Silly things your mother did (lighthearted)

Using the same tea bag twice. I thought this was normal until mid 20s.

only skimmed thread but they're all quite housewife-y things! mine is quite batshit so I can't say all of them but:

• using vaseline as moisturiser so all lightswitches got slimy
• asking for donations of primroses round her village and replanting guerilla style in someone else's land
• taking a random pill a youngster left in her house after a party "just to see what it does, do you think its crack?"
• regularly having prehistoric visions of how the landscape would have looked (unconnected to the pills)
• feeding us foraged mushrooms, getting offended when we said no, suffering stomach bug afterwards, totally unconnected

The ITV thing is very common it seems! It was referred to as “idiot vision” in our house and my parents still think the same. For instance, they refused to watch Downton Abbey because “it’ll just be typical ITV”

Insisting on curling our hair with curling tongs every Sunday night before bed. It was, of course, completely straight again by morning!

Not Mum, but my darling Auntie Lizzie, RIP, was terrified of thunderstorms. One day Aunt and my cousin Barry and I had been to visit Gran and were on our way back to Aunt's house when it began to rain, always apparently a precursor to thunder and lightning.

The two of us were dragged full pelt back to the house where the three of us had to take refuge in the larder under the stairs. Suddenly Aunt realized that we were standing inches away from the electricity meter. Cue much screaming and we were dragged out and forced to stand behind the dining room door for the duration of the storm.

This was definitely learned behaviour from my Gran. If I was off school when there was a thunderstorm my Mum used to send me up the road to Gran's to make sure she was OK. I would always find her hiding behind the kitchen door with all the doors and windows in the house wide open 'so that if the lightning comes in, it can get out again OK.'

to all our beloved relatives, wherever they may be.

I grew up in the 1970s when people didn’t really use sunscreen for kids - it just wasn’t a thing. But my mum decided that to protect our skin from burning, she’d smother us all in Nivea cream.

It didn’t really work.

My mother's idea of salad is a plate full of small thing , spring onions, chopped egg, ham, crisps, cheese etc, with salad cream or salt on top

[quote TwoLeftSocksWithHoles]@souvlaki
Yes your right, we also had a drawer full of old, brown paper bags, pieces of string and perished rubber bands. I guess it was caused by shortages during the War (WW2).

I have an uneasy feeling that it may be genetic as I think about what my own kitchen drawers contain [/quote]
Brown Paper bags

I remember when shops gave you either brown or white paper bags. Delended on the shop or what was in it. Brown paper bags tended to be for things that were dirty - like vegetables, or at placss like hardware shops. White paper bags were usually for "clean" food items and those that had been wrapped in greaseproof paper first or for Mums pack of ciggies if she sent us to get them.

White paper bags would be saved to use again but brown paper bags were deemed to be dirty. She might use one to wrap rubbish in but that was all.

The daft thing was that some of brown ones had been used to contain something already wrapped or that was clean, yet they were still classed as "dirty" while a white bag with grease marks all over it from some cooked meat were considered clean!!

Airing clothes before wearing them.
Flat 7 up when you're ill.
Pee in the morning 'or your bladder will burst' lol

@Fuckingcrustybread I’ve seen this before! It was a recipe from a set of 70s recipe cards - my grandma had them too!

I was never to sit on a cold surface because I’d get cystitis.

I was forever getting told off for stretching my clothes. Putting a top on without taking my glasses off was forbidden because I’d stretch it. If I sat down and caught my top under my bottom again I’d be bollocked for stretching it and made to stand up and sit down again.

I’ve never eaten roast chicken because mum would cook hers in the microwave only. Just remembering the smell gives me the boak

Not sure it’s a generational thing but DM is very fussy about food. She’s currently in hospital (and surviving on meal replacements as she’s not eating the hospital food). She’s not allowed visitors so I’m smuggling in requests via a nurse friend - but they are very particular, crusty baguette with deli ham and butter, belvoir elderflower presse, homemade lemon and almond cake, cartons of pineapple juice etc. Good job I love her and am willing to accommodate.

