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Crazy stuff your parents did that would have social services out now

491 replies

usernamechanged1 · 10/04/2023 17:00

Dipping the dummy in sugar, fizzy juice for toddlers…did your parents do anything that would be considered shocking now?

For me, I looked after my younger siblings when I was 11 (they were 8 and 5) overnight a few times a week due to clashes of my mum & dad’s nightshift work. No adults in the house, just the three of us. It didn’t cross my mind that it was crazy at the time but when I think back, it was insane.

OP posts:
coffeesackcat · 10/04/2023 21:10

Definitely not those. Mum was a school meals chef so it was probably a recipe from the school she worked in

verdantverdure · 10/04/2023 21:10

Museya15 · 10/04/2023 20:47

The worst was one night when I was left alone with my sister's, the baby was really being sick, I put her in the buggy along with my other sisters 2 and 4 and walked to my mum's friends house which was a mile, it was around midnight, taxi drivers, bus drivers etc phoned the police (who were utterly horrified) and that's when we were taken into care. I think my mother was relieved if I'm honest.

I'm so sorry that happened to you Sad

Thepossibility · 10/04/2023 21:13

Yes to dropped off at the swimming pool for the day so parents could go to the pub. Carrying my younger sister around in the water because she couldn't really swim.
Smoking everywhere. Car with all the windows up was the worst.
Being locked outside for the day to clear up the garden or the shed but having no idea how to do it.
Beltings. With weapons on my brother.
Walking to school by myself at 5.
Going to buy smokes for mum with a note (or food on tick?!)
Adults being all powerful and having no voice.

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BlackFlyChardonnay · 10/04/2023 21:13

Also, Sunday was my mum's "day off", which meant we went with my dad to the pub. We would play outside all day from 11 - 6 ish with maybe a packet of crisps and one lemonade while he drank pint after pint. He'd then drive us home so drunk he'd be veering the car all over the place, with me and my sister sliding back and forth on the seat (no seat belts). How we survived, ill never know. We found it fun.

Hedjwitch · 10/04/2023 21:13

Mum had to work full time to support us so I would drop my little brother at nursery before I got the bus to school,and would collect him.on the way back. I would have been about 10

Crocodilekneecaps · 10/04/2023 21:13

Standing on the back seat with your head poking out of the sun roof down the main road !

Blueflag22 · 10/04/2023 21:14

Smoking in the house ,photos of us with smoke everywhere. Travelling in car no seat belts and remember my sibling at the front near my mums foot. Going to a sleepover at a friends house and friends parents out to the pub with 80's punks 'babysitting ' and drinking and smoking everywhere. Lots of snogging and us 8 year old watching and laughing. Being sent to shop to buy fags. Friends mum offering me a fag at 12 years old. Goodness it all went on. No abuse though just the times we were in I think.

Jetstream · 10/04/2023 21:14

Our parents sometimes ended up in lock- ins at the local. One time ourselves and friends were left over nights as our respective parents stayed out all night. They turned up the next morning after breakfast.
We also travelled in cars with no seatbelts, overloaded and sometimes held together with bailers twine and duct tape.

JudgeJ · 10/04/2023 21:15

Kvetching · 10/04/2023 20:00

We have photos of me in the back of the car as a baby, just in a carry cot loose on the back seat. It would have been the early 1970s.

My dad used to smoke when we were kids. He’d chain smoke all the way to Cornwall and back with 4 (un-strapped) kids in the car.

There was no other way to transport a baby in a car then, we used the carry cot on the back seat with something under it to keep it level. This thread is judging situations by the norms of today, re seat belts etc., we travelled back and forth to Germany the children had orange sleeping bags and would sleep quite happily between the cases in the back of the estate car, I was quite envious of them!

Noln · 10/04/2023 21:18

I think the main thing was how freely they got incredibly drunk with me there. I used to find it really frightening and would have a real panic response around anyone drinking until I was about 19. Smoked a lot of hash and weed with me in the room, took me with them to dealers. Drove drunk/stoned. DM was just regularly off her tits. Looked after my much younger sibling all the time and did the evening meal from about 8 years old. I was a child in the 90s.

A few other more specifically traumatic events that anyone would be shocked by, but those were less of the time. Whereas lots of my friends parents thought nothing of drinking alcohol and weed smoking around the kids.

PeacefulPottering · 10/04/2023 21:19

Nivea for suncream 😳
Manchester to Penzance on the train every six weeks holiday, no adult. How the fuck did I survive.
Punishment for stealing penny sweets was a thousand degrees bath and hitting us with a Birkenstock. Those peaceful hippies🙄
Being left with the brother of an aunt of a distant cousin who sat on the sofa and ignored us. One better than he abused us.
Absolutely no interactions with teachers, homework,
I'm 50! They were really shite weren't they x

Aitchtee · 10/04/2023 21:21

My parents took my sister and I abroad twice without a passport, we hid. My dad was a long distance driver. We just thought it was funny and passport control on the ferries just turned a blind eye. We had good holidays 😂

AppallinglyReheated · 10/04/2023 21:21

Loads of kids in the back of the car.
Several kids across the front bench seat of a van/vw bus.
Sitting unbelted on the bench seats running down each side of a bedford van, and the extras sat on the floor.
Loaded into luggage area of the car.
Sitting on an adults lap in the car.
My DF changing his clothing (jumpers off, trousers off, shorts on) whilst driving down both UK and French motorways (also I believe down dirt roads through Ecuador and Peru, and everywhere else the bugger went).
Being made to hold the steering wheel whilst he did his clothing switch.

