What were you like as a kid?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I was a very responsible child. Either that, or my parents didn’t care about me. I choose to believe I was a responsible child. I was the first of all my friends to do all those little independant things - to get the bus on my own, to be left home alone, to go into town on my own. When I was nine I would get the bus into town and go to the cinema on my own. I saw the Mutant Ninja Turtles movie twice. That cinema’s closed now. They turned it into a bingo hall.

I got to stay home alone from about the age of ten. I never got in any trouble. I like being on my own. Or I had friends over and they’d lie and say that my parents would be watching us. Charlotte and I smoked while our friend Sarah coughed dramatically.

Despite being small for my age, I was very persuasive. I smoked from the age of eleven. I got cigarettes by conning the man at the newsagents into thinking I was an abused child whose mother would beat her if she didn’t bring home her cigarettes. True story. My mum found my cigrettes once and marched down to the newsagents and screamed at him, confirming my cleverly painted picture of her as a psycho. Don’t worry, I’m not proud of this.

But I was never the kind of kid who snuck out or anything. I never had a curfew and it always just made sense to me to simply do what I supposed to and actually told my parents where I was going and what time I would be home, or if I was staying at a friends. I never saw the point of worrying them unnecessarily.

My mum went into hospital when I was 14 and spent several years in and out of them. My dad and I worked out a pretty good system whereby we lived around each other. He didn’t worry if I didn’t come home and I didn’t worry if he didn’t. And I wasn’t out stealing cars and taking class A drugs. I was just out with friends. Doing class C drugs. We lived that way for four years until I left for university, other than the interludes when mum came home. In some ways it was a pretty good way to be a teenager.

I was an independant kid. What were you like?

2

Short. I was short as a child. But I’ve outgrown that.

I learned early that if everyone else did something that was against the rules, and I mean everyone, and didn’t get caught no matter how many times they broke the rule, the first time I tried it, I’d get caught. So from very early on, I was (mostly) a rule follower. This played in my favor, since then I got a reputation as a “good kid” and then I learned how to cash in on that rep to get away with a (very) few things.

3

I had third child syndrom really bad. My parents practically let me juggle knives. They knew all the tricks so I didn’t get a way with anything. I didin’t have a curfew because they knew all of my friends had to be home before midnight, and I wasn’t going to just stay out by my self. I was quite well adjusted, but I can not stand authority. Maybe thats why I became a psychology instructor.

4

The same, only shorter.

5

I was so shy I was practically catatonic.

6

Scrawny, clumsy, and homely. Smart, but not as smart as I thought I was. Cripplingly shy and self-conscious. Obedient and quiet on the face but sneaky in rule-breaking.

In other words, pretty much the same as I am now, minus the scrawny part.

7

I was the last of three children (I have two older sisters), so I wasn’t put into a position of responsibility or authority like my sisters were. I don’t know if my birth rank has anything to do with it, but I grew up very shy and easily offended. I was one of the oft-picked on kids and I never had very many friends. I was an outcast in the eyes of most of my classmates as I didn’t share their interests in sports, superheroes, collecting bugs and freaking out the girls with them, etc. I was mostly solitary in my activities. I liked to read books and play with my Legos and my Hot Wheels cars and I’d play my Atari games.

Compared to all the trouble my friends got in I was quite well-behaved and rarely got in any sort of big trouble. My biggest behavioral problem was my short temper and my absolute intolerance towards criticism and accepting punishment when it was meted out. I never smoked/drank or had girlie mags under my bed (until I was 15 for the latter). I rarely sneaked out at night and for the most part I got decent grades. I wasn’t as adventerous as most other kids as I feared getting in trouble. I never tried to sneak a peak in the girls’ locker room, for example, or get in on any school pranks. I respected my elders but resented those who didn’t respect my sensitive feelings. Most of the people I knew had divorced parents and in retrospect I imagine their family lives weren’t as stable as mine (my parents were and still are happily married). A lot of people tell me I lived a sheltered life and missed out on a lot of opportunities to learn about what “real life” is. From what they told me I’m glad I never had to experience a lot of these things.

8

Fat, loud, obnoxious, funny. More or less what I am like now, but shorter and louder.

9

I’m the firstborn of five and I was such a goody-goody! The whole Catholic guilt thing really kept me in line. I was also kind of shy until I got to know people - unfortunately, that shyness kept me from making too many friends, but the ones I made were my best audience.

