80s Parenting

[Limpshade]

Today, my DH told me that when he was five years old and on holiday in Europe, his parents went out alone for dinner, telling him and his sister (same age) to lock the door behind them and keep it locked until they came back. DH remembered a rock pool he'd seen that day so instead, he went out to explore it (in the night) and was so long doing so that when he came back, his sister had fallen asleep and he was locked out. He was forced to sleep on the floor of the corridor outside until his parents returned from dinner.

I was . I mean, my mum and dad were definitely "light touch" parents in the 80s but I don't think they'd have ever done this certainly not at a hotel since it was camping every year for us. Was this a "thing" that many parents did? DH seems to think it was perfectly normal (although agrees we wouldn't leave our own kids in this way)!

We used to holiday at holiday parks such as butlins and they had a ‘listening service’ where the parents would put the kids to bed and then go to the clubhouse while there were patrols of I suppose red coats type people who would walk along the chalets and report any crying to the clubhouse who would then announce it so the parents could go and attend.
seems an odd thing to do now but back in the 80’s was more accepted.

I was "babysitting" for my sister from the age of 9 onwards - she was 4. By babysitting I mean looking after her all day long during the school holidays while my mum worked full time and also being alone at home one or two nights a week till the early hours while they went out. We were at boarding school for some of that, so for those years was only in the school holidays but once we left and went to a local school it was every day after I picked her up. I was also expected to polish and hoover the living room, prepare any vegetables for tea and then wash up after. At weekends I would hoover upstairs, the actual stairs and clean the bathroom, change the beds etc.

Then my parents had the nerve, the absolute nerve to moan about me asking them to babysit my children once or twice a year!

I was 5 in 1980 and my parents never did anything like that.

I was about 12 before I was allowed to stay home alone.

I certainly didn't do anything like that and don't know anyone else who had young kids in the 80's who did

I can’t specifically remember being left alone on holiday but it was normal for me to be left alone with my siblings around age 5 - my oldest sibling would have been 8 at the time. I also used to walk to school on my own at this age, along a busy main road.

I don't think it was "stupid and neglectful", but just a different, more innocent time. Pre internet, we weren't served up a limitless smorgasbord of atrocities from around the world, so there was much less awareness of what could go wrong. Your DH's parents probably thought he'd go straight to sleep and would be as safe in the hotel room as he would have been in his own room at home. I was a child of the 80s and we (and all the neighbouring kids) roamed for hours, alone or in small groups. Babies were left in prams outside shops, too.

So yes, I do think it was normal for time (but I wouldn't do it with my own children now).

My parents bribed me with a chickaboo on a string to stay in our apartment for an hour or two in Italy while they took my older brother and sister out. Possibly to play tennis. I was 7 or 8.

I was definitely given license to roam during the daylight hours (many fond memories of building dens in the woods, with a sandwich in my back pocket, etc!) but my parents would have stopped short of leaving us unguarded at night. I was just trying to work out if the story my DH told was normal for the 80s (or just for his parents ) since he seemed to think it was perfectly normal (it would not have been the norm at ours). I do realise that all eras see all kinds of parenting, but the 80s is when we grew up!

I had my first in 89 but had nephews and nieces. No, it was absolutely not the norm. As Mollicious put so well, there’s always been shit parents and there always will be.

I was a parent in the 80s. I would NEVER have left my children alone!

My mum left me all the time from 9 with my baby sister. When there were adult only nights at our caravan, they would just lock me in with her. I didn't know any different.

I don't think it was "stupid and neglectful", but just a different, more innocent time.

agree, we were definitely left alone in the house sometimes whilst mum popped to the shops or in the car outside the shops but my dad walked to school alone from age 5 so were sheltered compared to that. We also played outside alone.

I mean seatbelts weren't mandatory until the 80s & secondhand smoking wasn't illegal until the 10s

It was the late 80’s when we went to brid (my parents,me and my brothers)

they would take us to the beach for 12 hours,feed us,put us to bed for about half 7 and by 8 would be in the pub until closing (we didn’t have a clue) get up the next morning,take us to the beach for 12 hours,nursing their hangovers-only to do it again that night-every night for the week

anyway,one night a lady wandered into our b&b,found our unlocked room and got into my parents bed and started smoking

my parents came back,pissed and found her there

my mother slung her out and just went to bed themselves

they mentioned it the next morning with a silly laugh and ‘I can’t believe she was smoking in our room!’

