Your Opinion of Adults when You Were a Kid

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When you were little (for the purpose of this thread, make it ages 3 to 13), what did you think of adults in general? Did you think of them as wise elders who had your best interests at heart? Or did you think they were mean, hypocritical, self-interested, corrupt egomaniacs that simply cannot be trusted? Maybe something in between? Post your responses. I'll start by posting my own.

I always thought adults were mean, self-interested, corrupt egomaniacs. My own parents treated me like a second-class citizen, while being very nice to my older NT sister. They, as well as other adults in my life, told me it was wrong to lie, yet asked me multiple times to cover up something for them. At the same time, they punished me equally badly, regardless of whether I lied to told the truth. They spanked me whenever I went near their things, and at the same time, threw out my drawings that I spent days working on. If I got anything lower than a B, they'd go on a punishing spree, all while telling that I should be learning for my own benefits, not for the sake of pleasing them. Whenever I saw a stray cat outside on a cold day, I felt like taking care of it, while most adults I knew said to "let nature take care of it". Sometimes, I'd be sitting on the couch, watching TV and minding my own business, my parents would suddenly turn it off and say I'm watching too much TV; any protests resulted in a spanking. I was constantly yelled at for being afraid of a chandelier in my apartment, while listening to adults admit they were afraid of things like mice, cockroaches, etc. The only redeeming feature of adults, in my opinion, was the fact that they sometimes protected me from bullies.

Is it any wonder that I thought adults were fundamentally evil? Now that I'm one myself, I'm never having kids. Sure, some people might tell me that this is my chance to give my kids the childhood I never had, I think differently. As I explain to my friends, I tried living in a family once, and don't want to through it ever again. It feels kind of good knowing that I'll be the last one in over a century of generations with my last name. After all, no one in my family tree smoked since the year 1877 (my grandparents told me), and now I'm the first smoker.

When I was a kid, about when I was 5, the only adults I listened to was my mum and my dad. I ignored complete strangers and other adults who tried to talk to me and I ignored some teachers as well.

Sounds like you had a rough childhood.

I did not think of them as tyrants. Adults treated me well, unless I didn't do my homework.

Adults seemed very stupid to me. They also seemed childish to me in their arguments and pettiness. I also had no idea who my mother was when I was little and remember asking her "Who are you?" "Why are you in my life?" and "Why are you with my father?" It must have come as a shock to her when I asked her these questions. I knew she was in my life, but had no clue she was my mother as she never did anything motherly like cook, clean house, do the laundry etc...she was always out with her friends, shopping for clothes, shoes and accessories and spending hours at the hair salon.

When I was a kid, I thought they were stupid and weird and didn't make any sense. They made a big deal out of nothing. We do something that wasn't a big deal and bam we're in trouble like throwing rocks at an abandon building and the grown ups yell at you. Then in my teens, when I was in my teens, I realized other kids were starting to act weird too and they were in high school just like I was. Now that I am older I understand more and know more and I know grown ups had their point and reasons in telling you what not to do rather you understand it or not. I even understand why my mother would make my brothers and I leave a store or make us stop playing in the play area at a mall. Because she was bored or she didn't want to spend her whole time in a store or at a play area. She wanted to do other things.

Stupid, hypocritical and evil. And mainly on the first two I was right.

I didn't clump adults all together. I had adults I liked very much and they were usually very intelligent adults. I can remember dressing up (at nine mind you) in my little mod outfit of pink bell bottoms and a pink vest with gold chains to close it and medallions on each side that I wore with a white turtle neck. Then, I put on my white go go boots (LOL I'm going back so far here) and these big hoop earrings (I conned my dad into buying these things for me all the time) and marched my little self down the road to have coffee and visit with our neighbor would would talk to me about intellectual things. (You have to kind of wonder what the normals made of that.) I did that with a few highly intelligent people. I liked most of my teachers and we got on great. I had no relationship with my mother at all. I was very close to my father even though he was uber NT. The bulk of adults I found useless and was more than happy to tell them they were intellectually void. Good grief I was an elitist. In a way it's kind of funny picturing this short, extremely skinny girl running around pronouncing whether adults were worth her trouble. They probably laughed after they got over the shock. I was also pretty good at telling people who reprimanded me (and who I had no respect for) that I didn't care what their opinion was on anything. That was my favorite line for a number of years. By thirteen I had stop talking to those people at all. I was in my own place at school with my own work. I lived there or in my head writing my stories. Adults no longer were much of a factor unless I liked them.

