What made your parents paranoid when you were growing up?

We where not allowed to watch brookside!

This was long before the lesbian kiss-i think that almost finished them off!

My mother couldn't be less homophobic to anyone who is gay (to their faces anyway-she'll slag anyone off for no reason behind their backs) and my father (who has never watched a soap in his life) couldn't be more fearful of any bloke who is gay (but gay women are fine)

(I gave up years ago trying to explain that no gay man on this earth would fancy him but I dont think that fact ever sank in)

God knows what it was about the dealings that went on in the close that set them both off!

They'd turn the tv over with faces that looked like they'd been sucking lemons

Grange hill would have been ok let's face it,jim'll fix it and rolfs cartoon time was fine but none of us (myself or my siblings) ever bothered to watch it

Windows. It was a mixture of utter conviction that if I stood within 3 foot of a window I'd instantly defenestrate myself and that somebody might see me through the dull grey nets.

Water. So no swimming, one trip to the seaside where I was never allowed to do anything but stand ten foot away from the shoreline and look at it, not allowed to lock the bathroom door (only allowed to use it at 5pm Sunday afternoon, shut it under duress and her bellowing at me every five minutes to confirm life), no free sailing trip offered by the school, kept off school when they were planning a pond dipping trip. She'd have had conniptions had she known about the 'Free GCSE revision' trip's actual schedule - horseriding, kayaking, trip in a fishing boat, abseiling down a sea cliff, unclipping and jumping across a ten foot drop over the water to reattach and climbing back up.

What I might say to a teacher or somebody else's parent if I were allowed to be around them. Probably justified, as I might have told them what she did to me regularly.

Having friends. Didn't like that at all. They might have told me what was happening to me indoors was wrong - or told their parents (see above).

Wearing anything red. Or green. Or striped. Or with lace (no lace trimmed socks for me at infant school). Or shiny shoes. Or anything black. Or in primary colours.

Getting a tattoo. My mum always said if got pregnant she'd support me. If I got a tattoo she'd throw me out. She wasn't joking either. I'm knocking on 50 now and my mum doesn't know about my 2 tattoos 😂

There were several scary public information films about it in the 70s. No way after seeing them would I ever touch an animal abroad. There was a poor lady a couple of years ago who caught it after being scratched by a cat in Morocco. It's a shame those films aren't shown now , as perhaps if she had been warned she could have got help earlier.

Threat of abduction.

That we would end up childless - a fate worse than death apparently. Big Catholic family, need I say more. When I got pregnant in my mid 20s they were DELIGHTED and my gran was giddy with excitement at being a great grandma.

Can’t recall the rat poison one but we saw all these at junior school on the big tv with video player in the hall.

We watched a video at school with most of these plus rat poison 😳

My dad - nothing. He was always terrifying me by encouraging me (I am a congenital coward) to swim further, jump/climb higher etc. It actually was very good for me in the end.

My mum - the neighbours 'seeing in'. We had to close the curtains before turning on the lights, which meant the light could only go on when it was dark. On dim days in winter we just blundered around crashing into the furniture.

Oh my god, literally nothing. 😂 My parents were so crap that, at 15, I’d met a man - a man! - who was literally going on trial for accessory to attempted murder (his friend tried to kill someone and he went to pick him up before the cops came to hide him) and my mum literally drove me 3 hours to meet this man and dropped me off with him for 2 weeks. Nothing made my parents paranoid. They were completely oblivious to anything normal sensible parents would do. 🙄

Btw, I was fine, nothing bad happened to me. Guy and I dated for some time and became friends. He wasn’t convicted. Still super dodgy though.

Ii will go one better — we grew up in a tiny, over crowded house with extended family and one tiny bathroom you had to walk through the living room and kitchen to get to. My mother thought it wasn’t ‘nice’ to have a bathroom bin (admittedly there was so little floor space that the door almost touched your knees when sitting on the loo) so she and her three daughters had to keep pads (tampons ‘weren’t nice’ either) in our knicker drawers at the other end of the house, hide them up our sleeve, walk through the living room and kitchen to the bathroom, and then carry the used pad out, wrapped in toilet paper, u0 our sleeves and put them in the kitchen bin when no man was present.

I don’t like escalators. Had a friend who fell down some at a tube station in London once. Luckily she was ok, but they are lethal. It’s a wonder they keep going, but guess there arn’t too many alternatives and can’t install lifts everywhere at stations ( for example)

I always feel a bit nervous stepping into an escalator in summer sandals. Surely they call for steel toe capped safety boots!

so much I could say but on a lighter note we couldn’t leave a tampon box on display, I love leaving them out now in the bathroom when they visit 🤷🏽‍♀️

I thought that Grange Hill was quite moral. I was a bit older when it started so my parents didn’t say anything.
They didn’t like me watching too much tv though ‘ gives you square eyes’ .

Drugs, alcohol and sex. Big lectures but with books on them. Didn’t stop us though!

Neither were me and DB but we watched it in secret or at friends house. Eventually mum relented.

Becoming pregnant before I was married.
I do believe they would have thrown me out it would have brought so much shame.
They did worry about a lot of things though.

My mum - cycling on the main road. I know this is because we knew two kids at school who were knocked over and killed on their bikes, and our paperboy was knocked off his bike and died in my mum’s arms outside our house when I was about six.

My dad - boys. I wasn’t allowed a boyfriend until I was over 18, and as a result have had lifelong social anxiety talking to the opposite sex. Had very few boyfriends and never married or had kids. I don’t think he actually wanted me to grow up.

Also wasn’t allowed to watch Grange Hill because my dad didn’t want me “growing up using that slang”. Why on earth he thought a 12 year old from north Manchester would start speaking like an Essex girl (Tricia Yates -IYKYK) I’ll never knowZ

But it was Educational! Zammo taught me about drugs..

Nothing really as far as I remember. They didn't care what others thought, which looking back is very cool and definitely meant that I don't either. So I hope I've passed that on to my kids. I didn't inherit their laissez faire attitude to childcare though, I'm not sure they knew where we were half the time. The woods, abandoned hospitals, town, the park - as long as we got back home before dark. I'm the opposite and have to try hard not to be a helicopter parent.

I can't think of anything but I fairly regularly remind my eldest DS (who is at uni) of the dangers of lift shafts, balconies, lion enclosures, iced over water, drunk swimming, mopeds. I don't think I'm neurotic