[pitt1980]

"So happy as little children" seems to be a recurring line in nearly ever episode of Intervention I've ever seen

I usually assume that the parents are pretty poor historians

Or that people aren't very good at figuring out when little kids aren't happy

I have trouble believing that happy childhood are correlated with later life problems

[ada1981]

As someone who has helped people get off heroin, booze,toxic relationships, etc.. That jumps out as a red flag that the parents were sending signals that the kids were ONLY allowed to feel "happy", so of course they would be primed for addiction, not having learned the beauty of their entire range of emotions.

[prawn]

Or that an unhappy childhood leading to later addiction might seem unremarkable and go unmentioned? (In general, not necessarily this documentary.)

[icantdrive55]

I was in therapy years ago.

I told by the Therapist, "I didn't have a bad childhood."

I was basically tired of talking, and just wanted a drug to calm my brain down.

She told me patients whom had bad childhoods, actually had bad/subpar childhoods, in many cases."

That's about all I got out of the sessions. She just got her MFCC, and was very honest, and seemed to care. She was pregnant, and in some sessions we would be both crying together. She was actually the only Therapist I liked. I think because she was young, and took her job seriously.

I look back, and I don't think I had a bad childhood. I had typical Irish American/Mexican parents. I was the oldest, and was expected to do things differently, but my chilhood wasn't terrible.

Anyhow, I did look it up, and supposedly children from tough backrounds tend to think they had great childhoods, with all the usual exceptions that accompany Psychology.

I will honestly never know in my case. I refused to blame my parents. My father was a piece of work though.

When I got older, I basically didn't want to turn into him, and I haven't yet.