Last edited by ZanneMarie on 19 Feb 2007, 3:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Mean, hypocritical, self-interested, corrupt egomaniacs that simply could not be trusted.

I know Aspie1 and I had some similar "parenting" and the results are similar....I found adults to be very confussing,power hungry,hypocritical and illogical.However,having no knowledge of AS growing up,I also thought that my mother was a sadist who was intentionally torturing me for her own pleasure(which was an irrational belief).The reason I believed this was she was always "correcting me".It felt like I,no matter how much I tried, couldnt do any thing well enough to please her.I resented that she was trying to "recreate me" into her concept of a "proper person".Some of the skills she drilled into me were to help me function better in the world,and that is a parents job.She hated being the "bad guy"all the time because my dad would seldom get involved in correcting us(until she told him to punish us for something).My parents never played with us or seemed to enjoy being with us.It felt like they went through the motions of creating a "Leave It To Beaver" family,going on summer vacations,making us take swimming,dancing,music lessons....sending us to summer camps(Which I mostly enjoyed),joining "Scouts".These were all things that "normal" families did.It was all based on a cookie-cutter concept of everyone being the same.....Not me.On the other hand the "order" of it is very appealing.It was just that I didnt fit the round hole and took more "carving" to make me fit.Carving can hurt.Just taking of a little bump,to make a child fit isnt to bad but when the whole self has to be carved up....ouch.

I did not believe that anyone was owed "respect" simply due to some thing as arbitrary as their year of birth.Respect could be earned by having qualities I respected.My mom,sitting around reading romance novels,eating boxes of chocolate,"bad mouthing" other people(when church taught me to forgive and love others),and ordering me around to wait on her hand and foot and do house work which I thought should be her responsibility(since she didnt have a job outside family),did not do make me respect her.She responded emotionally and not logically and seemed to have no intellectual curiosity at all.I thought her concern for how others saw me(what I wore),as a reflection of her and there for her right to control....was very immature and petty.


One thing I remember very clearly,was around 2nd or 3rd grade,standing and staring at the night sky and repeating to myself so I would never forget....."Childhood is not the best time of your life,Dont romanticise it when you get older and forget how powerless you are.Childhood is when every one around you can tell you what to do and you have no choices.It is like slavery,adults think they own you and you are nothing more then their puppet".......................I havent forgotten.


I chose not to have children because I was afraid that my experiences were so ingrained in me that I would repeat the behavior with my children.I dont even like being around kids who arent "controlled" in their behavior.I have a strong urge to yell at them and it disturbs me.

When I was a child I thought kids were so painfully energetic so I didn't spend much time with them. I instead chose to hang out with adults. I remember being forced to go to kids' parties and I would sit down with the other children's parents and talk with them. I remember vividly discussing Hitler with one grey haired grandpa when I was about 8 and he was absolutely floored that I even knew who Hitler was.

Mind you, I was the same child that they had 'kicked out' of the regular education system so that I could go to a special needs school for a year. Then they realized that didn't work for me either and I had to be mainstreamed again after a year with a special ed teacher. And you know why they kicked me out to begin with... the idiot teacher I had kept comparing me to my brother and she said that I wasn't doing as well as he did. I wasn't good at math, and I had difficulty writing and my brother was an utter math whiz. I always hated it when adults compare children with completely different strengths and say this one is lacking or she must be 'ret*d' because she doesn't measure up to the other.

Then there were the weird family members. My Aunts on my Dad's side all dressed in uniform. They all wore their hair in the same hairstyle, and dressed in the same colours and most times the same style of clothes too. I thought they were strange. I still think that way to this day! I can now tell my Aunts apart, but I still get mixed up with his brothers. They look so alike it's not funny. It's like someone actually took a stamp and gave them the same face and body type. I know it's not just me... people on the road would always get them mixed up and not even realize that they were talking to the wrong person.

So I guess I had two main classes of people when I was a child... strange and idiots. The odd adult was somewhat interesting.

