It was probably all the cigarettes
Not even smoking cigarettes. Just being brought up by your parents who smoked every time they blinked.
Yep both my parents smoked and you were tramp in the car with them windows rolled up. And they wondered why we bagan smoking in our teens. It was endemic, every one we saw or hung out with smoke. From grandma to parents, aunts, uncles. Hell I still remember our doctor neighbor was a snoker. Why all the appliances and furniture was either yellow or brown. To hide the cigarette smoke I presume.
Doesn’t mean they had an easy life … I grew up surrounded by all my older relatives who looked like this when they were teenagers in the 80s. The thing was … they all had rough lives and basically childhood (if they had any) lasted about two or three years. Childhood was just never ending terror with rampant alcoholism, abuse at every corner and violent adults making your life miserable. Mix in there that you were expected to work, run errands, stay quiet or get slapped around for even existing. Most of the boys I knew had really rough fathers who beat them for even looking the wrong way … then they hit 12 years of age and almost by necessity, they had to grow up immediately. They had to grow old, tough, strong, fast and rough because they had to stand up to a previous generation that took it out on them. I remember my older cousin turning 13 and standing up to his dad in a fist fight. It was ugly but he stood his ground … neither won but he never got beat again.
The Breakfast Club. I was a cross between the nerd and the stoner.
