Childhood was SHIT
Christmas was a wonderful experience when you were little. Each year there was the mystery of a fat man in red travelling the world in one night, making wishes come true with the promise of new toys. Getting up at 5am when everyone else was still in bed and it was still dark outside to start opening your presents. The older you get the more and more magic is sucked out of it until finally its just about buying shit for other people and getting eye-bleedingly drunk.
But what else was good about being a child? Nothing.
People always say "you should cherish your childhood years, its a wonderful time when everything is fresh and innocent. Your imagination is limitless, and every day is a brand new adventure!"
Fuck. Off.
Childhood was about injections, throwing up, hurting yourself and adults being bastards. You had no idea what sex was, you couldnt enjoy alcohol, coffee, smoking, having a shower (for some reason as a kid everyone hates washing, there's some age where you suddenly enjoy it that no one can remember) or films that werent more than an hour long and had Robin Williams' voice in them.
One of the biggest problems was other children. You know that saying, "children can be so cruel"? Its very true. Not only is it true, but it applies to all of them, including me and you. Yes you and I were always real little fuckers when we were kids too.
Want an example? I remember that I used to have this big metal drum that was almost as tall as me when I was really young. It had the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles painted along the side and I had no idea what it was for, so I would put my three year old sister inside and roll it down the stairs.
In my defense she laughed every time and she seems fine now.
Everything, every game and every toy was an opportunity for one child to hurt another. Look at conkers. Remember when conkers were in season? Everyone would come into school with conkers falling from their stuffed pockets, looking forward to attaching string and playing games all day long.
Little fucking balls of pain.
No one knew how to play conkers for a start, it was a complete mystery. I dont think there even is really such a game, its just an excuse to bring them into school and than pelt them at each other's foreheads as hard as possible.
Sport was another chance for abuse. Footballs were made to be kicked at each others faces, and PE teachers were employed to encourage it.Apparently they were also employed to say "right boys all of yew back inside, get naked and get in the shower so I can stare at yew from the corner."
Bulldogs was another good one. Everyone get in a line and run at each other as fast as possible; first one to crack their skull hard enough to break it in half and have some brain spill out is the winner.
Not only were we all violent, there was always the fucking WEIRD kid as well. Everyone has one in their class when they're in school; he would wear the same dirty, burgandy Umbro jumper and Addidas tracksuit trousers in every day, he'd always having chicken paste sandwiches which he'd shovel into himself vigorously whilst talking to you loudly at the same time from across the lunch table.
He'd always be the one who'd hurt you slightly to make everyone laugh. Then when they did he'd do it again harder, and again, and again, long after everyone had stopped laughing and started trying to get him to stop.
He'd ask fucking bizarre questions as well. One day you'd be innocently trying to set a window on fire with your teeth when he'd loom up behind you, his forehead casting a long shadow across the playground, he'd lean in close enough for you to smell the mashed chicken and pineapple juice on his breath and he'd say; "....'AS YEW MUTHA GORRA MUFF?!"
There was no correct answer to this question. You were a child, you did not know what this meant.
Yes?
"OH MAI GOHD YEW MUTHA 'AVE GORRA MUFF HURR HURR HUUUURRR" *SMASH* punch to the teeth.
No?
"OH MAI LIFE YEW MUTHA 'AVEN' GORRA MUFFUUUUUGH" *CRACK* punch to the mother.
Your parents werent any help either because they'd always invite that fucking kid to your house for NO reason at all. He'd spend four hours after school breaking your toys, leaving bits of chewed biscuit in the cartridge slot of your SNES and performing genuinely painful wrestling moves on you. Don't bother telling your mum because she'll just say "don't be stupid that doesn't hurt" or "stop showing off."
For some reason whenever you had other kids round your parents would suddenly transform into the cruelest, angriest people on earth. They'd shout at you for the smallest thing, even if, no ESPECIALLY if your friend did it. Did your friend staple the cat to the TV? YOUR FAULT! Did he stick the sofa up your grandmother? YOUR FAULT!
