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When I was younger there were occasions where my mom would take out this spare mattress, lay it on the living room floor and me, her and my older brother would spend the night on it. I thought it was like cool sleepover time with the family.
When I was a teen I recalled those memories. For context I grew up in a neighborhood with gang activity. Turns out whenever the gang house across the street would get into it with a rival gang and start trying to attack each other, my mom feared stray bullets hitting the house. My room was at the front of the house. The living room floor was one of the furthest points from the front of the house. Really recolored my memory. But it did make the loud helicopters flying over the neighborhood all night suddenly make sense.
Childhood is a part of life meant for figuring things out. Well, technically, your whole life is just figuring things out, if you think about it, but childhood is when you learn everything from scratch, as you’re just a new human being in the works to hopefully become a functioning adult.
And so, this journey comes with us trying things, finding out whether they fit us, whether we like them, whether they benefit us or not. You might put it as “trial and error.”
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It was the best summer we had as kids. Kinda f****d me up when I realised my little 7 year old cousin could have come home to no mother. Also thought a lot about the fun we were having while Nanny Anne was going thru hell.
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max_bustamante replied:
Looking back don't you appreciate that your parents made it seem like camping? I grew up dirt poor, but I never really knew it. Mostly because everyone around us was poor and my parents did what they had to. I always appreciated that.looking back, I remember my childhood fondly
Typically, a person goes through trial and error when they have a chance to make choices that lead to wrong or right outcomes. Yet, during childhood, kids do not have decision-making freedom regarding many things.
After all, they have too little life experience and comprehension to make proper choices in many situations. Still, that doesn’t mean that they should be deprived of the freedom to make smaller choices.
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Given how home was, I literally thought that this was how people and families interacted with eachother.
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geekworking replied:
Nothing like being trapped in a car with the windows rolled up and two parents chain smoking. When the headache gets so bad you start to dry heave. If you complain parents threaten to give you something to cry about.
Experts argue that allowing children to make certain choices is highly beneficial for their development. For example, letting them choose their clothes, food, activities, and friends – nothing that really impacts their life in the long run, but influences their day-to-day life.
What it does is essentially makes it easier for them to make decisions, to feel in control of their life in some capacity, all of which is important for their maturing.
Of course, the fact that you let them make a choice doesn’t mean that they make the right one, but as we said before, it's trial and error.
#10
What the absolute f**k.
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Specific-Yam-2166 replied:
As someone living in the Deep South I honestly sometimes wish this was still a thing 😭
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For examples of rather poor choices people made in their childhood, take a look at today’s list. It’s full of people’s experiences from their young days of them doing things that shouldn’t have been done, not realizing the situation as it was, and things like that – all of which they realized was kind of or really messed up when they grew up.
Some of these stories are pretty tame, just some misunderstandings, rose-colored glasses, or childish naivety. Others are basically crimes, like a teenager getting groomed by older men and realizing the severity of this situation only years later. So, there’s a whole spectrum of examples served here today.
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OpalPuff replied:
I just remember the feeling of pure boredom and loneliness when my mom would leave for her classes at the university and my dad would sit at the computer in the garage. If I stepped foot inside the garage I would be met with an aggressive “Go play with your toys!” which made me fearful to ask for anything. I vividly remember choking on a Dorito chip, my dad came out at the last minute, handed me a glass of water and sternly told me to chew my food before heading back into the garage. I remember sitting on the couch in the dark living room wishing my mom would come home already. I was about 4 or 5.
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Yes, perhaps some of these were direct results of young people making poor choices, others were maybe them being put in bad situations by those around them, but it all comes down to the fact that it was rather messed up.
At least some of them make pretty entertaining stories and a means for character growth. And those that resulted in trauma, well, we can only hope that those people managed to get the help they needed to heal from it and move on with their lives.
Do you have any memory of something seemingly normal in your young days that now you realize was messed up? We would love to hear your stories in the comments!
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