This headcanon post of mine made me wonder again about the relationship between Amy and her aunt, and not for the first time I’m coming to some not-so-great conclusions…
Leaving a seven-year-old alone at night (no babysitter, no-one to check on them, nothing) for seemingly no good reason is…not great parenting, let’s face it. According to the clock on the wall in The Eleventh Hour, Aunt Sharon was absent from about 8:30 pm to about 11:20pm- I dunno what was going on for four hours at night that was more important to her than her niece, but there you go. And the fact that Amy doesn’t seem too bothered about this kinda implies it’s a pretty regular occurence, too. Not great. I know Doctor Who isn’t remotely set in the real world, and the absence of parental authority figures adds to the fairytale feel, but I think in the real world people would be asking Sharon questions before too long. Or I hope so.
There’s that, and then there’s The Big Bang, where we actually meet Aunt Sharon. She doesn’t seem particularly approving of Amelia’s flights of fantasy, and has hired a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist seems perfectly nice and gentle when questioning Amelia about her ‘stars’, but Sharon’s frustrated sigh of “Oh, Amelia!” when Amelia talks about it implies to me that Sharon has no patience at all with what she probably sees as her niece’s mental issues. Her facepalm at the wedding when grown-up Amy makes her “imaginary friend” speech says the exact same thing. That’s not a look of concern, more a look of “oh god not this again.”
So yeah. I don’t think Aunt Sharon was abusive, not that at all, but based on what we know about her I don’t think she was a very good parent, and it’s not really surprising that Amy (in Series Five, before she gets her parents back) is a bit abrasive and afraid of abandonment. And that she took the Doctor accidentally leaving her behind for so long so badly- she’s used to being let down by adults.