I mean anything could have happened-thankfully it didnt

my parents hushed it up around us-they claim it never happened (to this day they deny it-but I remember it as clear as anything) but I know they found it a funny story to tell their mates when they got back

and they did it again and again on every holiday we ever had

my mother had the brass neck,years later to have a go at me for ‘leaving my grandchildren alone late at night!anything could have happened!’

my crime?

it was 7:45pm (on a summers night) and I spent 3 minutes bringing in some washing from the back garden

she couldn’t see the difference between me spending a few minutes in my back garden and her and my father leaving us for hours,while getting pissed in a pub miles from home and leaving us in an unlocked b&b room

Me and my dsis were left in hotel rooms a few times while my parents went down to the restaurant for dinner. Hotels used to do a listening service back then so i assume most parents did the same.

hotels still do listening services & crèches/clubs. Do lots of people not use them?

I was born in 1980 and my parents never left me or let me out alone until I was at least 15/16. After that they were a lot more chilled but I can’t remember one time I was ever left alone younger than that. They also supervised us when we played out front. Maybe it’s just the area we grew up in as it was a quite a rough Outer-London town. No chance I would leave my 3 alone.

Not that bad, but me and my sister were often locked in the car with a yappy Jack Russell that had such bad separation anxiety that it couldn't be left alone at home. It used to jump about in the car, barking the whole time my mum was away. It never went for us, but as a parent now, I don't know what she was thinking.

If course, they were the most critical and lectured me about safety and vigilance when I had a baby and a dog at the same time.

They were also unreasonable overprotective in other ways: very worried about stranger danger so never allowed to play out beyond our own little street, and never allowed to go to other children's houses if it involved their parent driving us anywhere.

My parents would never have done this! They were much like today’s parents in terms of what they would and wouldn’t have done. But then my mother had been a child social worker before she had me and had seen some horrific cases of neglect and accidents. Despite it being a different time, I don’t think most parents were quite as lax as your DH suggests. I certainly don’t remember any of my friends’ parents (or my parents’ friends!) being much different from mine.

@GinaMaloney so you couldn't travel to school alone until 15/16?

I grew up in a then rough part of London, I think it's quite important to be streetwise

But the OP's DH wasn't really left alone, not like being alone in his house, for example. There would have been other guests or members of staff who would have raised the alarm if they had heard screaming or frantic crying, for example. He was in a hotel room with a locked door, so nobody could have taken him. There was a small chance of accident - but that would be the case at home too, with his parents watching TV downstairs. A small chance of fire - probably less than at home, because the hotel would be more likely to have smoke alarms etc. I can see why his parents thought it would be ok.

As it happened, he snuck out to visit the rock pool - but I used to climb out of my bedroom window, onto the scullery roof and out to play on summer evenings, from the age of about 7 until a neighbour told my mum. This was after my parents had put me to bed and gone downstairs. If anything had happened to me, it wouldn't be down to negligence because my parents simply hadn't realised that I would do this. It would just have been a tragic accident.

@MissVantaBlack I agree with you. I've ended up in quite a few accidents & subsequent a&e trips all with my parents in the house or turned their back.

I remember on the covid threads the cries of "don't leave your house in case you have an accident & put strain on the NHS". Most accidents happen at home!

I'm an 80's child too but I don't think this was the norm for most families. My parents were very protective but then my mum worked for social services my Dad was a headteacher and maybe more aware of the horrors of what might happen.

I remember the listening service at Butlins still on offer until the early 00's but it was also quite common to see kids asleep laid out on chairs in the noisy pubs and clubs and I'm not sure what's worse really.

I think the worst thing I can remember about was in the early 90's when teenage me and friends would hang out in the park from dawn til dark, there were always a group of three very young children there alone from the crack of dawn onwards - youngest was about 4 and the eldest was about 10. They would have sandwiches with them and weren't allowed back home until gone 6pm. We kind kept an eye on them and would buy them sweets from the shop and push them on the swings. I remember the police striding across the playing field and taking them off one day never to be seen again. I think they all went into foster care

Nope my parents drove me to school until 6th form because I lived in Hayes and my school was in Slough. My Dad also worked in Slough so he dropped me and picked me upon his way to/from work. Tbh, not many parents let their kids wander around Hayes and Slough unaccompanied in those days. Neither are known as particularly safe towns.