Growing up in the idyllic Irish countryside can be anything but bliss, according to Reddit users who took to the platform to share their unhappy memories of childhood in rural Ireland.
The conversation was sparked by one man in his 20’s who said that while he grew up in the countryside, he was “always envious of the town kids.”
He recalled feeling lonely, pining for the experience of the “town kids” who could “walk down the street to their friends house… and enjoy a day of play together with the gang.”
“The overriding memory of my own childhood is that of unending boredom,” he said and mentioned playing the same few games on the Playstation, “not because I enjoyed them but because there was no alternative.”
And with the long stretch of three whole months with no school, he said “summertime was the worst.”
When the other kids came back to school, “they all had stories of their meetups and adventures over the Summer. The type of bonding and new experiences that can only happen outside school and creates lifelong friends.
“It deepened my feelings of an outsider.”
“The guilt of harassing your parents for a lift to go to football, to town for the cinema, or to a part time job (and then the lift home) is a burden that I didn't wish to place on them.
“Yet at the same time I'm resentful of them for forcing me to be raised in the isolation and torture of the Irish countryside.”
And the original poster is not alone in his feelings of resentment towards a childhood in the countryside.
One wrote: “Relatable, I actually moved from the city to the countryside as a kid though so it was even worse because I knew exactly what I was missing out on.”
They added: “I felt like I missed out a lot on a lot of experiences in secondary school because I would have to get my parents to drive me everywhere so anything I wanted to do had to be scheduled.
“I didn't really have any independence at all. I was so jealous of kids in the nearest town.”
Another said: “Every time I hear people my age (I'm in my forties now) pipe up about their fantastic plans to "move to the country to raise their children" despite having grown up in an urban area themselves I strongly advise them against it for this very reason.
“I grew up miles from anywhere, it was sh*te, and I got out the very second I was old enough.”
