FOO 'in' jokes

[Candid]

My parents often talked about their early married life in a caravan.  They got back from a walk one day and realised they'd left the window open; ElderSis was covered in snow.  It invariably ended: "And she's never been the same since."

I came three years later, and she's always been the same to me.  In Four-F typology it's hardly surprising she's a Freeze.  She looks a good 10 years younger than I do.  We ran into someone she knew on the street, who insisted on guessing who was older.  I said: We're the sister who smoked and the sister who didn't smoke. (From an old anti-smoking ad.)  ElderSis said: No, we're the sister who lived and the sister who didn't live.  She never said a truer word.

One of my dad's jokes was that they were going to move house while I was at school.  I'd had four addresses by the time I turned 10, so this seemed quite feasible.  Enough for me to have nightmares about it, anyway.

There was a time, when I was around 10-12, that my father told me he'd give me a sixpence at the end of any week when I didn't cry.  It was then Mother's and ElderSis's job to make sure I didn't get the sixpence.  Not once! 

To this day, I hide myself to cry.  And then, when I do so, I 'see' ElderSis screwing up her face and going: "Waaaah!" at me.

[Three Roses]

Humor was a big part of my FOO's coping mechanisms. the only problem was it was usually mean-spirited. I wasn't the only target, my male sibling was frequently harangued for something or other. He didn't get the physical abuse that i did but he was abused nonetheless.

My dad used to say i was half-way between pretty and ugly, which made me "pretty ugly". He said i had hair like a horse's tail and a face to match. He liked to tell the story of when i was born and the nurse told him he had a daughter, and he told her to put me back. He thought these were all hysterical. i laughed because to show my hurt would only bring more derision.

[AphoticAtramentous]

I remember plenty of times where my family would harmfully joke about me. Well, I 'remember'. I'm positive they happened. But for some reason whenever I try to recall a specific example I just... can't. I suppose that's just some c-ptsd thing. Heh. Maybe that's a good thing, I don't want to remember the $%^&# they said about me. lol

[Libby12]

I suppose all families have their "in"  stories and jokes, but it seems that the dysfunctional ones use this tactic more and it is definitely intended to hurt.   My FOO had quite a few stories that they liked to tell every time we saw them.  One was about how my one year old sister and I,  age two,  were outside playing.  Nm was inside but saw sister toddling down the road, just as the only bus of the day was due.  Mother heroically saved her from certain injury or death.   It was told as such a sweet and funny tale, but it was always stated that I had let her out, knowing the bus was due and that my aim was to get rid of her because I was jealous.   How can such a dark tale be so funny?   How did a two year old know the bus was due? Sister was always as tall/big as me and "so advanced for her age",  maybe she got herself out?   Why wasn't devoted mother taking better care if two very young children?   These queries were never raised - we all had to listen and laugh.

Talking of advanced GCsis,  another FOO lovely story is how she was sent, from the age of three, to the local shop about five minutes away.   She was sent as she was so advanced that she could ride a bicycle and I couldn't.   Nm said she wasn't worried that sister would have an accident because she was so clever but she did worry that she may be abducted. Nm must have decided it was worth the risk and seems to believe that the fact that sister never came to any harm was a reflection on mother's perfect parenting. Never once,  in all of it's telling,  did anyone question nm's reasoning.

For me, probably the worse was how even when I was an adult,  nm would happily admit to having beaten me frequently.   The fact that she said this should have been positive but she finished her stories with the phrase "and it never did you any harm!" 

Over time, stories about my children were added to their repertoire, like mocking my daughter's dislike of raspberries for desert every day, and her bizarre request to have less cream and sugar with them. By that I mean daughter laughed at for not wanting to be forced to eat something because her grandparents liked it.

I am so sorry to have written all this because I still worry that this is just normal family stuff and that I have no reason to question the motivation of my parents.  They never accepted that they were anything less than perfect.   

Also, I have nothing to compare them to. The only other family I have an insight to are my in-laws.  They don't do family "in" jokes, but I have come to realise that that might be because they don't really do "family".  They seem not to care about anyones' opinions or feelings.  I have been part of two families where the parents were wholly self-centred,  but one highly enmeshed and one highly dismissive. 

I think my husband and I succeed quite well in being somewhere between our two families,  and have some lovely stories of our children. For example, at two years old dd got twin brothers but she decided just to 'like' one each day.  Nm didn't like this, but we understood how overwhelmed she was so we turned it into a positive for her.  Most of my FOO family stories were to show how jealous I was of GCsis.  For all of our family difficulties,  jealousy has not been one of them.