I was creative, writing stories and poems and plays and songs. I directed my brother and sister (before the last 2 sisters were born) in a play that started with my brother sitting upside-down on a small rocking chair, wearing a football helmet. I don’t think Broadway was ready for my innovative dramatic technique.

I wanted to be a dancer, but there was no spare money for lessons. So we got hand-me-down tu-tus from the girls up the street, and I used to swipe Mom’s classical albums and choreograph myself in the basement. I regret that I couldn’t have lessons - I think I could have been a good dancer.

I was an OK student - I caught on to most things fast, so I never developed good study skills - that almost whupped me in college. I had (and still have) a pretty good mechanical aptitude - at 10, I was disassembling and rebuilding bicycles - no one taught me how - I just figured it out. I was the only one of the 5 of us who Dad allowed to use his tools - well, the hand tools. Power tools were off-limits. (He did give me my first circular saw and drill when I bought my first house.)

Being the oldest, I had to “set the example” and share with the bratty sibs, but I also got to be in charge - I think I was babysitting them by the time I was 12 and my youngest sister was 1. I learned a lot about responsibility, and I think I was generally more mature than most of my classmates.

I left home at 19, so I’ve been pretty much living my own life for 30 years. I managed to get over the shyness, but I never did learn to dance.

10

I was unearthed by Jesuits excavating the supposed site of the Library of Alexandria about 15 years ago. I have no previous memories, but I had a complete vocabulary and a cache of esoteric trivia. I’ve been secretly working for the government since then, designing such things as Silly Straws™, flys that can navigate their way back outside through an open door or window, and predried paint.

Actually, when my dad first starting reading Calvin and Hobbes, he said Waterson must have been spying on my childhood.

11

I was the biggest d*ckhead in every school I ever attended until I got to Indiana University.

12

I, the oldest of four children was generally obedient and quiet as a child, with the exception of dealing with my 2 younger(by 2 and 3 years) brothers, who were, and still are, generally terrible people. You know the type -do bad in school- on purpose, as I know they were almost as smart as I was, would mess up my room, threw knives at me once, constant minor crimes, they skate and snowboard, if I am watching them after school, they tried locking me out a couple times - of course the one time I forgot my keys they learned that a wooden door will not stop an angry 16 year old. Fortunatly, I have understanding parents, and I fixed the door well enough that they didn’t notice the cracks where I glued the wood holding the dead bolt in for a 3 days. My sister(1 year younger than me) is pretty bad too, but she was off at her friends most of the time. :slight_smile:

I tended to get good at fixing things like this; I also built a number of interest contraptions in my middle school years, including a niftly water-balloon laucher witha range of ~100 yards, several potato and tennis ball cannons, and my crown achievment, a shoulder mounted rocket launcher out of PVC pipe, spray painted olive green, with some wiring, batteries, and an old rifle scope, with model rocket engines used to drive the rockets. Glad the copes never saw me with that thing. :slight_smile:

I tended to very well in school, and then come home with and play computer games or read, when I was not watching my siblings. My parents first let me stay alone in the house when I was 10; sometimes whole weekends while the family went to the beach and I didn’t want to go. I never had any parties, mainly because I lacked the friends neccessary to have a party.
Overall, I never had any major disagreements with my mother or step-father, with the exception of a very strange agrument over my getting a new coat when I was 16 - I didn’t want one, because my(rather ugly and used looking) coat was working just fine, but my parents instited that I get a new one. After several days of simmering agruments, they just went out and got me a new coat, and gave the old one to the local Good Will. Of course, I refused to wear the new coat and froze wearing a sweatshirt in the snow, but a couple days later I checked the Goodwill, and repurchased my old coat. After that my parents just gave up.

I only had one brushin with the law as a child - a speeding ticket when I was 16. I never tried any illegal drugs, as my step-father(in the Navy) had done drug interdiction in the Gulf for a couple of years, and made it clear that using drugs would result in him having me arrested. Not that I wanted to try them anyways. On the other hand, he never had any problems with me drinking alcohol, wouldn’t mind if I just grapped a beer out of the fridge to drink. This was when we lived in Wisonsin,in which, IIRC, and nobody quote me on this, I am still trying to find a cite, a minor can have alcohol with parental supervison.

13

I was a smug, arrogant little prig.

14

I moved between second and third grade. My new school was too different and I pretty much had no friends at all for several years.
I played in my room a lot. I had nearly 200 Matchbox and Hotwheels cars. I created my own universe and stayed and played there.

I still visit once in a while.

15

I don’t really remember much of being a kid. :frowning:

16

Surfer chick.

