On a scale of -10 to 10, how would you rate your childhood? (10 is being spoiled, 0 is neutral, -10 is being abused/neglected)

I honestly don't know--because I'm a faulty narrator. I dont know which issues are real, or which are in my head. What's for certain, though, is I never got the support I needed, and I'm barely accepted as a woman.

I'd say an 8 or a 9, it was a pretty idyllic childhood. Both my parents were pretty great, we only had a few major disagreements/arguments that I can recall. I had a good group of friends and had no trouble getting along with anyone.

We were solidly middle class never had any needs unmet. Didn't get everything I wanted but certainly didn't lack either. Generally I felt loved and encouraged, maybe too much but not in a spoiled way. I always had to do chores mow lawn, wash dishes, walk the dog cook once a week as I got older, etc. I had a job senior year of HS to earn spending money but they also paid for half my car (I think 3000 out of 6000). They had saved up some money for college but what would have been enough for 4 years when I was born only covered a year by the time I went to college.

IDK it was pretty good overall. Looking back and at how people turned out I think my parents did a good job compared to a lot of others.

I'd give it a -5. I have a chronic autoimmune condition that started very early in my life, and caused me problem after problem.

Trying to tell all the adults around me that something is wrong, and then being yelled at, being told "it's all in your head" "you're just looking for attention", etc... not great.

Not saying that this next part would "excuse" it, but it'd be one thing if it stopped after I was officially diagnosed. It did not. Instead, I was told by my father "You're using your disease as a crutch, stop"... My mom started to turn around for the most part (there were still exceptions, but other than those cases it got better).

After I moved out, I cut off contact with my father because of the hate I'd get from him. I was hoping that perhaps one day we'd be able to finally turn things around... Last year he died in a very tragic accident. So I guess I'll never know if amends could have been made or not.

To this day I still claim that I was robbed at the chance of a normal childhood, although what "normal" looks like... I don't know. I'd rate it lower, but I didn't get the physical abuse, just the emotional part of it. My brother on the other hand was the exact opposite. Us combined, definitely makes a -10. There were positives and good moments of course, but the bad really outweighs the good when looking back.

2, my parents were cool when i was little. my mom got sick when i was eight y/o. i suffered because of it for a decade.

if it wasn't for my mum, it would at least be a 4 though :)

or rather, a 6, my dad was pretty cool :D

-5. I had one parent that was not great, and one that was a doormat. It wasn't any of the usual suspects, and I would say that that parent is eccentric and oblivious more than a bad person, but in the end I think I came out with some trauma.

School was really hard early on (because I'm also weird), while the parental issues grew more severe later on.

-9. Father was an abusive alcoholic monster who ruined friendships and activities like baseball by fighting with parents early on in life. My mother was/is a workaholic with a tendency to be neglectful of emotions as I got older. I was often left alone to care for my younger brothers. Brothers who left to their own devices became little monsters themselves by falling into drugs and alcohol both before 14.

My childhood ended at 14. I'm 33 now at probably the lowest point of my life. Because, except for my Dad, we still live together. All those years in between 14 and now I learned to cope by reducing myself to nothing. Be quiet. Don't move. Stay in my room. Don't be a burden. Unfortunately I'm at two extremes where I feel safest in that reduced state but everything in me wants to leave. Even if it means living in the streets. That's my trap. That's how my childhood has me by the throat even now.

+5. My parents had a healthy relationship and didn't divorce until well after I moved out. We were lower middle class, but in the first world that means you have a pretty good life. I'm an autist so social life was a nightmare, and while I didn't think adults were going to abuse me I did think their authority and institutions were illegitimate which caused some conflict.

It really depends on the reference. 0 today is not the same as 0 was when I grew up. By the standards then, it was probably a 4, but by today's standards it would be in the negatives, -2or so.

Why would being spoiled rate highly? It's a bad thing.

I'd rate mine a 10 but because of independence. My parents gave me both the trust and the skills to do what I wanted to do. I biked all over town, didn't need to check in outside of mealtimes, read the whole library, went to museums and concerts and dances. I taught myself to type and then to program. It was fantastic.

I wasn't spoiled, though. We didn't have any spare money, so anything I wanted to do I had to pay for myself; I was babysitting and mowing lawns from a young age. I had my chores at home including taking care of my brothers. I had food, if not my favorites, and clothes, though mostly hand-me-downs from cousins. Any electronics in the house were shared, and either bought used or received as gifts from most distant relatives. But stuff isn't what makes childhood great: friends, freedom, and family are.

