Weird childhood experiences? My Mom took me to jail with her to visit....

[Bertha Venation]

her husband. He was incarcerated at Theo Lacy jail in Orange, CA, I think for non-support of his children from his first marriage. Whenever she went to visit him in jail, she took me with her. (I don't know whether they were yet married at the time he was in jail, but I was very young, and they were married when she died, when I was eleven.)

I grew up remembering this and it never seemed weird to me until recently. It's weird.

What weird things did you experience when you were growing up?

[ihaveaquestion]

1. I hung out at Horse Races

My mother used to take my brother and I to the races when she couldn't find a baby-sitter for us. We were 8 or 9. She went there with her boyfriend and had us stand next to the track to watch the races, while they drank and gambled. I remember people winning and losing money - mostly losing and being very upset. It was exciting at the time and I enjoyed it. Looking back, I know how dangerous it was for her to leave us on our own at that age.

I still like horses and horse races.

[curlyred]

2. visiting relatives in Georgia when I was 15

...the relatives who had no indoor plumbing and only well water but who cooked one of the best meals I've ever had.

...upset that I was missing my favorite show, "The Prisoner".....we were driving out to see some 15th cousins twice removed or something. Pulled up to this old white farmhouse with the two old old cousins sitting on the front porch watching the TV (yes, the TV was on the porch, too)...watching "The Prisoner".


Not weird in the same sense as your experience, Bertha, but still weird. :)

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. Nothing was weird about my parents except that they were so

straight-laced they deserve the straight-lace award. And to break all stereotypes, my dad was and is a shameless Liberal.

[catmandu57]

4. My mom and one of her girlfriends

went to see one of their sugardaddies, and took me along. I was six years old and had to wait in the car.
The car was a hearse.
So there I was six years old waiting for my mother, in a hearse, and it was getting dark, the darker it got the more afraid I became. My mother and her girlfriend was in this old man's house buttering his wallet up, and I was waiting terrified, in the dark, six years old.
Waiting not only for my mother, but for the dead people to come and get me.
There were many others, but, this still stands out.

[Bertha Venation]

6. eeewwwwww

Scary. :scared:

[YellowRubberDuckie]

15. I have an overwhelming urge to hug you.

:hug: I'm sure you're over it now, but that's scary.
Duckie

[mainer]

5. Attended seances with my mom

Spent many social evenings with spiritual mediums and dowsers and psychics. Needless to say, I grew up to be a committed skeptic.

[Beware the Beast Man]

7. Going to the Ukranian Catholic church with my grandma

on Holy Saturday for the blessing of the baskets. It was all good until everybody started singing hymns in Ukranian, which might as well have been devil-speak to the average seven year old. I cried, and my grandma became upset with me.

[pilgrimm]

8. Caught my mom in bed with some man

I didn't know at the time, but when I got to high school that man was my Gym teacher. He still gave me bad grades, guess my mom wasn't that good.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

16. LOL...

That's hilarious. Were your parents married at the time?
Duckie

[pilgrimm]

20. Yeah, well I was pissed man, I thought I was going to get an A

and I ended up getting an F. I guess, I should have showed up to a couple classes.

My parents were divorced. He may have been married to the mother of a kid i went to school with but,I never figured it out and I wasn't about to ask either.

[MadHound]

9. Father was a manic depressive, too much weirdness to go into

Made life real interesting, wondering which person was going to show up today. I always prayed for the depressed father, at least he didn't beat the crap out of me.

Moved out when I graduated high school, and he tried to kill me twice with a shotgun. Brought the gun and a tape recorder along to my trailor, and tried to provoke me into a fight so that he could shoot me and claim it was self defense. Bad bad ju ju for a long time.

Well, I got my shit together over the years, and after finally being committed, and a couple of heart attacks(nothing like the realization of your own mortality to straighten your ass up), my father and I reconciled. I was(and am) actually sad that he passed on a few years back. Ten years earlier and I would have been quite happy(and that would have been a terrible thing).

[Bertha Venation]

17. MadHound

Dude.... We have quite a bit in common. Sigh. Nice to be healthy, isn't it?

[MadHound]

18. Yes, yes it is

It took awhile, and a walk through hell, but you know what, I wouldn't be the person I am today if I hadn't gone through what I did. And I like the person I am, so hey, things worked out OK.

So you had bipolar in your family? Sorry to hear that, I wouldn't wish that on anybody. But I hope that you are doing OK, and you have seemed to come out the otherside doing fine. I hope that you figured out that it wasn't your fault, that was one of the harder things for me to drop.

I just wish that I had known other people who were going through what I was when I was young. For the longest time I thought I was the only one, and yet now, it seems that there is a whole generation who grew up with bipolar parents. Makes you wonder.

[djeseru]

10. Single mom worked nights.

She's a nurse, so I would wander the hospital where she worked. They had an extra bed for me to sleep there, close enough to ICU so she could check up on me. I was between the ages of 9 and 11. She quit leaving me at home alone when the apartment we were living in was set on fire by the neighborhood "juvenile delinquents."

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

11. I was home alone when I was 12.

I was shoveling snow in our front yard after a big snow storm. My dad worked for the state DOT, so he always had to work during and after a snow/ice storm. I can't recall where my mom and younger brother were. I think they went to the store to pick up a few groceries. Anyhow, a man, who looked to be about 40 or so, parked his car by the roadside and asked me for directions while I was shoveling. People would stop to ask for directions at our house quite frequently. We lived on a major rural route. I gave the man the directions he was after. Then the guy asked me if I wanted to go have coffee with him. I was really bundled up in winter clothes, so I don't think the guy could tell how young I was. I looked at the guy kind of funny and told him, "No, I'm only 12 years old". The man then apologized and promptly left. I'm just glad that he wasn't a kidnapper or child molester.

[GreenPartyVoter]

12. I was about 13 when some guy doing a phone survey called my house and

asked me a bunch of questions, including whether my pubic hair was straight or curly.

I told my parents about it because it had freaked me out a bit. Wish I had thought to just hang up on the freak instead of actually answer him. :eyes:

-----------------------------------
Would Jesus love a liberal? You bet!
http://timeforachange.bluelemur.com/

[nicolemrw]

13. well this is appropriate for this site:

when i was a kid (60s and early 70s) my mother was a politically active democrat in nassau county, long island, which was for many many years run by the republican party, and was known as the second or third worst politcal machines in american history. one night during a campaign, when there was a democratic party function, my parents left us kids (my older brother being old enough to babysit) and went out. during the night, the house was attacked by men (apparently in the pay of the republican party, there were quite a few other instances across the county that night, i am told) who tore the front screen door off, tore down the candidate sign on the front lawn, and shot the picture window with a pellet gun (we think it was a pellet gun. no bullet was found, and the window didn't shatter, there was just a small hole.) i have no memory of the incident itself, just the aftermath, though my bother tells me i was awake and cowering the whole time.

[Feathered Fish]

14. My mom and dad

took me to Monaco for 'the big euro trip'. So they sat me down outside of an Ice Cream Parlour with the biggest sundae I had ever seen and they went and gambled at the casino in Monte Carlo for about 4 hours. Jerks. I was 10.

[Shoeempress]

19. Didn't know it was weird then, but we never ever spoke to or had anything

to do with my Father's family. Didn't even really know he had one until I was probably 9 or 10. We never talked to them or spoke about them. I have no idea why. Course now they won't speak to me but I know why. Strangely, my Hubby's family always stays in touch, even with family members who actually stole a family farm. Constant back stabbing and shifting alliances, so you never really know who is on your side or not, so it's best never to reveal anything ever. Don't know which is sicker, my family or his.