To ask what the weirdest thing you experienced or saw at someone else's house when you were a child?

Agree that its social history, a record of memories, good and bad, and deserves to be kept.

@08NemophilistRebel. @53ChewChewIsMySpiritAnimal
MN might have a duty to report the rapes and more serious abuse claims to the authorities as they should be taking steps to raise awareness of these issues anyway. I'm not sure if their policies state this but there's a responsibility there anyway

It's people's experiences though. Classics isn't just for penis beaker shit.
This is a thread full of social history.

@ChewChewIsMySpiritAnimal totally agree. This in classics is disgraceful to the awful accounts of abuse in this thread

I was invited to a friend's farm to play. We made pastry with her mum. When sorting ingredients, i spilled some flour on the kitchen floor. I was never ever invited back because of this error.

I was 6. It was a dairy farm. They must be pretty used to mess!

Loads of accounts of people with horrendous childhoods including sexual abuse... In classics?!

Aged 10 or 11 I went to stay with a friend in a very tacky mansion. There was an adult dinner party we had to attend, business contacts of the parents sitting around a huge mahogany table eating pheasant, then my friend and I were made to have a very shallow bath together with the mother in the bathroom. I would never have stripped in front of my own mother at that age! The friend's mother made comments about who was plumper, who was more developed etc- so innappropriate! Lunch the next day was cold pheasant. It still had bits of shot in it.

Fish and chips isn't in printed newspaper any more, so might as well go on a plate. OK, so no-one wants to eat ink, but wasn't half the fun finding a chip printed with news in reverse?

Early 80’s I was 17. My parents and I went to dinner at another family’s house. No idea why as they weren’t really family friends. I think their daughter fancied my brother and maybe they were hoping something would come of it.
Anyway the dad was one of those brash loudmouth types and he started questioning me about my boyfriend at the time who (horror of horrors!) was black. He actually asked me at the dinner table in front of everyone if I had sex with my boyfriend. Mortifying for a fairly quiet naive girl.
My parents were outraged after the fact but didn’t say anything at the time possibly because they were embarrassed by my black boyfriend or maybe like me they were too stunned and polite to tell the twat to STFU.
Sometimes I think I’d love to be able to go back in time and have the wherewithal to rip the shit out of the racist asshole.

This is a weird one to go in Classics...

Oh just remembered one that happened to a relative.

Relative collected her grand daughter from school every day, one day she was asked to pick up another little girl and keep her for a couple of hours.

So she collected two 6 year olds and decided they might like ot make a cake, so she had them measuring flour and sugar etc.

6 year old friend said to granddaughter, "We have food at my house we don't make it"

Granddaughter seriously explained that they were 'too poor' to 'buy food', so they had to 'just buy ingredients'.

I wonder what the friend said to her mum when she got home?

I never saw other kids being hit in the 70s, but I now think my parents were good at keeping me away from dodgy families.

I do remember going home and telling my mum that in my friend's house (a really lovely family), they didn't have plugs and instead just had the wires sticking directly into the sockets. I was never allowed to go in her house again, which was tricky as she lived next door.

We were the weird house once. I remember having a friend round to stay overnight and it came time to clean our teeth for bed. My mum was in the bath and she insisted we were fine to both go in and clean our teeth with her in the bath. I was really embarrassed. She usually was good at gauging situations. I remember asking her about this as a teenager and she denied it had happened, but it had.

What an amazing thread - thanks all. Used to think my childhood was a bit shit, but it was nothing compared to a lot of these.

I was invited to tea at a friend's house when 10 or 11. Her dad came in from work and announced he had bought new slippers that day, took one out of the box and gave my friend a really hard whack with the slipper and asked her how much it hurt. I was so stunned I could barely speak and I never went there again when he was there. He apparently used the slipper on his two daughters all the time.

Chocolate50

There is a couple whose garden backs on to min, for a while the woman's daughter and children stayed, the children's dinner was always

Sausage, hot dog sausages or fish fingers
oven chips or smash
frozen peas or tinned beans

Once a fortnight, when she collected her benefit money they had a McDonalds.

I can't remember why but I had the eldest stay over at mine once, I asked what he wanted for tea, he told me and I said I had no potatoes but I had sweet potato. He didn't know that mash and chips are both made from potatoes because he had not seen any made. He was about 11.

kerkyra

I still eat oxo cubes, but they are not the same now they are crumbly.

I must’ve been about 14 when I went on a German school exchange trip. The girl I was paired up with was a bit of a loner. They had a lovely house, but it seemed miles from anywhere. Her parents both walked around the house naked.
I’d been on the exchange the previous year. The girl I was paired up with was the same age 13- 14 maybe- but I only met her mum once. She didn’t have a dad. She used to drink, smoke and hung out in clubs til late at night. It was very edgy and a real eye opener to me. I remember the club being evacuated as someone set off tear gas. My mum was horrified when I went home and told her!

When I was 13 my best friend at the time invited me over her house constantly for sleepovers. She'd lived with her grandparents at one time but was then back living with her mum and stepdad. No idea why she had been at her grandparents back then but can make an educated guess now in hindsight. I distinctly remember her stepdad telling us he'd had his penis pierced and inviting one of my other friends sleeping over if she wanted to see it. I don't remember if she did or not but I do remember being terrified that he'd ask me. They were also barely ever there, I'd basically stay all weekend and we'd never see her parents - we just watched horror movies and raided the cupboards for food. She had a lot of mh problems which looking back makes total sense - she clearly was neglected and it's possible there was some sexual abuse there too. But at the time I just thought they were very relaxed.

I also remember when I was 16 a big group of us would go round a mates house and some of us would just smoke pot the entire time (not me, I was too scared to take any drugs) - his mum was always there sat in the living room smoking pot too. He moved shortly after- he concocted this story about him having to move to Australia because his mum was in lots of debt with drug dealers, but a few months later I saw him in a neighbouring town high as a kite with his mum. It was just so sad.

This thread is amazing.

I’m so pleased that safeguarding is what it is now. In the 80s no one batted an eyelid at things which would now be investigated. My upbringing was also not great and nowadays it would be picked up by the school that there was an issue. Some issues still get missed obv but compared to when I was a child it is so much better for today’s children that these processes are in place.

Reading some these, it's so sad and some people really should not have children. I really hope these children all have happier adulthoods.
Growing up we fairly poor, sharing beds and similiar-ish meals daily. My parents were first generation immigrants here and really wanted us to be truly British.
Anyway when I about 8/9 I was invited to a friends house, for the first time. Her mother was really lovely and wanted me to really like their house. For dinner she made a huge effort, there smells wafting through the house-bless her she must have spent ages on it.
She called us down, proud as punch presented me various different currys! I had never had a curry before and had to ask what it was!
My parents were Asian but never cooked curry, due to not wanting the house to smell-or neighbours to complain.
They also didn't want us children developing a taste for curry, to avoid being stereotyped.
My poor friends mum was shocked I had never eaten curry and then felt bad. She offered me pizza! I ate my first curry that day.
When I went home, told my parents their first reaction was that I needed to brush my teeth and my clothes needed to go in the wash!
Years later I did ask them about these incidents and they said, they just wanted our lives to be easier.

I guess it's just what I'm used to Bill. My family all seem to be pretty good at gauging their appetites and I don't get much left over either, nor do they complain about being hungry. I hadn't realised until today that it was an unusual thing to do.