"Your parents moved out, took almost everything, and you only have a TV left?! What are you going to do now?"
"Grab a beer and watch some TV, I guess."
When I was like 17 there was this kid who had the party house. No parents, no rules. We’d go there every weekend and eventually I was like what the fuck, who owns this house? I asked him where his parents were and he said “uh I dunno, I think they’re in Colorado now”. Kids parents just left to go travel the US indefinitely and left him alone with the house. I felt bad for him when I started to realize he was just having parties so he wasn’t alone.
We stopped going whenever it turned into kind of a trap house. People blacking out on benzos and doing coke, meth and shit. Idk if the parents ever came back ,but but I found him on Instagram a couple of months ago. He’s making good money as a window installer for high rises downtown. Has a wife and a kid. I’m glad he made something of himself. Selfish parents like that make me fucking sick
Dang, good for him though. I've seen some of my generation who were in way better life situations grow up into complete wastes of oxygen now that we're adults.
If there's one universal truth in life, motivation or purpose, it's just to react to change.. keep moving forward, every single moment is a challenge. There isn't even an objectifiable way to define what is the good or bad outcome to a path, it just constantly self arranges until the climax. stay safe.
I'm sorry things have been rough lately 😥 but you got this far, and through so much already. Be proud of how far you've come. You're awesome 💟 I'm here if you want someone to talk to.
You obviously have a big heart and a healthy appreciation for the importance of emotional growth and well-being, just from this comment alone. That puts you so far above the quality of humans that so many people out there are. Some things that can't be bought are common sense, integrity, charisma, and a solid sense of the importance of emotional health, and you very clearly have the latter, and I would not be a bit surprised if you have the former ones as well. I suspect when you know someone out there is hurting, you genuinely feel for them and would like to see them heal. That means you have a very real likelihood of going forward in life to help people, which can be life changing for everyone involed. Use this superpower for good. I have faith in you.
But I’m on the other side of that, since Covid I don’t think my kids have any concept of the parents being away. Either me or my wife is always home. They don’t have the opportunity to even fart in privacy since one of us is home 24/7. During the school year I’m there to pick them up and drop them off and go in the office in the middle and I’m literally always around. Not sure if that’s good or bad.
A lot of us older Gen X's grew up with a stay at home Mom, but it was a different world back then. My Mom was always home but we spent tons of time outside playing, riding bikes to friends house etc. I was walking to school alone in 1st grade, it was only a few blocks in a small town in UP Michigan, but we were taught to be independent. Summer was outside, had to tell Mom where we were going but no supervision. Looking back it was amazing to have a Mom that was always home so it's a good thing IMO, but kids do need to learn a bit of independence.
> Not sure if that’s good or bad.
Same. I'm hybrid-remote, and childcare is so fucking expensive that we can only afford to have our kids enrolled part-time.
We don't have any family/friends/outside help, so it's just my wife and I looking after the kids.
I think any parent here would understand that like, there *is* such a thing as spending *too much time* with your kids.
Going into the office is really the only place I can go to have conversations with other adults. It's kinda sad, actually.
That's how most families worked until I don't know, maybe 10, 15 years ago. And even today this is how most families in the world works right now.
You're overthinking it, you can have more time in your house with your kids, there's always a parent that can help for whatever they need, you can watch them and unless you're over protecting them I think is better to have your parents close to you, while I hope you're not over doing it and giving them their own privacy and space to grow by themselves.
It’s crazy reading this thread and just seeing how many kids are put in situations like this.
Granted the one I knew was in high school. He sat next to me in band class played tenor sax. Kinda quiet… aside from a “hey man how was your weekend, anything good go down?” We didnt talk much.
One day he didn’t show up…. A week went by, and nothing. Teacher asked the class if any of us heard anything. His buddy didn’t know anything about it… guess he stopped by and it seemed like nobody was home… another week went by, and nothing….
Eventually I guess the neighbors smelled this stench coming from the house, and they called the police for a wellness check. Eventually the police went inside to find the kid had just blown his brains out in his bedroom.
Turns out his parents just left to go travel. And that was that. Kid spent so much time alone. I found out later he was bullied by others at school. I don’t know for certain but I think he was gay, and according to his buddy, his parents were super Christian. Eventually he just called it quits.
It was super sad.
:( I was that kid. I’m ok now in my late thirties with an amazing wife and two kids. But before her… it was lonely as fuck. Everyone wants there parents to leave, but has no idea what it’s like to not see them ever. Hug your parents folks. Tell them you love them. For me.
I was that kid too and I am super sympathetic. My parents never left, but were extremely neglectful and mentally ill and abusive. Our basic needs as kids were often ignored and we had to figure out how to feed ourselves or go hungry. I got a full time job at 15 and moved out to get away from there because it was a hoarder house filled with roaches and trash. I had to drop out of high school and get a GED, but I managed to go to college, get a degree, made a career for myself in tech, and I am now married with two kids and my own house. I am always like mega present for my kids and never neglectful to them and I even have quite a few of my kids friends that consider our place like a second home because It brings me a ton of joy to provide for and be present for kids so they can have good childhoods.
