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Original poster

Was this normal in the 90's

460 replies

sparklybin · 31/10/2021 08:10

I'm trying to sort in my head some of the things my parents did when me and siblings were growing up to see what was normal and was was not.

When my parents used to go into town ie the high street, if they had their shopping to do or something like a bank appointment they would drop us at the toy store and leave us there playing with the toys until they'd finished and then they'd come back. Probably used to leave us for about an hour but I'm not sure if it was longer. We were about 4/5 when they started doing this
I can't imagine doing this. It was early 90's though so I don't know if it was normal or not.

OP posts:
Sagealicious · 31/10/2021 16:24

I was born late 70s so the 80s were my childhood years. My parents used to leave me sitting outside the pub with a packet of chips and a can of coke while they went in and drank for an hour or two but that was only when there was no family area where kids were allowed it was just the done thing. No one questioned it. We certainly weren't mollycoddled back then (maybe some were?) but there was definitely a lot of freedom. I used to roam around my neighbourhood by myself at a very young age (about 8) never felt unsafe because I had been taught about stranger danger and knew what to do (or not to do) and knew where to go for help if needed and I knew who I could trust.

Rubyupbeat · 31/10/2021 16:28

I brought my sons up 80s and 90s and no one would have done this that I know. Also, you could take prams in shops then.
When I was a baby, people left their prams outside shops and their houses.
I suppose it depends on which area you were in.

MrsLargeEmbodied · 31/10/2021 16:34

i saw one of those huge silver cross prams in the 1990s, in glasgow

diddl · 31/10/2021 16:38

"One toyshop (Early Learning Centre) actually had an area where you could leave small children while you shopped."

Wasn't that just whilst you looked around their shop?

MrsLargeEmbodied · 31/10/2021 16:41

ELC and the amazing train set has been mentioned throughout this thread.
and they were not MEANT to be left there while parents left the shop but plenty were!

ALongHardWinter · 31/10/2021 16:58

My DD would have been 7 years old at the start of the 90s,and I certainly never did this,nor did I witness it happening with any other kids around her age! However,I do remember my DM telling me years ago that during the late 50s and 60s,you weren't allowed to take prams into shops,so babies and toddlers (myself and my brothers included!) were sometimes left outside a shop in the pram while DM went in to do the shopping. Can't imagine that happening nowadays! I don't ever recall myself or my brothers being dropped off at a toy shop or the library while DM went shopping though.

freshcarnation · 31/10/2021 17:13

Silver cross. Only sold ours this year

saraclara · 31/10/2021 17:18

@diddl

"One toyshop (Early Learning Centre) actually had an area where you could leave small children while you shopped."

Wasn't that just whilst you looked around their shop?

No, not at ours (Milton Keynes shopping centre of anyone else remembers).You could leave them for a little while. We'd only do it for half an hour or so, an hour max, but it was an area at the back with a little gate. No charge, you just signed them in as left them there. Would have been very late 80s/early 90s.
ConcernedAuntie · 31/10/2021 17:22

I don't know about being left in toy shops-my parents never did that.

In the 90s I worked at the Farnborough Air Show. We had an airframe on the stand and numerous parents seemed to think it was OK to leave their kids playing on it while they disappeared for a couple of hours. We were not a creche!!

One evening we were ready to leave and had to wait for parents to turn up to pick up their kids. Unbelievable.

limitedperiodonly · 31/10/2021 17:47

It's completely normal to drop children off at a supervised activity and come back and pick them up later. My dad used to take me to riding lessons and go to the pub for an hour and collect me at the end of the lesson. It was completely safe - a group lesson with a female instructor and some other parents (mums) who liked to hang about. If I'd been injured I'd have been taken to hospital. My mum didn't go because she couldn't bear to see my death defying falls from chunky ponies. Same with gymnastics during the early '70s Olga Korbut years and swimming lessons. But neither of them would have left me unsupervised.

Anyone who says: "My mum and dad left me with a packet of crisps and a lemonade in the car and I never came to any harm" is lucky and rather forgiving of their parents.

Daisychainsandglitter · 31/10/2021 17:51

I was born in 1984 and I don't recall this happening to me.
The closest was around aged 5. I remember there was an enormous slide in mothercare which I would queue up for repeatedly while my mum shopped around the store.

Imtryingveryhard · 31/10/2021 17:59

I remember being left In a car with my sister. Neither of us aged over 5 and completely unrestrained. This was around 1980. My parents were at an estate agents and I remember us shouting out to them to come back to us as we were bored. That could have ended disastrously. But no, we got in trouble for being naughty and shouting. No thought for us being left in a car unattended!