Then the weird kid's parent would show up (driving your mother's car which he'd stolen when he dropped the kid off) and they would look and sound EXACTLY THE SAME.
You'd inevitably get ill from being in contact with another child as well. Being ill as a child was fucking awful and it seemed to happen every other day from the ages of 0-10. What's more, for some reason, your parents would never believe you.
Kid you: I'm gunna be sick!
Parent: No you're not you're fine!
Kid you: No really I'm gunna be sick it's comin' up my froat!
Parent: Shh! Come on Ive got 27 more shops to aimlessly wonder around with you rolling around on the floor behind me!
Kid you: HUUUURRRRRRRRAAAAAAUUUUUGGGGHHHH
Parent: WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY ANYTHING?!
Then they take you to the doctor where they tell you you wont need and injection, knowing the doctor is about to recommend 17 painful injections to the tongue to cure you of the plague. This would be followed by one of the classic lies told to you in childhood:
"DON'T WORRY IT WON'T HURT!"
Lying seems to be a prerequesit for parenting. Im expecting to get a handbook if I ever somehow end up having kids, with the following in a sort of "key phrases to remember" section:
"Ive only got one more shop to go to."
"Five more minutes."
"If you tell an adult then they'll stop picking on you."
"If you stand up to them they'll stop picking on you."
"It's more scared of you than you are of it."
"It wont sting you if you just STAND STILL."
There's the key activity used for punishing children for things they have yet to do as well: visiting elderly relatives.
It would always be on a Sunday. You'd go and visit a 104 year old woman who had actually died 3 years previously but was still walking, talking and making digusting ham sandwiches. She lived in some horrendous, tiny backwater town where the town hall doubled as the post office and the monument at the centre was a phone box everyone had to use because BT hadn't discovered the place yet.
You'd sit there for 9 hours, Last of the Summer Wine on the TV (for the whole nine hours), rain softly tapping on the window from the outside, sneaking in through cracks in the frame, an electric fire slowly cooking your feet, the sound of a ticking clock invading your brain getting louder and LOUDER AND LOUDER. Maybe she had a pet, some decrepid old cat the size of an armchair dragging itself across the floor with its front legs because the back ones dont work anymore, meowing pitifully at you hoping you stamp on its head and end the misery.
"WOULD YOU LIKE A CUP OF TEA OR SOME POP?!"
Neither choice is the right one. If you chose tea you'd get it in an old fashioned cup and saucer which would be impossible to hold, the tea itself mostly milk yet somehow unbelievably hot with 15 sugars in it. The pop would either be Spa Cola or Tovali, both of which she would insist was "Cocka Cola" and both flat.
Maybe she'd offer you a some toys to play with while she talks to your parents: an old action man with no clothes, a small tin car with the PG Tips logo on the side and three wheels, or Lego comprised of millions of the same piece so that all you can make is one giant straight tower.
Sundays were actually the worst day of the week. After this painful pity visit you'd go home feeling sort of sweaty and tired where you'd be forced to have an eye-wateringly hot bath, do a week's worth of homework in your pyjamas smelling of Matey bubble bath and Head and Shoulders while the Brittas Empire is on the TV. Then you'd be sent to bed early, which was even worse in the summer because it would still be light outside.
Childhood was absolutely awful. It didnt get better until you were about 10, and then it only very slowly got slightly better each year as you left the shit behind bit by bit until you reach 16 when you throw a party.
Not a party to celebrate being 16 mind you, instead a party celebrating the fact that you never have to endure the painful, boring, sickening, patronising, depressing shit of being a kid ever again.
If I ever have a kid Im dressing him in a suit and starting him smoking by the time he's 3.
Christmas was a wonderful experience when you were little. Each year there was the mystery of a fat man in red travelling the world in one night, making wishes come true with the promise of new toys. Getting up at 5am when everyone else was still in bed and it was still dark outside to start opening your presents. The older you get the more and more magic is sucked out of it until finally its just about buying shit for other people and getting eye-bleedingly drunk.