Fact that might be useful... research varies on whether psychological abuse or sexual abuse is the most destructive in childhood. Psychological changes how you think, how you attribute meaning to events and you're ability to regulate your emotions. It's not just words

The more time passes, the more I realize how much lower the score actually was.

10, hands down. I was (and still am) raised by a single dad. He’s great. He’s non-monogamous/non-committal (or just aloof, you could say), so at home I’ve always had all of his attention to myself. I’m a total daddy’s girl.

4 with ambivalence. One parent was no good. The other was good but didn’t defend us much.

Damn, that's a good question. Like a 6 or 7 on this scale, all told? Parents were good, wasn't spoiled but didn't want for much, some tension with my dad at times/impact of necessary absences due to military lifestyle, but he was generally a good dude.

Idk - I look back on my childhood fondly more or less.

Without delving, I'm guessing a solid -6 on that scale, here. I've done a fairly bang-up job of climbing up from that point, but w/o health insurance, etc., that's gonna be a challenge for the ages.

I wouldn't say that I was spoiled, but growing up middle class without parental abuse towards myself I think would rank me pretty highly on this. I didn't realize how privileged I had it until I became an adult. Probably 8/10.

However, my dad was abusive to my mom and a bit to my older sibling. So for my older sibling the score would probably be significantly lower.

+3 or so, benign neglect, with unavoidable trauma. My dad died when I was a teenager and that sucked, my mom fell apart, also she was diagnosed bipolar and I didn't enjoy being a child at all, but do honestly believe my mom did her best, and we were fed, housed, schooled, (ETA including sports! She was big on physical fitness, and that is something that absolutely ended up improving my adult life, once I recovered from my own disordered/restrictive eating) and not interfered with much beyond that.

What score would the over-involved helicopter parents of my kids' friends land on this scale, though? Those kids aren't spoiled exactly but certainly not neglected.

Honestly I'd have to say a solid 5. I wasn't spoiled, but definitely supported in all my ever-changing interests. I had freedom like simply doesn't exist anymore, but I had rules to follow. I was super independent, so maybe others would have felt neglected, but I never wanted for attention or things. I was taught to think for myself, actively, by my parents, how to hobby, how to do basic life shit like cleaning, and laundry. I still have a strong relationship with my folks. I could and can talk to them.

Hard to condense this to an integer. There were times of feast and famine. I was given a lot of freedom that I knew most parents my age would gasp at, and I had some perks. That said, I did come from a broken home and I was the product of people who probably shouldn't have had a kid. They have their own circumstances and issues with their parents as well, so the brokenness really is generational. I've done everything in my power to break that pattern and it's working so far.

I will not say I was spoiled, but I was certainly given too much to eat and not often enough sent outside to play. I was always going to be an oddity and a misfit, so it would have been nice to at least not be fat.

All of that and I still was extremely privileged. The overall number needs a context. If we're framing this against global childhood, I'm at least a 4. If we're zooming in to kids in my immediate cohort, probably closer to a -3.

-5, my parent tried but the whole situation was ugly.

I think if I was born now, I'd be much better off. Medical knowledge was ass back in the day.

My mom is kinda like the poem "there was a little girl, with a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good she was really good, but when she was bad ^drunk she was horrid."

My dad was a great guy though.

Hard to rate, like others, but mine probably swung from a 3 to -8.

My parents made sure my siblings and I had a lot of adventures under our belt, so we were often camping or going on small trips or skiing. But we were poor, they were irresponsible alcoholics (with some drugs on the side) who had children far, far too young and didn't have any coping skills.

The verbal abuse was constant and the physical abuse only happened when my siblings weren't there, but it was traumatic, in a word.

When I was 8 or 9 years old, my dad was going berserk and threatening all kinds of stuff after breaking a bunch of furniture. So I called the cops. Let's just say my parents were mad. I was grounded for a while and given many talks about why I was in the wrong, even though I absolutely knew I wasn't.

7

I'd say average about -5. Verbal, physical, and emotional abuse was the norm. My mom was fine, but due to the age gap she was functionally more like a big sister. My dad must've been going for the high score on the Dark Triad.