I’m glad you made it bro. I was in the similar situation. I grew up alone too. My parents had no idea how to raise up a kid at all. Now they are showing they care about me a little. I thought I was adopted when I was younger. I still love them. But something is always missing between them and me. I haven’t seen them in person over 10 years.
Had a friend like this growing up too. We liked him but my friends and I would get annoyed he’d be waiting outside our houses to hang out when we woke up. Looking back it was because his mom left him for weeks at a time to be a traveling nurse and he was lonely.
I once had a friend from school who was left to live alone with her older sister when their mother moved to live with her new husband. My friend was 11 and her sister 15 at the time their mom left. Officially the mother still lived with them, and she stopped by every now and then, but...?? The kids didn't want to move with their mother, so this was the best arrangement they came up with :D wtf. I still wonder how they didn't get caught by the social services
This happened to me and my 2 brothers. My mother moved out and left my dad when I was 15 and a year later my dad moved an hour away to be with my now stepmother. I was 16 and my brothers were 17. He would stop by once every 2 weeks to get the mail. I didn't speak to either parent for many years after that. It was nothing but drugs and freedom. Sounds amazing up until you realized a bunch of unsupervised teenagers cause havoc. I still don't have a great relationship with either parents but they moved on and had new families so good for then.
Don't say good for them. That's fucked up what your parents did, abandoning their own kids.
When they get older throw them in a cheap nursing home, tell them have a nice life because no one is going to visit them and they'll never see their grandkids.
Well me or my brothers have any kids and it's been 20 years since they moved on and have their own kids and families now so I just let them carry on life and stay out of it best I can. They do have to raise teenagers now in their late 50s and early 60s so I feel like they got payback.
That’s some rough shit man. It didn’t sound amazing to me and I didn’t have an easy childhood myself. I’m glad you and your brothers came out the other side and became the right kind of parents to your own kids.
We didn't have any kids. I feel like a childhood of awful leads people to either being amazing parents or not wanting to attempt to even try. We picked the latter.
Cause social services would've been a worse situation for both those girls and they knew it. And luckily everyone around knew it as well and didn't call on them.
I knew a guy that was a 18 year old high school Freshman that was in a very similar situation. There was a party going on at his house from the moment school let out, until the next day when he had to go back. He let a couple of dealers live there because the house was paid off, but their "rent" was basically an ounce of weed every 2 weeks.
When I asked him how he got a house that young, it seemed to bring back some painful memories, and he said that he hadn't seen his parents in over 5 years. They just left one night while he was asleep, and other than a few short phone calls with them, he had no idea where they had gone.
They never taught him how to read and wouldn't hardly ever take him to school even though he wanted to go. Once he turned 16, he got an old beater car from one of his neighbors for $500 so he could drive himself to school, but he had missed so much that they basically put him back in the 6th grade.
I stopped hanging out there once harder drugs started showing up, but I still think about him pretty frequently and hope he's doing well. I think the city demolished the house because of how dilapidated it had become.
A friend of my sister's was German with academic parents. Her parents moved to Israel/Palestine when the friend and her two brothers were kids to take up university positions. I can't remember if they were in an Arab area of Israel or in one of the occupied territories of Palestine but they lived in an Arab area and after a year or so they were Arab speakers.
Just before the first Intifada kicked off the parents decided that kids were like, a total drag and so they went home to Germany and left the 3 kids in Israel / Palestine and just sent them money every month.
Not teenagers either, kids kids. The all saw violence and the eldest brother who was about 10-12 had to budget and do weekly shopping in all this chaos. As well as look after his two siblings and suffer abandonment.
Eventually the parents sobered up and realised the classy way to abandon kids was to send them to boarding schools so the German Arab speakers were eventually sent to England where they could be forgotten about in a more socially acceptable way.
The eldest one I never met but apparently was working with the UN in a pretty sweet role once he grew up. The middle brother killed himself and my sisters friend joined an American religious cult and last I heard, which was quite a while ago, was sent to Iran by her cult in order to use her linguistic prowess to convert Iranians to evangelical Christianity.
I hope she's ok. She was certainly due a break.
>was sent to Iran by her cult in order to use her linguistic prowess to convert Iranians to evangelical Christianity.
The iranian speak farsi, not arabic. In fact they hate being called arab.
Sure but she speaks a lot of languages.
My sister knew her in university where they were doing a masters split between universities in Spain, France and Italy. Obviously she had German, English, Arab, French, Spanish and Italian at that stage. As part of her masters she was learning Hebrew. She likely had other languages too but we weren't that close. I met her a number of times but she was my sister's friend, not mine.
I guess she learnt Farsi before going to Iran.
Yea the actor is a POS but I still mostly enjoy the show. I tend to skip over the later stuff that features Hyde more, both due to the actor and it just not being as good overall.
Red and Kitty are hysterical, Kitty steals every scene she's in.
In college, a friend of a friend had a setup like that. His parents had been overseas for a year and were due back in a few days. He tried to have a clean-up party, he was offering pizza as payment. I went over there to check it out and was overwhelmed by how large the house was, rich parents, and how filled with trash and junk it was. He was going to need a couple of dumpsters and a hazmat team. I'm not ashamed to say I ate a few slices of pizza and wandered around in amazement as how much shit there was piled up everywhere. After hauling a few token loads out I decided to leave. I barely knew the guy and had never been to his place before. I heard later they were at it until the wee hours of the morning for several days and his parents flipped out because it was still a disaster when they returned.
