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

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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.

My Nana laughed once when we were watching a programme about car safety differences.

We were removed from our parents for abuse and neglect. We were regularly temporarily taken from them when they were high/drunk and my GPs would be called to collect us.

On one of the days my Nana and grandad already had my three cousins. So they collected us four in the car. The social worker arranged us on the back seat and in the boot (estate car) “safely” so they could get us all to theirs until my parents inevitably reclaimed us. On that occasion that involved baby me sharing my pram carrycot with my cousin (one month older) in the boot with my eldest cousin wedging it still with his foot.

She laughed in a “Jesus can’t believe we did that and it was ok by the social worker” way. Not in a finding it funny way.

Living in Germany for a few years recently this is still perfectly normal there. I would see the tiniest children taking themselves off to Kindergarten (nursery/preschool) ages 4 and 5. First time I saw it I was absolutely shocked, I was looking out of a second floor window on a winter’s morning soon after we arrived and saw the tiniest girl bundled up with her backpack walking through the snow! I frantically looked up and down the street and didn’t see a soul with her. I soon found its normal, and also very young children taking buses and trains to get to school.

@Crazymadchickenlady I'm sorry about your dad. Mine died of lung cancer 9 years ago.

How that sort of life was acceptable for children I just don't know. I often wonder about teachers etc and why we were never reported. I don't think any child should be raised in pubs.

I remember going to the Dr's once because I had a throat infection and he wouldn't see me because I was a child and didn't have an adult present.

I try to give my kids the exact opposite of my childhood.

Yeah just front seats at first.

My mum sending me up the shop (rural village) at the age of about six with a note to say that she needed matches for the stove!

Some of these are so sad.
My Df used to smoke in house but he was only home at weekends ( worked away) so it wasnt so bad in week re smoke filled room.
My DM would occassionally use a wooden spoon to smack our bottoms with.
I do remember the day my twin brothers came home from hospital- They were in a moses basket on backseat with Dm, me and other Db were seatbelted infront whilst DGM drove us home.
(Grew up in the mid 80s, early 90s)

Quite awful recollections of abuse and neglect on this thread. So thankful we’ve moved on.

My husband (born in 1969) recalls that his dad had an ACTUAL STICK that used to be propped in the kitchen and was used to hit them if they did something wrong. This is so sad and shocking. I don’t think my husband even realised it was abusive until he had children himself.

It was of its time. My mother used to put me on the train aged about 7 from the Home Counties, give the steward half a crown to keep an eye on me and ply me with cake and lemonade. An hour and 45 minutes layer, my grandmother used to meet me in London.

It was done in reverse on the way back. My DH's mother did the same with him.

Late 60s.

This. You couldn't see the other side of the room and it has left me with permanent damage. That and living with cats when I am allergic. I used to hang my head out of the windows to breathe clean air.

We were left on our own a lot at a young age and our diet was poor. The house was freezing. In the winter my nose, lips and hands were chapped and cracked. Always so cold in bed it would take me hours to get to sleep so I was permanently tired in the winter. We were loved though and we knew that. It was just the way it was back then.

Some of these are so sad :(

I had a pretty happy childhood other than my parents not liking each other very much (Dad had numerous affairs and was abusive some of the time.. dreaded him coming home from the pub) but my Mum was a good parent.

I do remember Dad telling me to fine him 2p if he forgot his seatbelt, just before the laws changed, and I used to be sent across to the shops aged 5 to buy Mum's ciggies.
And riding on the back shelf of their two seater car!

But oh the freedom we had! I could be out all day on my Raleigh bike. We rode miles, climbed building sites, accidentally set a field on fire (luckily post harvest).
We used to climb into the storm drain tunnels until the Offy man warned us it was very dangerous. We swam in the canal and used matches to burn off any leeches!
Came home when the street lights came on.
As a teen my Mum was a second mum to one of my friends who had a truly horrible home life, and our door was open to all my friends.

It was benignly neglectful but pretty good fun!

In my case, mainly, being beaten until I was bruised.

My parents had a very high opinion of their own parenting - heavily involved in local politics, community groups, both school governors at various times. Corporal punishment was banned in state schools when I was 11 but this didn't stop my parents - it only stopped when I was physically able to fight back.