It really depended on how they treated me. I cannot remember as far back as 3, though I do remember that in early years, I saw them as people I had to please. After around 5 though, I became increasingly disobedient and badly behaved and mistrusted many adults, apart from the elderly. I have always got on well with elderly people and at the age of 10-13, my best friend was an old lady in her 70s. I would go along to see her most evenings as she taught me to play cards and she had cats, and she took me strawberry picking and she represented some sort of order in my world. I knew what would be what when I was with her, and she had quite a routine. She watched the same things each night, had the same paper, and ate much the same things. If a teacher treated me as an inferior,, they would know my displeasure. If an adult tried to control me or mold me, they would also know my displeasure. It is unfortunate I had such a domineering mother who could not let me simply be myself and make my own choices.

i dont' t remerber that so well, anymore.

i remember i used to spend some holidays with my aunt, and getting back home, i wouldn't want to kiss my mother. i don't know why, but i never felt she was my real mother, and that my parents rules should't apply to me. i always felt i was different, i just didn't know why.

But it wasn't so bad as some of your cases. the problem was i didn't react to anything, so i remember feeling over 100 years old, even when i was 15 or 16, or 17...

The good thing was time was runing and now i follow my own rules. I don't accept nothing easely just because someone says so.
I was told i'm a very difficult person, difficult to understand. and i agree with that, i demand to much of people, if i think something it's supposed to be in a certain way, poor of those who do that in a different way.

i'm still trying to learn. i have no diagnose, my kid does. but have no doubts, you know? I have no doubts

I also don't agree that you're supposed to love your parents because they gave you life and raised you. People, my friends including, told me that I need to love them because they're my parents, but I fail to see the logic in that. Giving birth and raising offspring has been around ever since mammals first evolved (about 50 million years ago); it other words, it's been done and it's nothing new. Besides, kids don't get a choice to be born or not, so creating a child doesn't automatically make anyone special, in my opinion.

Ahh... the romanticizing of childhood. People's (mostly NTs') descriptions of their <sarcasm>wonderful childhoods</sarcasm> never cease to amaze me. What's so good about childhood? As krex pointed out, you have no power, and you're nothing but a puppet that parents and teachers can control as they please. Also, you have no money. If you're an adult reading this, imagine the following scenario. "You're in a store, filled with strange and wonderful things. You see other people picking up anything they choose, give money to the cashier, and walk out with the item. But you CAN'T! The power to make you happy or deprive you of happiness (even for that day) rests with your parents. You know that you won't be able to buy whatever you want for a very long time, a very very long time." Found yourself cringing, didn't you? Does childhood still seem like a happy time? 'Nuff said.

OH WOW! I DEFINITELY felt, and often feel, that they were/are STUPID! Most called me a knowitall, in a DEROGATORY way! WHY? Well, I KNOW know it is an AS trait. I knew something and, if asked, or it was appropriate, I MADE IT KNOWN! I NEVER claimed to know everything. I STILL don't. I almost certainly never will. But HEY, I knew the stuff. They didn't listen to me SIMPLY because I was a KID! TODAY, I can say the SAME things, and people LISTEN! WHY????? BTW TODAY they simply marvel how I know so much.

Frankly, I RESPECT the kid I was. In some ways I was sad to see him go, and want him BACK! I feel like the woman on that commercial that sees herself as she was 10 years earlier, and pines for her old body.

Steve

As a child, I saw Adults as puzzling, and at times overbearing petty tyrants. I remember my mother beating me with an extension cord because I had allowed another kid to dare me to steal a bag of candies at the supermarket. Yet I had seen her steal things herself. Her favorite saying, was "Don't do as I do, do as I say do!" This, IMO gave her free reign to terrorize the hell out of her kids, and not have to answer for it. I adored some of my teachers, but they confused me and frightened me a lot. My father had a horrible temper, and would come home from work and take out his frustrations on his family. I guess, like Krex, I realized that it would be different when I grew up. In my childhood, I was a handy slave around the house, who could be used for free babysitting, cleaning services, scapegoating services, and blame for whatever went wrong.

when I was very young they were interesting people to talk to, peopl ewho I liked to listen to because they knew more than me, as I got older they were people who put restrictions on my learning and actions, which was immensly frustrating, I really can't do this unless it's an adult by adult basis, some were really good some were really bad