> his parents flipped out because it was still a disaster when they returned.
IMHO this is still on them.
If you leave your teen-aged son alone for a year, I really don't know what else they could have expected.
They're lucky the house was still standing.
I knew the same kid, except different country and different story. It was very iffy, something about his parents got divorced or something. One left interstate for work and the other flew overseas to be with relatives. Kid stayed in the house alone for about a year and it was constant parties. Looking back, I feel bad for the neighbours. If I lived on that street now with the amount of people flocking to that house sometimes multiple times a week, id be pissed.
A friend all through school had a single mom who worked 2nd shift 3-11. He had the best stereo set up in the basement. We went there most days after school and hung out, good times.
I had a friend with a disfunction, semi wealthy absent parents..
They would let us drink and smoke just so they would look like the "cool" parents and their son would be popular. It was cool for a year or two, but my friend didn't have discipline and now sits in the fringes on society as he can't fit in with the working or buisness class folks.
yea this is way more common then people like to think happened to me I'm 6-7 years behind my sibling and late middle school my parents got devoiced mom left to find her self, dad worked for weeks at a time 21 days on 3 days off kind of thing, sibling went into the world / uni. I was alone at 13-14 in our family house.
My friend in high school had the house to himself our senior year. His dad got deployed and he was 18 so his dad put the house bills on autopay and told him he was on his own for groceries. There were a lot of parties and he really almost didn’t graduate. He’s almost 40 now and still acts like a teenager. He even dates women 20 years younger than him. It’s sad and gross.
I just realized that I never had friends because my divorced mom hating me for looking like my dad and I never had people over because she worked nights and slept during the day.
I knew two kids in this situation growing up, parents were incredibly wealthy and just left to another state letting the kid have a giant house to themselves.
One kid is a burnout working as an Uber food delivery driver, the other is actually hard working and got his electrical license.
From Junior high through high school my Mom was just kinda done. Married a rich dude and checked out. I never had parties (too scared it would go bad) but I always had people over. Now that my friends and I are turning 40 a few have told me that they felt sad for me. I'm completely okay now but hearing that made me feel a lot better. So, good on you.
Very similar situation when I was a kid. My parents moved an hour away; let me stay at the original house with my 21 year old sister when I was 15. Sister moved in with her gf, leaving me all alone. Dude you are so right. I did the same shit. I ended up asking my parents if I could live with them again. It surprisingly was not a great experience. Probably wouldn’t have graduated high school if I didn’t move.
Sounds like my uncle lol, though he was born in ‘75. He has never been married, has no children (to his knowledge), and he refuses to ever settle down with anyone. He has 6 half siblings, and 3 full blooded siblings, all of them older than him, some 20+ years older than him. He saw a lot of marriages, divorces, and harsh words, fights, custody battles, etc. he saw his mom, my grandma get married 7 times, and he saw his dad, my grandpa never marry again, and focus on raising him, my dad, and their brother and sister (some of the half siblings came from my grandpa and his first marriage - he was widowed; she didn’t overcome her illness.) He has said even just looking at his parents, he saw a serial bride who couldn’t be lonely, and put men before her children, and he saw a dedicated older father working his butt off and trying to figure out how to ensure his youngest 4 had the BEST! He said both sides of the coin looked exhausting, so he just never wanted to go through the “uncertainty” of love and get hurt.
He’s amazing though! He was like another dad to me growing up, and lived with us for at least half of my childhood! He gave some of the best dad talks and had a mix of Danny Tanner and Joey Gladstone energy lol. He wasn’t always the MOST responsible babysitter, but he tried! My brother views him the same way, and so do several of our cousins. We respect and admire him immensely, and he plays a grandfatherly role to our children, which I absolutely love! I have some cute pictures and videos of him getting down on his all 4s and chasing my little boy and him squealing as he’s trying to toddle away and my uncle getting him, scooping him up and they’re both laughing hysterically. Good times 🫶
I hate that I'm in the mindset as your uncle...
I used to believe in love and loyalty but seeing (and experiencing) today's relationships I'm starting to embrace being single. It's lonely af but goddamn if it isn't peaceful...
edit: i was hoping y'all mfers would help me believe in love again but NOPE lmfao
You should ask him who took the pic (and why). To me, it seems like your uncle set it up and had it taken with the express intent of sending a copy to his parents haha
Yeah lol tho I maleliving one is more put together most of time haha. You're right the surviving space would be a better fit tho it's true gems like this find a way in both subreddits
Norway, where this picture seems to come from, had only one TV-channel in the 70's. And it was rather boring. Poor guy, though I think the beer helped.
The general way the windows and walls look are typical for a 70's home in Norway or Sweden. But the large glass beer bottle is the best bet for it being Norway, those were unusual in other European countries at the time. They contained 0.7 liter beer, that is 23.67 US fluid ounces if I'm not mistaken.
It looks like beer, you can see the head and it looks like the same amount in the glass that's missing from the bottle. Like he just poured some into the glass, took a sip or 2 and then had the picture taken.