My dad fitted rear seatbelts to our car himself when the wearing of front ones became compulsory. They were more like harnesses with no 'give' in them as you'd get with a rear seatbelt nowadays. My sister and I weren't brimming with gratitude!

It seems ironic now that my parents were highly 'safety conscious' in every respect - ahead of their time, really - but thought nothing of beating me for very minor misdemeanours or 'rudeness'.

That was me too. Only time I ever got crisps and pop. Circa 1970 when I was 8.

Being made to wear a dress on the first day of school!
(Only joking!)

The examples of abuse are horrific, just so sad. I'm really sorry for everyone who experienced it. It wasn't acceptable in any decade or parenting era.

I was born in the 1970s & feel really fortunate that so few people I knew smoked - neither of my parents or grandparents, some of my aunts / uncles but all bar one had stopped by the time we were in our childhood. Equally, there was very little drinking. My parents occasionally had to go to work functions but outside of that barely drank, and would never have gone to the pub just themselves. They both worked but were very focused on us DC (there were 4 of us) and interested in our lives. That has stayed with me in relation to my own DC.

No seatbelts, unlimited freedom (a lot of my childhood was spent on building sites, doing crazily dangerous stuff, in retrospect). We also had no TV till I was nearly 10, and I didn't even understand how they worked to be honest.

My mum was always cross & tired. I get awful pangs of concern now because as a single parent I worry I am always cross & tired too. I can see now my mum was wrecked & unsupported but she lashed out so much when we were small, the infamous 'wooden spoon' making too much of an appearance ...

The neighbours children, prob aged about 7/8 at the time used to take me and my sister walks in our twin pram around the scheme.

My mum left her pram with my sister in it parked outside the shop when she went in. Very normal around there then.
frequently smacked, if we were very naughty it was with the slipped/schol
Me and my friends used to take it in turns to chum the ice cream man on his rounds, we were 11. No one minded.,

Continuous smoking - during meals, in the car, basically every waking moment.

Drink driving as a national sport.

Not parental abuse, but NHS dentists giving us multiple fillings we didn't need and often drilling a tooth on two sides to get more money.

Being left on our own for 3-4 hours in the evening 2 or 4 nights a week - aged 10, 9 and 7. My mum tried baby sitters, but one hit my sister and the other was having water balloon fights and jumping on my mum and dad's bed so she gave up finding one.
Nothing happened, we were sensible kids. We even went to bed at the right time if mum wasn't back, lol. But I wouldn't even consider it with my kids. Anything could happen!

Calpol on Christmas eve and at the gate in airports so we'd sleep.

Going out to play with instructions to be home before the streetlights came on.

Being allowed to spend a whole in the pool in Spain by myself before I could swim.

Definitely more kids than seat belts in the car at times aswell.

Whilst my parents weren't bad there was definitely an element of negligence at times. As a young teenager I could go out for the day with no discussion as to where I would be or when I'd return it was just a given I pitch up for tea.

We used to wave at the motorists behind our car on the motorway. They usually waved back in a somewhat WTF way.

Anyone remembers seatbelts for the front seats but not in the back?

Sorry, should have read more of the thread before posting

pulling a 'teat' over a bottle of milk stout to help with teething. Mother kept the cot sheets with milk stout stains on for years. Probably explains a lot.

My brother slept in their bedroom until he was 8.

Lighting the fire - we had a gas tap next to the fire hearth, that you could fasten a fire lighter gas pipe to that you put at the bottom of the fire to get it going. Kids all over the country were left in charge of gas pipes and boxes of matches. As were those who had open coal fires, that had to rely on those firelighter blocks and drawing the fire with a sheet of newspaper, which often went up in flames. lol #HappyDays! :-D

Being sent to the shop for cigs/booze/both.
Little kids being given whisky for toothache.
Being allowed the odd drop of shandy occasionally, or a taste of Pomagne at Xmas. I was lucky, I was allowed a Babycham with the Stanley Baxter show.

I'm sure when I read the rest of this thread, I'll be reminded of more stuff.

The early seat belts were fixed, once fastened you could barely move, the modern 'inertia reel' seat belts that lock on sudden movement came later and were more expensive.