Did anyone else have parents who would toast themselves to a crisp every holiday?

[Imreallysnowedunder]

Another thread made me think of this. Both my mum and dad would go on holiday and just lie under a baking hot sun on the beach all day. Sometimes they’d briefly dip in the sea but the main portion of the day would be spent roasting.

They would both get extremely narky with me if I sought shade.

Savage Tan! 😂

I had sunbathing holidays like this in Greece in my 20s. Never mind factor 15, it was single figures. And not sun protection but sun tan lotion. My ex would use factor 2 and end up a very dark shade.

I have to say, when I was in Spain a few weeks ago everyone, even the very tanned sunbathers, was using either factor 30 or 50.

I did still see some bad sunburns as well though!

I tan but I put on suncream a little bit of UV is good for you, I do have dark skin though and would need to stay in if I didn't want a colour on me. Or promenade with my parasol 😃

Yes and they still do it. They always look red to me when they come home rather than brown. They did make sure we were all liberally slathered in decent sun protection, though not a high enough factor I now realise. I burnt a couple of times, but was otherwise okay. We had a sunshade and would read and play in the sea.

Yes, and multiple malignant melanomas have resulted 😿

I am in my 70s, my parents were quite careful about using suncream, so we didn't get sun burn, but my older sister used olive oil and vinegar, as it was supposed to accelerate tanning, it didn't work as although we had dark hair, we had fair skin! she only had really bad sunburn once though, as we were both too impatient to lie in the sun waiting to go brown. We did have fake tan, from Woolworths or Boots, called Tanfastic, which made us streakily orange! I was so glad when the fake tans improved and you could go gradually brown over a few days with nightly applications and less streaking.
Now my legs just remain a pale mauve, and I keep most of my body and limbs covered with baggy linen, as befits my age.

I am from Scotland and never holidayed abroad as a child so none of my family got brown at all.
My sister moved down to exotic (and hot) London and loved using an accelerator I think it was called to get very brown.
DP is in his 70s and likes to bake to a rich teak colour even now.

Yes. All day sunbathing by DPs in my childhhod, whereas I sat in the shade as I burnt after 5 mins. I think it wasnt a good holiday unless they came back brown as a berry.
DF now sadly has had multiple skin biopsies and is now not responding to treatment for skin cancer.
But he still sits out in the sun and is in total denial! 🙄

Yes we (school mum's) were talking about this. The whole point of holiday a in the 70's and 80's was to come home as brown/burnt as possible!

We are a family of Irish blondes and gingers. We factor 2 back in the day!

My DS is 14 and actively puts his own Factor 50 on and often asks someone to check he hasn't missed anywhere. His friends will ask for sun cream if they are at ours and haven't brought any.

Changed times, for the good for once!

We didn't go abroad thankfully as my parents were very lax with the sunscreen (1980s). They aren't big on actually sunbathing but we would run around without hats or sunscreen. My brother and sister both tan but I am ridiculously pale (have to wear factor 50 to drive to work in the summer or my right arm burns) and I remember one holiday getting sunstroke and spending several days lying on the floor of the caravan covered in wet towels and vomiting into a bucket. They did become a bit better at making sure we had shade after that but I still don't remember much sunscreen being used. DFIL is a big sunbather though, I was horrified to see him rubbing oil on himself before sitting out in the sun on holiday while I was coating myself in factor 50.

I used to love the smell of ambre solaire. The oil was only about SPF2 though

It's far too common in hot weather to see skin that looks like this

My Mum was always wanting to lie in the sun; no problem with that, it was just the persuading/forcing of me that I object to now. I wasn't strong enough to resist as a child but the number of sunburns I had... miserable!

I don't remind her of any of this now, what's the point? When I hear her saying that she can't take the heat anymore, I just switch off listening.

People can burn themselves to a crisp if they want to - just don't do it to your children.

Dad was over-exposed to hot sunshine in Egypt during the war and went red every summer, he didn't believe in the ozone layer and thought that skincare was for cissies.

Mum sat out with him too and when she got a very wrinkly and unevenly tanned forehead due to squinting into the sun (sunglasses will 'ruin your eyes') little brother innocently pointed to them and asked, "What are those stripes?"

I've always hated the heat and was thought to be 'mardy' to seek the shade. During the rare seaside hols we could afford (on the east coast where the wind whips in from Siberia) I was always told to 'look as though I was enjoying myself' - come rain or shine. It didn't matter if the sun was beating down or we were being lashed by gale force winds. Ah, happy holidays.

My parents were like this, back in the 70's-80's, and I think it was because a tan showed that you had been on (and could afford) a package holiday to Spain. They loved it when a neighbour would say "Oooh! You look brown! Have you been abroad?".

I too love the smell of Ambre Solaire, I could smell it then when I read your post, saveforthat

Parents of that generation grew up with parents who had experienced or seen or just heard about rickets and had the message drummed into them that the sun was good for your health. I remember my mum talking about a boy in her class with rickets. I remember it was common for adults to send children outside to get some sun.
So I assume the parents of the 70s still had that association of the sun being healthy.
And to add to that sun cream was very expensive and uv suits did not exist in Britain. Suncream only became easily available in the UK in the 1960s, and sun protection factor spf was only invented in 1974.
At the time all the celebrities had tans and tans were associated with a glamorous lifestyle.
So I can understand why sun creams were not widely used. I know even in the early eighties the highest sun factor cream I could buy in the town I lived was factor 8.

I always had suntan lotion on holidays. I must have done because I remember asking my aunt for suntan lotion when I was staying over and being given a bottle of Nivea moisturiser as the next best thing!

No. From good old Irish/Welsh stock though.
Where I live in the North of England, every one is still brown as a Berry fresh from hols (or a bottle 😁)
It's still really rare to see someone with pale white skin here.
I think the young teens/twenties who have never graced a sunbed or tanning salon look really unique and attractive. In my opinion.

Yes, now in their late 70s and still doing it. Also still annoyed with me for seeking shade!

No, I'm irish and my dad was prone to heatstroke if it was above 20 degrees 😀.
I now live in Spain and DH and I hide from the sun in the summer and only get tanned ( him) / freckled ( me) in the Spring and Autumn when we are out and about all day.
I only got burned badly once as a child , at an open day at the stables I helped at, out for a full 10 hours with no sunscreen provided, even though the owner had told my mum that it would be - she gave me a tin of Nivea to put on my arms & legs instead! This was in the '80's & my mum was furious when she came to pick me up .

Yes. Both of the them were and still are sun worshippers! We always went on holidays to the med as a kid. Looking back on photos from the 80s and 90s my parents are as tanned as the locals 😂

Yep! We didn’t go abroad on holiday but have many memories of my mum sat in the sun in the garden all summer holidays and the skin on her décolletage being so red and wrinkly. She was diagnosed with skin cancer in her forties and yet still sits out with no SPF on.

I now live in a hot country (50 degrees today) and my parents always laugh at how pale my kids are when we see them 🫤

not exactly the same but similar. I dont function in the heat and only as an adult I realise I can get ill from the direct sunshine and/or heat.