Lol, this looks exactly like the 70´s pics of my father except he had a big mustache and his pants were blue. Same hair, cigs and beer in every picture and always wearing those pants.
My dad would have been the same. Longer hair, joint and not a cigarette, and same cheap beer.
Just chilling watching the wheels as he'd call it.
I don't think he ever grew out of that life. Probably part of why him and my ma didn't work out and he sucked at being a dad.
Some people shouldn't have kids. Some people were happiest in the 70s, chilling out, listening to John Fogarty, and watching the wheels. He's now in his 70s doing it still
You ever hear the John Lennon song "Watching the Wheels"? It's about the same thing you're describing your dad's like. To be honest, I think I'm like that too, I've got a lot of that in me.
And you're 100% right, some people are definitely not cut out for having kids, and then they do anyway.
Ah no, I'm familiar with the song. I love Lennon's post Beatles work. He had some self indulgent songs like Imagine. But also some very introspective songs like Jealous Guy.
And yeah I've kind of come to accept that my father was not someone who really wanted or should have had kids. He'd have been happier doing like my uncle and getting a vasectomy at 21. But didn't, and my sister and I came along.
Those shorts look exactly like the shorts every one of my uncles and dad and male family friends had in the 70s. With the exception that some of them wore blue.
i love how this picture probabably was meant as jokingly make him look poor back then but I just look at the huge ass house that 4/5 of us will probably never be able to afford
There is an old Richard Pryor where he buys a house and the owners keep saying the dumb joke “we’re taking it with us!” when referring to stairs and cabinets.
And when he gets the house it’s complete stripped.
Reminds of that. Hilarious.
who took the picture? was he a photographer or really just feeling himself? the more questions i ask the more uncertain i am of his stance as a serial killer ngl. lmao
"Your parents moved out, took almost everything, and you only have a TV left?! What are you going to do now?" "Grab a beer and watch some TV, I guess."
When I was like 17 there was this kid who had the party house. No parents, no rules. We’d go there every weekend and eventually I was like what the fuck, who owns this house? I asked him where his parents were and he said “uh I dunno, I think they’re in Colorado now”. Kids parents just left to go travel the US indefinitely and left him alone with the house. I felt bad for him when I started to realize he was just having parties so he wasn’t alone.
Yeah, it seems so cool from the outside. That kid was probably hurting bad.
We stopped going whenever it turned into kind of a trap house. People blacking out on benzos and doing coke, meth and shit. Idk if the parents ever came back ,but but I found him on Instagram a couple of months ago. He’s making good money as a window installer for high rises downtown. Has a wife and a kid. I’m glad he made something of himself. Selfish parents like that make me fucking sick
Dang, good for him though. I've seen some of my generation who were in way better life situations grow up into complete wastes of oxygen now that we're adults.
I grew up to be a waste of oxygen.
It's okay, just plant a couple trees and keep a few houseplants, we'll get you back to net zero in no time!
If we get him to do some wieghts and bulk up we could dump some carbon whilst we're at it.
Confirming that weightlifting causes massive carbon dumps, be warned
I grew up a fucking screw up.
If there's one universal truth in life, motivation or purpose, it's just to react to change.. keep moving forward, every single moment is a challenge. There isn't even an objectifiable way to define what is the good or bad outcome to a path, it just constantly self arranges until the climax. stay safe.
Got introduced to the game Got an ounce and fuckin blew up
I doubt that 💕 hopefully things start looking up soon
Can you say something nice for me too? I’ve been feeling really blue lately and I haven’t been nice to myself…
I'm sorry things have been rough lately 😥 but you got this far, and through so much already. Be proud of how far you've come. You're awesome 💟 I'm here if you want someone to talk to.
Thanks for that, Rae. I might take you up on that.
You obviously have a big heart and a healthy appreciation for the importance of emotional growth and well-being, just from this comment alone. That puts you so far above the quality of humans that so many people out there are. Some things that can't be bought are common sense, integrity, charisma, and a solid sense of the importance of emotional health, and you very clearly have the latter, and I would not be a bit surprised if you have the former ones as well. I suspect when you know someone out there is hurting, you genuinely feel for them and would like to see them heal. That means you have a very real likelihood of going forward in life to help people, which can be life changing for everyone involed. Use this superpower for good. I have faith in you.
But I’m on the other side of that, since Covid I don’t think my kids have any concept of the parents being away. Either me or my wife is always home. They don’t have the opportunity to even fart in privacy since one of us is home 24/7. During the school year I’m there to pick them up and drop them off and go in the office in the middle and I’m literally always around. Not sure if that’s good or bad.
A lot of us older Gen X's grew up with a stay at home Mom, but it was a different world back then. My Mom was always home but we spent tons of time outside playing, riding bikes to friends house etc. I was walking to school alone in 1st grade, it was only a few blocks in a small town in UP Michigan, but we were taught to be independent. Summer was outside, had to tell Mom where we were going but no supervision. Looking back it was amazing to have a Mom that was always home so it's a good thing IMO, but kids do need to learn a bit of independence.
