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Original poster

Things you enjoy as an adult

84 replies

ThinkingForEveryone · 14/08/2022 06:50

Because your parents had strange rules around them?
For me it's:
Showering daily
Using 'too much' shampoo and shower gel etc.
Washing my clothes and bedding before it could walk to the washing machine by itself.
Enjoying a spontaneous trip out for lunch/a bit of shopping with the kids.
Eating my evening meal later than 5pm rather than planning the whole day around making sure your back in time for 5pm.
Buying my kids branded items for school (not the cheapest version off the market)
Sure there are more...what are yours?

OP posts:
Vampirethriller · 14/08/2022 07:04

Cutting my sandwiches into rectangles instead of triangles, because for some reason rectangles weren't allowed.

Original poster
ThinkingForEveryone · 14/08/2022 07:07

@Vampirethriller I wonder what rectangles ever did to offend anyone 🤣

OP posts:
TokyoSushi · 14/08/2022 07:14

Having 2 boiled eggs. You were only ever allowed one!

Original poster
ThinkingForEveryone · 14/08/2022 07:19

Perhaps a national egg shortage Tokyo? Probably not.....

OP posts:
TravellingSpoon · 14/08/2022 07:31

Like you OP I still feel like a rebel if we have dinner after 5pm.

Going places just for fun. We never did anything as a family, and I mean absolutely nothing. We were on a very low income , but we lived rurally in a village with lovely countryside and walks and we never did those.

Having baths on days that are not set in stone.

TravellingSpoon · 14/08/2022 07:32

Oh and eating biscuits that are not Malted Milk. They were the only biscuits my Mum would ever buy.

Mol1628 · 14/08/2022 07:36

Eating cereal whenever I want, not just breakfast

TV in the morning if I want

Eating out sometimes instead of having to carry a picnic everywhere we go!

Varoty · 14/08/2022 07:36

I used to enjoy daily showers, driving everywhere, eating snacks more than once a day, putting the heating on whenever I wanted instead of wrapping up in blankets. I wasn’t allowed to do those things because we were poor. Not sure I can continue now, because the cost of living has risen so high I’m effectively poor again! Certainly I’ll have to stop using the heating.

buzzswole · 14/08/2022 07:40

Walking in the house with shoes on.
Us kids used to crawl across the floor rather than step on the carpet if we needed to retrieve something a few feet from the door and couldn't be bothered to take shoes off.

We are now a resolute shoes on household.

PuppyMonkey · 14/08/2022 07:42

I don’t have to eat a huge roast dinner on a Sunday.

I don’t have to go to Mass.

I don’t have to go round to the back door to enter my home.

I can park my car right outside my house rather than in some random “designated” spot across the street.

I don’t have to shop in The Co-op.

I don’t have to get chips on a Friday teatime.

SummerLobelia · 14/08/2022 07:43

Oh yes air conditioning. I was brought up in a very hot country and we lived in a house with floor to ceiling windows. Air conditioning was too expensive and we did not even have ceiling fans. I can tell you that 46 degrees in a glass house with no air conditioining was not fun. we used to sleep on the tiled floor of the bathroom or drag camp beds out into the garden.

We also had restrictions on heating the house in winter again due to the expense.

I like keeping the house at a decent 19 to 20 degrees in winter now. Although- with the rise in enerhy prices that might change!

KangarooKenny · 14/08/2022 07:44

My DM couldn’t afford heating so to me heating, bathing more than once a week, and being able to do the washing more than once a week is a luxury.

SilverGlitterBaubles · 14/08/2022 07:47

Having a glass of wine with dinner or a G&T on a sunny afternoon in the garden.
Parents frowned upon any sort of home drinking although pub drinking for my DF was acceptable.
Food - trying new things, eating spicy food, eating 'foreign' food because parents only ever ate the same meat and two veg type dinners.

alwaysmovingforwards · 14/08/2022 07:51

Stretching out to lay on the sofa - it's my house now so I don't care I'm making the place look untidy!

Putting my feet up on the coffee table in the living room.

Original poster
ThinkingForEveryone · 14/08/2022 08:10

I can understand some of the rules around the heating being on and taking showers if there was insufficient income in the household (no less frustrating for those living through it at all though).
I've thought of another bizarre rule my parents had...I wasn't allowed to sleep over at a friends ever! no reason, my friends mum once called and spoke to my mum saying she wouldn't have to return the favour but I still couldn't stay, always picked up at 9pm sharp (I was 16!!!)
They couldn't understand why I didn't stay In residential college when it was a complete new world for me and I had no understanding of 'the rules' when away from home!
As soon as I had a full time job and a car I stayed out every weekend, by this point they had lost interest and didn't care where I was or who I was with.....very weird people.

OP posts:
Varoty · 14/08/2022 10:30

I've thought of another bizarre rule my parents had...I wasn't allowed to sleep over at a friends ever!
I don’t allow my children to sleep over at a friend’s house. I was sexually abused as a teenager and I’m aware of how easily it can happen and how deceptive the perpetrators can be. I don’t trust that I can differentiate the “safe” parents from the potentially abusive ones. You never know. So my children won’t be sleeping in the same house as strange adults until they’re old enough to not be vulnerable.

Original poster
ThinkingForEveryone · 14/08/2022 11:56

@Varoty , it definitely wasn't that. Without going into too much detail we would have been safer out of the home.

OP posts:
LindaEllen · 14/08/2022 12:19

Having a lie in.
Honestly, if you weren't up by 10am at the weekends my dad would start making shitty comments and wouldn't let it drop for the rest of the day. I know that's a good lie in by lots of people's standards, but just sometimes me and DP like to laze around until early afternoon - that would NEVER have been allowed at home.

Purplecatshopaholic · 14/08/2022 12:24

I occasionally eat something in the street - the sky hasn’t fallen in yet!

SilverGlitterBaubles · 14/08/2022 15:52

Thought of another - travel and holidays. DPs just made them miserable and stressful and constantly moaned so I didn't enjoy them until I left home.

chosenone · 14/08/2022 15:57

Clean and tidy house. Sometimes obsessively so but not having to out up with clutter, dust and grime makes me happy.

Lostthetastefordahlias · 14/08/2022 16:07

I still enjoy using as much hair conditioner as I want too!! Also buying everyone a sandwich or a lunch when we go out rather than sharing (we were not a low income family, but somehow we always had to share!)

AchillesLastStand · 14/08/2022 16:20

Flushing the toilet every time I go. My mum was on a water meter and was obsessive about the toilet being flushed too often. I’m also on a water meter but like a clean toilet.

Having good quality 100% cotton bed sheets. My was struggling financially post divorce and she did the best she could, but I do love getting into my bed every night (after using my immaculately clean toilet!).

AchillesLastStand · 14/08/2022 16:20

*mum

SunnySwirl · 14/08/2022 16:21

I love going to museums and historic properties, as well as theme parks. I have no idea why we never did any of that stuff when I was young!!

I also buy and read a ton of books with my DC. I don’t remember having lots of book as a child. We definitely went to the library. Actually I can’t remember ever visiting a book shop until I was doing my A-levels and needed certain texts.

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