What was a HUGE deal in your house growing up that is normal for you now?

[Bakingmamma]

Various things in my house.

A big one was baking. Although we
usually had the things in the house, wanting to bake was such a big deal and we could only do it on special occasions. Possibly did it once or twice a year.

I’m not talking about big extravagant bakes either! I’m talking about 12 bog standard cupcakes with some basic icing on!

It was only when I reached adulthood that I realized I could cook some basic cupcakes in 20 minutes and it wasn’t a big deal at all.

It takes longer to do a load of washing!

What was a huge deal in your house that you’ve now normalized for your own children? I can’t be the only one 🙈

In answer to some of your queries. I was born mid 60s.

Im one of the posters with no heating, no meals out, no car, no days out.
At the same time when I grew up my grandads house didn’t have any water in the house, a hole in the ground that a spring came up in a few fields away and some barrels catching rain water. And no bathroom, we went in the fields and used doc leaves to wipe and washed from a basin with rain/ spring water. That was every holiday 6weeks in the summer up unit I was 18.

Ahhh this was us too! We lived in Devon ffs!! I'm still amazed that people just... go there on the bus.

What goes around comes around doesn’t it ?

The long distance calls and those globe money boxes by the telephone

Orange juice was a luxury that we only had on special occasions.

Eggs were seen as a luxury. I think that came from my parents being born before the war and rationing. My Mum did a lot of baking, but if a recipe had three or more eggs, she wouldn’t make it, far too extravagant!

The biggest for me was having a car and being driven about. Neither Mum or Dad drove and Dad finally passed his test when he was 49 and I was 13. Friends laugh at me when I say that, when I went to friends’ birthday parties, if we were going swimming or ice skating, the highlight for me was the drive in the parents’ car to get to the venue. I felt like a Princess. It was an every day occurrence for most kids, but not for me!

Born in the 60's.
Orange squash. My mum bought a bottle at Christmas and one it was gone we had to wait until the next Christmas before she would buy another one.
My mum baked every week because it was considered a luxury to have a shop bought cake.
Heating was a gas fire in the living room. That was it. First time I had a warm bedroom was after I got married, in the early 80's.
Baths were once a week. No such thing as a shower.
Phone. We acquired one in the early 70's because we moved into a house that had one. Up to then, my mum would save a little pile of 6d (2p after 1971) so she could go to the nearby phone box to call her sisters once a week. When we moved again we had to wait 3 months until the GPO could come and install a phone line.
Loads of other things, but would take a book to list them all.

It was the same for me growing up and I never go anywhere or do anything without showering and washing my hair in the morning. I go to the gym most days at 5am and get up at 4:15 to shower, then shower again after I work out. I remember getting up in the early hours to wash before my parents got up so I didn’t feel dirty at school all day. It gave me huge issues so you have my sympathy.

Being able to buy more than one thing. I stupidly realised I don't have to buy one chicken, or one pack of cheese. I can buy two if I want. I'm 50 ffs.

Keeping new clothes for "best".

So I hardly got to wear some of my favourite clothes as I would grow out of them before I got a chance. Such a waste!

Gosh someone mentioned holidays
We only went to Ireland every year to look after family.
Basically that meant my mum cleaning and washing everything at grandads
All my friends families did the same
Train to Holyhead, boat, train to nearest town then dragging a drunk taxi driver out of the pub to get to grandads in the back of beyond.

Books aswell, we didn’t own any. Maybe that’s why I love books now and would never throw any away

Rented ( on hp ) black and white Tv. But we didn’t have one for a while.

We got a fridge when I was about 6/7 ( get milk in a bucket of water ).

Mum got a washing machine when I was in my teens, so early 80s.

Both parents worked very hard, Irish immigrants.

Ditto. I am only mid 50's now but I remember getting an inside loo & a bathroom (previously it had been a tin bath in front of an open fire).
When we had our own washing machine with a window in the front we watched the first few cycles like it was TV! We never ate out (I think once, at a very modest Chinese restaurant where we had no idea what to order having previously thought boxed 'Vesta' curry was exotic). Money in the meter & when it ran out you took a candle up to bed to light the way. Practically Victorian.

Mind you, for reasons of economy we've just had Toad in the Hole for Sunday Dinner (plum crumble for pudding). I am turning the heating down & asking the kids to be 'very quick' with their showers but we are not at tin bath stage yet.

Things I didn’t do until I was an adult:

go to the cinema
have a takeaway
stay in PJs all day
have daily showers
have friends over
use public transport (we just never went anywhere as kids)
go on holidays abroad
eat in front of the tv
have pasta/rice/other ‘foreign food’

(I was born in the late 70s)

Crisps and coca-cola, an occasional treat. My mother would bring it to the TV area on a tray, with little individual bowls of crisps and glasses of Coke.

