Did anyone else's parents leave them outside the pub?

[Itswaytoohot]

They were just talking about this on TV and it reminded me. Growing up in the 80s and early 90s most pubs didn't allow children.

Sometimes my parents would take us anyway and leave us outside with crisps and pop, either in the car park or beer garden. If we got bored we were just told to go away and play.

I also remember being sneaked into the pub once and the landlord coming and telling my parents we had to leave.

Did anyone else's parents ever do this? It wouldn't be acceptable now.

Feel free to add any other things your parents did that would be frowned upon now. Intended to be lighthearted.

Completely normal in the 70s and 80s. On holiday with other family, one adult would go into a suitable looking pub, ask if they had a children's room and if so we would be ushered in there. If not, either in the car with a bottle of Coke and a packet of crisps, or outside with the same. I spent a lot of my childhood outside pubs!

I used to go with my grand dad in rhe 1950s. I loved staying outside with all the other children

Left in pub garden in summer, inside a grotty, smoke-filled working men’s club in winter. Thank god times have changed.

We were allowed in, pubs in Ireland, late 70’s, early 80s. Dad would buy us comics, coke in bottle with a straw.

Used to go with a friend's family and they'd leave us sat outside with a bag of crisps and a warm bottle of coke. My mum thought this was dead common and didn't encourage it. from memory it was a lovely country pub.

I grew up in a country where you could bring kids into the pubs. We would be there all day til shutting time, then my dad or one of the other men would drunk drive us all (about 10 people) home in a 5 person car with people sitting in one another's laps

In the 60s for me it was quite a treat - a bottle of HubblyBubbly and a packet of crisps. We lived 100yards from the pub and I think I was left home alone (no crisps or HubblyBubbly) from about the age of 8, if I wasnt out playing somewhere.

no seatbelts worn

My parents didn't really drink so weren't pub goers. DH on the other hand, often talks of being left outside the pub with crisps and lemonade.

60/70s here & yes, absolutely normal. A bottle of pop, a bag of crisps & a gang of kids left at a picnic table in an adjacent park was a regular treat. In fact I think most of us were left to run pretty free & wild back in those days. Great fun & confidence building to have so much freedom, but as a parent, my gawd do I cringe looking back 🥴

Yes. With tedious and boring regularity. Really hated it.
Glad to see the demise of such lazy, shitty parenting!

As a child in Dublin on a warm day in the 60s we would be taken for a jaunt on the bus up to the country where we would be left outside with a packet of Tayto and a bottle of Club Orange.

Loved it.

Yes indeed! I used to read my secret seven books, drink orange pop and have crisps.

Parents were a Head teacher and a Nurse and sometimes talk of things that would be a 'mandatory referral nowadays'. I think they would be beyond shocked at the idea they did this now!!!

My mum thought this was dead common and didn't encourage it. from memory it was a lovely country pub

Oh you've just reminded me this was my DM too😂

It was visiting DFs family & playing outside a pub with cousins, or her sister taking us to the pub garden that had her bitching about "oh how common as muck is that" 🥴😂

Yes, my dad left us sitting on the pub walk with a bag of crisps and a can of pop! We were out there for hours some days, regardless of the weather ☹️

No we either all went in or all stayed outside. My Dad would ask if they had a children's/family room or if they would allow well behaved children. If they wouldn't allow us in good weather we would sit in the garden, in bad weather we would go elsewhere.

If my parents wanted child free drinking time they would have arranged alternative care for us.

Luckily we did have a few pubs within reasonable distance that had an area for children, not all particularly nice but the local "welfare" was fairly good in the family room, my parents generally preferred it to the big room with the entertainment as they weren't into bingo or whatever.

Yep. Mid-90’s. Our local had a little play area off to one side of the beer garden. Me and my sister would happily run around there with crisps and pop without a care in the world while my dad had his post-football beers with the team after their Saturday match. My mum would usual walk down when she’d finished work to join in.
I definitely wouldn’t leave mine unattended in a playground for that long, but I’ve got no issue with having a few drinks in the beer garden while my DCs play within sight.

Very often! And as an only child I was regularly completely on my own.

It's crazy the things that I remember as being a treat as a child. I've got a distinct memory of going out with my dad in the car on a sunny day, he bought me a sausage roll and we stopped on a country lane and looked at some cows in a field 🤣

My dad also had a van at one point with an armchair in the back which I'd sit on while he drove around. It definitely wasn't acceptable because I remember him being worried about being stopped.

Child of the 60's here but we weren't left on our own outside the pub, on a sunny Sunday evening we would all get in the car and have a "Sunday ride" which was a tour round some of the local villages ending with a stop at a village pub. Dad would then go in the pub and bring drinks and crisps out to the car for us all on a tray. After one drink the glasses were returned and we set off back home.

My dad used to play snooker at the pub and my sibling and I would have to wait hours there whilst he finished the games. We'd inevitably get bored and play on the chairs as if they were stepping stones and would then get shouted at. He'd also go out all night, leaving us alone in his house with nothing to do, and come in steaming drunk in the early hours, crashing into everything and then passing out until mid-morning.

No. My parents would have called SS if they saw anyone doing this.

My Dad used to take me inside the pub a lot, which was awful in itself. Hours spent sat alone surrounded by mostly pissed men. I hated it and felt really unsafe.

Basically lazy, shitty parenting on his part putting his own selfish needs ahead of his child.

I remember a fun trip being to go to the cash machine with my Dad, if I was good he would let me put the card in or press the green button or get the receipt. Would have been early/mid 80s.

Also going to watch the planes at the airport or the trains at the station.

In all fairness I don't think the pub thing was a regular occurrence probably 3 or 4 times, my parents didn't go out much, but I do recall one quite long evening being left with my cousins in a pub garden and the landlord getting annoyed we kept going inside and being sent back out.