Thanks for listening to my ramblings.  It's only on this site that I can get these feelings out of my system.   If only I could let go of the need for my FOO and my in-laws to listen to me.

Best wishes everyone.

Libby

[Candid]

Three Roses, your dad sounds a lot like mine.  He called me clumsy clot far more often than he called me Candid.

Another of his party pieces was: "I made three mistakes and then I got my boy."  All four of us were in the room at the time, two of us old enough to... sit quietly (as we knew we must) and process audience reaction in our own ways.  The third mistake was about five, and certainly heard it.

I suppose all families have their "in"  stories and jokes, but it seems that the dysfunctional ones use this tactic more and it is definitely intended to hurt.

With hindsight, I know Dad genuinely thought the moving house and the mistakes things were funny.  Since I was diagnosed with CPTSD in 2012 I've come to realise he had it too, and was mega-stressed pretty much all the time.  Ironically, his mother showed a distinct preference for his sister, although it has to be said she was pretty 'orrible to most people.

it was always stated that I had let her out, knowing the bus was due and that my aim was to get rid of her because I was jealous.

Ouch.  I know how much this hurts!  Mother's first smear campaign, to explain the trouble she'd stirred up between YoungerSis and me, was founded on "Candid's always been jealous of YoungerSis."  In fact it was YoungerSis, early primary school age, who announced at the dinner table one night: "When I grow up I want to be Candid."  Not like Candid, she wanted to be me.  This was funny to our parents, too.  I was horrified. 

On the flipside, ElderSis handing me a wire coat-hanger while I was in my cot, which I naturally inserted into my mouth, became another one of those 'funny' stories about how Candid created her own dimple.  Despite being the first mistake, ElderSis could never be blamed because she was permanently 'ill' -- munchausen's by proxy.  Mother stopped short of inducing symptoms (I think  ) but I can remember her sitting at ElderSis's bedside night after night teaching her to breathe.

I agree with you about the questions these 'jokes' create when we're looking back with a wiser perspective.  What kind of parents leave a baby unattended in a caravan, and the window above her open, in the winter?

Another 'good joke': on a family holiday, when the Son and Heir was still to come, YoungerSis kept running away and squealing in glee when it was time to go.  Dad decided we'd shut the doors and drive away slowly. He and Mother roaring with laughter in the front seats, ElderSis doing her freeze thing beside me, me looking back as YoungerSis ran after us, her little arms outstretched, tripping over, her face screwed up in terror.  Egged on by Mother, Dad kept stopping and then driving off again each time she got closer.  Makes me think of that experiment where people kept administering what they thought were electric shocks, simply because an authority figure was standing over them.  Yeah, hilarious.

Kinda SNAP on the bicycle story, too, only it was I who was always sent on errands, because OlderSis was 'ill'.  I was sent to buy potatoes and given a string bag for them, which naturally I hung on the handlebar.  It soon went into the front spokes and I came off.  An old man came over and I insisted I wasn't hurt (grazed knee); I was crying because Mother would be angry about a torn bag and mangled spuds.  He said: "Of course she won't! Tell her to make chips for dinner!"  I knew he was trying to make me smile, but even then I knew I didn't have that kind of mother.  Tell her to do something???  More than my life was worth, and I knew it.

Don't apologise, Libby12.  I do believe 'harmless' child abuse is far more common than is generally acknowledged, but not everyone is driven to the extent of CPTSD.  Parents who "never accepted that they were anything less than perfect" are a major red flag.   I'm glad this thread brought so much out of you, and I hope others will respond as well.

Three mistakes?  But I'm a Perfect Mother!  This cannot be!
I know, I'll turn the first one into a permanent invalid,
the second one into my little scapegoat, because she dares defy Me; and
hoo boy :rubbinghands:, if I play my cards right, we can just dump the third one altogether!

MTC, I suspect.

[Whobuddy]

So glad you started this thread! The 'jokes' are abusive yet they seem like we should not be bothered by them as they are 'jokes'. The 'jokes' in my family leave me still working on the issues of being Invisible and Inept. Hard to remove the ridiculing, scoffing laughter of my mother from my head even now.

As a child, I learned that I was also expected to do the joking and I became quite good at it. It made me even more invisible as a person. They would say, Say something funny, Whobuddy. But it was only so they could avoid realizing that I was a real person. They only wanted to be amused by me.

Seemingly innocuous events like at 3 years old wanting my mother to wash my lollipop that had fallen on the floor and wash it she did - until it had completely gone down the drain. She laughed as she gave me the empty stick saying that was what I had asked her to do. She still tells this 'funny' story. I was left blaming myself - why didn't I know it would dissolve? At three? Clearly, it was my fault this had happened. Clearly, I brought the ridicule onto myself. Clearly, I feel inept, powerless, and invisible to this day.

