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.

I used to sleep in the pub with a pile of jackets thrown over me 🙈😂

Yes 70s, early 80s Ireland

Some of my very best friends now were my 'pub kid' friends. We were left every weekend in the car park with crisps and a coke. We have the fondest memories of those days. Obvs wouldn't do it with our own DC!

My grandma owned the pub and my parents worked there, so I got to go in the back room and watched telly.

My dad was an alcoholic (unbeknownst to my DB & I, obviously) so yes, we we're definitely driven home home whilst he was drunk - often in a Ford Fiesta without seat belts in the back.
But as other PPs say, some good memories of playing in beer gardens back then.

I sometimes wonder if letting the children play together outside was better than the situation today when I often see bored children being told to sit and colour in some sheet of paper provided by the pub.
I used to be outside playing with other children, making loads of noise, sometimes kicking around a football and generally having fun.
I think I had more fun that way than the children do today when they have to sit and behave.
It was not always the same group of children but we all played together and enjoyed fun.

@Paul72 , I agree. Often on threads when people share childhood memories, it's the running wild, out discovering, etc. For me, being out of the house all day- basically, the freedom.

@slinkoff I teach Film Studies to sixth formers and showed them Wasp recently. They liked it but a couple said that it was like their own childhoods - these are 17 year olds. I wasn’t surprised from what they’ve told me before about their home lives but this isn’t some 70s thing only.

I think it would be interesting to see a comparison of stats for e.g. childhood accidents and child abductions for several decades ago in comparison to now. Were children genuinely more at risk in the 60s/70s/80s when they ran wild and had more independence with less parental supervision? Was it really bad parenting? A quick google suggests that child abductions by strangers on record between 1975 - 2005 remained relatively static at around 3% of all abductions, so not much evidence that the modern preference for supervision at all times is significantly better than the other in that respect.

@AtomicBlondeRose well yeah makes sense, the film depicts a single mum with kids in an English town in 2003 so it would be like their lives. I wasn't saying it only happened in the 70's just that the film makes us consider the situation from the perspective of today's cultural mores, which are different to those of the 70's.

It's an interesting juxtaposition of sympathy for the mum trying to have a life beyond the situation she is in and having to make some difficult decisions, mixed with winces of uncertainty about the consequences of those choices on her children, that she clearly also loves and cares about. It's a pretty great piece of filmmaking really.

Good point. My own kids are clear they do n’t want to do ‘activities’ , they want to play. Free play, how they want to.

No never. Would i get away with it now.. I could just do with a nice cold drink. And yes the pub allows kids, but id like a peaceful drink :p