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Original poster

Rules you had in your childhood that now seem bizarre?

999 replies

Tattted · 05/02/2022 17:20

As a child/teen living with my parents we were actively discouraged from showering/bathing everyday. It was really frowned upon and seen as unnecessary and probably a bit extravagant. I know probably as a young child I didn’t need to but as I got older and even after I turned 18 and was still living at home they would have been a bit annoyed about it if I wanted to shower everyday . I should say where we live has no water charges so it wasn’t about that. Now as an adult and a mother myself it seems so strange. I realise it’s probably because my parents both came from large families that had very little money and, back then, no hot running water. Even know my parents bath weekly but sink wash every day.

OP posts:
Mothermorph · 07/02/2022 10:17

I don't remember not being allowed to bath/wash hair regularly but it definitely wasn't encouraged. We didn't have a shower at home (I left home in about 2000. ) But looking back at old pics this weekend I was appalled at how greasy my (waist length) hair was in some of the pics. One of them was at a family wedding. Blush

Juletide · 07/02/2022 10:31

No one was allowed to drink from a can because rats in the warehouse weed on them.

Ameanstreakamilewide · 07/02/2022 10:34

@Chichimcgee

Not a bizarre rule but one I struggled with. ‘Eat all your dinner or you’ll have it for breakfast’

Issue was I decided to be a vegetarian. It was really unusual back then, my poor mum had no clue. So everyone has spaghetti bolognaise. I’d have about 10 servings of plain spaghetti, it was soooo hard to choke down so much plain claggy spaghetti. This was every meal as well. Anything with rice I’d have mountains of plain rice. Stew was just plain potatoes.
I can’t have gluten now and I’m just thankful we didn’t know about that when I was kid!

Were you being 'punished' by your parents for being a vegetarian, cos that's what it sounds like?
Ameanstreakamilewide · 07/02/2022 10:37

@TwoLeftSocksWithHoles

We were told we should never try and invade Russia in the winter-time, so we didn't.

And it was drummed into us if Hitler hadn't open a second front in Europe he would have won the War so we should count our lucky stars that he hadn't ... Confused

Good advice! 😂

That's really made me laugh, so thank you. 👍

TinyTear · 07/02/2022 10:44

No drinking water when eating watermelon - it would harden in our stomachs and not be digested!!

sueelleker · 07/02/2022 10:47

[quote CatsnCoffee]@MissMarplesGoddaughter
Yes, my Mum was the same about eating cereal and drinking juice for breakfast. Apparently, the milk from the cereal would curdle with the juice. However, tinned or steamed fruit with tinned condensed/evaporated milk was OK?[/quote]
Oooh yes! I loved tinned fruit with Ideal or Carnation evaporated milk. (Must go and buy some)

user1471554720 · 07/02/2022 10:47

Ameanstreakamilewide

Other rural neighbours had similar issues, heating on sparsely, no transport to do anything nice. My parents, cousins etc didn't ever go out for dinner on occasions. People would buy a carvery lunch as an adult if they were away for a day and not home til late. Holidays was a day at the seaside in the summer.

When I started working and went out for dinner with friends in the mid 90 s, I understood how costly it was. A main course was about 20 pounds in the evening, no special offers or early birds. A dinner with a few courses was 35 pounds and I only took home 140 pounds a week. Things have got much more affirdable now, thankfully.

Ameanstreakamilewide · 07/02/2022 10:55

[quote Benjispruce5]@Inspectorslack I still do that, it’s just good manners isn’t it to not leave someone’s eating alone.[/quote]
But it's an arbitrary rule. Is it a pressing concern if you sit at the table on your own?

It's like keeping your elbows off the table...what's rude about it?

Ameanstreakamilewide · 07/02/2022 11:11

@Italiangreyhound

AngelinaFibres "... the memory of the first time I ever saw my parents eating outside, without a table. Presumably it was sort of okay because they were away from home so the chance of anyone seeing them doing this common thing was greatly reduced."

My mum was the same, on holiday was different! I remember her once saying, "I wouldn't eat a peach walking down the street at home, but it's OK on holiday!"

A peach is oddly specific!
billycat321 · 07/02/2022 11:26

I remember 'Charlie's dead' and 'It's snowing down south' when our petticoats were showing.

crazyjinglist · 07/02/2022 11:33

I learned recently that when they mentioned 'sticky backed plastic', they meant Sellotape.

No, they meant those big rolls of clear plastic covering, with the paper backing you peel off. Often used for covering school exercise books etc as well as for craft projects.

Vanilla79 · 07/02/2022 11:55

not allowed to water the flowers when on period (my grandmother said flowers could die)

sweetbellyhigh · 07/02/2022 11:55

@Burgess67A

No watching “Crossroads” or reading Enid Blyton! Sweets only on Saturday
I wasn't allowed to read Enid Blyton either.

I used to go to the bookshop and read a chapter at a time then pop the book back

Nc123 · 07/02/2022 12:18

Practically everything was “common”. I hate this attitude.

I wasn’t allowed to speak with the local accent and my speech was relentlessly picked over and corrected till I sounded sufficiently middle class, then I went to school where my speech was relentlessly picked over for not sounding like everyone else, so I was horribly bullied.

No high heels. Nothing that showed cleavage or midriff though very short skirts were considered acceptable.

No being upstairs with a boy until I left home at 18.