But what else was good about being a child? Nothing.
People always say "you should cherish your childhood years, its a wonderful time when everything is fresh and innocent. Your imagination is limitless, and every day is a brand new adventure!"
Fuck. Off.
Childhood was about injections, throwing up, hurting yourself and adults being bastards. You had no idea what sex was, you couldnt enjoy alcohol, coffee, smoking, having a shower (for some reason as a kid everyone hates washing, there's some age where you suddenly enjoy it that no one can remember) or films that werent more than an hour long and had Robin Williams' voice in them.
One of the biggest problems was other children. You know that saying, "children can be so cruel"? Its very true. Not only is it true, but it applies to all of them, including me and you. Yes you and I were always real little fuckers when we were kids too.
Want an example? I remember that I used to have this big metal drum that was almost as tall as me when I was really young. It had the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles painted along the side and I had no idea what it was for, so I would put my three year old sister inside and roll it down the stairs.
In my defense she laughed every time and she seems fine now.
Everything, every game and every toy was an opportunity for one child to hurt another. Look at conkers. Remember when conkers were in season? Everyone would come into school with conkers falling from their stuffed pockets, looking forward to attaching string and playing games all day long.
Little fucking balls of pain.
No one knew how to play conkers for a start, it was a complete mystery. I dont think there even is really such a game, its just an excuse to bring them into school and than pelt them at each other's foreheads as hard as possible.
Sport was another chance for abuse. Footballs were made to be kicked at each others faces, and PE teachers were employed to encourage it.Apparently they were also employed to say "right boys all of yew back inside, get naked and get in the shower so I can stare at yew from the corner."
Bulldogs was another good one. Everyone get in a line and run at each other as fast as possible; first one to crack their skull hard enough to break it in half and have some brain spill out is the winner.
Not only were we all violent, there was always the fucking WEIRD kid as well. Everyone has one in their class when they're in school; he would wear the same dirty, burgandy Umbro jumper and Addidas tracksuit trousers in every day, he'd always having chicken paste sandwiches which he'd shovel into himself vigorously whilst talking to you loudly at the same time from across the lunch table.
He'd always be the one who'd hurt you slightly to make everyone laugh. Then when they did he'd do it again harder, and again, and again, long after everyone had stopped laughing and started trying to get him to stop.
He'd ask fucking bizarre questions as well. One day you'd be innocently trying to set a window on fire with your teeth when he'd loom up behind you, his forehead casting a long shadow across the playground, he'd lean in close enough for you to smell the mashed chicken and pineapple juice on his breath and he'd say; "....'AS YEW MUTHA GORRA MUFF?!"
There was no correct answer to this question. You were a child, you did not know what this meant.
Yes?
"OH MAI GOHD YEW MUTHA 'AVE GORRA MUFF HURR HURR HUUUURRR" *SMASH* punch to the teeth.
No?
"OH MAI LIFE YEW MUTHA 'AVEN' GORRA MUFFUUUUUGH" *CRACK* punch to the mother.
Your parents werent any help either because they'd always invite that fucking kid to your house for NO reason at all. He'd spend four hours after school breaking your toys, leaving bits of chewed biscuit in the cartridge slot of your SNES and performing genuinely painful wrestling moves on you. Don't bother telling your mum because she'll just say "don't be stupid that doesn't hurt" or "stop showing off."
For some reason whenever you had other kids round your parents would suddenly transform into the cruelest, angriest people on earth. They'd shout at you for the smallest thing, even if, no ESPECIALLY if your friend did it. Did your friend staple the cat to the TV? YOUR FAULT! Did he stick the sofa up your grandmother? YOUR FAULT!
Then the weird kid's parent would show up (driving your mother's car which he'd stolen when he dropped the kid off) and they would look and sound EXACTLY THE SAME.
