Your biggest disappointment as a child.

Redhead 56 I was sorry to read your story.

Moving to England age 7 for a better life.
Dublin large back garden, half hour on back of dad's bike to beach,clean air
Birmingham, small back yard, 6 hour train journey to beach,smelly dirty.
What better life

I always wanted a dolls house as a young girl and never got one. My husband bought me one for my 50th birthday

Wanting some tap shoes ( we couldn’t afford the classes anyway!) and my Dad just putting ‘ blakeys’ ( sp?) on my ordinary shoes!!! ?

The first disappointment I remember was when I was about 5.
The war was just over and nobody had much money but I told my parents I would like a dolls pram. On Christmas morning there was a lovely blue dolls pram waiting for me. I took one look at it and burst into tears. "But it's got filled in wheels!" I cried. Yes, the wheels did not have spokes. My parents must have beggared themselves to buy that pram. I never liked it and only pushed my doll in it because I had no other option.

My mother gave my favourite toy, Little Teddy, to my younger cousin who had always coveted it. She didn’t ask me first. It still hurts. I loved that bear and made little suits and hats for him. The last time I saw Teddy he had morphed into Dirty Dinah,( a filthy rag doll of my cousin’s) wrapped in a bit of sheeting, his velvet jacket & pin- striped trousers gone. Boo hoo...

I really don't remember ever being disappointed as a kid, I wasn't spoilt but I had a really happy childhood.

Vonnie, how terrible and cruel. I feel your pain.
Several stories here show how cruel (maybe unwittingly) parents can be.
Or teachers. One year my grandchildren were told at school that the whole school would be going on an outing and there would be an "optional" charge of £5. I had to pick up the children from school in the afternoon as their parents worked. When I got there they told me they had been forced to stay at school because they had not paid the "optional" £5. I was livid.

I put my stood up eagerly to volunteer to be an angel in the school Nativity play. Those not wanted were told to sit down. I was the first to be told to sit down and all those chosen were blond children. I had black hair and brown eyes. Teachers could be very uncaring in those days.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

My disappointment was when I was invited on Holiday with my Aunt and my Cousin, I thought we might be visiting Rome, why I dont know, I was only about twelve, however we were going to Cornwall, but it turned out to be a holiday of a lifetime, and I still visit beautiful Cornwall, and have even written a book abut my favourite place, so my disappointment turned out to be a life changer instead.

My father . Left my mum for someone else , then came back for two years only to go it again . I was 11 then . Never really had a dad ?

NOT BEING BOUGHT A PONY THAT I LONGED FOR.

COMING HOME FROM HOLIDAY IN SCOTLAND ONE SUMMER MY AUNTIE AND UNCLE DROVE DOWN AND ALL I TALKED ABOUT WAS MY DOG.I SAID SHE WILL BARK AT YOU FIRST OFF BUT THEN SHE WILLL BE OK.ONLY TO FIND THEY HAD HAD HER PUT DOWN BECAUSE SHE WAS PREGNANT.I ADORED THAT DOG I NEVER FORGAVE MY MOTHER AND WE HAD A HORRIBLE RELATIIONSHIP.I COULD CRY NOW THINKING OF CHIPPY..

Never having a bike. Was coming up for 10 years old when friend who had bike for Christmas was killed in her bike. My birthday a few months later was when I was supposed to get my own bike. Never happened and never have owned a bike.

How sad some of these stories are. Parents have no idea how traumatic their decisions were, that they made regarding possessions and treatment of their children. How things have changed in 2021.

Having the 'father' I had was massive disappointment.

My big disappointment when I was ten years old, was discovering the accommodation on a primary school cruise trip to Spain, Portugal,Gibraltar &North Africa that I was privileged enough to be permitted to go on, was a dormitory in the bowels of the ship instead of cabins like the Teachers were allocated. There were about 24 of us sharing a dorm with kids from a school in Southampton ( who incidentally were absolutely lovely) with twin bunks& no view at all? The food for us school children was abysmal too.