Daisychainsandglitter · 31/10/2021 18:03

Maybe reading all of these posts, I wonder if it was the ELC section in Mothercare that I was left to play in.
I really loved it- I was always desperate for my mum to go shopping in Mothercare so I could play.

Imtryingveryhard · 31/10/2021 18:08

I also remember the time we got drunk on Harvey's Bristol creme at about the same age. We hid behind the sofa with the bottle and a pack of penguins. My sister was shit faced and had the bottle mark around her mouth. I'm sure she was only about 4. Mum was furious but she left it out a a drinking session. We didn't know any different. Also (I had a pretty bad childhood - these stories are quite mild) I remember being sent to my room and being told not to come out under any circumstances. I needed a wee but didn't dare ask to go to the toilet as mum was horribly violent if we didn't obey her (think being belted etc, you'd never get away with that now). I wee'd on the floor in my room and got in so much trouble. But I just followed what I was told.

UserThenLotsOfNumbers · 31/10/2021 18:14

That's not normal, sorry.

SilenceOfThePrams · 31/10/2021 18:28

Locally to us it was entirely normal to leave babies in prams outside shops until late 80s at least, often with younger mobile child holding on tight (small town). Silver Cross very much still in use; some people had buggies but most preferred to have babies lying down, space for the toddler seat on top and lots of room for the shopping.

Going on holiday in the 90s to butlins in Skegness, the staff would listen in and then you’d get someone walking around waving a placard with “baby crying chalet 57” written on it so you knew to go back and sort them out. Hotel receptionists would do that too - you could leave your phone off the hook and they’d listen in periodically for you when you had your meal downstairs.

We used to wander around and picnic in the fields outside town coming home in time for tea, gathering up all the neighbourhood children to play, youngest would have been probably 4 or so, oldest and therefore in charge aged 11.

Before Jamie Bulger and Maddie McCann but after the Moors Murders.

Daisydolly1986 · 31/10/2021 18:45

Around 10 my parents would go put and leave me locked outside the house. I'd be kicked out of our house as it wasnt safe for me to be at home alone, but left on the doorstep for hours and hours on end. I'd be made to walk or cycle to church 4 miles away from about 10ish.

Daisydolly1986 · 31/10/2021 18:46

It was 1996

68degreesnorth · 31/10/2021 18:53

I was a 70's child, growing up in the 80s I don't remember being left anywhere

MrsBobDylan · 31/10/2021 18:56

My negligent, piece of shit Mother used to leave us at home alone, far too much effort to take us to spend an hour or two in the library. Occasionally her and my equally useless Father used to just leave us in the car.

I don't regard leaving a young child alone as anything other than neglectful and dangerous.

MrsBobDylan · 31/10/2021 18:58

@Daisydolly1986

Around 10 my parents would go put and leave me locked outside the house. I'd be kicked out of our house as it wasnt safe for me to be at home alone, but left on the doorstep for hours and hours on end. I'd be made to walk or cycle to church 4 miles away from about 10ish.
That's awful. I'm sorry that was your childhood Sad
maz210 · 31/10/2021 19:45

I was an 80s baby and wasn't ever left like this. I was allowed out to the library/park/swimming in my own from about the age of 8.

A couple of things I remember that would never happen nowadays - I used to go to work with my mum during the school holiday and one of my jobs was to go to the local shop with a note to buy cigarettes for the office staff. I was also sent off on the work van to do deliveries with another staff member's child. We used to sit in the front of the van with one seatbelt over both of us pretend-smoking the paper covered chocolate cigarettes that you could buy in sweet shops in the 80s. Those were the days! Grin

Waxonwaxoff0 · 31/10/2021 19:51

I was born in 1990. My mum never did this.

TonTonMacoute · 31/10/2021 20:22

My parents used to have a bookshop and very 'naice' middle class parents would regularly leave their kids in the shop while they did their shopping. Pissed my DM off no end as often books would be made unsaleable by unsupervised children. Sometimes we would ask the parents to pay.

That was late 80s early 90s

RestingStitchFace · 31/10/2021 20:34

Not normal no. I was a young kid in the 80's and we definitely had more freedom in the streets around our houses. I used to walk to the park on my own from about 7. But the concept of leaving your kid in a shop in the middle of a busy town and popping back later, did not happen.