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

[usernamechanged1]

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.

walking to shop by myself by age 6, walking to and from school by myself from age 7 (15 min walk crossing quite a few roads). Travelling in a car sitting on grandparents lap or in the boot. Going into pub to get my dad home for dinner.

I've just thought of another. Walking home some distance, and regularly, in the dark from extra curricular and the like. I'd cut across grasslands and woods, I knew like the back of my hand, in almost pitch black darkness. Scary to think of it.

Less ferrying about, certainly compared to now.

Seatbelts for the driver only became legal requirement in the late 70s. I remember the d first day and we dared mum to drive without it but she put it on. We didn’t have seatbelts in the back. I also remember mum driving up the m6 and touching 100mph while me, brother and 2 cousins hung back of her seat (no seatbelts) to see if the speedo would hit 100mph!

seems crazy now but most cars did not have rear seat belts. I’m an old car fan and sold my 1972 Datsun in 2001 when I had Dd due to the lack of seatbelts. I still had my old VW camper until about ten years ago but I used to put Dd in the passenger seat and make dh sit in the back……..I did get a lap belt put in even though legally I didn’t need one but the garage said it was useless as the backseat was plywood and would disintegrate on impact! 🙈😁

My sister and I did this too. Shocking when I think about it now!

emigrated to a country with a climate that exacerbated my (known, pre-existing) health condition. Delayed appropriate treatment for two of my most severe attacks so late that I was too sick to risk being moved to intensive care (a long distance away on bumpy rural roads).
Told me that what was diagnosed many years later as a ruptured cruciate ligament was "just growing pains", and told me when I tore back muscles, "if you can touch your toes there's nothing wrong with you". I also have a large, long scar where a childhood injury that should have been stitched, wasn't.
Left me to walk home from school alone from the age of 6, even on the day when they had moved house and I didn't know how to get to the new house. Also left me alone in a car aged 8 in a not-particularly-safe foreign city while they went shopping.
Doled out corporal punishment at home (father: fist, mother: kitchen utensil) and sent me to a school where they knew excessive corporal punishment was used (kids beaten with straps/cane to the point where their skin was raw and on at least one occasion had broken bones in their hand).

Getting stuff off dad's dodgy mates lorry

I was going to say this too!

Everyone knew of the house where the dirty old perv/man lived. Imagine that now! Oh kids, avoid number 12 because that's where dirty Barry lives and he'll flash you!

I don't think it was better by any means but parenting does sound like it was easier back then in lots of ways.

Fkg lol

@coffeesackcat if she worked in a school kitchen, I have a couple of books of school dinner recipes.

This one is made with chocolate but maybe a cherry was added instead as you remember?

I remember my parents,while on holiday used to use the 'babysitting service' the b&b provided

We had no idea they'd put us to bed at round 7:30,wait till 8 and fuck off to the nearest pub (about a mile away) to get pissed

While leaving us alone in our rooms,we only had the owners (who lived in the back of the house) keeping an eye on us-they never once checked on us

In rl,they wouldn't have had a clue if we'd got up for whatever reason,woke up and cried because our parents where not there (nobody would have called them-no mobiles) left the b&b or if anyone had come into our rooms

As proved when my parents came back-pissed up and found a random,equally pissed woman in their bed

My mother had to wake her up,and ask her to leave (which she did)

both parents where horrified that she'd been smoking right next to my brothers head (didn't normally bother them) but not so bothered about the fact they'd found her in their bed,alone with their children

They just checked their suitcase to see if she'd nicked anything and went to bed themselves-no police,no checking on us-nothing-just checked she hadn't nicked their money

All a big joke the following morning-and they headed out as normal that night (even though the b&b had its own bar)

Same parents where very judgemental on the child who should not be named on here,saying that her parents where neglectful for leaving their children in their hotel room to have dinner!

Choosing stolen clothes from the druggies in the pub that I liked aged about 10.

Being taken to the pub by my mum and drinking cider all night, absolutely hammered age 14
Being allowed to go away for the weekend with my boyfriend who was 20 when I was 15

Driving home blind drink with a car full of kids from absolutely everywhere (yes, the school run).

Letting me go and sleep in a hotel room with a man and woman we had just met that day because I was tired, they were going to bed and she wanted to carry on drinking…

1978. I was 8. We lived in Singapore and went to Thailand on holiday. The first night we stayed in the YMCA in Bangkok. My parents went out for the night (to the red light district) leaving me in the care of a babysitter from the hotel. A complete stranger. I honestly don't think it dawned on my parents!!

Apart from all the ones listed like smoking in the house, sitting outside pubs getting hit etc my mum used to let her friend conduct an extra marital affair in our house and they’d be upstairs getting jiggy with it while we were home.
also we would get palmed off with our relatives who would then palm us off with randomers

On long car journeys, 4 or 5 hours, travelling in convoy with mum and dad behind, my grandad used to like me to sit up front in his car with him so I could fill and light his pipe for him, puffing on it to get it going... I was 5.
I mean loads of other stuff too, but that one was extraordinary.
He'd puff away on it with the windows up until it was like a dense fog in the car. I remember not really being able to see Stonehenge as we passed the air was so thick with smoke.
Loved him though. He let me make funny little models with the pipe cleaners to keep me busy.

