Things your parents led you to think were 'special' or 'expensive' that you now take for granted?

Things we never had growing up:

• inside toilet
• bath or shower (no bathroom)
• heating
• fruit
• squash type drinks
• dessert
• Tupperware (school lunch in paper bag)
• days out
• fashionable clothes.

In spite of this, I had a fabulous childhood!

Milk. I used to drink milk as a proper drink in a glass in Derry because my mum would hit the roof otherwise. I remember her bolting up the stairs once after me because I’d got a glass full in secret and she knocked it out my hand. I didn’t really see the point in that, it got wasted anyway and she had to clean the walls and carpets!

The weird thing was we were ‘well off’ middle class family and could more than afford milk, but for some reason Mum hated it being wasted

Def eating out - it was a massive treat maybe 3 times a year. I can still remember the excitement of potato wedges with garlic mayo, which was unknown in our house. Takeaway (fish and chips or chinese only) maybe twice a year.
I didn't stay in a hotel till I was 18 (or go on a holiday that wasn't guide camp), or take a taxi till I was at uni.
Equally my first flight was 18, second at 25. At 27 I got a new job and suddenly plunged into a world of being a frequent flyer - so hotels, flights, taxis and eating out are an integral part of my life which dad finds it hard to get his head around.
Buying clothes (even socks) was a big thing when I was a child. You couldn't buy them in the supermarket, our town didn't have a clothes shop, so it required a massive journey of 20 miles (it seemed a massive deal back then to drive that far) twice a year to The City where you were bought what was necessary

The only thing I can think of is internet usage. My parents refused to get broadband/wifi until long after it was the norm in most homes, because they said it would give us brain cancer, and I was restricted to an hour of time on the computer per day. I used to go on a sort of fiction writing forum where you wrote scenarios as your character based on Tamora pierce's books about female knights. It was just pages of text, but with dial up internet it would take up to ten minutes to load a page so most of my hour time limit was trying to find where I could post and what had developed since I'd last been on. Gave up on it in the end because it was just impossible to keep up, which was a shame as it was quite a positive use of time as it was essentially collaborative creative writing. Also if anyone called the home phone I would be booted off.

The bleeping and clicking of the dial up connecting is burned into my memory! Now DP and I have super fast fibre optic wifi and it is amazing.

Loving this thread as once again , as someone born in the mid 60s it’s just proving that my parents were apparently unusual . We were not particularly well off especially when I was small but my parents never rationed stuff , the house was always warm , baths were freely available , nice loo roll , fizzy drinks . The only thing we never did was foreign holidays and that was because mum wouldn’t fly (77 and still hasn’t) and dad wouldn’t cross the channel !

Vienetta, Ribena, Kellogg’s variety packs and drinking orange and lemonade on a night out.

Strawberries.
About 3-4 tines in a summer we’d go to a pyo farm and get one punnet between the four of us. That was it. Till the next year. We never bought them in the supermarket. Ever.

Chocolate spread. Cake other than for Sunday tea. Crisps and non plain biscuits. Pop other than for special occasions. Takeaway. I got a Chinese takeaway for my 18th birthday - it was thought to be so expensive and indulgent. Ready to drink cartons. We always had a big bottle with some squash made up from the main bottle at home. We were hard up though, my mum was a lone parent and money was tight. My grandparents used to get chips at the seaside but they took sandwiches to eat with them to save money on fish. My DH doesn't get it as his family was doing well in Thatcher's Britain and they had things like kit kats and monster munch every day

Yes orange juice!

Orange juice, it used to be listed as a starter!

I also thought Schloer was something only rich people had. We only ever had this at Christmas and you had to sip it slowly as you were only allowed one glass. I always feel a bit lavish buying it now (ridiculous I know).

I too have become a bit tighter than my parents. I find it personally gratifying if I can limit the heating to 4 months a year.

Playdoh - I remember getting a set for my birthday (the hairdresser!) and my mum being very clear that if I mixed it up or left the lid off and it went hard there would be no more. Roll on to many years later and looking to get some Playdoh for DS, I was astonished at how cheap it is! Although I suppose it may have been relatively much more expensive in the early 80s. I am still a bit obsessive about keeping the colours separate and the lids on tight though.