17

Pathetically, pathetically shy… the things I did to avoid even a simple conversation with girls makes me cringe even today!!

I remember a particularly pathetic incident around the time I was 10 or 12. We had had some guest over, and this couple had two daughters whom I had heard of, but never met. To make a long painful story short, I hid amongst the potted plants in my parents balcony, the girl came looking for me and saw me crouching behind a large palm. She asked me what I was doing and that my mom was calling me… I said, “I’ll be right out. I’m just tying my shoelaces.”!!

::cringe::

18

Oh, I was a complete little bastard!

Fat, obnoxious, lazy, know-it-all, overly dramatic, moody, arrogant, destructive, self-destructive, sulky, way too serious about stuff I didn’t know anything about… pretty much the same as now!:wink:

Seriously, though: I have NO idea how my parents put up with me! One of the reasons that I really do NOT want to have children is the fear that I will have a child like myself. I’d have no patience for it, and you’d likely see me on TV being escorted by the police screaming, “The little bastard deserved it, I tells ya!!” I hold my parents in awe now. No joke.

I didn’t become cool until I was about 19 or so, and got some perspective and a sense of humor about myself and life…

19

I was pretty shy and then in 4th grade my Dad died on Xmas day.
The principal announced it to the whole school the first day back and ,well, lemme tell you, I don’t remember much else of elementary school after that horrifying moment.
::::::cue violin music::::::::

Then my two best friends move away just before 9th grade starts, my brothers are diagnosed with MD (starting years of terrible depression for them), my grandparents start their decline, my mom has her first job in 30 years and starts caring for her parents (grandma dies) and oh, by the way, we moved. Moved from a neighborhood of popular kids to *old people *. That was 9th grade and until, well, senior year, where I just didn’t care any more. And, btw, did I mention that I was teased every day, in every class, in the hall way and at volleyball games about my name. It was tedious after the second joke. Imagine four years of it. (Actually longer, but I’m don’t want to brag.)

I was very responsible. I earned tons of money babysitting
(more than my friends working at real jobs) and was tight with my cash. I was also very much a jock, playing on sports and being a tom boy. I was a voracious reader ( mostly true life murder stuff) and a compulsive writer ( it’s painful to read the twaddle I produced then. Hell, the stuff I did last week hurts to look at.) I had no curfew or boundries. My mom trusted me with a car at 16. But then again, I didn’t date. I liked country music ( the old stuff), cowboy boots and big band.

I had an Oprah-esque AHA! moment in 8th grade: I had received against my will a very scary poodle perm that my mom gave me (followed up a year later with a very terrible high lighting job that set me on the path to life long addiction to hair dye.) I had just gotten braces. My boobs sorta showed up. I had a growth spurt in height that left all my uniform pants too short and my mom would not buy me new ones because the ones I had were still new and I was academically placed in the class with the …uh…slow kids. (I was ok with it, I was the smartest kid in *that * class.) I also weighed possibly 80 pounds at 5’3 and I desperately wanted to see 1-0-0 one the scale. Heh, I wasn’t anoxeric.

My friends - all of us dorks and goody goodies - were sitting on the play ground watching the popular girls with heated death ray vision as only adolescents can, when I thought aloud *They may be pretty, but they are not funny. I am not going to look like this forever, so I better work on my personality in the meantime. *

So I watched, observed, studied people and movies.

Dear God, I loved movies. I still do, but since kids, I have seriously downshifted in the voracious watching of flicks.

In 10th grade, my looks kicked in with a karate chop and I went from being socially invisible to being the “it” girl. It was too much for this shy girl to handle, and I eschewed them as I was wise to their shallow ways. I was Daria, sans mouthpeice or a decent Jane Lane as a sidekick.

I was not popular, but I was not unpopular. I was intimidated by teenage pretty girls, but not adults. Never adults or authority figures. I was a jock, but not stellar. I blew off all my homework and skimmed by in grades. "Why work my butt off to get an A when I can do nothing and get a C. *. What I lacked in motivation in made up for with indifference.
I have been told by family that the reason I am so funny is because I was teased so much about my name. Looking back on it, it is very true. I wouldn’t change a thing. I’d rather be funny than purty anyday.

Looks get you in the door, but after fifteen minutes, you better know something.

I am well versed in everything, yet know nothing. I am constantly learning, yet retain nothing of relevance.

With my luck and this attitude, I’ll end up president one day.

20

i was a happy kid. i was outgoing and such hehe and for about a year or two from maybe 2-3 yrs old, i liked to run around nakie heh