Child treated like a servant

[Maxtrem]

Recently, I volunteered to participate in a study conducted by my former university on narcissistic parental abuse experienced during childhood. The questions seemed to revolve around whether the child was treated as a servant and the level of recognition the child received for services provided.     

For my part, I was obviously treated like a servant and of course I was slow, lazy, my job was done badly! I always thought that my mother was just lazy and that was the reason why, but as time went by I realized that my mother was not lazy, I was wrong on that point. I realize that if a researcher is looking into this issue, it is because what I experienced is certainly not an isolated phenomenon. Personally, in my childhood flashbacks, I seemed to be more affected when my mother demeaned and criticized my work than when she demeaned who I was. The results of the research won't be available for 2-3 years, since it's a doctoral thesis, so I was wondering if any of you have been treated as servants and have been criticized and demeaned in that role?   

[GettingOOTF]

I was largely ignored. I wasn't allowed to do thinks like help with the cooking, cleaning, meal planning etc. these are skills I still battle with today.

My father who is the N in the family treats my youngest sibling like his wife in that he expects her to cook, clean, iron his clothes etc. I have come to see he doesn't lift a finger. After my mother died he commented on how he'd never used a vacuum before. He was in his 60s. He engineered a situation to get my youngest sister to move in with him.

I don't remember either of my siblings being treated like the family slave but we also lived somewhere where domestic labor was cheap and we had someone to clean and do yard work.

My father was absent a lot. It's only now as an adult I question where he was and what he was spending his money on. We went without a lot of basics but he earned a decent wage. My mother was drunk most of the time and we spent a lot of time at friends homes. More than at our own. We'd come back from fresh clothes and go back out.

[SparkStillLit]

I had to do all the things my mom deemed "woman's tasks" so cooking, cleaning, laundry, that kind of thing. Whenever she assigned them to me. I never did them "right". The worst  was when I had to do them alongside her. The criticism was endless, and she carried that on with DD. Took it upon herself to "teach" DD, and there is a story about "not stirring correctly" that DD and I tease each other with.
"You're not stirring that right" one will say to the other, passing by whoever is stirring. Between us, it earns eyerolls and laughter. From nmum, it's just one of a litany of complaints.
Oh and btw I still don't do them "right" to this day. Whenever she finds out how I do my laundry, I get "suggestions" about it. Hey, it comes out clean. I probably don't use optimal technique, but I get the results I want. Same with cooking, but there I will say, by all accounts I'm a very good cook. I absolutely hate the task, but I'm good. Still with all the criticisms disguised as "suggestions". Always offering to come over and clean. My house is clean. Quite clean. Still that veiled hint like it isn't up to par. She doesn't even know, hasn't been here recently, but you know. I live here, so how could it possibly be up to standard.

[blacksheep7]

I was a servant to my Pd parents!  I wasn't anymore appreciated, it was simply expected.

Being the oldest girl of four: boy,  girl,( six years before another) boy, girl.
I was a teen with both parents working at that point.   

I had to babysit in the summertime which was normal in the 70's with more children on average in the families.  That I have no problem with.  My chores were  housework, cooking plus ironing which I hated.

During the school year I had to help the two youngest with homework, cook on weekends for lunch plus other stuff that was my job that M could have done.
I was babysitting on most Saturday nights while NF &NM would go out to friends, I had to squeeze one dozen oranges by hand to take with our cod liver oil which was also healthy back in the day.  I'm sure the older ones here can remember.
NF was the boss, he dictated.  He was absent physically most of the time and when present, emotionally unavailable, just doing his own thing, his hobby/project. 

I  ran so many errands like buying my M her stockings/nylons, going to the bank to deposit her paycheck.  I polished all the shoes and winter boots.  I even typed stuff for NF, thought he was giving me a gift (a typewriter).  I taught him english pronounciation by reading.  I was the only one to sew on the machine. 

I'm probably forgetting some.

To much! Yes I can hold a house no problem but I was a servant to them while they were out gallivanting. 

The big one was when they left one month in May for Europe, my only aunt on this side babysat us. She cooked and bathed the younger ones, I did the rest again, housework, laundry etc. 

My NF told his boss his M was very ill,  Not True.   

[Call Me Cordelia]

I definitely remember do a lot of work and being held to absurdly high standards. It was either perfectly clean or I may as well not have done it at all, in their words. I liked babysitting my youngest sister.

There were no regularly assigned chores.  That would be too predictable and attainable. I remember being told that I should LOOK and KNOW what needed to be done. When I asked to do something it may have been met with, "With the house in the state it's in?" Or to clean my room, knowing in advance I would not pass "inspection." Every summer we did a big housecleaning that took a week or two, and involved taking q-tips to every single crevice in the moldings. However it was very common for me to be able to write in the dust on the furniture.

It was very all or nothing. We had a spare bedroom that was simply packed with crap to be sorted. It was that way for years, summer housecleaning notwithstanding. But I was always required to have the decorative doodads I was given as birthday presents and stuff arranged in my room EXACTLY the way my mother said.