Portions were SO much smaller in those days. I remember when Pringles first came out, a shared tube would last our entire family the weekend.

Going abroad was a huge deal. We could have afforded a package holiday to Spain, but my dad would have hated the food, so always went to places in the UK.

Yes, I remember that. The TV had to be switched off because any bolt of lightning would immediately home in on the back of the only TV in the street that didn't have a chimney aerial and would explode in a fiery hail of glass and lava over our faces.

So she'd carefully lift the massive radio, powered by a lead with a rattling plug that went into an extension lead mended with sellotape and plugged into a second extension lead, plugged into an extension block onto the condensation covered windowsill and extend the aerial as high as possible across the dripping, condensation covered window so she could pick up a good signal.

Oh, and windows. You weren't allowed to wash them - ever - and more to the point, were not permitted to stand in front of them, much less look out of them (as somebody might see you) or ever open them. Apparently windows were death holes in the walls that had to be blocked by multiple pieces of furniture to ensure that nobody ever got close enough to them and curtains were stretched tightly almost across to further restrict any light or event happening outside that might tempt the unwary child into looking at them and inevitably lifting spontaneously off the floor, up four foot and flying straight through them to an incredibly messy death.

The yearly probably nearer five yearly ritual of standing on a wobbly stool in the general direction of a window to remove the crispy brown net curtain held on a guitar string tight wire nailed to the frame, rinse in the bath with plain cold water and immediately return to the window was a military operation. Well, accompanied by bellowed orders like a Sergeant Major not to face the window directly or lean in anyway towards it, at any rate.

I was just thinking this having done a huge batch bake this weekend. I'm very aware of the cost of running our 4kw oven now whereas in the past I'd have thought nothing of having it on for a couple of hours each day, or using the oven just to reheat something that could have gone in the microwave.

Holidays. We had enough money, certainly for a short or domestic holiday, but we just... didn't. Dad never took days off work, and my spent my school holidays at home with mum, with a weekly visit to the library and the supermarket.

Not exactly a hardship but when I was a teenager (in early 00 Johannesburg) the internet was cheaper 7pm - 7am. So I was only allowed to browse websites, download mp3s (!) etc then. God, the thrill of just being connected to the internet without checking the clock. Still hasn't left me.

Fruit other than apples
Salad that wasn't floppy lettuce and a slice of cucumber and tomato
Food that wasn't meat and two veg
Orange juice was poured by parents, we were allowed an inch
Things like the cinema were a birthday/event treat
Leaving the city

I didn't have a takeaway or eat out until I was living independently. Racist parents even counted a sharwoods curry sauce as "foreign muck"...even pasta I only had at friends houses.

Is the window thing a religious and or cultural superstition thing
When was this
Ive never heard of it

Time to really show my age and social background - soft toilet paper.

Central heating, getting to do different craft activities regularly… this was rarely allowed, double sided sellotape… I remember seeing it on blue Peter every time they made something and thought it would be amazing to have, playing board games regularly, baths more than once a week….

Washing my hair: We were only allowed to have a bath/hair wash once a week. The only time the immersion heater was switched on. When my fringe was greasy I washed it in cold water & fairy liquid.
Fizzy drinks: The Corona lorry used to stop in the road every week. We never, ever bought any.
I had Cherryade at a neighbour’s once, it was so lovely.
A hair dryer: I had to dry my long hair whilst bending over a paraffin heater.
Strangely, we had a phone & a car from quite early on. I guess we were restricted on what my parents thought weren’t necessary!

URSS yes i grew on the ny /canada border mom left at the old drunk when i was 3 in 1960
but we were poor she worked 12 hours a day . factory and a part time waitress .just to keep aroof.over our heads.
she would sell girl scoouts cookies at work to get enough credit for me to go to camp for 2 weeks every year
but every body had a tv and a car.i ate alone mosty by the time she came it was bed time
she was a seamstress made a lt of my clotesshe did inoreing for peope and sewing on top of regular jobs.i didnit realize hard she worked
we where the best dressed poor on the street!!!
on the other hand my best friends mom worked for coke cola
always had it.. we would take me to (food drive--ins) movie driveins and go to local lakes for swimming it was free and many of the them close by

i know we went with out but she did so well she didnt get alot of things it was all for me.
when i was 9 she married wonderful dad he was a cop and between they brought our first house and got 2 siblings
he was italian lots of good food went to nanas every sunday with cousins to eat and laze around
a cousin fro ireland came and she was blown away by 1970
ny state

Oranges and bananas only for Christmas /not in the UK/.

Oh and using the internet before 6pm!

I moved back home at 18 after two years away from home and my dad bought us our first computer (1998).

Internet was free after 6pm. He would have gone crazy if i’d used it in the day 🤣