Could be my sister writing this.

We used to travel overnight on top of the luggage too. No belts - rear seats didn’t have them (nor did the fronts for that matter)

Set off at 3am, Cornwall for breakfast.

My parents were the manager and manageress of a liberal social club. We lived in the house next door to the club and we were left alone everyday/every night when they were working next door. I was 4 and my sister was 6 when we moved there and we stayed for three years. One evening we were burgled and my sister talked to the burglar. After that they put in an emergency bell that rang in the bar next door.

Also did the sitting on parents knee or in the footwell of the car or the boot. One of favourite things was going over a big hill near us in the back of a van so we took off into the air.

Born early 80's now nc with dm and my dd has passed away. My brother moved out at 16 years old.

●grew up living in pubs and parents worked until early hours and got drunk regularly/ daily, they were alcoholics. Did after time and went to casinos after closing until early hours.
● responsible for getting myself up, dressed and to school from about 5 years old. Also getting myself home. Key to get in the pub from about 7 years old.
● I had to get 2 buses to/ from school from 9 years old as we moved. Primary school.
● spent Christmas day/ eve/ birthdays/ new year alone as they were working in the pub.
● did get presents left to be opened in the morning but did this by myself as they wouldn't be up.
● regular swearing/ fighting, drunk drugs etc.
●living quarters full of smoke from the pub below.
● moved approx every 2 to 3 years.
● no supervision upstairs while they were downstairs every night/ dsy in school holidays or when not at school.
● taken on darts matches, team trips to Butlins etc where my mum would cop off and I was told not to tell my dad.
● had to take phone calls from my dms boyfriend.
● sort out my own packed lunches which ended up being a packet of biscuits.
● no clean clothes/ underwear etc.
● Allowed out until 10/11 at night from about 8 years old.
● when we moved into a house my dad carried on working nights, my dm would have dart matches or just be going out 6 or 7 nights away so left home alone. My brother would be out all night.
● my mum locked my dad out the night before my maths gcse I had to get up at about 3am to let him in drunk. This happened as the norm.
● when they eventually split up I found my dad after he over dosed. He did recover.
● had to send men home when my mum brought them back to the house drunk, sometimes unconscious.
● Left alone for a few days from about 14/15 years old (1995).
● in the 5 years I was at high school I only had one school jumper and 2 school skirts.
● had to find/ purchase/ makemy own sN Pro from being 12 when I started my periods as not provided any.
● was told about my grans suicide attempts from an early age.
● aware of my mum trying to deliberately crash the car as she had "had enough".
●treated as a confidant for my mum in all sorts of things.
● watched whatever I wanted on TV, ate what I made/ wanted/ could get.
● bought alcohol for a house party at 14 and allowed boys to stay over.

Haven’t read the whole thread so sorry if already mentioned, but, as a 1970’s child being given cider in my baby bottle - on the advice of the GP - to get me off to sleep. Mum being dismissed as a crank by all the authorities for saying that my little brother’s extreme naughtiness may have been caused by E numbers in food rather than being a spoilt child.

@Cuckoosheep apart from the fact I don’t have a brother your life sounds very much like mine! We moved from the club into a pub when I was 8 and lived upstairs. Was very like you describe only my dad dropped dead on a pub carpark when I was 13 and they were both having afairs. I also regularly used to get the barmaid climbing into bed with me as she was too drunk to go home and my Mum used to send her up to sleep in my bed.

• Travelling in the boot, travelling on the floor between legs, travelling on a lap.
• Hit with wooden kitchen utensils and chased up the stairs to smack bottoms.
• Leaving me to look after three younger siblings for days out (I was 10 and the youngest was 1).
• Biting us hard if we bit each other.
• No talking in car, kitchen, dining room or living room.
• Smoking in house.

I seem to remember that it was only compulsory then for the front seats and older cars didn't have them. You had to have front ones fitted in older cars but not back ones. Rear seat belts weren't compulsory until 1991.

My older son was born in 1985, we lived in Berkshire then. My mother came to collect me and my baby to spend a couple of weeks with my parents in Greater Manchester. We drove back with me in the back with baby on my lap or in his carry cot on the back seat. Her car didn't have seat belts in the back. It wasn't illegal. In fact I remember Princess Diana taking her babies home from hospital the same way a couple of years before.

That evening there was a documentary on about crash test dummies, and it showed you what would happen to a baby unrestrained in the back seat - it was horrifying! The next day she booked her car in to be fitted with rear seat belts.

A group of under 10's girls would knock on neighbours doors asking to take the baby out in the pram. Or take the dog for a walk. All very normal at the time.

At age 12 I had a Saturday job in my parents estate agency business.
My job was to do the accompanied viewings to empty houses.

So, ‘people’ would book an appointment, drive to the office, pick me up in their car and off I would trot to an empty house with this complete stranger...