When I was about 7 years old all the girls at school wore their hair down or with a hair band. Mine was always plaited or in bunches. I would get to school and take the elastic bands and ribbons out of my hair so my hair would be long and loose like all the other girls in my class. Everyday my mother said if I didn’t keep the plaits in she have all my hair cut off. As a seven year old I really didn’t believe she would do it, so I continued to let my hair down at school. On this one particular day we didn’t go straight home from school we went to the hairdressers instead. I remember thinking my mother must be getting her hair done until it was me that got sat in the seat. Even while I’m typing this I can still see myself and feel those awful feelings I had when the man started cutting chunks of my hair off. I watching it fall on the floor as I cried and cried. It was cut so short and my fringe was cut so short it stuck outwards from my forehead, it didn’t cover any of my forehead. My mother said I should have heeded her warning. I actually think I was traumatised by that, then I got picked on at school because I looked so ugly with very little hair.. I felt so embarrassed and ashamed to look the way I did. I have worn my hair long from being sixteen to now.

Such poignant stories have come out of this thread. I feel mine is very trite by comparison. I had a Sindy doll and dearly wanted a white plastic Sindy wardrobe complete with the gold S on the doors. On Christmas Day, I unwrapped a plain white wooden dolls wardrobe. I was not happy. It was far sturdier and lasted for years and would have cost a fraction of the price from the market. But it was not what I wanted. Fast forward 55 years and I bought my granddaughter a sparkly pink and purple wardrobe for her Barbie doll to put all the outfits in that I had made. I felt I’d laid a ghost at last.

Many of these stories have brought tears to my eyes. How cruel and unthinking some parents could be, especially the ones having much loved dogs put to sleep.
My own memory is of my lovely baby doll being snatched from me by my mother and put onto the fire because I didn’t want to hand it over to my younger brother to play with. My mum had made lots of clothes for my doll and knew how much I loved it. I’ve never forgotten.
My brother grew up to be a lovely young man but was tragically killed on his motorbike aged 18. I still miss him even though he always nicked my toys.

Another one about a holiday. I was an only child and we didn’t have many holidays but on a couple of occasions my cousin was asked to come so that we could play together. One summer a holiday was planned but shortly before we were to go my father and his sister had an argument. Because of this my uncle refused to allow my cousin to come with us. My father, who hated holidays anyway, promptly cancelled the trip telling me that he didn’t want to have to play with me all the time.

As a young brownie we had a show and tell evening and I was assigned to doing knots. When the parents came Brown Owl went round everyone else and forgot about me, I’ve never forgotten it!

Re giving your things away, I was 18 but still very upset when my mother got rid of two treasured books (among others) when they moved after I’d gone away to university. One of them - a far from common non fiction book - was published in the late 1800s and had been given to me by a grandfather.
By some miracle, many decades later dh found an identical copy on some 2nd hand site.

As for my poor dh - his mother gave almost his entire treasured collection of Dinky Toys to a neighbour’s child, again without after he’d gone to university - and again without asking. They had a big house - it wasn’t as if they didn’t have room.
I still don’t think he’s ever quite got over it!

Worst I ever heard of was on MN though - somebody’s MiL who was supposed only to be feeding the cat while they were away, took it upon herself to ‘declutter’ her son and DiL’s bedroom, by throwing out DiL’s complete collection of (IIRC) Chalet School books, plus a lot of memorabilia, personal letters, etc.
How could you ever be civil again to anyone who did such a thing? Of course when confronted the MiL turned the tap on - ‘I was only trying to help!’, etc., and made the DiL out to be the baddie for making her cry.
IMO under the patio would have been the best place for that MiL!

As I a child I had a blue budgy. I thought it had lived for a good age. When I was in my forties my dad admitted when the budgy died or the cat killed it he did a dash to the local pet shop and replaced it with another blue budgy. When he told me I felt a huge devastation all those years later.

When I was very little, my much-older brother, who was in the Merchant Navy, would always say, when I asked for something: "I'll get it for you when my ship comes in." As he was away at sea for much of the time, I waited and waited for his ship to come in - I thought he must be very rich! We should always how literal children can be, they don't always get hold of the right end of the stick! I loved my dear brother very much, and we enjoyed many happy times together.