An absolute ban on any nights out, dates etc till my sixteenth birthday. Then it was completely fine and I could do whatever I wanted outside the house. Only because they’d been so ludicrously strict I had no idea how to manage myself as an adult and did silly, risky things more or less constantly for years.

absolutelynotfabulous · 07/02/2022 12:23

For those not able to read Enid Blyton, what was the rationale? (I remember she was somewhat frowned upon for a while but could never understand why).

godmum56 · 07/02/2022 13:10

It was one of the first books to be thought of as racist because of the nasty gollies.....I think they have been edited out now.

justasking111 · 07/02/2022 13:22

We had little black sambo as a school reader. As an infant pupil I just thought how clever he was

justasking111 · 07/02/2022 13:25

@absolutelynotfabulous

For those not able to read Enid Blyton, what was the rationale? (I remember she was somewhat frowned upon for a while but could never understand why).
Too middle class with the lashings of ginger beer, daddy a scientist, mummy away so cook organised picnic food. Their names too middle class.
WalkingOnTheCracks · 07/02/2022 13:51

@Scianel

Omg! You're the only other person I've ever come across who had a pillowcase for Santa presents!

I had one as well, on the foot of my bed.

We did when I was a kid, and my kids still do.
Cuck00soup · 07/02/2022 14:04

While many of these relate to cost and many families had no choice but to minimise spending on heat and hot water, a lot are also about control.

It's interesting how many rules relate to what "other people" might think. It was also more usual for people to marry and have children in their early twenties, when their own parents still had a lot of influence over their lives.

At our house meals and drinks were according to a strict timetable and only ever served at the table. Even cups, never mugs, of tea. Once I left home at 18 I took huge joy in making a mug of tea whenever I fancied and eating toast in bed.

By the time DH & I had children, I had lived far enough and long enough away from parents to be immune to their disapproval about how I raised my own.

timestheyarechanging · 07/02/2022 14:27

My mum is very superstitious, bless her, Growing up (I'm 50, she's 75), I wasn't allowed to bring an opened umbrella indoors (she completely freaked out!) I couldn't put new shoes on the table, or stir with a knife(stir up strife)I had to throw salt over my shoulder if I spilt any (devils eye), walk under a ladder, had to wave at a single magpie and say the 'hello mr magpie ...,.' .
A Coin had to be put in any purse/wallet/bag if given as a gift as it would make your purse/wallet never empty (didn't work for me!)
Oh, can't wear blue and green together- no idea about that one - my mum obviously never saw tartan!

I deeply love her and i do wind her up.
But, there's that in-built part of me that quietly adheres to her craziness and I DO do these things !! Funnily enough my partner does the salute to a single magpie thing - I've found my man 🤣

timestheyarechanging · 07/02/2022 14:31

Oh, and we (my sister and I) we allowed to chose sweets from the six o clock shop on a Sunday. I ate mine so quickly and my sister didn't / 40 yrs on we still talk about this ! We used to get my mum nougat!
And we were allowed to get Fizzy drink from Sainsbury's on a Friday eve when they did a good shop. Top Deck shandy for me!

justasking111 · 07/02/2022 14:35

@timestheyarechanging

My mum is very superstitious, bless her, Growing up (I'm 50, she's 75), I wasn't allowed to bring an opened umbrella indoors (she completely freaked out!) I couldn't put new shoes on the table, or stir with a knife(stir up strife)I had to throw salt over my shoulder if I spilt any (devils eye), walk under a ladder, had to wave at a single magpie and say the 'hello mr magpie ...,.' . A Coin had to be put in any purse/wallet/bag if given as a gift as it would make your purse/wallet never empty (didn't work for me!) Oh, can't wear blue and green together- no idea about that one - my mum obviously never saw tartan! I deeply love her and i do wind her up. But, there's that in-built part of me that quietly adheres to her craziness and I DO do these things !! Funnily enough my partner does the salute to a single magpie thing - I've found my man 🤣
All those superstitions lightly followed plus a chimney sweep at your wedding, a black cat crossing your path ane holding your collar whenever a hearse passed
godmum56 · 07/02/2022 14:40

@Ameanstreakamilewide
"It's like keeping your elbows off the table...what's rude about it?"

if there is plenty of room at the table then its not a problem but I think this dates from formal dining where people are seated quite close together and if you put your elbows on the table, you would be shoving the next person's plate cutlery and so on all over the place. Even now if you go to the sort of formal event with table seating it's likely that there won't be room for elbows on the table and to trey and do so would be very thoughtless. Better to teach it so it becomes the default habit rather than embarass yourself publicly I guess.

Ameanstreakamilewide · 07/02/2022 14:55

@timestheyarechanging

My mum is very superstitious, bless her, Growing up (I'm 50, she's 75), I wasn't allowed to bring an opened umbrella indoors (she completely freaked out!) I couldn't put new shoes on the table, or stir with a knife(stir up strife)I had to throw salt over my shoulder if I spilt any (devils eye), walk under a ladder, had to wave at a single magpie and say the 'hello mr magpie ...,.' . A Coin had to be put in any purse/wallet/bag if given as a gift as it would make your purse/wallet never empty (didn't work for me!) Oh, can't wear blue and green together- no idea about that one - my mum obviously never saw tartan! I deeply love her and i do wind her up. But, there's that in-built part of me that quietly adheres to her craziness and I DO do these things !! Funnily enough my partner does the salute to a single magpie thing - I've found my man 🤣
Yep, my Nan used to say these things as well.

She also said - if a knife fell on the floor - 'Knife on the floor. Man at the door'.

I've no idea what that means! 🤷🏻‍♀️