I wouldn't call it bad parenting
as I now find it hilarious (and wasn't even that bothered at the time), but I'll never forget the time Mrs. Todd told an eight year old me that I looked like "an explosion in a sick factory".
She's fairly mortified whenever I bring it up, and is glad that I find it funny and don't hate her for it.

She also once poured a bucket of water over me because I wouldn't shut up. I resent her a tiny bit for that. Ah, fuck it, it's funny in hindsight.

Furthermore, this woman invented the song, now infamous in our house, "Frozen Chicken Nuggets Stuffed up Yer Bum"*, and proudly showed me a Photoshop she'd done of Rolf Harris farting. She also made me a birthday cake in the shape of an arse. My dad tells me that he drops silent trumps next to nasty kids when invigilating exams and of the time he wrote 'LITTLE SHIT' on some kid's school report, and he freely admits that he spent his second year at uni smoking pot and weeing out of windows. Not the best example to set an impressionable young Todd, is it?

Oh, and to the person who asked if anyone on this site had a normal childhood/parents -- of course not.
a) we ended up on b3ta, didn't we?
b) becoming a parent isn't something that any sane, rational adult would choose to do, so all parents are fucked in the head.
Don't forget also that our parents were raised by people who were raised by Victorians, and they were fucking bonkers.

*Gaz me for the full lyrics.
( Bob Todd whee, Fri 17 Aug 2007, 15:46, Reply)