What normal things did you not have or not have in your house growing up?

I spent the first half of my childhood in Gilgit Baltistan, so

Mains electric
Running water
Central Heating
Bedrooms, we all slept in the same room
A bathroom, there was a communal toilet a few doors down, you would use a bowl to wash.
A kitchen, communal kitchens were the norm/street food unless you were fairly wealthy

We did have a tv, but use was limited as we could only use it when we ran the generator.

I remember being very jealous of certain foods other people were 'lucky' to have, that we didn't, when growing up. Findus crispy pancakes and those pizza slices they did (do?), viennetta, potato waffles, heinz beans with sausages in the same tin, micro chips etc.

We used wadded loo roll as well. Awful.

Oh I also purchased my first bike aged 28, never had one, learned to ride one at that age.

The worst one was menstruation products. I would use toilet roll. We lived in the middle of nowhere so I couldn't get to a shop even when older, except when I could leave school premises at lunch time in sixth form. I used to walk to the supermarket near the school to buy tampons and I could tell my friends were a bit weirded out by how I always coincidentally needed to buy them.

Oh god, I forgot about the period stuff, my mum gave me a period belt and big thick sanitary towels, I was a tiny, tiny, 12 Yr old, ffs I was traumatised, it took some friends to point out that you could buy thin ones with sticky backs.

In the 60s & 70s...
No washing machine (in a household of 7!)
No freezer
No central heating
No phone until I was about 14
No shower

And individually, no warm winter clothes. I hated winter. Neither I nor my dsiss ever had a bike. My dB had a bike, which was a source of much resentment. He was allowed out when a teen. We weren't. Boys can't get pregnant.

We usually had a week by the sea in summer though.My dm paid for it. Df thought it was a ridiculous waste of money.

I left at the first opportunity and never went back.

I was born late 70s and same here, although they relented and got a VHS player after I left home and everyone had switched to DVDs. My film knowledge is a massive cultural desert that DH regularly teases me for.

Op huge hugs x I’m 45 and we didn’t use fabric conditioner or kitchen roll either, fizzy drinks and crisps were birthday and Christmas only. We never ate pizza or pasta (veg, meat and potatoes or chips and sausages/ nuggets or burgers, and we ate tons of stew!) We didn’t use conditioner either, with my fizzy mass of hair it would have been handy!

We had endless hot water and heating up until I was twelve, as the social housing we lived in included it in the rent, it was a flat though so we didn't have a garden.
We moved to a house, another council house, but it had no central heating, no double glazing, it was bloody freezing.
We didn't have a phone until I was twelve, or colour telly, the loo roll thing too for tissues, although I do remember getting hankies for Christmas in fancy boxes that we used.
Not washing machine apart from a twin tub, we had hand made clothes too, which I bloody hated, I wanted the Tammy girl stuff.
I was loved though, albeit my parents were almost 100%autistic, so there were oddities in their behaviour, as am I.

I've never bought kitchen roll. Perhaps it was being brought up in a house without one, but I genuinely don't understand what you would use kitchen roll for that you couldn't use something else instead.

Interesting that conditioner is a theme here. I remember watching the Wash N Go adverts where the strapline was "take 2 bottles into the shower" and not understanding what the 2 bottles were, and thinking that the peoples who had showers must be very posh (bath once a week).

We didn't have a microwave, dishwasher or a video. My parents regarded them all with suspicion. They still think of a video of "new fangled technology" and can't actually get their heads round the fact that they've been and gone.

Period products/bras. I am middle of 3 girls, but my parents never seemed to realise that puberty was a thing. I assume it was just embarrassment but I remember all too well the humiliation of having to use wads of toilet roll instead of sanitary towels. Another time I summoned up all my courage to ask my mum for a bra. She just said, "you don't need one." I really did.

Same here ! Seems to strange to me now

A bin in the bathroom. I used to smuggle my sanitary products out of the house in my bag!!! Other than that, my home life was pretty 'normal'/lower middle class. Like, what did my mum do with hers?! Carry it downstairs to put in the kitchen bin?!?!? My household is a bit adhd weird and there's lots we go without from being single parent low income, but I do have a bin in the bathroom!

