I was a child alone in a pub watching her mother drink herself stupid
I’m wondering if other COAs hate their parents now and don’t speak to them. I’m beginning to wonder if my reaction is normal just because the stories I see are ‘I still love my parent etc’. Of course, that story/POV is very valid and important to tell but I also want to hear of the adult children who now hate their parents. I despise mine for what they put me through and I don’t speak to them anymore.

My mother was the alcoholic but both parents were not ‘good’ parents. I am hopeful attitudes have changed and even though I was a child in the 2000s (I am 26 now), I think the ways of ‘old Ireland’ still lingered on in my very rural area. I often had to go to a neighbour’s house after school if my mother wasn’t there and there was no key out, she would collect me drunk and no one said anything. After one incident in particular where my mother had physically abused me, I hopped out the window and ran to a neighbour’s house. My dad collected me later. My mother was never reported. Everyone continued on as normal.

I also spent a lot of time in pubs as a child during the summer holidays where my mother would often be the only customer. As I got older, I couldn’t fathom why they continued to serve her, couldn’t they see me? I was a child alone in a pub watching her mother drink herself stupid, no one said anything. I’m unsure if garda intervention would have been the answer, I have a great distrust in the gardaí and ‘reporting’ her doesn’t seem the way to deal with these situations. I am unsure what is the answer, I just hope now that if an adult knows of a child living with an abusive alcoholic, they would not sit idly by as all my neighbours and other adults I encountered did.

Adults knew exactly what was going on in our household and did nothing.