“Saw my friend spit in her house, straight onto the carpet. I didn’t go back.”

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"This went on for years, on pretty much a daily basis, until my family moved out west. My godmother kept her daycare running until she died (I'm sure of health problems relating to alcohol). I was 15 when she passed and I'm in my 30s now. I honestly went most of my life thinking NOTHING of it until I became a father a couple of years ago. At which point I was like... "How the fuck did anyone let her have a daycare?"Side note, I drink but would consider myself an average drinker, if not below average. With that being said, I could never stomach the thought of gin and didn't try gin until I was 30. This was because I once licked my finger, early in my daycare bartending career, after a couple of drops of gin splashed on my hand as I was pouring. That plastic half-gallon quality gin was the worst thing I'd ever had in my life, and I had no idea how my godmother liked it so much. Completely ruined my taste for gin...at eight."

"During one of those vacations when I was 17, I invited a friend come over. They pointed out how fucked up it was that there were bedrooms fully furnished with TVs for my brother and sister, a guest room fully furnished as well with a TV, and how I was in the basement with sheets for walls and bathroom mats on the floor. 

I completely dismissed it because it was normal to me. It wasn’t till I was 20 that I found out that the family trips that I didn’t go on were paid for with money that I was getting from my dad passing away. I’m sure I got some of the money in food and clothes and whatever I needed. But it’s got me pretty fucked up because my brother and sister don’t have any memory of it, and when I talk about it, they always back my parents by saying we were raised right and I opted out of vacations. They also thought the guest room was my room."

"It was just a real eye-opener for me as a kid, and it gave me a much better understanding of exactly why my mom babysat and fed all those kids."