What made your parents paranoid when you were growing up?

Well it absolutely wasn’t teenage pregnancy seeing as I was an extremely weird antisocial kid up until I was 15. They never said anything but were probably more afraid id be a loner forever.

And then got I pregnant at 15

Very little

My mum had loads:

we weren’t allowed to watch byker grove as a teenager on there slept with someone on holiday and thought she might be pregnant. Presumably this behaviour was catching and I may have got pregnant (while in primary school) by watching this. Actually now that I think about it, perhaps it was a bit weird that a program primary aged kids watched showed one night stands and teen pregnancy and maybe my mum had a point 😂

in a similar vein I was banned from reading Sugar and J17 magazines, because someone told my mum they had given step by step instructions on how to give your boyfriend a blowjob. (Again, reading such things would make me go out at the age of 13 and immediately start giving blow jobs.) I actually don’t believe this was true as I never saw those teenage magazines give anything but sensible advice about teenage sex.

Chicken which had been cooked by someone else. Like, chicken cooked at home was fine, but a shop bought chicken sandwich, or a chicken burger from a takeaway would likely cause immediate food poisoning and therefore wasn’t allowed.

Eating or drinking while walking down the street was considered ‘low brow’. We had to sit on a bench to do such things.

No one could ever have a meal which didn’t have 2 side vegetables (even if the main meal contained large amounts of veg). To skip the veg would cause immediate malnutrition and/or obesity.

bless my lovely mum. I loved her so much but she had some very set very odd ideas.

Not too much. It was borne in on me that if I did get pregnant before finishing my education, I could expect my mum to take me off for an abortion (I would have been fully on board with this). I assumed that they would want me to sort out contraception, which I did, so we were both shocked when it turned out they assumed I wouldn’t have sex.

My mum was very nervous about the impact of watching scary stuff on TV, and I think she was right, and I’ve tried to replicate that for ds, with less success. I watched the farm safety film mentioned above (Apaches) at primary school and was terrified beyond belief and she was furious, I think rightly.

You know one day your own adult kids will be recanting your own foibles to eye roll over!

Mine were great but there was definitely a theme amongst friends parents in the early 90s to be ridiculously over strict and shouty with teens.

The worst was always assumed. We were a pretty innocent group but my poor friends would get literally screamed at for minor things like being 5 mins late. It was assumed we would get into drugs and perfectly nice age appropriate boyfriends viewed with suspicion. Made me really careful when parenting teens to be nothing like this.

Eating or drinking the street

Going out with wet hair

Tattoos

Wearing a football shirt, unless going to an actual football match

Eating frozen foods

Grapes. They knew a family who had a child who choked while running around on the playground eating a grape. It was on the news and everything. They went to the funeral. We never had grapes in the house after that.

Rule Brittania!
Marmalade and Jam.
5 Chinese crackers up your ar*e
Go bang bang bang bang bang!

My parents didn't give a toss what people thought. Mum was a bit hyper about food hygiene though.

I know a different version:

There were three in the bed,
And the little one said,
Roll over, roll over,
So they all rolled over,
And one fell out,
And bumped his head,
And began to shout

Rule Britannia!
The queen is dressed in her pyjamas,
This bed is only big enough for,
1..2..3..4..etc.

The obvious urban legend that was the temporary tattoos impregnated with LSD 🤔

I grew up in a reasonably large northern city. When I was around 16 I met a boy on holiday and arranged to meet him in London in half term. (We were staying with relatives in Barnet, so was easy to pop in for the day.) My mum pulled me aside before I got the tube and warned me that people from cults prey on out-of-town teenagers, so to keep my wits about me! It was bizarre.

More generally, yes, the worrying about what people think, not being common or cheap etc etc. Mum was also pretty keen we didn't develop the local accent and was always threatening elocution lessons!

Oh I didn't know about the pot!

The 'give me lead' was a game of one upmanship really.

Give me lead, keep me writing
Give me jam, keep me singing

All very silly to be fair.

But ahhh!

There were three in the bed
And the little one said:
"Roll over, roll over!"
So they all rolled over
One hit the floor
And his guts fell out...

RULE BRITANNIA!
THREE MONEYS ON A STICK!
ONE FELL OUT AND PARALYSED HIS...
DIDDLY DOO, DON'T MIND ME..!

Dad worked on cars. I was never allowed in a car with a bloke who had not long got his licence.