School was a fun one; I was regularly held out of school to the point I was nearly kept back multiple times for truancy alone, at one point my grandmother had to threaten to call CPS because I wasn't even enrolled in school at all. Every day I'd have so many chores that homework was impossible, and that lack of structure kicked my ass in college. Bit of a mindfuck to constantly be told that school is for stupid conformists, and still get punished for bad grades. It's a good thing I've got a great memory and phenomenal test-taking skills, or I never would have passed a single class.

Socialization was fun too. Between frequent moves and the pile of chores on my list, I didn't have the opportunity to make many friends. Tried to get into Boy Scouts and sports to get some kind of social life, but those were for stupid conformists too. Combine that isolation with my dad's attempts to turn me into his shadow, I grew up real weird and isolated. People think I'm sociable now, but that required years of focused work. And I'm still pretty weird.

Character and values, ho boy. I wasn't exaggerating with "Dark Triad high score". He literally tried to become a Latin American island dictator, it was a lifelong project for him. I was taught the values of doing anything you can get away with, exploiting rules, lying all the time to get what you want, emotional manipulation, and countless other Machiavellian, narcissistic, psychopathic behaviors. Fortunately, my grandparents were much more moral and ethical, so it was a bit easier to deprogram myself on that front.

I won't even get into all the other little things, but I think anyone from an abusive household can tell you that all the little things can often have a more serious long term effect than the big ones. Daily whoopings suck, but they go away when you move out. Not so much a lifetime of being trained to treat every conversation like a competition.

On the bright side, I'm very resilient now. I joke to people that i never get stressed because my brain doesn't produce the stress chemical, but really I just coped with so much stress growing up that none of the minor daily stresses register at all.

So yeah, others have definitely had it worse, -5 feels about right.

In my mind -9 and -10 are resserved for sexually exploitation... so I'd say -8 as that contains lots of beatings, emotional abuse and tons manipulation back than and attempts to manipulate today...

Like, between 0 and -8 or -9, mostly trending worse.

The best time of my life is working casual at a servo two or three days a week.

7/10

It was okay.

Lucky enough to be a 7 or 8

I'm going to say the average would be 7.

I definitely had some -7 days, but by and large it was a good childhood.

I was required to do chores and help out around the house. However, I didn't have too many "wants" that I couldn't have.

I'm fairly spoiled among my peers, but not in a "doesn't have to work, thinks the world revolves around me" way. Always well fed and clothed. Always had a home to live in.

My parents paid for my college, so I graduated without any student loans. They also gave me and my wife the deposit when we bought our house. They continued helping with my kids' college education, covering half of their expenses as well.

There was some abuse. Honestly, it didn't amount to more than what just about every kid my age went through. Horrifying today, but run of the mill back then.

There were really good times, there were really bad times. Most of the time it was alright. Some things could have been better, but some things could have been a lot worse. Hard to rate

-5

-2, -3 something like that.

Grew up poor, got yelled at for using a whole can of tuna for lunch kinda poor. Parents divorced when I was 2 so I never knew what it was like to have 2 people that cared about you in the house. My mother remarried 2 more times and we moved like every 3-4 years so I never developed long friendships, this has continued even as I'm independent throughout my life so I've never known stability. Both stepfathers wished I didn't exist. The first was ok, had his own son with my mom that he treated like you'd expect but completely ignored myself and my older brother. The next guy wouldn't use my name, it was "idiot" "moron" "jerk off" etc. naturally all that made me Totally The Most Confident Person Ever™©®

I’m comfortable saying 0 at this point. I actually don’t really have many memories of childhood. We were just very poor. My parents spent what money there was on cheap can beer and something you need rolled up dollar bills for. We did do fun things, during the good times we had stuffed crust pizza from Pizza Hut and a video. I ended up being really short just from my diet of kool-aid and flint stones vitamins. I remember food things the most. We were spanked, but only occasionally, and this was the norm for the very rural area of Florida I grew up in. I remember mom’s ongoing grudge with the neighbors. She didn’t like them, apparently, because they gave us food when we played. It took many years to piece all these things together. What living family I am related to I am NC with, and have been for decades. I feel like this was textbook neglect exacerbated by poverty.

2, most of what I remember is negative. It was probably better than I remember though. I tend to remember the bad times more than the good. There were some good times though.

-2