We had nothing. I shared a three bedroom house with DGM, DGF, DM, her sister and her 5 brothers. I had hand me down clothes, second hand presents, we didn't have central heating, we had a lovely coal fire, coats on the beds for extra heat in winter, but I really was spoiled with love and attention. We home baked and got by, went on long country walks and seaside holidays thanks to several relatives with caravans. I look back fondly on those years but there is something in me now that must have affected me from being a child....my food cupboards and freezer always have to be full, if I want to buy something I would have liked as a child I buy it. So while I have the fond memories there's definitely something in me that recognises it can't have been all sunshine and fun.

We had an outside toilet, single glazing, no phone, one fire in the lounge. We did have new cars, ‘foreign food’ because my dad grew peppers and aubergines in a poly tunnel and holidays for months on end to family in Europe. I was the only child in my school who’d been abroad, eaten melon and could speak another language. Born in the 60’s.

Growing up in late 60's/early 70's. Two up, two down for 4 children and Mum and Dad. Both parents worked. Mum in the evening when Dad got home and we were in bed.

We didn't have soft toilet paper it was either that hard, slippery tissue or squares of newspaper. No tissues either. We all had proper hankies that were immaculate - we were given a clean one every day.

Rarely had shampoo or washing up liquid. Hair washing was done with a jug of warm water from the bath and bar soap.

No hairdryer either. Hair was towel rubbed (vinously!) and left to dry by the fire in winter.

No central heating. Fires downstairs and in the two bedrooms if it was very cold. Single glazing which the net curtains stuck to when it was freezing outside.

No fridge. Milk was kept in a pantry in a jug. Meat bought daily from the location butcher.

One pair of sandals in the summer and shoes in the winter. No wellies or slippers.

No play dates. Friends weren't allowed to come into the house. We knocked for each other and played on the street or village green.

We didn't have a car. Dad cycled 5 miles to work and back every day. We walked or took the bus into town or to visit relatives. We did take a coach to the seaside every year for a week and stayed in a chalet on a campsite with arcades, bar and little shop.

Sometimes we had sanitary pads for our period but if money was tight, Mum would give me and my sister "rags" - clean strips of cloth that were boiled and reused.

Oh we still use a lot of loo roll as tissues now! Just don’t think to buy tissues unless we have a cold and even then don’t always think of it! 😂

Things I didn’t have that my children haven’t had either (youngest 18) - more than 1 car, a shower, a tumble drier, kitchen roll, a microwave, a toaster.

Didn’t have a TV (in the early 2000s) partly because money but also my mum thought it was bad for us, especially me and my sister. When my mum kicked my dad out he got a massive TV and let us all watch whatever we wanted out of spite for a while but after a month or so of being spiteful he did stop and sold the TV (for booze money).

We don't have one in the livingroom but it’s not a money thing it’s just I’ve never really had one so never bothered.

No hair conditioner
No duvets (had blankets and bedspreads which i actually liked)
No colour tv , had black and white until i was 12 ( was so happy when it finally broke down!)
No shower (had a bath)
We didnt have cushions or throws either or pictures on the wall.
No Microwave
No Diswasher
No Tumble drier
Although last 3 werent as common in 70s/80s.
Food wise fruit was a very rare treat.
Im 54 and we grew up poor

I grew up in Ireland (I’m 50).
Our first home was in the middle of nowhere.
We had:
No toilet
No electricity
No running water
Mum washed everything by hand (don’t know where she got the water!).
Aga in the living room which she cooked on and hot water bottles at night. Tilly lamp and candles until my aunt’s boyfriend got them a generator to create electricity when I was around 7.
Moved home when I was 10. Had electricity but still no toilet (!) until I was about 14.
We did have home baked birthday cakes and a car and trips to the seaside .. before parents had several more children and my dad lost his job.
Definitely no kitchen roll!!!!

I grew up in the nineties.

We didn't have a working shower until I was 11.
No more than four TV channels until I was 18 in 2006.
Never had a VHS player of any kind.
No video games/consoles.
Never had a microwave and my parents still don't have one. I used one for the first time as a student at university!

None of it was financial, my parents just didn't agree with screens or microwaves or any kind of ready meals/snacks.

I was born in the 60s
No carpets upstairs just floorboards
No central heating - just a coal fire
No gas only electric - we had a Rayburn for cooking and hot water
No TV - we eventually got a rented black and white one when I went to high school
No telephone
Very little frozen food as we just had a tiny ice box in the fridge and frozen food was only just becoming a thing

Now I think of it we only had nuts at christmas. We had a glass dish that would come out and we'd have nuts in it, plus walnuts still in shells that our dad would crack open. They'd mostly break but sometimes you'd get it out whole which was really exciting for some reason.

Kids are weird 🤣