There are many more events similar to this. One time when I was small they put a life jacket on me to 'swim' and I lost my footing and began to float out into the middle of the lake. No one noticed. I had to call for help and hear everyone laugh at me. Finally, a girl - not my own family - went and pulled me back in. Inept and invisible once again.

[Candid]

She still tells this 'funny' story.

I would hope anyone hearing this story would be able to imagine the hurt and disappointment of that toddler, but decades of experience have taught me I would hope in vain.  I very often hear the other side of stories people tell about their children... and of course, voicing the other side is taboo.

Finally, a girl - not my own family - went and pulled me back in.

That sounds like a metaphor for your life, Whobuddy.  It takes someone outside of our families to see us, hear our cries of distress, and demonstrate what simple caring is.

[Libby12]

Oh, Whobuddy. You are so right.  Even at the age of fifty,  I can still hear my mother laughing at my mistakes. Not the scoffing laughter you suffered,  but a more quiet, more superior laugh, but still full of ridicule. 

And you are so spot on, Candid. No one in the family ever notices.  I remember that in many childhood photos,  especially the official school ones, my gcsis was always pictured upright and smiling and animated.   But I was sad,  and slouched and looked so pitiful.   These school photos were given to grandmothers each year so that whether at home or in their houses it was always commented "Look at Puddleglum spoiling the photo!"  This was my nickname because I was so miserable.  But no one,  especially my parents ever gave a thought to why I was so miserable - it was just my fault,  a defect in me,  nothing to do with their treatment of me.

My autistic son always looked extra unhappy on school photos, compared to his siblings.   I don't think I gave any of these photos to my parents,  and quickly stopped buying them at all.  I didn't want a repeat of my childhood.   I said to my children that we could buy them something new with the money instead. They liked this idea and when questioned by the teacher as to why their parents didn't buy the photos,  my son told them "we don't need them because my mum knows what we look like."  He was very proud of this reply so it is another of our nice family stories. 

Thanks for listening again!

Libby.

[Candid]

my son told them "we don't need them because my mum knows what we look like." 

I call that a good FOO joke!  Thanks for sharing it, Libby.

I'm beginning to think we were twins separated at birth.  Distinct recollection of my paternal grandmother being shown my school photo, and saying: "Ugh, what a face!" because I was frowning.

Nanny S had a lot to answer for. 

[Movingon]

My firstborn was a very intense baby who cried 24/7. I was so overwhelmed, we had no support and my Dad used to laugh and say "it's what you deserve for putting us through the same thing"

[Candid]

Charming.

Come to think of it, mother gave mixed messages to me and my sister when we were teenagers:
Giving birth was the best four days of my life.
Just wait till you're a mother yourself!
If you get pregnant, we'll throw you out.

Couple of decades later she wistfully told my sister that all her siblings were grandparents now.  Sis observed wryly: "She forgot to say 'when'."

[silentrhino]

I have a litany of these "jokes" but they're just not funny.

My dear parents think its hysterical that two of my brothers tried to physically murder me as a child but didn't succeed.  They and the brothers laugh so hard at how I turned blue at my near drowning and strangulation.  I just feel sick, even today.  When I was old enough to understand what they were all laughing at I had a choice to cry and be beaten or not react.  I didn't react, I wasn't stupid, even as a young child.

My brother announced to my partner and his parents that I once wet our dads lap when I was a toddler on a long car ride.  This was the first time I had met my parner's parents.  I was in a semi delusional state thinking that my brother could spend five minutes without ridiculing me or attempting to humiliate me.  The fact that this happened decades ago seemed irrelevant to the constant shaming that my brother has to do in order to maintain my submission.

I hate those kind of jokes and insinuations, they are savage and do so much psychological harm.  Then being told it's because I'm too sensitive makes it even more insidious. 

[Gromit]

I have some which came up over and over.

When my sister was born, she was so good, my father wanted 6 more kids, when I was born, he said, never again!

I remember reading, in bed, and hearing a scratching sound. I called my parents, they didn't believe me but did put poison down somewhere. Some time later there was a smell, in my room so I slept on my mattress on their bedroom floor whilst they investigated. They found a dead mouse, under the floorboards. The story told by my mother was that I had brought a mouse home from school, where they had one in a cage. Really? I was so scared of my mother and teachers I would never have done such a thing, but, I suppose it was better to blame me than accept that there had been a mouse in her house. The story came out every time my we had a guest for dinner, usually my sister's current BF.