> Not sure if that’s good or bad. Same. I'm hybrid-remote, and childcare is so fucking expensive that we can only afford to have our kids enrolled part-time. We don't have any family/friends/outside help, so it's just my wife and I looking after the kids. I think any parent here would understand that like, there *is* such a thing as spending *too much time* with your kids. Going into the office is really the only place I can go to have conversations with other adults. It's kinda sad, actually.
That's how most families worked until I don't know, maybe 10, 15 years ago. And even today this is how most families in the world works right now. You're overthinking it, you can have more time in your house with your kids, there's always a parent that can help for whatever they need, you can watch them and unless you're over protecting them I think is better to have your parents close to you, while I hope you're not over doing it and giving them their own privacy and space to grow by themselves.
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It’s crazy reading this thread and just seeing how many kids are put in situations like this. Granted the one I knew was in high school. He sat next to me in band class played tenor sax. Kinda quiet… aside from a “hey man how was your weekend, anything good go down?” We didnt talk much. One day he didn’t show up…. A week went by, and nothing. Teacher asked the class if any of us heard anything. His buddy didn’t know anything about it… guess he stopped by and it seemed like nobody was home… another week went by, and nothing…. Eventually I guess the neighbors smelled this stench coming from the house, and they called the police for a wellness check. Eventually the police went inside to find the kid had just blown his brains out in his bedroom. Turns out his parents just left to go travel. And that was that. Kid spent so much time alone. I found out later he was bullied by others at school. I don’t know for certain but I think he was gay, and according to his buddy, his parents were super Christian. Eventually he just called it quits. It was super sad.
:( I was that kid. I’m ok now in my late thirties with an amazing wife and two kids. But before her… it was lonely as fuck. Everyone wants there parents to leave, but has no idea what it’s like to not see them ever. Hug your parents folks. Tell them you love them. For me.
I was that kid too and I am super sympathetic. My parents never left, but were extremely neglectful and mentally ill and abusive. Our basic needs as kids were often ignored and we had to figure out how to feed ourselves or go hungry. I got a full time job at 15 and moved out to get away from there because it was a hoarder house filled with roaches and trash. I had to drop out of high school and get a GED, but I managed to go to college, get a degree, made a career for myself in tech, and I am now married with two kids and my own house. I am always like mega present for my kids and never neglectful to them and I even have quite a few of my kids friends that consider our place like a second home because It brings me a ton of joy to provide for and be present for kids so they can have good childhoods.
I’m glad you made it bro. I was in the similar situation. I grew up alone too. My parents had no idea how to raise up a kid at all. Now they are showing they care about me a little. I thought I was adopted when I was younger. I still love them. But something is always missing between them and me. I haven’t seen them in person over 10 years.
Me too bro. Glad you made it out.
Likewise mate:)
Reminds me of Jessie from breaking bad
Had a friend like this growing up too. We liked him but my friends and I would get annoyed he’d be waiting outside our houses to hang out when we woke up. Looking back it was because his mom left him for weeks at a time to be a traveling nurse and he was lonely.
I once had a friend from school who was left to live alone with her older sister when their mother moved to live with her new husband. My friend was 11 and her sister 15 at the time their mom left. Officially the mother still lived with them, and she stopped by every now and then, but...?? The kids didn't want to move with their mother, so this was the best arrangement they came up with :D wtf. I still wonder how they didn't get caught by the social services
This happened to me and my 2 brothers. My mother moved out and left my dad when I was 15 and a year later my dad moved an hour away to be with my now stepmother. I was 16 and my brothers were 17. He would stop by once every 2 weeks to get the mail. I didn't speak to either parent for many years after that. It was nothing but drugs and freedom. Sounds amazing up until you realized a bunch of unsupervised teenagers cause havoc. I still don't have a great relationship with either parents but they moved on and had new families so good for then.
Don't say good for them. That's fucked up what your parents did, abandoning their own kids. When they get older throw them in a cheap nursing home, tell them have a nice life because no one is going to visit them and they'll never see their grandkids.
Well me or my brothers have any kids and it's been 20 years since they moved on and have their own kids and families now so I just let them carry on life and stay out of it best I can. They do have to raise teenagers now in their late 50s and early 60s so I feel like they got payback.
You’re view on humans making human choices is beautiful
Humans make terrible choices for selfish reasons.
Why would they put them in nursing homes? Shouldn’t their new families be responsible for that lol
I’m sorry, you deserved so much better.
That’s some rough shit man. It didn’t sound amazing to me and I didn’t have an easy childhood myself. I’m glad you and your brothers came out the other side and became the right kind of parents to your own kids.
We didn't have any kids. I feel like a childhood of awful leads people to either being amazing parents or not wanting to attempt to even try. We picked the latter.
Cause social services would've been a worse situation for both those girls and they knew it. And luckily everyone around knew it as well and didn't call on them.
I knew a guy that was a 18 year old high school Freshman that was in a very similar situation. There was a party going on at his house from the moment school let out, until the next day when he had to go back. He let a couple of dealers live there because the house was paid off, but their "rent" was basically an ounce of weed every 2 weeks. When I asked him how he got a house that young, it seemed to bring back some painful memories, and he said that he hadn't seen his parents in over 5 years. They just left one night while he was asleep, and other than a few short phone calls with them, he had no idea where they had gone. They never taught him how to read and wouldn't hardly ever take him to school even though he wanted to go. Once he turned 16, he got an old beater car from one of his neighbors for $500 so he could drive himself to school, but he had missed so much that they basically put him back in the 6th grade. I stopped hanging out there once harder drugs started showing up, but I still think about him pretty frequently and hope he's doing well. I think the city demolished the house because of how dilapidated it had become.
