.
My neck had a crick in it from the looking for her in the school hall. I remember feeling very odd and strangely upset. How had I missed her? How had none of my friends seen her?
Years later I was rushing offfrom my mums to watch my daughter in a show at school. She told me that I had the option of not going- that I could just pretend I'd been!
Then she said,
' I used to do that all the time, I said I'd been there, and I hadn't! She won't know any different!'
OMG that's when I realised. 

I was given deodorant as a young teenager or talked through how often/ why it needs to be applied. (My school friends told me about that one).
Tampons were a 'no no'. It had to be towels and in those days that meant a horrendous belt and hooks. 
I was given a boy's  haircut. And I mean RAZORED at the back,  just like a boy. My dad would take me for the haircut. That went on for years.
This was because of one time when I was about 4, I said my hair was making my neck hot! So- all cut off then! Forever! Summer or winter!
Hmm how about just tying it up, mum!
I was not given advice on dating boys, I mean NONE, yet I was allowed to date a 17 year old at 14, and be on my own with him. He turned out to be an abuser who gaslighted the whole family and abused me for two years.
That ended with him assaulting me ( I was trying to finish it) and mum telling me, even years later, how sorry for him she felt.
At the same time I got discarded for ' bringing trouble into the family.'

[nanotech]

Just correcting my post, that should have read that I WASN'T given deodorant or shown how to use it. This led to some teasing at school - which I couldn't understand because I thought I smelt fine! Nothing was explained to me. There was a time when I knew I needed it for school, I knew I smelt at school, but I but had no access to it. Then- I used to be allowed to apply it when I got home. Then finally my parents bought me one to use.
This was all exacerbated by the fact that hot water was always on ration. Baths were few and far between and my mum hated showers -so we didn't have one.
Was anyone else told not to have a bath or shower during your period? Apparently, there is no point!
My mum also said it 'drains your energy'?
She was weird about periods. 

Bath water was rationed by the inch. If there was only enough hot water left for dad's shave the next morning, I couldn't have one.
The water heater didn't go on for me.
I think it explains why ever since I left home II love long, long bubble baths with water up to my chin!

[SparkStillLit]

My mom was SUPER weird about periods! I was allowed showers/baths, but I was bugged about how many I took and how long they were. (Now having had teens, they do take rather a lot of showers for an insanely long time. Sometimes I have to shout in there about the time.)
She used to root through the garbage and check to see if the pads I had used were "full" before discarding them, and then she'd get on to me about wasting if they weren't. I think back now about how GROSS and INTRUSIVE and INAPPROPRIATE this was!!! I figured out how to use tampons and used my own money to buy them. Hid them ftom her, because she'd throw them out. I rode horses for YEARS with pads....BLARGHHH!!! Tampons were the way to go!!!!

[Call Me Cordelia]

Nano, I wasn’t worthy of hot water either. Within less than a minute of my getting in the shower, my father would scream in to me that the X River Conservation Society was on the phone demanding to speak to me.  Every time.

When I got to college I didn’t go out and party, I took a long hot shower!!! I was so excited about dorm showers. I remember that feeling of freedom with my first shower. I could buy whatever scented soaps I wanted! Take more than two minutes! It was intoxicating. I still enjoy long showers. I get to be blissfully alone. (Now with little kids looking for me to come out hehehe.)

This is getting a bit off topic I guess. I taught myself everything when I went to college. Managing finances (always done for me, with a convenient “service fee”), cooking (wasn’t nearly as hard as I was led to believe and actually fun!), laundry (also not a huge deal). Really after my first semester I never wanted to live at home again.

When I did come home from college on break, my dad went through all my laundry that I did myself while I was out and REFOLDED IT! Not as gross as used pads but very intrusive! I remember in particular him objecting to how I rolled my pairs of socks together, claiming they would get stretched out. My roommate did it that way and I thought it was smart. That’s the risk of sending a vulnerable young girl out into the world, and the cost of giving you a chance to make something of yourself. Good thing we’re still here to make sure you don’t make serious mistakes. This proves I’m right not to trust you. You have no common sense. Today socks, tomorrow drugs.

I was still dating my high school boyfriend and coming home at 3 AM. My parents never said a word about that. But the SOCKS, Cordelia.

