Silly things your mother did (lighthearted)

My mother was and still is aghast that I don't wear a petticoat under my skirt. She was troubled that someone might 'see through' the skirt or that it would stick to my tights. On pointing out that I often didn't wear tights either, she'd fling her hands up as if I was a lost cause.

She still makes me go out the same door as I entered because it's bad luck otherwise.

Will make a great play of looking at the time (she is obsessed by time) and declaring that it's nearly dinner time but she's not hungry. This is calamitous because to eat dinner outwith this set time would undoubtedly bring on armageddon. To just eat when you are hungry is a concept lost on her.

And it was always referred to as dinner because she always made two courses, except on the day we had fish when it would be referred to as tea and would just be the one course. On this day the table would be set with teacups and saucers, bread and butter and a milk jug. If we referred to this as dinner she would take umbrage and insist it was tea.

When I visit she always asks me if I'm hungry and ready for lunch even though I usually visit early and have just had breakfast.

I could write a book. She's 92 though so I smile and nod, bless 'er

Oooo I forgot dont eat sugar (from a spoon) or you’ll get worms

@RaraRachael that made me lol with the worm!

I got the can't sit on a a toilet seat or you'll catch crabs.

Yes to the most bland salads ever, I grew up thinking I hated salad but really it was just the ham, egg, lettuce & cucumber combo I hated!

An absolute slave to the ironing, every weekend evening, piles and piles!

No toys or books downstairs at all

Yes to the cupboard full of folded up carrier bags but I think she was ahead of her time on that one.

One from my DGP was no driving if there was any hint of a breeze/heavy rain, far to dangerous

*myusernamewastakenbyme

My mum was obsessed with airing washing too....she would go nuts if i took something off the line and put it on without it going into the airing cupboard for about 3 years firstgrin*
We had a metal box with a lid - about 4 foot high with wooden slats inside. It was called a Flatley dryer.

Most of these sound really sensible to me. My gran was a Geordie and we were her Bairns.

She used to collect the hair from her brushes for the birds to make nests ( she had beautiful hair).

What else happened? Did you put on the dress? Tell us!!

My mum has summer and winter curtains and each have a matching rug so she swaps everything on the appointed days. Seems like such a faff and a pain to store the others when not used.
I rinse and re-use plastic food bags (it's the guilt of so much plastic in the ocean). I also re-use plastic tubs from icecream, butter, take-away etc.
I also use the kids old socks as dusters, they seem to go through them so quickly and they are perfect size to slip over your hand and dust in tiny corners and on top of doors. Funnily enough, my mum thought this was mad but also ingenious.

I dread to think what my son will be writing in a few years time...

Slightly different, as not cleaning (I am third generation complete slattern) but knitting.

I remember as a toddler going to the woolshop with them, and they would ponder over a pattern from Women's Weekly and then pick a different yarn. It will knit up fine in aran they'd say - and it would. Looking back, they couldn't afford the expensive yarns. But it was almost a challenge. If it was knitted in a cheap yarn, they'd find a different one, and probably fiddle with the sleeve length or cuffs while they were at it.

It also spilled over a little to cookery. We can just use mince for that bit, and I've some mushrooms that need using so that can go in and I'm not wasting cream on a midweek meal, so I'll use top of milk I can't imagine ever using cream in cooking at all now.

I suspect that they just hated being told what to do.

My mum would like to think she's some kind of lady of the manor... She always over pronounces any non British words that crop up in conversation in a totally forced ridiculous accent because I think she thinks it makes her look cultured. E.g croissant and Gabor (shoe make)... Used to make me die inside when I was younger.

@Mumisnotmyonlyname So true, my gran and my mum would always implore you to wear a vest and keep warm so you didn’t get pneumonia (newnaxy they called it)

Not my mum but a school friend’s mum wouldn’t let any of them sit on their beds in case germs transferred from their clothing.

Weird obsession with scissors. Hates knives. She'd slice bread with scissors if she could.

All (recycled for decades) Christmas wrapping paper had to be carefully snipped along the tape lines, smoothed out & put in a neat pile. So every family member would be issued a tiny pair of sewing scissors (kept in the Xmas decorations box & used for no other purpose) & we'd all sit there solemnly snipping away. Often it kept us peacefully occupied until the turkey was ready.

She also uses scissors to cut pizza (it's never a meal; it's one medium pizza snipped into a dozen slivers to serve as part of a buffet for a large family gathering).

She got given a proper pizza cutter once as a wine order freebie, & you'd have thought they'd sent her a live rattlesnake. I offered to take it off her hands - it was rather a nice one - & her response was 'You can't have that in the house with the children!'

Who incidentally are all hulking teenagers who routinely deploy all my kitchen knives to whip dinner...

Antibiotics became widely available mid 1940s. Before that, pneumonia (bacterial pneumonia can be developed after a cold or flu) was more often than not a death sentence. This would have been the case for many of these women's mothers, I would have thought. It's interesting to see where these ideas stem from.

Same here!

Haha yes @GreeboIsMySpiritAnimal and @sueelleker she sure is!

Your mam's a Geordie then @Mammyloveswine !

My Mam irons everything, is horrified I do the bare minimum!

Has a drawer full of tea towels, a full cupboard of towels.

Always makes spaghetti bolognese with a tin of oxtail soup.

Calls a swede a turnip (genuinely didn't know they were separate vegetables until I was about 25).

Refers to Costa coffee as "costa-fortune tinkly laugh" so when we could meet for a coffee we would have to go to the Wetherspoons as they did refills...she would then always say "shall we just get a proper drink?"

Refers to the kids as "the bairns".

Wouldn't eat anything "foreign" for years but now loves chilli and Chinese...she even gets a chow mein now she's that brave!

@Eleoura you must not swallow cherry pips, as they contain arsenic. The NHS poisons unit will confirm it.

@Miljea
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Boiling fish in milk was an HE lesson for me in the 1990s!