I would rate it a 0 or -1. My therapist would rate it a -9 or -10.

4 with ambivalence. One parent was no good. The other was good but didn’t defend us much.

+3 or so, benign neglect, with unavoidable trauma. My dad died when I was a teenager and that sucked, my mom fell apart, also was diagnosed bipolar and I didn’t enjoy being a child at all, but do honestly believe my mom did her best, and we were fed, housed, schooled, and not interfered with much beyond that.

What score would the over-involved helicopter parents of my kids’ friends land on this scale, though? Those kids aren’t spoiled exactly but certainly not neglected.

Fact that might be useful… research varies on whether psychological abuse or sexual abuse is the most destructive in childhood. Psychological changes how you think, how you attribute meaning to events and you’re ability to regulate your emotions. It’s not just words

Damn, that’s a good question. Like a 6 or 7 on this scale, all told? Parents were good, wasn’t spoiled but didn’t want for much, some tension with my dad at times/impact of necessary absences due to military lifestyle, but he was generally a good dude.

Idk - I look back on my childhood fondly more or less.

-5, my parent tried but the whole situation was ugly.

I think if I was born now, I’d be much better off. Medical knowledge was ass back in the day.

Without delving, I’m guessing a solid -6 on that scale, here. I’ve done a fairly bang-up job of climbing up from that point, but w/o health insurance, etc., that’s gonna be a challenge for the ages.

Why would being spoiled rate highly? It’s a bad thing.

I’d rate mine a 10 but because of independence. My parents gave me both the trust and the skills to do what I wanted to do. I biked all over town, didn’t need to check in outside of mealtimes, read the whole library, went to museums and concerts and dances. I taught myself to type and then to program. It was fantastic.

I wasn’t spoiled, though. We didn’t have any spare money, so anything I wanted to do I had to pay for myself; I was babysitting and mowing lawns from a young age. I had my chores at home including taking care of my brothers. I had food, if not my favorites, and clothes, though mostly hand-me-downs from cousins. Any electronics in the house were shared, and either bought used or received as gifts from most distant relatives. But stuff isn’t what makes childhood great: friends, freedom, and family are.

I wouldn’t say that I was spoiled, but growing up middle class without parental abuse towards myself I think would rank me pretty highly on this. I didn’t realize how privileged I had it until I became an adult. Probably 8/10.

However, my dad was abusive to my mom and a bit to my older sibling. So for my older sibling the score would probably be significantly lower.

The more time passes, the more I realize how much lower the score actually was.

10, hands down. I was (and still am) raised by a single dad. He’s great. He’s non-monogamous/non-committal (or just aloof, you could say), so at home I’ve always had all of his attention to myself. I’m a total daddy’s girl.

The 6 months a year dad was home (sailor) somewhere between a - 5 and a 2. The 6 other a solid 8+ (not because of being spoiled, but just general happiness and joy)

He never hit us, but he verbally abused my mom and sister and was/is just in general a miserable cunt that ruins other people’s days. I’m glad he only retired when my siblings and I were basically out of the house for good.

Tried to get my mom to leave him when we all had the finances to support her, but she stayed with him. Living basically 90% separate lives in the same house. Only hate and despise in that house left.

Hard to rate, like others, but mine probably swung from a 3 to -8.

My parents made sure my siblings and I had a lot of adventures under our belt, so we were often camping or going on small trips or skiing. But we were poor, they were irresponsible alcoholics (with some drugs on the side) who had children far, far too young and didn’t have any coping skills.

The verbal abuse was constant and the physical abuse only happened when my siblings weren’t there, but it was traumatic, in a word.

When I was 8 or 9 years old, my dad was going berserk and threatening all kinds of stuff after breaking a bunch of furniture. So I called the cops. Let’s just say my parents were mad. I was grounded for a while and given many talks about why I was in the wrong, even though I absolutely knew I wasn’t.

7

I’d say average about -5. Verbal, physical, and emotional abuse was the norm. My mom was fine, but due to the age gap she was functionally more like a big sister. My dad must’ve been going for the high score on the Dark Triad.

School was a fun one; I was regularly held out of school to the point I was nearly kept back multiple times for truancy alone, at one point my grandmother had to threaten to call CPS because I wasn’t even enrolled in school at all. Every day I’d have so many chores that homework was impossible, and that lack of structure kicked my ass in college. Bit of a mindfuck to constantly be told that school is for stupid conformists, and still get punished for bad grades. It’s a good thing I’ve got a great memory and phenomenal test-taking skills, or I never would have passed a single class.

Socialization was fun too. Between frequent moves and the pile of chores on my list, I didn’t have the opportunity to make many friends. Tried to get into Boy Scouts and sports to get some kind of social life, but those were for stupid conformists too. Combine that isolation with my dad’s attempts to turn me into his shadow, I grew up real weird and isolated. People think I’m sociable now, but that required years of focused work. And I’m still pretty weird.

Character and values, ho boy. I wasn’t exaggerating with “Dark Triad high score”. He literally tried to become a Latin American island dictator, it was a lifelong project for him. I was taught the values of doing anything you can get away with, exploiting rules, lying all the time to get what you want, emotional manipulation, and countless other Machiavellian, narcissistic, psychopathic behaviors. Fortunately, my grandparents were much more moral and ethical, so it was a bit easier to deprogram myself on that front.

I won’t even get into all the other little things, but I think anyone from an abusive household can tell you that all the little things can often have a more serious long term effect than the big ones. Daily whoopings suck, but they go away when you move out. Not so much a lifetime of being trained to treat every conversation like a competition.

On the bright side, I’m very resilient now. I joke to people that i never get stressed because my brain doesn’t produce the stress chemical, but really I just coped with so much stress growing up that none of the minor daily stresses register at all.

So yeah, others have definitely had it worse, -5 feels about right.