[nanotech]

Thanks AD for starting  this thread. It really does seem to be a theme!
Cordelia- the socks! Haha unbelievable where they place their emphasis.
I reckon he looked at those socks and saw
'danger' -as in an outside influence that you'd adopted!

Sparkstilllit omg she didn't believe in doctors?
I can't believe what you went through, there.
My parents were often against vaccinations. Anything new, they said no to.
They were also, like your parents, weird about emergency health care.

When my sister fell off a horse and was injured, they took her home instead of to the hospital. Hours later, they put her to bed with a dislocated shoulder. It was only when she continued  crying in pain in the night that they took her in. She needed an operation to reset it. 
I saw her go to bed, red faced, breathless and holding her arm awkwardly, and I thought  that whole side of her body looked 'wrong' . I  just thought my parents must know what they were doing.
Silly me.

Hair  seems to be a theme.
When I was 17 and had just escaped an abusive relationship, I did actually have my OWN hair cut really short and stylised - quite androgynous. Think David Bowie Plastic Soul era. I kept it that way for a while. I dyed it red,  but I had to do that gradually. 
Proper hair dye was a BIG  no no in our house. My mum associated it with scarlet women and all things immoral and disgusting. Plus ' it gives you cancer.'
You weren't supposed to shave your legs either! My mum never did.
I bought an  Immac razor with my own money and never looked back.
About my hair-
my mum didn't like it. She used to go on and on about it not being 'feminine', and  would insist that
'Hair is supposed to frame the face!'
Well how about my childhood when it got razored?

[Drawing_boundaries]

So many of these stories mirror my own childhood. The dental neglect is an external reminder of my parents lack of consideration for my physical wellbeing. I have spent a fortune keeping my own teeth. Initially I thought it was a sign of being lower class but I grew to understand it was neglecting to teach me to brush my teeth and provide me with fresh food rather than sugar as a staple.

Not being taught how to cook and then being the butt of family jokes for not being able to cook became part of my identity for a long time. Now I love to cook and find much of my creativity in the kitchen. Every successful meal is proof that I am a capable human who could not cook because of a shortage of skills not a flawed character. Considering we have to eat a number of times a day - its a consistent reminder of my self care and love.

Since becoming a parent I have been re-parenting myself. Each developmentally appropriate life skill I teach my child I rejoice that I am capable and that my child will have life skills that will allow her to find freedom in life and meet her potential.

This thread has given me so much 'food for thought' 

[Call Me Cordelia]

Not being taught how to cook and then being the butt of family jokes for not being able to cook

They never take any responsibility for the mess they make whatsoever, do they?

[nanotech]

Man.   All this stuff is such a learning experience. Sometimes I think that I've heard it all, and then I read something on the site and I'm like, man, another thing. My uNPDm  taught me and encouraged me to tattle. She encouraged me to tattle on my brother, and tell her what was going on with him. I remember her talking to her friends about it and feeling oh so clever and all of them laughing. For me, as a child, I didn't really understand that this was no way to make friends.   I had to figure it out on my own.  Along with this, she didn't teach me basic skills and how to get along with children. I remember feeling alone and isolated at school as a child playing by myself on the playground or in some other corner. And, what the heck is it with water? This is a theme I've seen in several posts.   Parents yelling about or not allowing their kids to use water? I still fight with myself to try to turn off the guilty feelings when I use water. Another skill not taught by my mother was washing my hands after going to the bathroom. I don't remember her teaching this and I don't remember this skill being reinforced or encouraged ever.   Kids used to make fun of me for not doing this. Again like so many other things it took me to figure it out on my own that this is essential basic hygiene. Another thing I learned on this site: my brother and I are alike in that someone can show us  how to do something, and we usually get it the first time around. I just thought that this was the way we were, and now I'm seeing that this was probably one of our survival skills to learn how to do things very very quickly because we were not likely to be shown how to do something a second time.  These stories  are just so eye-opening. Thanks so much everyone for sharing!

The lack of social guidance - yes it's a basic skill that just wasn't taught.
I was always told I wasn't outgoing enough, yet also told I shouldn't make friends because 'they will let you down.'
Conflict and dominance ruled their social interactions.
Yet if a covert abuser turned up, they were given the red carpet treatment. Persons of high social status were also fawned over, unless they did something my mum didn't like- then they would be reported to the authorities.
Many interactions  would turn into court dramas, but the real dramatics by abusers would be  smilingly enabled.

