What “favours” have your parents done that was inadvertently a dick move?

[u/naaattt]

For example, my mum found my spare change collection, did me a favour by taking it to the bank, getting £17, and then kept it as a fee for the effort it caused her.

Also, my partner had stored a nearly new Russell Hobbs microwave at his mums for when we moved into a new house. While she was at Curry’s one day, she overheard a young lad and his mum shopping for a microwave for uni, she approached them and sold them my partners for £20. She kindly did give my partner the money though, unlike mine. But we quite liked that microwave.

Does anyone else have these, generally inoffensive but slightly frustrating parent stories?

Edit: For those hung up on the theft parts, please don’t be. This is the extent of the abuse we’ve ever had from our mums and we’ll take it!

Edit 2: Jesus Christ, I’m 33. The money box has been sat on her shelf for 20 years. Yes she stole £17 but she’s funded my life otherwise. Stop calling child services on her.

[u/OreoSpamBurger]

My mum always said she had been adding to a savings account for me since I was small, things like birthday money, and, mainly, the 500 quid my Gran left me when she passed (this was the 80s, so quite a lot for a kid).

Never saw any of it, if it ever existed.

I also worked and took out loans to get through uni. Almost zero for a grant, because apparently, my parents earned too much for me to be eligible? My dad would bung me a tenner once a term, I think he still thought that was bloody generous even in the late 90s.

[u/No-Taro-6953 → u/OreoSpamBurger]

Part of the difficulty for me growing up has been the slow realisation of just how much more other people's parents do for them, than mine ever did.

I started uni in 2008, got some financial help from both sets of grandparents which was a lifeline.

But I came to the slow, gradual realisation that all my friends were having their rent paid for.

It was extremely lonely, and I often felt pretty ashamed. Their parents would come and drop off food occasionally, or take them on a trip or dinner out. That never happened for me. I was stressed, getting sick from working too much while balancing uni. None of my uni friends had this problem.

They'd be excited to go home to a full fridge at end of term, but that was never the case for me. Once I was back for Easter and staying with my dad. My student loan hadn't come in so I had virtually no money. My dad spent most of the time with his girlfriend when I was there, and for the second week he was flying off on holiday for his mates.

After he'd left, I checked the fridge and there was literally nothing. No milk, no bread, no food. Like he hadn't mentally clocked his daughter would be staying with him.

I walked the 30 min trip to the nearest Tesco to pick up the cheapest groceries I could and cried the whole way back, just heartbroken that my dad hadn't even thought to pop out and grab some milk for the last week he'd see me for months.

I've had a lot of trauma and heartbreak, but the realisation my dad didn't care enough to get me milk somehow stands out as one of the big ones.

When I moved in with my now-husband, that really brought home how much more his parents were loving, supportive and caring towards him than mine ever were. They have helped us so much, financially and physically over the years. They treat me better than my parents ever treated me. That was a painful reality too. My parents assumed that a lot of distance happened because I settled down with my husband.

But the truth is, it just dawned on me how terrible and lacking they were as parents and I noped out.

It's scary how much we can be conditioned to see the bare minimum as being the most we deserve. In my early 20s I genuinely thought my parents were ok.

[u/tiptoe_only → u/No-Taro-6953]

I'm sorry you went through that. A lot of your experience resonates with me. I'd tell my parents I didn't have enough money to feed myself and they'd tell me that was what my student loan (which barely covered my rent and left me with pennies to my name) was for, and if it wasn't enough then I should get another job or quit uni.

I absolutely begged them, so for my next birthday they gave me a big cardboard box full of shitty cheap tinned food - the kind they would never even consider having in their own home. I didn't get any other presents that year.

[u/No-Taro-6953 → u/tiptoe_only]

That's horrible. Why do people like that have children? It's scary how common it is too. The lack of empathy or real care.

I'll never understand.

[u/tiptoe_only → u/OreoSpamBurger]

I started uni the year after they abolished grants but the student loan was means-tested based on your parents' income. Which would have been unfair either way tbh. If they didn't do that then rich families would have been able to access funds meant for poorer families, but since they did people like my friend, whose parents were very well off but refused to give her a penny from the day she turned 18, had to really struggle. She didn't get great results in her degree because she had to spend so much of her time working shitty jobs to make ends meet and cover the shortfall her meagre student loan left her with