Describing your childhood.

I had ups and downs in my childhood. But we all do. I try and remember the fun stuff and happy times. Iam sure there are rough times that shaped me as a grown up. THough I cannot recall any at the moment.

i had wonderful grandparents. things weren't too bad till like your friend my parents started fussing & fighting all the time. when i got to be a teenager i was miserablr at home. had hard feelings toward both my parents & didn't ever get along w/them very well from then on. staying together for the children as i hear so many people do is a crock. if children have to live in that it's surely not worth it. they aren't doing it for the children anyway. altho they are miserable they don't want to disrupt their lives & start over. it's a sad thing what all that crap does to kids. i swore mine would never be raised in that & they weren't. i raised them by myself but we made it.

My boyhood was idyllic, rj1, small town where everyone knew everyone. It was not too different than the Cleaver home. Parents were always involved, hard working, community minded and responsible.

Weird, strange, sometimes Hell, and full of surprises. My father left my mother, I was raised mostly by my grandmother, my mother's boyfriend was married to another woman when they gave birth to my brother, my brother was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at the age of 12. I have had Allergies and Asthma all my life. My mother's boyfriend smoked, was a terrible drinker, and he verbally abused my mother, my brother, and myself. I was never very smart. I had to work hard in school. I was not pretty. In fact, I was teased for my appearance, actually, I was teased for everything. I had a talent in singing and in writing. I think that all of my problems have made me stronger.

I've thought about bringing up the topic if our childhoods as a discusison but I was never able to think up a good way to ask the question. My childhood was a little disappointing. It was as bad as some people have experience but it was far short of idylic. There was a lot of criticism in our house. I was shy by nature and I think I absorbed a lot of stuff and didn't know how to stand up for myself. Well, sometimes I did, but it didn't change anything, or anyone. To this day I am still dealing with some of the same issues. I am the one who lives closest to my father. My father is the one who brought the criticism into the family. I think our relationship is somewhat better now, but I still have some issues with him.

I describe my childhood as dysfunctional at best. My mother made my sister and I wards of the state when we were very young. I was in foster homes from age 5-10, a school for emotionally disturbed children from 10-12, and home with mother and stepfather who sexually molested me 12-16. I'm just amazed sometimes that I've turned out as well as I have, although I've been in therapy most of my adult life. The good thing about my childhood is that I have compassion for people who have similar challenges.

Without going in to any major detail I would describe my childhood as horrendous. I had to go through things that no child should even know about, let alone be subjected to. Things picked up during my teenage years when I ran away and was put in to foster care. My childhood definately has affected the rest of my life in a very negative way. It has only been recently though (almost twenty years later) that I have accepted that fact. I suffer with depression, have had a mental breakdown and generally found it hard to maintain relationships. I'm not bitter about it. You just have to get on with it.

i had alot of fun with my sister and brother and we were pretty close in age. then my younger sister came along when i was 7 and it was my first experience being around a baby and i found i really liked it. my mom was really strict but she was a really good mother and housewife and she cooked meals every night and kept a spotless home. my dad worked hard and we did not see him much because of that but we had two lovely homes and a pool in each home before they divorced when i was 13 and to me that is when my childhood came to an abrupt end.

Hi rocketj1, i can remember when I was yet very young and my father was not yet a Christian, He keeps on drinking with friends and my mother is always upset.. hehehe.. But when my father is drunk, he just sleep anywhere that is where my mom is so upset because she is having a hard time looking for my father when he is drunk. I am so grateful that my father became a Christian when I was about 11 and all the drinking and smoking had stopped. If maybe he was not converted into Christianity, I will have same problem with what you described here. God is so good.

my wasn't too happy at all. i grew up with lot of fighting in school at home. in school i was bullied alot up to like 8 th grade, so i had to fight alot in school and at home i had dumb brother who had issues we fought alot as well.

Mine was not happy, I always had enough to eat and cloths to wear but loving care was in short supply. But this has made me strong and it made me aware of how important love is to children, I hope i did better with mine.

In my childhood, well.. It was alright. I had everything I needed and wanted.. But when it comes to parents, I got used to seeing my dad sometimes and always seeing my mom. We were in Japan then, I was born there. Six years later we went to the Philippines then it was still like that, my dad's too far away and I would always observe that my mom has like, problems about my dad. It has affected my life in a way that I don't mind so much if I don't see my father daily. I am very close to my mom and very protective of her. I'm very much attached to my mom. Sometimes my dad would even say that I only love my mom and not him. You know, once my mom told me that when she gave birth to me, my dad wasn't around. She had to go through giving birth alone without any support. I checked my childhood pictures. I think I only saw like three pictures of me and my dad. Majority of my pictures were solo, with my mom, and with my parents' friends who looked after me. Most of those who looked after me were men. It was as if these men I barely know now, cared for me or knew me much more than dad had. So there. I'm a mommy's girl. I love my mom. We've got a great bond. She can be my best friend. She's really cool. I guess I'm pretty one-sided when it comes to parents. I can't help it.

When i look back, i feel that my childhood was the happiest period in my life. I was so carefree and my parents showered us children with a lot of love and care. I had great friends and i am still in touch with some of my childhood friends. We all sit together and talk about our childhood days . I feel a good childhood brings the family together. I am very close to my parents ,brother and sister, and no one can take away those memories from us.

I had an almost "idyllic" childhood. My dad was a pastor and very busy but my mom was always there for us and we knew Daddy loved us. We were not wealthy with money (what pastor who is not a tv evangelist is?) but we were wealthy in much better ways. I rarely witnessed even a cross word between my parents and never, ever an argument. My parents made sure all our needs were met, both physically and emotionally. That did not keep us from making a few bad decisions when we were on our own but we are both in our 50's and have raised successful, wonderful kids. We had a great childhood! Most of all, our parents gave to us a knowledge of our Savior Jesus Christ and brought both of us to a faith in Him. As a direct result of our up-bringing, 3 of my parents' 5 grandchildren are missionaries on the foreign mission field. The other 2 are wonderful, successful adults.

my childhood had lots of problems, from poverty to parents who didn't want me, it is all written in my book,

Hi rocketj1! I am glad to know that you had a happy childhood! I do hope and pray that your close family member will be able to completely forgive the past so he can have some peace in his/her heart. I do have a happy childhood. Oh there were some problems too while growing up but if I will weigh the good and the bad, bad is negligible compared to the happy times my brothers and I had when we were young. Take care and have a wonderful day! lovelots..faith

Oh to the world, we appeared to be one big happy family...kind of like you'd see on tv. We definitly had some dysfunctional going on but what family doesn't. It was tough at times and ya, I could air it all but in the end you grow up and you learn from each other. It was not abusive although "technically in this day, some would say so. We were a very close family but my parents were not perfect...us kids were not perfect at all. My parents had marital problems. I learned from them just what I didn't want. I think all families have a certain amount of dysfunction....we are human. Unless there is some serious abuse going on then I'd say they were the typical family.

For me things went quite good( Thank God )...It was fun. I grew up on a small island in Maldives in a friendly neighborhood. I can say.. life was good. :)