As a parent now I have a hard time with chores and my kids. I am forever second guessing myself on what is fair to expect and to what standard at what age. My DH, also an ACON, never did any chores whatsoever as a child.

[11JB68]

I wasn't expected to do much at all as a child. I was the pet. Updm, gm, ggm, did everything.
Somehow I ended up not spoiled and able to cook, do laundry etc.
I know that Updh did chores at home. Yet I have become his servant.
With him as uOCPD, there are high standards that are hard to meet.
Also, if there is an N factor in Updh I though it manifests itself this way, and I wonder if those of you when N parents can relate to this: he clearly believes that certain tasks are 'beneath him'. He is very focused on men's vs women's tasks (yet this is totally arbitrary a lot of the time). He doesn't want to do anything that he's 'not good at' because he cannot tolerate frustration nor embarrassment.
I'm expected to do my chores on my own, but I have to'help him' with his, even sometimes just as an audience.
I prefer to work alone as I can generally accomplish tasks efficiently. He generally chooses the most difficult approach. Working alongside him, it must be exactly HIS WAY. Otherwise there is criticism and yelling.
In Updh eyes ds never does enough.
Updh will make general disparaging comments about people who don't do certain things (e.g. She doesn't make her bed? Well, beds should be made every day! ... Yet Updh has not made a bed since we've been married. That's my job. When I was recovering from surgery our bed didn't get made for months), yet he does not do those things.

[Call Me Cordelia]

Yes, very familiar. I believe both my parents have OCPD as well. To this day I much much prefer to do chores alone, because I have to fight the feeling that surely a companion (who is not my DH or child) is mentally criticizing every move I make just like my parents did. (Cordelia isn't using enough hot water, that isn't clean! Do it over! Cordelia is using too much water! What a waste! You're being too slow, we'll be here all night! This isn't a race! You break it you bought it! ) Just having someone around while I work Is enough to trigger that all-too-familiar mental script.

But that's not what you were asking. My parents definitely had a rigid division of labor that went along traditional gender lines, but I didn't hear it spoken of in that way for the most part, except a lady should never be expected to run a lawn mower haha. It was merely accepted that mom did the cleaning, cooking, bills, and childcare, dad did the car and lawn stuff. But my dad didn't simply mow the lawn, oh no, he had to take three hours every Saturday afternoon to get it to do that crosshatch thing with a push mower over 1/2 acre. Claimed to want a riding mower but blew all his money on stupid stuff so "couldn't afford it." Unnecessary complication, check.

[Lisa]

I can identify with the idea of being free labour/treated like a servant.
I was doing my own laundry by age 6.
I did the cooking.  My Mom knows how to make very few things, bread, soup and a turkey.  Since I left home about 20 years ago her diet has consisted of raw vegetables and toast, recently over the past two years she has been dependent on frozen meals.
I did the vacuuming and the dishes.
I cleaned the bathroom
I took care of the animals
I cut the grass, shovelled the snow and raked the leaves.
I can remember being told that I wasn't allowed to take a break when hungry or tired.
Her demands for me to do these things continued even when I was living 3 hours away, had a house of my own and was in my 30s!  It ended when I started offering to pay someone to come do it for her instead of spending my day off work driving there and doing it for her.

[Adrianna]

In my case my mother was my fathers servant. He is unpd and she was his enabler. When she died he tried to recruit me and I said no thanks, you have money, pay someone. He does.

I had to teach him how to balance a checkbook and that's really all he does is pay bills, watch tv and sit in a chair all day. He doesn't leave the house. His housekeeper cleans, does laundry, grocery shopping, etc. From what I hear he treats her poorly as he is so demanding and difficult, but that falls in line with Npd behavior. The lady at the bank said no one wants to answer the phone if he calls because he's so rude. I'm not surprised. I don't speak to him often. He pays for his narcissistic fuel.

I'm terms of servitude though, growing up I was expected to be an A student, which I mostly was. I don't remember getting "good job" on anything but I do remember once I got a C grade and he acted like the world was ending. I went to a prestigious college and was miserable there so transferred to a smaller one, less well known. He and my grandmother gave me a three month silent treatment. I know it's because it made them look good for me to attend such a high level school. I disobeyed by transferring. It all about narcissistic fuel and having a child/grandchild in a school like that was prime fuel to them, making them look good in town. No concern for me or why I wanted to leave that school or why I was unhappy. My needs did not matter, only theirs.

With my grandmother she has borderline mixed in with the narcissism, so not only was I expected to serve her every need and whim, I was expected to fix her life and make her happy. She also let me know often I was doing a lousy job at it. I was her emotional dumping ground and was enmeshed with her, thinking it was my duty to make her happy. So unhealthy. I later saw she treated everyone in terms of what they could do for her, with no real concern for the person at all. In fact she couldn't even see people as people apart from the service they could provide for her. That's similar to my father but with her there was always a lot of drama involved. She is a master at guilt tripping. My father is good at it too and will throw guilt trips to get what he wants, but he is  nowhere near her skill level as she pulls on your empathy.