That’s so sad. I think married couples of a certain age were just expected to have kids to be considered “normal.” They didn’t have any desire for children, so it’s like they did the bare minimum, had one and neglected the poor kid.
Thanks. You’re sweet to comment. All my friends’ parents really liked me, so I kind of knew it was them not me. Still…
My parents were like that with soft drinks. If we wanted a Coke when it wasn’t the birthday of anyone in the household, we had to go buy it ourselves.
Unlimited time spent playing video games. Now as an adult I spend far too much time on them.
Junk food and eating enough to feel full.
I’m the only daughter, with 3 brothers, of a woman who was horribly bullied for being overweight as a child. As a result of her experience, Mom limited my intake. Things kicked off by my being her heaviest baby and she and the doctor immediately after weaning put me on non-fat instant milk because I didn’t need the fat calories. I didn’t get the seconds my brothers did, and got alternative treats “because you have allergies” but my alternatives where always lower-fat items and Mom didn’t think I actually noticed this stuff.
She even wouldn’t allow store bought cookies, except for her beloved Oreos. The result was all four of us kids were masters at cookie baking.
Along came puberty and curves, and Mom started reinforcing her skinny-food diet, and I started babysitting and skimming some of my own income to buy forbidden treats. So she told me that I had to start buying clothes with the money I earned even though my brothers didn’t.
She kept insisting that I was fat because I wore a size larger than she did. Well, goody for her but I wasn’t fat. I was just built larger.
Of course, when I moved out, I was also finally able to eat my fill and yep, I became fat. Then started running and became healthy. Then injured back and the weight started climbing back, my mother commenting about it the entire time.
Mom’s gone now and I’m approaching retirement age. Of course, I had twigged to her tactics with me, but I also twigged to the cause of her behavior. A few weeks before she passed away of metastatic breast cancer, she demanded to know why I was always derisive of my Aunt “K”. I looked back at her and said, “I have one question for you too. How badly did “K” bully you about your weight as a child?” She burst into weeping, ugly-crying tears. It was a few minutes before she regained her composure.
But there it was, the whole reason my mother was so diligent about watching her weight and my own. I forgave my mother and she forgave her sister. “She meant well” claimed Mom. “She didn’t want others to bully me. But they did anyway.” And so it was passed to me unwittingly but also well-meant.
What a tangled web we weave, even when we aren’t trying to deceive. - with apologies to Sir Walter Scott.
Cyndi Lauper hair
I thought of another one – Reebok Pump sneakers, back in the early 1990s when they were all the rage. My mom deemed them “too expensive”. The best I could convince her to buy me were some cheap knock-offs with a similar air pump from Wal-Mart. I think they were Spaldings or something.
Edit: Apparently it was Reebok that introduced the pump shoes, not Nike. Although I’m pretty sure Nike had a version as well.
Well, it’s Jesus.
C’mon, man! You think you’re as good as Jesus?
an easy bake oven … despite most of the men in my family being trained cooks and bakers I was not allowed to have an easy bake oven because it was a “girls” toy and never received one
grandma and mom regretted that for years …because when I threw a campaign for a snoopy sno-cone machine I specifically mentioned the easy bake oven I didn’t get …ahh guilt
YES! I’ve posted this before but my mom’s mom was a bit more indulgent and would send me (and my siblings) a box of ‘sweetie cereal’ on our birthdays.
Yaknow, I wanted one of those as well, and never got one, probably for the same reason. Whoever make and marketed those sure missed out on a major sales opportunity.
Worse, our local shoe store had an old guy who my parents revered. And he (NOT a doctor, just a salesman) said most boys need orthopedic dress shoes, especially in school. Big, chunky, black fake leather girl-repellants.
Meanwhile, their other revered person (a reverend) said he thought kids did better in school if they wore dress pants instead of jeans.
So there I was, with my crewcut and my formal clothes. And not a single conversation with a girl until High School.