You'd inevitably get ill from being in contact with another child as well. Being ill as a child was fucking awful and it seemed to happen every other day from the ages of 0-10. What's more, for some reason, your parents would never believe you.
Kid you: I'm gunna be sick!
Parent: No you're not you're fine!
Kid you: No really I'm gunna be sick it's comin' up my froat!
Parent: Shh! Come on Ive got 27 more shops to aimlessly wonder around with you rolling around on the floor behind me!
Kid you: HUUUURRRRRRRRAAAAAAUUUUUGGGGHHHH
Parent: WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY ANYTHING?!
Then they take you to the doctor where they tell you you wont need and injection, knowing the doctor is about to recommend 17 painful injections to the tongue to cure you of the plague. This would be followed by one of the classic lies told to you in childhood:
"DON'T WORRY IT WON'T HURT!"
Lying seems to be a prerequesit for parenting. Im expecting to get a handbook if I ever somehow end up having kids, with the following in a sort of "key phrases to remember" section:
"Ive only got one more shop to go to."
"Five more minutes."
"If you tell an adult then they'll stop picking on you."
"If you stand up to them they'll stop picking on you."
"It's more scared of you than you are of it."
"It wont sting you if you just STAND STILL."
There's the key activity used for punishing children for things they have yet to do as well: visiting elderly relatives.
It would always be on a Sunday. You'd go and visit a 104 year old woman who had actually died 3 years previously but was still walking, talking and making digusting ham sandwiches. She lived in some horrendous, tiny backwater town where the town hall doubled as the post office and the monument at the centre was a phone box everyone had to use because BT hadn't discovered the place yet.
You'd sit there for 9 hours, Last of the Summer Wine on the TV (for the whole nine hours), rain softly tapping on the window from the outside, sneaking in through cracks in the frame, an electric fire slowly cooking your feet, the sound of a ticking clock invading your brain getting louder and LOUDER AND LOUDER. Maybe she had a pet, some decrepid old cat the size of an armchair dragging itself across the floor with its front legs because the back ones dont work anymore, meowing pitifully at you hoping you stamp on its head and end the misery.
"WOULD YOU LIKE A CUP OF TEA OR SOME POP?!"
Neither choice is the right one. If you chose tea you'd get it in an old fashioned cup and saucer which would be impossible to hold, the tea itself mostly milk yet somehow unbelievably hot with 15 sugars in it. The pop would either be Spa Cola or Tovali, both of which she would insist was "Cocka Cola" and both flat.
Maybe she'd offer you a some toys to play with while she talks to your parents: an old action man with no clothes, a small tin car with the PG Tips logo on the side and three wheels, or Lego comprised of millions of the same piece so that all you can make is one giant straight tower.
Sundays were actually the worst day of the week. After this painful pity visit you'd go home feeling sort of sweaty and tired where you'd be forced to have an eye-wateringly hot bath, do a week's worth of homework in your pyjamas smelling of Matey bubble bath and Head and Shoulders while the Brittas Empire is on the TV. Then you'd be sent to bed early, which was even worse in the summer because it would still be light outside.
Childhood was absolutely awful. It didnt get better until you were about 10, and then it only very slowly got slightly better each year as you left the shit behind bit by bit until you reach 16 when you throw a party.
Not a party to celebrate being 16 mind you, instead a party celebrating the fact that you never have to endure the painful, boring, sickening, patronising, depressing shit of being a kid ever again.
If I ever have a kid Im dressing him in a suit and starting him smoking by the time he's 3.
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
I am shit scared of wasps, mainly because I was stung by them more or less constantly throughout my childhood, mainly when I was standing still.
And that sounds EXACTLY like when I used to visit my nan. Are you just reading my thoughts? She also used to have an old margarine tub (one of the big square ones that must have once held an army's worth of lard) full of ancient cakes that she'd offer me, rock hard scones and unrecognisable coconut things. She'd offer them approximately every 8 minutes, and get really offended if you didn't want one.