Being left outside pub or other venue, either awake listening to tapes and drinking pop/eating crisps brought out for us, or asleep in sleeping bags in the luggage area.

Steering the previously mentioned VW or Bedford whilst seated on the drivers lap (nod to safety... this was on unmade unadopted roads... usually).

Riding four up on a motorbike or moped and hoping you weren't the one sat on the mudflap or burning your leg on the exhaust.

Hacking out on over fed under exercised ponies with hats that undoubtedly did not fit and were held on by knackered elastic, no way of contacting any adults and they had no idea where we'd gone, or how long for.

Single seater chair-lifts (Bulgaria) up the mountain with just a chain and pin affair to keep you in... designed for adults so verrrrrrrrrry easy for a child to slip off particularly with the weight of skis/boots. This one DID frighten Mother...

Parents smoking all over the place, in the car, in the house etc etc.

Access to diggers, tractors, scaffolding, boats, water, a variety of animals large and small...

Taken down caves from the age of 2, ditto up mountains - my younger sister was almost flown like a kite off Striding Edge when it turned out the 'you'll grow into it' anorak made a fabulous parasail and she weighed next to nothing... hurrah for the long bit of string that ran around the bottom of it (i think......).

And much much more I have forgotten which is probably a good thing!

stationroads · 10/04/2023 21:24

Smoking EVERYWHERE!
No seat belts.
Overloaded Car - Front Footwell, Boot, Laying on the parcel shelf!
Standing up between the two front seats.
Home alone for long periods of time.
Out roaming for hours.
Sitting on the wheel arch in the back of a pick up driving down the motorway!! WTF!
7 Hour coach journey alone at 8 years old.
Shopping for fags, booze and bets.

Ffsmakeitstop · 10/04/2023 21:24

My dad had a transit and fitted a seat in the back from wood with a big foam cushion. No seatbelt or any kind of restraint, how the hell we never went flying I don't know.

Popuppilot · 10/04/2023 21:26

Driving mopeds on my uncles farm aged 9 and sister aged 7!!

I was paid £20 a week to pick up my mums friends kids from school who were about 5 and 7 and look after them till 6pm when their mum got home. I was 12 years old!

Loads of riding in the back of my dads transit van. Riding on grandparents laps to holidays etc.

rollerblind · 10/04/2023 21:27

My mum used to pick up my cousins, as well as my brother and I, from school (5 chn).
We'd all be squashed in and I used to regularly sit on someone's lap. Once the door opened and I actually fell out of the car while my mum was driving along (fortunately slowly so I wasn't hurt). Unbelievable looking back now...

purser25 · 10/04/2023 21:27

Going to guide camp in a lorry. We all sat on the bed rolls and then spent ages waving over the tailboard at the back.

Inthebathagain · 10/04/2023 21:28

We used to take the air rifle to the woods behind the house. Stay out all day shooting things. If we ever brought home a rabbit, we'd skin it together and have it for dinner.

Parents regularly used to let us scab a fag or two from their packet.

And we never used to have to sit outside the pub for hours on end. The landlady took pity on us, so used to shut off a quiet corner for us to sit with mum. Landlady liked me so much she asked my mum if she could take me on holiday abroad with her and her hubby. Mum said she could. I cried so much the week before that mum ended up cancelling me going last minute.

Inthebathagain · 10/04/2023 21:29

Oh, and did anyone else go out collecting egg boxes door to door to sell to the local butchers? Unthinkable now!

StayGoldenPonyGirl · 10/04/2023 21:29

Acceptance of local 'weirdos' - who were either mentally ill or potential sex offenders.

Haha, yeah, that's Old Jim, he drinks whisky all day and throws stones at ducks, just leave him be!

Don't play outside Ronnie's house...he'll try to show you his willy. What's he like!

You should have known better than to stare at Mad Mary, no wonder she chased you with a stick.

Just less help and awareness I guess, but it's weird to look back on.

bellabellaIzzie · 10/04/2023 21:30

No overcrowding in cars and babysitting was arranged for us, but we were offered alcoholic drinks at family parties from the age of around 10-11. My granny would even buy in special sweet white wine I might find more palatable.

I think people did turn a blind eye to domestic violence and physical abuse generally also.

CarbunclesAreUncles · 10/04/2023 21:31

Left in the car with a book, a bottle of Coke and a packet of peanuts while they went in for a drink.

I hasten to add this was a very rare occurrence - neither of them were drinkers but on the odd occasion they might pop in if we were passing one on the way home after a day out.

JudgeJ · 10/04/2023 21:31

Crocodilekneecaps · 10/04/2023 21:13

Standing on the back seat with your head poking out of the sun roof down the main road !

I recall driving through Blackpool Illuminations with our two poking their heads out of the removable sunroof, that would be in the mid 80s.

stationroads · 10/04/2023 21:33

Sledge tied to the back of the car.
Go kart tied to the back of the car.
Driving from about 10 in fields and private roads.