Certainly not. I’m nowhere near as good as Jesus. I’ve never been able to perform a single miracle (and I’ve tried!).
I was resurrecting the old hippie argument that it’s ironic the older generation would say long hair on hippies was against good Christian values, when all the traditional depictions of Jesus made him look exactly like a long-haired, bearded hippie.
Another thing that I had on my Christmas lists for a few years and never received was a pair of purple, crushed velvet bell bottoms! It was the early 70s and I was 9-10 yo. I’m sure it was the cost. My mom always shopped the sales racks.
We always had sugary cereals, chips, candy, etc. But the only time we had pop was when there was a party or when we went to the cabin. My mom would buy 24 cans of Gold Medal in various flavors. Oh man, we drank pop like it was going out of style at the lake!
We did too, it was standard breakfast fare at our home. The thing we didn’t have and that I didn’t know was even an option was sausage and biscuits, for some reason my mom never made them. Until my dads sister (my aunt) came up from Texas and introduced them to us, it was an exotic food of the gods from my perspective.
It wasn’t that my mom didn’t want us to have them, but being of a totally Mexican upbringing it wasn’t something she knew about, but she did learn. I learned a lot about different food choices after I left home and went to college. Like non-fried seafood, Italian food and Mediterranean food. I felt that I was denied these as a kid, although that wasn’t actually true. My parents were just simple people with simple taste.
I only remember a few kinds of soda pop showing up in the camp cooler, oddly it was just when we went camping or on a beach picnic did mom buy soda. I did not care for soda as a kid. Cream soda yuk, cola, yuk, root beer yuk and orange ok.
I could never finish drinking my cans, I always wanted ice water instead. I once bought a bottle of coke ( Idkw? ) to take on a middle school field trip. I let it get warm and went thirsty until I made a trade for a friends orange 
and gave her the coke. We both thought we got the better deal.
Still I’m not a huge fan of pop, almost never buy it.
Things I wanted but didn’t get were based more on affordability and transportation than not being allowed.
The ones that stick in the mind…
A denim jacket. My mother thought they were common. I bought one secretly with my own savings, and my Mum escorted back to the (achingly cool) shop to get a refund, to my dying shame.
A racer bike. Dad said they were only for boys, and I must have a girl’s bike, A stupid girl’s biked with pink paint and really fat tyres. I wanted a bike to do road racing (I was very sporty), and that killed by cycling future.
Damn, and here I was with my water jugs, hoping for some Merlot, some Cabernet, maybe a nice Pinot.
Yeah, I lived through part of that. It’s like if your hair touched your ears, you were a “sissy” (code for homerseckshual) and Communism would rule the world.
There were a handful of TV shows that were verboten. My mother walked in on me watching the alien invasion show V (not the miniseries, the regular one) and the Michael Ironside character was being tortured by the lizard people. That show was henceforth cut off.
We never traveled like my friends seemed to…I was so jealous that I seemed to be the only kid who’d never been to Florida. Now, of course, I recognize that we didn’t really have the scratch (my folks became much more wealthy later in life and have since been to FL many times), and also I have no desire to ever go to Florida anyway. So that one’s not so much not allowed as couldn’t afford.
Both parents view tattoos as the mark of idiocy. Even in my late forties, they don’t know I have any, as mine are all hidden under my shirt. I honestly think it would give my dad a heart attack to see them.
I wanted to stay up late and watch TV. No way.
Today I stay up really late, but I don’t have a TV. Didn’t have one most of my life. But I do streaming and YouTube and such.
I wanted a motorcycle, the model to have in my neighborhood was a Montesa COTA 25. Really just children’s stuff, appropiate for my age then. No way. Too loud, too dangerous, too expensive… Did not buy a motorcycle until the age of 25-ish. Drove a lot for another 25 years, have not had one for 7 years now. Perhaps I should…
Apart from that, my parents did give me all I wanted, as far as I can remember today. I was a boring kid, I guess, I wanted mostly sensible stuff, and not even that much of it.