Dads

All my dad did was thrash me with a leather belt on a regular basis.

I feel so sad reading how many posters had either abusive, violent childhoods or simply grew up with a lack of parental affection and closeness. Children are so utterly vulnerable and dependent on parents - ignoring or shirking that responsibility is one of the worst things imaginable. My heart goes out to you all.

It's impossible to read of those experiences without comparing them to my own. I was one of eight children and our affection came mostly from our lovely dad. We were very short of money and sometimes food; Mum was always pregnant or nursing and often seemed sad and lacking in the space or energy to show any affection. I'm sure she loved us all but often found her life difficult and burdensome. Dad was always busy, often outside the home - preaching or helping others - but in terms of the original subject of this thread, he was the one who read to us every night. He was wonderfully creative with his made-up stories, with a different episode every night. He also read to us from books and had his particular favourites - Aesop's Fables and an old Victorian novel called Freddie's Little Brother, which was about a young boy having to look after younger siblings as the family were in penury owing to a drunken, gambling father. It was terribly sad but we loved it because Dad did. He said to me more than once "You cannot do better than give a child a love of books" and he certainly did that for me! He was so proud of me when I became a secondary English teacher. I know I could read by the time I was 4 and have vivid memories of sitting in an armchair with my brother - 2 years older than me - reading to me. Mum said he actually taught me to read.

I'll never forget my wonderful Dad and the joy he brought to our childhood by retaining his own childlikeness! (made up word!) all his life. I'm so lucky to have had such a father in my life and wish everyone on here could have had the same.

So sorry Silverlings & everyone else who went through this, love to all . In those days the stigma associated with mental illness was unbelievable and as a child I was terrified of being 'found out' and no longer invited to friend's houses. It happened. Thankfully there is far more understanding and compassion for children now.

English was not my mother's first language, so my earliest memory of being read to in English is Daddy reading Winnie-the Pooh to me, while I sat on his knee so I could see the illustrations in the book.

At our birthday parties, or Halloween parties, and sometimes to amuse us children at grown-up parties too, he would get down on the floor and dance Cossack steps and teach us children to do them too.

My heart weeps for those who have unhappy memories of their fathers. My dad read to us every single night before he went to eat his dinner. Before we started school our mum would read to us after lunch, my sister and me and mum all squashed into a huge old armchair in front of the open fire in our nursery. I have such happy memories of my childhood and I know how lucky I am.

I was born late to parents who already had a grown up family. I adored my father, a very quiet, self contained man who I never saw lose his temper, unlike my mother who was a constant mass of seething resentment about more or less everything that happened in her life. I never understood what made her like this until I had a few life lessons under my own belt, but it didn’t make for a happy household. Envied friends with younger parents and close knit families. My father was like the eye of a storm for me.

I never really remember either of them reading to me as a very young child, but in spite of his very basic education - he left school to work when he was fourteen - dad was an avid reader. Books were his escape and even before I was old enough to go on my own, he took me to the library. He fostered my life long interest in books. The greatest gift he could have given me.

He liked detective novels by Edgar Wallace, Leslie Charteris and Raymond Chandler, and novels by Arthur Conan Doyle, C. S. Forrester, Alistair Maclean and H. Rider Haggard. I remember badgering him to read King Solomon’s Mines to me because the dust jacket looked very exciting and he would choose a few excerpts he deemed suitable. As soon as I had the facility to read them unaided, these authors became my own favourites.

He would take me to the cinema in town too and buy a small box of chocolates to share, though there was little sharing went on as I remember😊!

Reading to children is not just reading the words it is putting on a show with the words.

Neither parent read to me. I can't even recall seeing any nooks other than a set of Encyclopedia Britanica. First books I recall are the ones I received as prizes at school. Loved going into town to the bookseller and choosing from the selection teacher had made for prizewinners.

I don't think many of the Dad's did then, it was the times, they provided. The role was different.

My Dad read to me every night. Mum never read to me. Dad was the disciplinarian. Mum never disciplined me. I think every child needs a bedtime story

My dear dad passed in 1980, he was an awesome dad. He used to read to me every night. He used to take me on coach trips and we would go fishing. He made me a little room behind the shed and I used to out on plays with my Pelham puppets. My mother never had to work or ask him for money he settled the bills but she had a generous bank account that he topped up. She never had to ask him to decorate he did it every 2 years. She was lucky, he was older than her. He served and nearly died in WW1 I think he was so grateful to be alive after the horrors of trench warfare that he made every day matter. I was devastated when he died. My mother died 6 years before and he was tired of being without her.

My Dad didn't read to me
However he took me into the park often rowing a boat on the lak, regular visits to museums in London, bike rides and long country walks and blackberry picking on holidays. He also was ahead of his time in as much as an older father (of a daughter) in the sixties he always called me to watch and learn when he mended things, changed a plug, reheeled and soled shoes etc. I'm forever thankful I grew up being able to do lots of things for myself .

My mother never slapped or used any form of physical punishment but like someone posted upthread she was verbally very hard.
She was sarcastic and withering, she tried it with my C but she soon got told never to do that again.
She did it with me all her life
I was actually quite scared of her, always seeking her approval.
I do wonder if things had been different if my dad had lived to a good age, I shall never know.
What is very sad is that they never had anyone really mourn them, they never knew of course but others did.

My Dad was a lovely man who so much wanted my brother and I to have a happy childhood. He read to us and took us to the library every week and later to the theatre. Unfortunately we all had Mum to contend with. She didnt believe in books and reading, it was classified as wasting time. She was endlessly unhappy, angry and resentful of her path through life. She regularly used to tell me (the eldest) her life effectively ended when I came along to ruin everything. As soon as I could read by myself I retreated off into the world of books which provided a wonderful escape from Mum and her woes.