@Snipples yes! Pez! I remember my bro and sis (slightly younger) being obsessed.

Never allowed ice cream from ice cream van. We used to chant “it’s not fair” whenever we heard the jingle. Viennetta was special treat.

Never ate out, except for Pizza Hut on birthdays (maybe).

Heating on was limited to the depths of winter.

Used to drive rather than fly on holiday, even to Italy. Most holidays in UK or holland, staying with friends/family. Can’t remember ever staying in a hotel other than occasional motels on journeys to France /Italy.

New clothes were a massive treat. Had a lot of second hand from friends and my brother and sister had to wear my hand me downs.

We were not poor and lived in a big Victorian house but my dad had big fluctuations in income year on year (self employed).

I do worry I let my dd have it too easy!

More the other way around for me & dsiss. Our parents were yuppies & we would go to buy new winter/summer wardrobes, we had to have party shoes & in winter 'pixie boots' were an essential item.
Now my 2 sisters & I consider kitchen roll a luxury item & even now (i could afford kitchen roll), I've trained myself so well that I never remember to buy it.

These days I'm tighter than my parents ! Heating on in October ? Not a chance.

My parents were born at the tail end of the war but were well off and I didn't want for anything.

However somehow I was convinced that a McDonald's was a huge deal. despite regular holidays abroad it was the McDs that really impressed me.

Ice creams, pop corn and Kia-Ora too expensive at the cinema.

My mum would wrap ice pops in news paper to have in the interval.

I can remember if she packed scissors or if we had to bite the end off.

Learning to drive with my Dad. If you steered on the spot, without the car moving, it would “cost 50p in extra tyre wear”

Food! Clothes, anything at all.

Our family had plenty of money but my Grandmother would never part with it.
My Grandmother who raised me served wartime ration portions "just in case". One of those thin long chipolatas each and half a boiled potato with oxo in water for gravy is an example.
This did for everyone even my grandad who worked full time. He added to his food and bought lunch outside of the house as he was so hungry.

Also . Never had anything to eat outside of the house. My grandmother was of the opinion that she would not buy any meals or food outside because she could cook at home.

We never went on day trips but had holidays at her sisters where all meals where....cooked at home by her sister! We once walked 6 miles back to her sisters and on the journey were kept going by talk of dinner waiting, cooked by her sister, when we got there. Buses passed us on the journey but my grandmother said "we don't want to go on a bus do we".
As for ice creams, well I was constantly told "we don't want an ice cream do we" whilst I wistfully stared at the ice cream van or pictures of them outside the sweet shop that I wasn't allowed in.
My grandad once got sent back to the paper shop on a Sunday because whilst collecting his paper he had purchased a block of ice cream for after Sunday dinner. He had to return it as it was "a ridiculous extravagance and we don't need that sort of thing, why on earth would you buy it".
I wasn't allowed clothes until they were so tight it was uncomfortable and then she got some used clothes from next door, from the vicars wife who collected for the jumble sale.

It has left me with an inability to buy anything at all including guilt at buying food. My husband is very good and buys really good quality things on my behalf and goes with me for clothes so I spend decent amounts of money.

Raisin bran.

I have NO idea why!

Me and my brother having to share 1 individual glass bottle of Orangina as "it was expensive"

I am a similar age and appear to have a very similar background, and very similar attitude to luxuries as haybales.

Viennetta has been mentioned. All that fancy swirlyness fools my DC into thinking it’s posh too!

Televisions with remote controls - DF thought such a thing was the height of laziness.

Pets. (I'm surprised no-one's mentioned them so far!) We were always the ones who had to say we didn't have any when everyone at school would say what pets they had. My brother begged and pleaded for them, and was eventually allowed a couple of mice when he was eleven. I think our parents settled for that because mice don't live very long!

Some years later, when I was a young adult living on my own, a work colleague pleaded with me to take a beautiful cat which had invited itself into her house, and would eat her own cats' food. I took a lot of persuading, thinking about my parents' views about how high maintenance pets are, especially cats and dogs. More than ten years later, the cat is still with me!