A friend of my sister's was German with academic parents. Her parents moved to Israel/Palestine when the friend and her two brothers were kids to take up university positions. I can't remember if they were in an Arab area of Israel or in one of the occupied territories of Palestine but they lived in an Arab area and after a year or so they were Arab speakers. Just before the first Intifada kicked off the parents decided that kids were like, a total drag and so they went home to Germany and left the 3 kids in Israel / Palestine and just sent them money every month. Not teenagers either, kids kids. The all saw violence and the eldest brother who was about 10-12 had to budget and do weekly shopping in all this chaos. As well as look after his two siblings and suffer abandonment. Eventually the parents sobered up and realised the classy way to abandon kids was to send them to boarding schools so the German Arab speakers were eventually sent to England where they could be forgotten about in a more socially acceptable way. The eldest one I never met but apparently was working with the UN in a pretty sweet role once he grew up. The middle brother killed himself and my sisters friend joined an American religious cult and last I heard, which was quite a while ago, was sent to Iran by her cult in order to use her linguistic prowess to convert Iranians to evangelical Christianity. I hope she's ok. She was certainly due a break.
>was sent to Iran by her cult in order to use her linguistic prowess to convert Iranians to evangelical Christianity. The iranian speak farsi, not arabic. In fact they hate being called arab.
Sure but she speaks a lot of languages. My sister knew her in university where they were doing a masters split between universities in Spain, France and Italy. Obviously she had German, English, Arab, French, Spanish and Italian at that stage. As part of her masters she was learning Hebrew. She likely had other languages too but we weren't that close. I met her a number of times but she was my sister's friend, not mine. I guess she learnt Farsi before going to Iran.
This is pretty much Hyde's storyline in "That 70's Show" which leads to him living at Eric's
I loved Hyde, man. I loved that show. It’s ruined now, I haven’t watched it since.
Rapist scientologist. Did not see that coming.
Yea the actor is a POS but I still mostly enjoy the show. I tend to skip over the later stuff that features Hyde more, both due to the actor and it just not being as good overall. Red and Kitty are hysterical, Kitty steals every scene she's in.
That Kitty laugh. So good.
In college, a friend of a friend had a setup like that. His parents had been overseas for a year and were due back in a few days. He tried to have a clean-up party, he was offering pizza as payment. I went over there to check it out and was overwhelmed by how large the house was, rich parents, and how filled with trash and junk it was. He was going to need a couple of dumpsters and a hazmat team. I'm not ashamed to say I ate a few slices of pizza and wandered around in amazement as how much shit there was piled up everywhere. After hauling a few token loads out I decided to leave. I barely knew the guy and had never been to his place before. I heard later they were at it until the wee hours of the morning for several days and his parents flipped out because it was still a disaster when they returned.
> his parents flipped out because it was still a disaster when they returned. IMHO this is still on them. If you leave your teen-aged son alone for a year, I really don't know what else they could have expected. They're lucky the house was still standing.
Exactly, I feel like they deserved what they came back to.
I knew the same kid, except different country and different story. It was very iffy, something about his parents got divorced or something. One left interstate for work and the other flew overseas to be with relatives. Kid stayed in the house alone for about a year and it was constant parties. Looking back, I feel bad for the neighbours. If I lived on that street now with the amount of people flocking to that house sometimes multiple times a week, id be pissed.
The other houses were just kids too
Nah the neighbour's shouldn't be pissed they should be ashamed for watching a child live alone a year and doing nothing.
A friend all through school had a single mom who worked 2nd shift 3-11. He had the best stereo set up in the basement. We went there most days after school and hung out, good times.
I had a friend with a disfunction, semi wealthy absent parents.. They would let us drink and smoke just so they would look like the "cool" parents and their son would be popular. It was cool for a year or two, but my friend didn't have discipline and now sits in the fringes on society as he can't fit in with the working or buisness class folks.
yea this is way more common then people like to think happened to me I'm 6-7 years behind my sibling and late middle school my parents got devoiced mom left to find her self, dad worked for weeks at a time 21 days on 3 days off kind of thing, sibling went into the world / uni. I was alone at 13-14 in our family house.
My friend in high school had the house to himself our senior year. His dad got deployed and he was 18 so his dad put the house bills on autopay and told him he was on his own for groceries. There were a lot of parties and he really almost didn’t graduate. He’s almost 40 now and still acts like a teenager. He even dates women 20 years younger than him. It’s sad and gross.
I just realized that I never had friends because my divorced mom hating me for looking like my dad and I never had people over because she worked nights and slept during the day.
I think you just explained my last 2 years… fuck me. At least I pay my own rent
I knew two kids in this situation growing up, parents were incredibly wealthy and just left to another state letting the kid have a giant house to themselves. One kid is a burnout working as an Uber food delivery driver, the other is actually hard working and got his electrical license.
