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.

I would get smacked if I was naughty or locked in my room.

Drinking wine (often watered down) with special meals from as early as I can remember.

Parents smoking in the house and car.

Similar car stories but there were no rear seatbelts back then.

Being left in the car outside pubs with a packet of crisps and a bottle of coke.

It was all very normal for the time.

We often tell my daughter about the school minibuses that had two long wooden benches down each side. No seatbelts and when there was a sudden stop you’d either slide down the bench or end up on the floor in the middle.

I would be left to mind my 3 younger siblings while mum.went out to pick coal from the shore. Seriously!
To this day her mantra rings in my ears:
Be good
Dont fight
Stay away from.the fire
Dont answer the door to strangers

A smacked arse for being naughty or giving cheek!

Getting a lift home with several other school
friends in the back of my friend’s dad’s windowless work van. We used to perch on random tool boxes and planks of wood in the pitch black and try to stay upright.

Wonder what people would think now if they saw a man locking a bunch of 13/14 year old girls in the back of a van?!

Playing outside in the local streets and parks from a very young age, 4 upwards. Mum had no idea where we were, who were we were with, and we only went home for food. Our area had lots of high rise flats so no one had a garden.

I remember my mum had a little white mini. Mum & older brother in the front, me & younger brother in the back.....with our newborn sister in her Moses basket resting on our knees!

Smoking in the car with the windows up.

Letting us stay home during school holidays alone with a lost of jobs from about yr5.

Giving us whisky to help us sleep when not feeling well.

Being force-fed soap when we copied their swear word.

Earning money at the car boot sale by leaving the house at 6am whilst they slept and took the bus into town on our own. We'd walk around and warn stalls selling dodgy DVDs and chipped games when the police were circling. Not quite sure how any adult thought that was ok 🤔

Yep, travelling in the car boot.
Did that all the way to the South of France once! (Sleeping on top of the luggage).
Also sleeping across the back seats - made up as a bed - overnight drive to Cornwall.
Being smacked with the hairbrush (but only when really naughty).

Mum smoking everywhere in the house and walking to school by myself at 5 with all the other kids,not a parent in sight.

My dad picked all my friends up in his van to take them to my birthday party. He’d put carpet on the floor for us. I can remember now us all rolling around in the back squealing and laughing as we went around corners. It was the only thing I remember about the party so it made an impression. Would have been mid 1970s.

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.

Yes I remember the McCann's did something similar 🤔

Smoking everywhere.
When we went on holiday the seats would be put down in our estate car, DSIS, myself and two dogs would sleep for hours while DF drove nonstop.
No car seats and no seatbelts in the car.
Sitting on the GP's laps in the car when it was full and everyone not being concerned that DF was driving over the limit.
DM was furious when the seatbelt law came out!
Being left in the pub beer garden or family room for hours while DM and DF were inside at the bar.
Being left on a beach with two dogs by myself age 10, all morning while DF, DM and DSIS were across the road in the pub.
Being slapped on the thigh with DM's slipper for being naughty.
The medicine cabinet wasn't locked or out of reach, I used to regularly help myself to a piece of ex lax chocolate or a slurp of Calpol before I knew what either of them were/contained.

Yes carrycot on backseat was the norm

Bikes with no helmets, when fall off and hit head, someone would hold fingers up in front of you to count them and then carry on playing

This is a very specific one for me, finding the bottle of orange flavoured aspirin and taking the top off the bottle and eating the contents as they were so nice, when the empty bottle was discovered it was decided that I wouldn't be in pain due to the painkillers.

Ditto eating rat poison in the corner of a shed after feeding calves, putting hands into the calf food and eating scoops of it ( it had a malty taste).

Taking a stick to go up through the fields to bring home the cows and taking the stick to defend myself from the bull (age 6+)

Using the chip pan which was in a saucepan with a loose handle, it took a particular skill to lift it as the outer handle swivelled around on the handle

Jumping around the hay loft, knowing that I could slip down between the bales and that the loft was missing flooring in parts so the whole thing could collapse

Going on school trips with one male teacher and 12 11/12-year-olds in a mini

Very Northern Ireland specific (I lived right along the border in the Republic) but being left in the car to prove that the car wasnt an explosive, so from the age of 5 I spent many afternoons sat in Belfast city centre to prove that the car wasnt armed (as the Republic of Ireland cars were especially suspicious in Belfast)

Age 9 being sent out to cut a boggy garden with a strimmer, no protective eye gear and stones flying up and dodging them as they flew

Was shown where the gun and ammunition (which was licenced but not in a gun safe) were but told I wasnt allowed to use them unless under attack, cue myself and a friend pointing it at each other

Taking the car out along country roads to teach myself to drive, unsupervised at age 9, I was only stopped when I met the local Garda sergeant on a back road and I had to pull over, he told me if he saw me on the road again before I was 17 and legal, he would have to take action and to take the car home and park it up for many years,

Blimey, that’s industrial scale abuse and neglect
sorry you experienced that

Playing for hours in the derelict ochre works and only being told off because I’d got ochre on my skirt. 1976 or so.

Dummy dipped in honey
kids asleep in boot for overnight car journeys (no seat belts)
got lost on busy beach as parents couldn’t be bothered to get me water to play in the sand. Will always remember the horror of being found by a stranger and not finding my parents. DM thought it was funny.

Never had a helmet for bike rides or skiing but didn’t know any children who did.

Ugh the smoking, never a window opened either.
Unguarded fires. I remember my clothes catching fire when I was about 6.
Mother would get in a strop over something and walk out leaving 3 or 4 of us locked in the house. I don’t know how long for.
Periodically threatening to have my dog pts.
Sending me at 10 across Manchester , alone, on buses and was very angry when I got lost.
Did I mention my agents were registered foster parents?

Sat on family members knees in the back of a car a few times. Allowed to have the occasional alcoholic drink from about the age of 8 (just to try it)

Initially the seatbelt law did only apply to the front seats, with children in the back requiring them after 1989 and adults a few years after that. My father fitted seatbelts in the back of all their cars for us children though, right from the early 70s until cars started to be fitted with them. I think the first one we had with factory seatbelts was an Audi in the mid ‘80s. Though, while those in the back seat were strapped in, we also still travelled in the boot sometimes too!

We walked alone to school relatively young I think, but it was a village. We’d be out for what seems like all day in the holidays without saying where we were going either. Though in later life I learnt that the mums network of spies round the village always knew roughly where we were, and what we were up to!!

Sending me to the shop with a note and a fiver to buy cigs!!

It wasn't all me, yes some was and some was various siblings. You just think its normal at the time.