What did your family never do growing up, that was normal in other families?

[Barnyandella80]

• camping
• family bike rides
• BBQs , or eating outside
• holidays abroad
• do separate activities on holiday eg mum & one child horse riding, dad and other child bike ride. Always did everything together
• holidays or days out with other families

They didn’t hug or say love you. Ever. My friends parents would over compensate and hug me to Success was never celebrated, it was expected.

I’m affectionate with my children but used to find it difficult to do in front of my parents

That's true shinynewapple
In the 70s it wasn't really a thing to go on family bike rides or eat out for example.
My family was reasonably well off but eating out was a great extravagance reserved for v special occasions...

Show any love or warmth to us kids. It was a cold upbringing and I was always envious of my friends who seemed to have lovely parents.

Our family didn't do any of those things in the OP.
The only bikes my parents went on were motorbikes. I'm not actually sure either of them could ride a push bike.

Was never hugged or kissed by my parents, never told I was loved, although deep down I suppose they did love me?
Have never had a professional photo taken until I started school. There are no photos of me as a baby.
Have never had a birthday party-ever!
Friends not allowed to come and play in house.
Never allowed in parents bedroom let alone their bed.
Didn’t go out meals out but children weren’t really catered for in Cafes/ restaurants.

We went on holiday once a year to visit family from my dps home country, we’d drive there and stay with family. Never stayed in a hotel.
DB and I went on bike rides together, never with dm and df. Same with swimming, both dps worked so rarely saw them within school holidays.
No kids clubs. Loads of my friends did clubs like Girl Guides, when I asked it was met with a ‘no’.
My clothes were mainly bought from the jumble sale or the market.

I never had a friend sleep over at my house. And I was not allowed to sleep over at someone else's house until I was in my teens.

I was born early 80s, we didnt go on holidays, no camping, no cinema trips/swimming, no theme parks/activity centres, no 'activities' or sports, no concerts/theatre, no 'fast food' (i was 17 when had Mcdonalds for first time), no takeaways except fish and chips maybe once a month. We did very little child-centered stuff. We lived quite rurally, we only went into the medium size city 40 mins from us maybe 3-4 times a year. We were an hour away from a capital city and I only went there on school trips, never with parents. Occasional day at the beach, went to same 'day out' towns over and over again which we drove to, I dont remember ever using public transport or being on a train until I was into mid-teens and tbat was with friends not parents. Unlike others, did eat out a fair bit, a big lunch was a part of a day out and we always went out for meals at birthdays but to country pub-type places, never posh or city-style restaurants.
Some of this had to do with my parents not having much money but not all of it was. They were both very socially anxious and awkward, not joiners in and so consequently my siblings and I didnt. They were happy to potter at home, my dad was a workaholic and mum's only hobby was watching TV and we were expected to amuse ourselves. My siblings and I were very unworldly. My sister and I both say we had to do a lot of learning when we left home as we had not a clue as we had been exposed to so little.

We did do camping. Believe me, it's overrated. Eating outside was good - it was the only thing that made camping bearable.

Never did any on your list. I thought most of those weren't particularly common to do in 80s.

Never ate out, went to places with paid admission tickets except as a very special occasion, visited anywhere further than about 10 miles except going on holiday or visiting relatives.

Never hugged or said I love you.
My parents never went to parents evening at all.
Never showed any interest in my education.
Never went on holiday.
Never ate out, went to the cinema or theme parks.
Never praised me or said that they were proud of me.

Say "I love you".

It went without saying, obviously.

But it has meant I find it weird and artificial to say it to anybody.

I mean, to me it feels like "protesting too much". If you really love someone, it's obvious without saying it.

But obviously this is a minority position and one I've had to try to get over, because others expect it.

Went to church

@Barnyandella80

- camping

• family bike rides
• BBQs , or eating outside
• holidays abroad
• do separate activities on holiday eg mum & one child horse riding, dad and other child bike ride. Always did everything together
• holidays or days out with other families

I never did any of those things either.

Also was never taken swimming or to the cinema or to any sort of child centred activity.

It was normal to me though, so I can't say I felt I was missing out.

It's funny how you look back on your childhood and the things that stay with you such as not getting hugs from a parent or told you are loved.

I think it depends how old you are if this is surprising.

I was brought up in 70's and 80's and no-one I know was going on foreign holidays, at least not often- I remember a boy at school going on holiday to Yugoslavia and it was the most exotic thing I had ever heard of. No BBQ's, they hadn't even invented pasta in the UK! We certainly didn't eat out extensively in restaurants, perhaps a Wimpey occasionally but usually it was home-made cheese soggy sandwiches all the way.

The one thing we were obviously out of step with was getting a TV, we didn't have one through most of my primary years, and got a colour telly years after everyone else.

Some of the other things mentioned we never did either. I never had a babysitter. I was an adult the first time I used public transport. I never went on a plane. My parents didn't have friends they would socialise with - I know they did before they were married but I think it was just a different time and the expectation was that friends were for young people. I vividly remember when I was about 20 my father told me that he hoped I would soon grow out of spending time with friends.

But actually I don't think my childhood was much different to most of my peers really. We had one friend at primary school whose parents were quite a bit younger than all the other parents and I remember us all being absolutely agog because occasionally she would tell us that her parents had gone out for dinner together and she had had a teenage neighbours babysit her. We were all so jealous because it sounded like something from an American TV programme.

Again, I don't know if it's a generational thing, but my parents never said out loud they loved us, even though we were very loved and cherished. It would have seemed a bit, well, emotional and overdramatic. Times have changed enormously now and people say it non-stop to friends, partners, children.

Illdeal yep exactly — my mum has said it more recently to me at a moment of heightened emotional tension when something awful was going on in the family, but as an everyday thing? It would've seemed… weird.

I was lucky, I grew up in the 70s/80s and did all of those things regularly. My parents were ahead of their time when it came to travel. We used to go off to Europe camping for the whole summer (my dad was a lecturer so off too).

What we didn’t do was have Sunday roasts. Sunday’s were for going off doing sport or walking, mum didn’t spend it in the kitchen. We used to have a Chinese on sundays. It was the only take away around for years.

Not sure if generational though… I'm now mid-thirties, they're mid-sixties, so we're talking 1990s onwards.

The only thing I can think of is we never went to a zoo or camping but camping was planned and then a death happened. I now camp as an adult with my children. Still never been to a zoo though.

We never had takeaways, my first was when I stayed over at a friends house aged 15. My parents never went out together without us children. We were never babysat and I have never spent the night at grandparents or any other family members.
My parents don’t drink and there was never any socialising with other families although we had cousins and friends round to play whenever we wanted.
I always felt like we were my parents whole world and I have always felt very loved and cherished. Everything that was done, was done with my sister and I in mind; we would all go out for meals together and all go to the cinema together. We had 2 foreign holidays every year but we never went anywhere in the UK for longer than a day trip. Never did camping or anything like that.

We never did anything on your list either OP. I'm from a very working class background , but had a fairly strange upbringing as my mam and dad attended a strict pentecostal church. We had to live following many rules so our lives were quite different to others' on a day to day basis. We didn't have a TV,
my parents were only allowed to listen to certain types of music so I remember my dad selling his record collection. My mum had to wear a veil in her hair to attend 'Sister's Meetings' (where the wives from the church community would meet to discuss the Bible) and make-up was banned. People never 'dropped in', my parents never drank alcohol in front of me. They were fairly cold and distant with my sister and me. I frequently heard 'do as I say, not as I do'.