I was born in '56
In an Irish Catholic family, I was the ninth child. The day my mom found out she was pregnant again, she prayed for a miscarriage. Instead my older brother was hit by a car and almost died. Same day, you can’t make this shit up.
I wish I didn’t know this stuff, but I am that unwanted kid. I know what it feels like to be emotionally abused. My dad wanted me, but died just after I turned 13. That was when things fell apart for me. I had no protection. My oldest brother was 13 yrs. older, and was physically abusive. I was beaten. I had garbage dumped in my room. While I washed dishes, he stood behind me saying “Bitch, bitch , bitch!” While stabbing a ham bone. He turned off the main and threatened to kill us all, but my mom didn’t throw him out- just took us for a ride in the car.
Well, I was 13. Maybe just over sensitive. Maybe being told I was unwanted as a teen was just teenage angst. Despite my suicidal thoughts, despite everything, maybe I really was the problem.
Maybe my mom didn’t mean the things she said, she was in pain. She was depressed. Blah blah blah. I loved my mom. I did.
So, I don’t,know, 40 years later? Trying to get rid of my mom’s hoarding, I threw out waist high newspapers while making sure nothing important lingered. Got to the basement- finally only to find her list of things to do, from years earlier, and fifth on the list? Learn to love cate94. Argh.
So my point of view? Forcing people to have children is bad for the children. Forced birth sucks.
My decent siblings are horrified of the notion that I’d be better off as an abortion statistic, but me? I’m not so sure.
= new reply since forum marked as read
I wish I could give you a big hug ... 
💞
other people's lack of humanity, nor their vileness.
Huge hugzzzzz
Life can be very painful. You survived it all and lived to see a better day.
I survived and life is much better now.
A teacher of mine used to say "Some people don't deserve to be parents." I was born in 56 too but my family was much different .
I did find love and peace.
I was only the youngest of five children, but my Protestant parents didn't want any kids beyond their first two. My mother told me that we were all "accidents" beyond the second child (a son).
I think it mostly affected the third one, turning her into an anti-abortion evangelical Christian. That issue is her obsession. She was born a couple years before you, btw.
Almost every time we have a family gathering, she feels compelled to share how our mother kept talking about aborting me in the late-1960's, and she'd do it if it was legal. And how she was traumatized by Mom talking about it, and she kept praying to God it wouldn't happen and that I'd be born without health problems since our mother was in her 40's at the time.
Then her prayers were "answered" and I turned out to be the prettiest and intelligent baby in the world, who barely ever cried according to her. Yadda yadda yadda.
So it mostly affected her, I think, but I also felt unwanted by my parents many times. I can still remember when that sister moved away and I felt so hurt because she was basically my mother in my mind. Pics of me as a baby usually showed her holding me.
I later found old pics from the 50's showing my father was actually hugging the two oldest siblings!
I was like 
That never happened to me or my youngest brother, who is 7 years older than me.
After hearing about that time period from my sister MANY times, I eventually reached the point when I'd say, "Sorry you went through that, but I would've never known it happened if I had been aborted!"
Edit: And my birth affected that sister in another way... she was quick to have her own kids after leaving our parent's house. Then she learned that most babies actually cry all the time!
It sounds like you had it worse than me at that age!
My parents were pretty poor too, and they seemed to never have health insurance. I broke a collar bone and several ribs as a young teen, and they wanted me to just deal with it. I was laying flat on my back and drenched in sweat, and then Dad finally took me to an ER after I asked him to just shoot me in the head and put me out of my misery.
The food was good, maybe the best in the whole neighborhood. It was like a .superior version of Cracker Barrel every day in their household because Mom was often hungry during the Great Depression, so her focus was always feeding us well!
My sister, 14 years older, was like the surrogate mother in terms of lovey-dovey stuff with me... until she left at age 18.
I'm sure my parents reacted to same about food since they both grew up during the depression. Dad was #5 of of 12 children on a rural farm.
Mom and Dad had a huge garden and we had lots of fresh veggies, apples for Apple sauce, plums and currents for jelly. Dad went hunting every year and Mom knew how to prepare deer and ducks so it wasn't gamey. The best was when Dad bagged an elk. Mom made potato sausage one year ( I helped). I loved the process but I don't know if i really helped that much.
We picked wild chokecherries for jam and syrup. Mom made her own bread and dinner rolls.
Of course I don't remember the health issues, but Mom was very protective of me, right up to the day she died. I have her Betty Crocker cookbook from the early '50s.
My sister was just 17 months older than me and we are best friends especially now that our children are grown and on their own.
It sounds like it was very similar for you.
They don't always work, though. My mother had birth-control nicknames for the "accidents" among my siblings and me. I was the pill-baby.
Of course, our father could've pulled out if he had more discipline, but that was apparently too much to ask of him. 
I have a sister who is 21 years older than me.
I used to interact with that oldest sister more often, but not so much lately. I was born a few months before her oldest was born, so I wasn't quite an unborn uncle. Lol.
She was out of the house and married by the time I came along. Super-popular and confident all of her life, so our personalities aren't a good match. She was the "homecoming queen" and all that crap years ago. (Saw her being hugged and loved by our parents in old pics of her as a kid, so maybe that explains it?)
I've been closer to the religious-nut sister who treated me like her own son early-on, despite how she drives me crazy with her religion and support for Trump. 
It's a subject that we usually avoid with each other.
Edit:
They've chilled out in their old age, but the oldest sister and her husband were always hosting parties and making "connections". Her husband never had a "real job" as far as I'm concerned, always being a manager of some kind while acting like he knew everything despite being an idiot.
Our mother (now deceased) spent a couple nights with them when me and my brother drove to Atlanta for a conference years ago, and Mom was in bad health. The oldest sister was outraged that Mom kept hobbling out of her room to berate them for their parties, calling their guests "drunken trash". My sister replied, "I'll have you know that those people are millionaires!" Yeah, whatever! Like that matters!
so many hugs.
I'm grateful you are here and you shared your story. And I am sorry for all the pain you have experienced due to your family. May you heal.
I think I’ve healed, but you know scars still can hurt. Sometimes it’s good to acknowledge them.
And brought you to tears. You deserved better too. Those damn scars.
Get through high school, but now both types make me anxious. Oh well. Mostly, I’m okay. Sometimes are just harder than others. The past 4 years have worn me down a bit, and sometimes it is difficult despite what work that’s been put in. I wish both you and your husband the best.