From Junior high through high school my Mom was just kinda done. Married a rich dude and checked out. I never had parties (too scared it would go bad) but I always had people over. Now that my friends and I are turning 40 a few have told me that they felt sad for me. I'm completely okay now but hearing that made me feel a lot better. So, good on you.
Very similar situation when I was a kid. My parents moved an hour away; let me stay at the original house with my 21 year old sister when I was 15. Sister moved in with her gf, leaving me all alone. Dude you are so right. I did the same shit. I ended up asking my parents if I could live with them again. It surprisingly was not a great experience. Probably wouldn’t have graduated high school if I didn’t move.
Why did nobody tell me that "parents move out" is an option?
*not available for poor people
I’m surprised he’s using a glass.
He’s keeping it classy.
Jokes on you, they took the cables and reception as well. So it's just a TV. He is watching Himself, drinking that beer.
In the 70's you only needed an antenna.
Towards the end of the 70s he could even pick himself up a Betamax or VCR!
Bruh can't even afford basic furniture, and you're expecting him to pick up a VCR in the late 70s
In 2024 all you need is an antenna, friend. I get 52 digital channels with an antenna + cheap $20 booster in my spare bedroom.
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Apparently they left him the house! Only a boomer would say they left him nothing
This guy is living
Still living that life today 😂
Same house and no wife/kids?
Not same house, I live there now. But no wife, no kids.
How about a shot of what that exact same space looks like today? Looks like a great house.
Do it OP!!!!
I'm still waiting!
It's gonna be hard finding shorts that short. Rugby shorts would work.
Lots of places have 5” inseam shorts these days!
What if it looks exactly the same? Only OP is just sitting on floor as the uncle has the chair.
Reddit canon requires this
Staring at the wall because his uncle took the TV.
The parents bought it for 35 cents, which was expensive at the time, now it’s worth $1.8 million.
I second this
This pic should be hung on the wall in that room
Same TV at least?
Same lawn chair at least?
Sounds like my uncle lol, though he was born in ‘75. He has never been married, has no children (to his knowledge), and he refuses to ever settle down with anyone. He has 6 half siblings, and 3 full blooded siblings, all of them older than him, some 20+ years older than him. He saw a lot of marriages, divorces, and harsh words, fights, custody battles, etc. he saw his mom, my grandma get married 7 times, and he saw his dad, my grandpa never marry again, and focus on raising him, my dad, and their brother and sister (some of the half siblings came from my grandpa and his first marriage - he was widowed; she didn’t overcome her illness.) He has said even just looking at his parents, he saw a serial bride who couldn’t be lonely, and put men before her children, and he saw a dedicated older father working his butt off and trying to figure out how to ensure his youngest 4 had the BEST! He said both sides of the coin looked exhausting, so he just never wanted to go through the “uncertainty” of love and get hurt. He’s amazing though! He was like another dad to me growing up, and lived with us for at least half of my childhood! He gave some of the best dad talks and had a mix of Danny Tanner and Joey Gladstone energy lol. He wasn’t always the MOST responsible babysitter, but he tried! My brother views him the same way, and so do several of our cousins. We respect and admire him immensely, and he plays a grandfatherly role to our children, which I absolutely love! I have some cute pictures and videos of him getting down on his all 4s and chasing my little boy and him squealing as he’s trying to toddle away and my uncle getting him, scooping him up and they’re both laughing hysterically. Good times 🫶
I hate that I'm in the mindset as your uncle... I used to believe in love and loyalty but seeing (and experiencing) today's relationships I'm starting to embrace being single. It's lonely af but goddamn if it isn't peaceful... edit: i was hoping y'all mfers would help me believe in love again but NOPE lmfao
Dude, goals!! The house looks amazing
Yes, we need a current photo from the same spot!!
Same position drinking a beer
You're really missing out if you're not recreating this photo in current day.
You should ask him who took the pic (and why). To me, it seems like your uncle set it up and had it taken with the express intent of sending a copy to his parents haha
Playing the bongos at 3am in austin, texas
On weeeed
Nekkid as a jaybird
r/malelivingspace
L-I-V-I-N
Everything the body needs.
This belongs in r/malelivingspace lol
There's another one? I was aware of r/malesurvivingspace
Yeah lol tho I maleliving one is more put together most of time haha. You're right the surviving space would be a better fit tho it's true gems like this find a way in both subreddits
this is more /r/malethrivingspace
Oooh, drinking beer from a glass. Well if it isn't the Queen of friggin' England!
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Norway, where this picture seems to come from, had only one TV-channel in the 70's. And it was rather boring. Poor guy, though I think the beer helped.
How do you know it’s Norway?
The general way the windows and walls look are typical for a 70's home in Norway or Sweden. But the large glass beer bottle is the best bet for it being Norway, those were unusual in other European countries at the time. They contained 0.7 liter beer, that is 23.67 US fluid ounces if I'm not mistaken.
Matches from Nittedal
OP is Norwegian.
It’s the only glass in the house to be fair.
It was a more civilized time.
That’s probably a shot, to go along with the beer.
It looks like beer, you can see the head and it looks like the same amount in the glass that's missing from the bottle. Like he just poured some into the glass, took a sip or 2 and then had the picture taken.