I remember helping wash cars with kangaroo and emu smeared over them. I suppose he had seen cars with brains smeared over the inside but I would never ask. I’ve never thought of that until now.

Mad cow disease.

I was 14 before I had a real burger.
(I now love burgers and steak).

My best friend as a child, her dad was South African where I think they have rabies. Always told her to never touch dogs or cats over here or there for that matter, they went there on holidays. But they got a kitten when she was 9. That was ok.

Paranoid is probably too strong a word, but i was constantly aware that Cold in my Kidneys was an actual thing and I would get it from not tucking my vest into my knickers, having a gap between jumper and trousers and when I was older, wearing crop tops. I grew up n Australia ffs. Also ingrown toenails if my toenails weren't exactly cut straight. Which would entail an extremely gruesome operation. Eating vegetables that were under cooked(though raw veg was ok) Sitting too close to tv would ensure I would need glasses. The cat had to be kept out when babies were around as they would sit on their faces. But I was allowed to play out where there were spiders and snakes capable of killing me, walk to school from 8 and take myself off swimming from 12.

to Rule Britannia? I'm intrigued...

oh, did it start at the "this was the charter" line? that would work.Edit: just realised I've been thinking of Three Little Monkeys not Three in the Bed. No, I give up. How does it go?

How long did you continue singing lead in my pencil after one of you was worldly enough to start smirking?

We didn't treat Piggy as a cautionary tale either. And it was actually the engine who said I don't care. Which we would invariably follow with
Don't care was made to care
Don't care was hung
Don't care was put in a pot
and BOILED till 'e was done

Oh my dad sang this and it was like a song in the car on holidays!

I didn't know it was a danger song and when we all sang the piggy bit back to him it was like piggy was a complete moron... passed us by that it was a danger song. And my dad would generally eat a handful of wine gums at the end as he is and was is our piggy...

Much like:

Give me lead in my pencil keep me writing
Give me lead in my pencil I pray
Give me lead in my pencil keep me writing
Keep me writing to the break of dayyyyyyy!

Was my childhood wrong?!

We also did the Three in the Bed but to the tune of Rule Britannia...

Kettles. My cousin had third degree burns from knocking a boiling kettle over her legs as a child.

Strangers
Water - rivers etc.
Drugs
Dossers
Masons
Religion pushers

My parents may never have allowed us to watch brookside or dip a toe nail in the sea but I was mainly brought up by my grandad

He saw danger in everything

Stood too close to the unplugged hoover?
'Move away!you might get sucked in!'

Stood too close to a window?
'Move!you might fall out!'

Doing a jigsaw?
Don't put the pieces too close to your mouth!you might choke!'

About to step on a ladder?
'Noooooo!'

Walking down the street?
'Pay close attention to where you are stepping or you'll fall and land under a bus/down a drain!'

'Don't go near the lounge bin,you might fall and trap your foot/hit your head!'

'Never walk through one of those doors at the supermarket that have a sensor to open/close it-the waves will rot your brain!'

He checked every single toy i was ever given just in case the stuffing could fall out/bits break off and id choke to death

He was a natural worrier with ptsd (he lived through two world wars and served in ww2) and ocd

I learned fast how to deal with it but he never stopped fretting over my safety

(he'd had 4 dc of his own and due to the massive age gap between my father and his 3 older siblings,im told he was much worse with my father as he was around more when he was a child/young adult)

I know he only worried as he loved me and it was his way of showing it

I'd often see my parents gawping at him as they just couldn't see what the problem was

I tried to find a balance between my parents and grandad when I had my own children (and I often failed but they made it to adulthood with only a few cuts and bruises so can't have done too badly)

1. Adverts on TV, to the point that I had some homework from school to watch an advert and write something about it for English and I had to tell the teacher in front of the whole class that I hadn’t done the homework because I wasn’t allowed to watch adverts.
2. That I was a lesbian, this was mainly because I liked wearing Doc Martens, it never occurred to her that I liked wearing flat boots because a) I was about a foot taller than all of my female friends and taller than some of the male ones too, and b) that my favourite band wore them. Nope, despite the evidence that I was boy mad the comfortable footwear was the problem.

Me!!😂😂😂

My mum was worried that if I walked the dog, unruly teenagers would hurt me to steal the dog and then blow him up with fireworks. Fuck knows why.

She was also terrified of me getting fat or my blonde hair turning brown (both happened to a certain degree, but the dog was fine).