[Hepatica]

We used to go to Florida once a year and it was a long drive, took more than two days. The entire time my parents chain smoked and my mother was scared of insects so wouldn't open the window a crack. I breathed in about 9 hours a day of second hand smoke and every time we got to Florida I spent the first night vomiting. I don't believe it was car sickness. I think I was sick from the smoke.

My mother never did my hair. Often there were large matts in the back and the school children would poke at them and ask me why I never brushed my hair. No one ever advised me to at home and then one day my dad came home and yelled at me about it and I felt such incredible shame. They took me once to a colleague of my father's cottage. A really nice and well off family and it was there when I went to the bathroom that I noticed how terrible my hair was, unwashed and oily. I hid in the bathroom and cried but never told anyone how I felt. I snuck a look in their cabinet for baby powder to mask the oily look. It was such incredible shame. And the thing is my uNPDf was an administrator and we were not poor. My uNPDmother just didn't ever really notice me. She was a stay at home mom with time on her hands and she never once noticed how neglected I was.

I also had very crooked front teeth and my parents had the $$ to get me braces and they ignored that. I didn't smile for years until I finally got my full-time job and paid for it myself and one the best things I've ever felt is being able to smile without the reflex to cover my mouth.

Terrible neglect of my physical appearance which added years of shame to my life, along with the not caring about the smoking around me and the total blank of my emotional needs. Also, years later I developed allergies and got tested. Two came up. Cigarette tobacco and ragweed. So basically from birth I was allergic to my mother's smoking and uncomfortable and they never noticed a thing. They really didn't care. And they still don't. Every visit I had with them in the past few years have been about their ailments and money woes. Never once have they asked me how I am doing.

[nanotech]

Not being taught how to cook and then being the butt of family jokes for not being able to cook

They never take any responsibility for the mess they make whatsoever, do they?

No they don't.
I suffered hugely from dental neglect. No visits and no brushing supervision. I had pain but they medicated it. It was picked up at school and the dentist was so appalled  by the state of my mouth. One of my front teeth had begun to decay. I can remember the dentist sounded so upset about it.
My parents were indignant and defensive about it.
I had to have four back teeth removed and another two filled. Plus the front tooth.

Fast forward to me age 24. The front filling I'd had since the age of 12 now needed to be capped.
I told my dad.
He replied with a gloaty, smirky smile,

'You're very young to be having a tooth capped!.'

'Yes dad, it's because you never took me for check ups, never taught me tooth care and just gave me strong gum anaesthetic to apply whenever  I complained of pain, which was often!'

That's what I should have said!

Dad had access to some prescription- only meds due to his job in pharma.
This stuff was/ is so strong it makes it onto the poisons list. Doctors still use it in many surgical procedures, to numb the whole throat.
Dad still likes to talk about this product for some reason.
If I told him how he misused his sales  samples all those years ago, he would just deny it. I can still taste the stuff as I type. No -one ever asked which tooth, what sort of pain etc. I just had the tube chucked at me while being told how lucky I was to have access to it and thank goodness my dad was so clever and had this job which meant we could get medications like this!

Why I didn't say anything at 24? Denial would have been swift. But also, I think I was afraid  of hurting his feelings! 

I mean, they neglect us, and we are expected not to fuss, to take it, and certainly not to ever remind them about it. 
They have already conditioned us to feel that we are responsible for their happiness.
Once they've done that, control is easy. It's meant to have a lifetime guarantee, but hey, I'm Out of the FOG so dad, you are no longer covered.

[Hilltop]

Nanotech - the whole dating thing it's interesting isn't it.

When I was 17-18 yrs old I started dating a 28 year old who was abusive.  I was telling my mother about how he didn't call, he stood me up and her advice was "you need to try harder", "you need to learn to communicate".  So I tried, thinking it was me. Wow.

When my husband told my mother he wanted to make more money to give me a nice life she said to him "Why would you want to do that for her". 

When I type it out it makes my blood boil.  That first relationship really damaged me and I remember laying in bed for two days after I found out he was not only cheating on me but living with another woman and having a child with her.  My mother came in ripped the blanket off me and said "that's enough of this nonsense, get up".

No teaching moments there at all.  I can't imagine being that cold to anyone.