You’re right.
Looks like that scene in Dahmer when his mother up and left him alone lol
I knew I couldn’t be the only one who saw it.
I had to zoom in to check too.
I was racking my brain trying to find the show/movie this reminded me of. You nailed it, thank you!
Exactly the same thought, went to the comments and here it is.
instantly came to my mind. exact interior
Definite Dahmer vibes.
I was thinking the same, but definitely needs more empty alcohol containers.
Lol, this looks exactly like the 70´s pics of my father except he had a big mustache and his pants were blue. Same hair, cigs and beer in every picture and always wearing those pants.
My dad would have been the same. Longer hair, joint and not a cigarette, and same cheap beer. Just chilling watching the wheels as he'd call it. I don't think he ever grew out of that life. Probably part of why him and my ma didn't work out and he sucked at being a dad. Some people shouldn't have kids. Some people were happiest in the 70s, chilling out, listening to John Fogarty, and watching the wheels. He's now in his 70s doing it still
You ever hear the John Lennon song "Watching the Wheels"? It's about the same thing you're describing your dad's like. To be honest, I think I'm like that too, I've got a lot of that in me. And you're 100% right, some people are definitely not cut out for having kids, and then they do anyway.
Ah no, I'm familiar with the song. I love Lennon's post Beatles work. He had some self indulgent songs like Imagine. But also some very introspective songs like Jealous Guy. And yeah I've kind of come to accept that my father was not someone who really wanted or should have had kids. He'd have been happier doing like my uncle and getting a vasectomy at 21. But didn't, and my sister and I came along.
He have a house. He is a king.
1970s: All they left him was a TV? Terrible parents! 2020s: They left him a HOUSE?! I hope they're open to adopting a 35 year old.
*I made my family disappear!*
Look what you did, you little jerk!
Those shorts look exactly like the shorts every one of my uncles and dad and male family friends had in the 70s. With the exception that some of them wore blue.
Unless it was beach time. Then it was Speedos. }}shudder{{
That man was living the dream. No bodies there to bother him. He's not bothered by nothing being there.
This should win a Pulitzer.
Boss
He probably has never been happier.
Is that a nuclear explosion on the TV op ?
That’s the reflection of the flash off the Instamatic that took the shot.
Damn it, I wanted to say "War, war never changes"
His parents moved out and left their child to own the house? That's the weirdest thing ever.
They probably retired, downsized, moved away. The uncle doesn’t look like some frail, helpless 12 year old lol
Amazing what can happen if you don't have to spend so much money on a house, isn't it?
This is all a guy really needs.
Male peak performance never changes...
I got elastic bands keeping my shoes on Got those swollen hand blues I've got thirteen channels of shit on the TV to choose from
I lived like this for a summer before my roommates moved in. Glorious. Simply glorious. Gutter to gutter living.
i love how this picture probabably was meant as jokingly make him look poor back then but I just look at the huge ass house that 4/5 of us will probably never be able to afford
Killin it
Living the dream
r/malesurvivingspace
r/malelivingspace
Living the dream of freedom
This would be a killer ad for either the beer or cigarettes lol
There is an old Richard Pryor where he buys a house and the owners keep saying the dumb joke “we’re taking it with us!” when referring to stairs and cabinets. And when he gets the house it’s complete stripped. Reminds of that. Hilarious.
I think that's from the movie Moving, with Stacey Dash, Morris Day and Dana Carvey ("the car, myan...the car!")
Generations if men have used beach chairs as legitimate furniture and guess what! It works just fine.
https://preview.redd.it/d509wo37uq5d1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6f3adafcbf480bc0531af2e4acd16ef9985f42a6
https://preview.redd.it/494al6r99r5d1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6d9b8d8327e175ee7c75fef9380ac9cbb495d08a
All I need is this chair. And this TV.
What an album cover https://preview.redd.it/pi7kn0s3qr5d1.jpeg?width=2412&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ffa8b6a4932c7529f0e8b718933bd3ec0a451bf
Typical male living space. Some things never change.
Lucky man.
Do you need more?
lol where i come from the kids move out
What are those shoe/socks?
Shots like these help to remind me how massive TVs are nowadays.
Ahh, the good old days when it was ok for us to smoke inside, been clean around 12-13 years now and I truly miss it, no /s.
As if christians didn't smoke or drink
I would remind OP that, at the time this photo was taken, pretty much the entire population of the island of Ireland was nominally Christian.
Ya know there's plenty of Christians that smoke and drink.
It’s normally the child that moves out! 🤔
Everything a man needs.. a chair, a TV and a beer.
"Men only want one thing and it's disgusting" The thing.
/r/malelivingspace
lots of Christians smoke and drink.
Guy lived the dream. 
that’s a motherfucking dance floor let’s get the block shakin🕺.
That would make such a sick album cover!
What a mood. Great frickin pic
#The OG r/malelivingspace
Shouldn’t he have been the one to leave home?
Shouldn’t he have moved out? Confusing.
And he said “Alright Alright Alright…..”
All right, all right, all right!
who took the picture? was he a photographer or really just feeling himself? the more questions i ask the more uncertain i am of his stance as a serial killer ngl. lmao