She also stills makes a fruit curry that she ate in the 70s (revolting) and various other dated curries that she learned on a cooking course in the 80s. They were avant garde at the time and very bland now.

Underwear not underneat

Ironing everything including underneat, tea towels and duvet covers.

Feeding me apples with sugar and cinnamon sprinkled on top of it as a tv snack.

@JustNotFunAnymore

My mum used to save the cover off the top of the margarine (the bit under the plastic lid that you peel back) They would be folded up and put in the drawer and brought out if any baking trays needed greasing and then put back for next time

Also the lady whose mother kept a written record of removal of airing cupboard contents to wardrobes.

Hilarious!

My mum used to save the cover off the top of the margarine (the bit under the plastic lid that you peel back)
They would be folded up and put in the drawer and brought out if any baking trays needed greasing and then put back for next time

my mother is a sociopath and i don’t have many happy memories.

she was also a BIG fan of curling tongs and used to do my hair for school photos. the end result being a row of 10 year old girls in plaits and bunches and me in the middle looking like fucking Liberace.

cheers, mother.

Some of these are really hilarious. My own DM isn’t really guilty of any of these that I can remember, particularly the laundry-related ones as I grew up in the US where we had a tumble drier since I was a toddler (putting your washing out on a line was VERY “low-class”) and the vast majority of our clothes were in that poly-cotton blend that didn’t require ironing. The most bonkers thing I can think about my DM was the lengths she would go to to avoid profanity, and the shame she felt on the very few times she let rip. And she had 3 sons in 3 years so she had a lot of occasions to test her!

I do, however, recognise a lot of these in my D(and sadly departed)MIL. Ironed everything in sight, including knickers and tea towels though “rebelled” and put clothes to dry on the “rads”. Curry with sultanas, coconut and bananas - check. Fretted for days about making sure she had nice new pyjamas for a cruise holiday because “what would the stewards think?” Only ever allowed me two potatoes at lunch though DH could have as many as he wanted (she was extremely generous otherwise with her meals though!).

Keep them coming!

ooh spaghetti lasagne. sounds oddly yum

Sugar on peas.

Spaghetti lasagne. Tinned spagetti between the layers of pasta.

Her dog is currently on a diet of bacon offcuts in custard.

When I was at college and she got wind of me staying at a girlfriends for the weekend she’d if I’d got my pyjamas.

[quote MostIneptThatEverStepped]@Fuckingcrustybread

Yes to the sultanas and coconut but with sliced bananas!![/quote]
Same ! Your mum and mine must have had the same cook book.

This is a lovely thread. I haven't seen my DM for over a year (different countries), and I increasingly find myself telling my DD stories about my DM, the kind of thing this thread is full of. Mine did a lot of the things mentioned here (recycling underwear into dusters, ironing tea towels, airing everything, don't leave your washing out overnight unless you want the neighbours to think you're a slattern, etc). She also used to send me to the local Co-op for bits of shopping, and she'd tell me I could buy a small Mars bar as a reward for going (1970s - small Mars bars were tiny), but i was to bring it home unopened. She would then get a knife out and divide the tiny Mars bar not just between my sister and me, but between everyone she could think of. My cousins might pop round, so better but them pieces. The little girl next door might want a bit. Maybe my dad would like a bit when he got home. And so on. I would eventually be handed my share of the Mars bar (my 'reward' for going to the shop!) and it would be an almost invisible sliver.

Having to unplug the tv and the video every night. First job in the morning scrabbling around to turn then back on.

Being taught how to use a dustpan and brush on the stair carpet. Sweep top step onto one below... sweep top 2 steps dirt onto one below. So some dirt was painstakingly brushed off every stairs. Bonkers!

(To be fair, they do go rusty once they are wet so that is not as batshit as it first sounds)

i found a recipe the other day for potato and egg curry made it and it was delicious. the eggs sit on the top. and if you get them at that not quite hardboiled not quite soft boiled medium stage they are so yummmm.