My father was the finest of men and the best of fathers. He didn't read to me but he told me stories of when he was a boy on Colonsay, a small Hebridean Island, where he was born in 1901. The Islanders all spoke Gaelic but schooling in the one teacher school on the island was in English and the children were punished if they spoke in Gaelic at school....probably the reason my father did not become a great reader.
One story he told me was about a ships figurehead, a female figure, that he and other boys found washed up on the shore, bleached white by the sea. They set it up by a lonely road they knew a woman would have to walk along at night and hid. The figurehead shone in the moonlight. They expected the woman to scream and run away at the sight of a ghost. But she just walked up to the figurehead, patted it and said in Gaelic, " aren't you cold out here, my dear?" My father told me her confidence was due to the strength of her religious faith. But I think now that she must have heard the children giggling in their hidey hole.

My dad was a lovely, gentle man, he had lots of health problems and we often saw him going off to work quite ill but he wouldn't take time off. He was totally unselfish but neither he nor my mother ever read to any of us children.

My Dad never read to me or played games of any sort. He was a distant man and very Victorian really. Most interactions were of him reprimanding me for something or other. In many ways he treated me more like a boy. I don't remember my mum ever reading to me either and she certainly never played games or did cooking or crafting with me. I think they thought discipline and a good education at school was sufficient.

Both my parents were like this . They never told us that they loved us . They never hugged or cuddled us that iI remember BUT I knew that they loved me and grew up happy .
The thing that does bother me is that we were never praised for achieving anything . They were proud but never told us so . Both my brother and I passed the eleven plus and went to our first pick of grammar schools but I didn’t realise that this meant I was quite clever . I thought I was dim so didn’t try at school and wasn’t encouraged by my parents to do so . I left with 4 pretty rubbish O levels.
It was only at the age of 35 that I did a test to get into nursing that I found out that at that time I had an IQ of 140 , as told to me by an interviewer at one of the hospitals that I had applied to .
My brothers are equally as clever but it was only the much younger brother that went to university.
My parents have both been dead for over 20 years now and are much missed . I loved them very much even without the cuddles 🥰.

Terribull - bits if your post resonate with me. Like dreading hearing dad opening the front door wondering what mood it would be after his daily pub visits. One abiding memory throughout childhood was mum telling me to shush whenever dad was there. I remember being scared to death just hearing the words - shush he's coming in now. His big leather belt was permanently hung up in the hall as a reminder of what would happen if I made any noise so childhood slipped by in silence. Funnily enough, it was always mum who would give me a good thrashing with that belt though. For a long time I thought the life I had was what all children had so it's heartwarming to read of such lovely childhood memories.

Neither Mum or Dad read to us and I cant remember cuddles at all. I checked this out with my younger sister who is more realistic and maybe fairer than me.
Neither of them was bitter nor taking resentments out on us, and never cruel, but basically they were just not really interested in us 4 children as little people with strengths and weaknesses and our own little ways. there was never any time for little moments with either parent where we were able to confide our little selves and know it was just OK to be us.

We were taken to piano and ballet lessons, we are taken to learn to swim, they were very keen on education - but in retrospect operated a sort of system of approval and disapproval rather than love and compassion. Nevertheless less it was a stable and fair environment, but for a long time I confused approval (and control) with love, which is very different.

What was missing was a sense that life is here to be enjoyed and rich simply for itself, not all the things we "ought to be"...

But much older -and this to me is crucial - I could and can see how they were brought up, what made them into the people they were, how their parenting had affected them as people and as parents, and then of course, forgiveness

My dad didn't read to me, my mum did, a book called 365 bedtime stories. They were really short (suited mum's attention span!) but she did read to me regularly & give me a bedtime kiss.(unless I'd been naughty).

My dad though used to sing to me at bedtime & bathtime -Eidelweiss & Now the day is Over & The Farmers Boy. He also was quite happy to have us on the farm with him, in the cowshed or on the tractor or motorbike, unless he was doing something more than usually difficult or dangerous.

He was such a lovely dad, and in my large extended family, most of my uncles were also quietly funny, gentle & good with us children. So when I used to stay with my schoolfriend at secondary school, I was puzzled by the tension in the family and her (controlling) father. Just hadn't encountered that family dynamic before (all complicit in "don't upset Dad"). In our family it was "keep out of mum's way till Dad gets home", if she was in a mood. I expect my friend found that strange too, her mum was as sweet as a nut.

My dad did not read to me. He had an odd long hours work shift pattern job. B7t my mother did on a daily basis.from being a baby.
Wonderful memories.

Several years later, when dad had more sociable shifts and my sister arrived.

He used to take her to the local library every Saturday afternoon to get a couple of new books which he read with her through week after tea.

I remember her loving the Moomins. Dick Brunhs books and the Cat in the Hat.

Reading with your parents as a child is irreplaceable.

A huge gift

Xxx

My mum was like yours UTBB although she could be physically abusive too. My dad was much more calm but remote and never tried to change mum. She was totally different with my youngest brother.

I envy those of you who had loving parents who did things with them.

It is interesting ... and sad ... that so many of our generation had parents who found it hard to show affection to their children. I wonder how this influenced our parenting. I know I went out of my way to sing and read with my children, to cuddle them lots, to tell them how much I loved them, to establish rituals that gave them a sense of security. They have grown up to be warm and loving parents yo their children I am happy to say... so cycles can be broken.

So they can, and were!