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.

God where to begin (and keep in mind I'm N/C with mine for over 20 years now)

• Smacked my arse with a heavy leather belt that had a thick metal fastener on it which would catch me as well.
• Smacked me on the back with one of those sheepskin slippers. It was kept for punishment purposes as the sole had gone shiny with age. That shit hurt. *Left me and my younger sister in a tent on a campsite alone at night to sit in the clubhouse until late watching the blue comedian. They would fall in plastered around 1am. No baby listening service. And if you needed a wee? Torch and a long walk alone across a campsite. *Argued with my mum on holiday over my sister getting an ice cream and me not getting one as she decided I didn't deserve one that day (typical psychological warfare to cause us to resent each other). Because she smacked me hard round the face and I fell to the floor with the force, a lady walking past told her what for and said she was calling police. She dragged me by my pony tail back to the car park and I was left for an hour in the car, alone. It was hot in the car but as I was around 11 and it was in the early 90s no one batted an eyelid. *Said in front of teachers what a disappointment I was because my PE teacher said I didn't try hard enough. I had diagnosed dyspraxia which made some sport hard but the PE teacher was horrible. Despite my doing well in everything else she tore strips off me in front of my head of year. He just said he felt it was a shame as I was great at everything else. She called me a failure. He looked sympathetic.

My DGran used to tie a piece of rope around DUncle's waist when he was on his bike as a toddler and the other end to the drainpipe because he kept escaping 😂

These threads are always bizarre. So many people go through abuse, neglect and emotional trauma. There's nothing crazy or witty about anecdotes of careless, thoughtless heartless parents who probably shouldn't have had kids. Most of us don't deserve kids.

That’s really not funny at all. It’s not a witty Ach well anecdote

My stepdad babysat me when I was 7. He let me have a few shots of liqueur (Baileys or Tia Maria, something like that). Mum came home to me vomiting

Baby boomers were born between 1946 and 1964. I'm a baby boomer, born 1948 and I never did any of the things mentioned on here as we knew better.

Having said that I don't think my parents did any of those thing either.

I stopped smoking before I got pregnant, and never smoked again, although my exh did smoke after my first child was born in 1980, but he smoked outside, although, I know that doesn't make a great deal of difference.

I most certainly never smacked my children, nor did I stuff them into the car as they were sitting in appropriate child car seats.

Also never left my children alone.

Sounds like there were some awful parenting fails going on when some of the posters on here were growing up.

Neglect and abuse was not a 'baby boomer' speciality, it's a bad parenting thing and it still goes on today.

Smoking!! Even in a car with the windows up 🤢 We must have stunk as kids, as it’s such a revolting smell on hair and fabric!!

They would also lock themselves in their bedroom for an hour or 2 on Saturday mornings. We were 2 and 7, so really shouldn’t have been left alone!! I think/hope they’d fed us breakfast beforehand.

Grandparents would make tea with sugar and give it to babies in bottles!! And dip a baby’s dummy in the jam dish or sugar bowl 🤨

I’m sad to say not surprised by the abuse & neglect posters are recalling
children that really didn’t have a voice or agency and a society that didn’t care

In the 90s… At age 5 (I had stabilisers on my bike) we were allowed out all day, we’d cross busy roads, get shouted at if we came back to the house, play in a local brook, find other kids to play with.
Chain smoking in the living room so the ceiling went yellow (I had asthma as well).
Never read a bedtime story.
Hit a lot.
No seat belts in the car!

Smoking, three in a very small house for a while. Far too many people in a car. Both very normal for someone my age.

We spent a few summers in the west of Ireland. My brother, aged 12, got his first summer job in a chippy. My parents had to go after the owner for his pay. Myself and a sibling went out playing crazy golf in thunder and lightening.
growing up we spent summers on my grandparents farm, which between moving vehicles and an open slurry pit plus the cattle, was very dangerous.
At home my mother farmed us out to various friends whenever she could. Probably the best thing she did for us.

Haha did it work?

Standing in between the two front seats whilst driving along the motorway, also, sitting in the car eating a packet of crisps while the parents were having a drink in the pub!

My parents were pretty sensible on the whole but they did really like the guy I was going out with at 16 (and lying about my age to) despite knowing he was 5 years older and involved with a criminal gang 😮even asked him to come round to keep an eye on me and my 13 year old sister while they went away for a week 😳 tbf to them he did turn things around later in life so maybe they're just a good judge of character but it is still pretty shocking that they essentially asked a drug dealing gangster to babysit their daughters for a week

My grandparents on the other hand still swear by giving babies a ball of butter and sugar wrapped in muslin to chew on while teething and think I'm mad not to be allowing my 1 year old a bottle full of tea 🙃

Being locked in the coal shed with no shoes as a punishment…

Having parents leftover Chinese for breakfast as didn’t have anything else in one morning….

Being told (threatened?!) “I’ll give you something to cry about”

Being sent to the shop, crossing a busy road to buy fags for my nan aged about 9/10. Then going into town with her on the bus and her telling me to meet her at the bus station about an hour and a half later as she was going in the bingo and kids weren't allowed. I had to wander around town aimlessly for ages on my own. I had no money and felt self conscious in shops without an adult. My parents, who'd left me with my nan whilst they were at work, would have had a fit if they'd know I was hanging about town on my own. I tried to tell my family years later what had happened but was made to feel really guilty for saying this stuff about my nan who denied it.

I lived in a "third world" country but my parents were great, I'm genuinely shocked at what I read on here, sure there were loads of kids crammed onto the back seat of the car with seat belts but my parents didn't drink, put us to bed every night and if they did go out we got a baby sitter, always the same one and she was super nice.

Our house was clean, each parent had a car, our clothes were always freshly laundered we went on holidays, that would be considered amazing by many on here at least twice a year.

My friend forgot her lunch at school one day when we were 5. I told her just to come to mine, I didn’t stay too far down the road so we just left school and walked to mine on our own. I made her toast and Nutella, I’m guessing the house was just left unlocked as we just went in. We headed back to school and were met by a worried teacher as my friend’s mum had handed her lunch in and they couldn’t find her. We casually said we had just been at mine for lunch! Not necessarily something my mum did but just the fact you can leave school and go home for lunch at that age 😂 No way would a child get out the school gates now

I looked after my s

I regularly travelled in the boot too!

Home alone from the age of 6 onwards. The primary at the time would just open the doors and let the kids out. I’d just walk home alone every day.

I used this method last year on a large 50cm wok fire (flames went from hob to cooker hood) it worked. Why is it discredited? Is it because natural fibre tea towels are less common now? (My tea towel was cotton/linen)

Also rode in the boot on our long journeys to relatives in Liverpool. We had a transit van, so my Mum, stepdad and big sister sat in the front seats. I got to make a little bed with my duvet, surrounded by all our luggage and self catering supplies in the back of the van.

It was so much fun and such a great memory. But makes me shudder to think what could have happened if there was a crash. Or even an emergency break situation.

I grew up in a deprived area,at primary school teachers used to ostracise & humiliate the kids who had traveller relatives

teacher would threaten get your work done or I’ll make you sit next to EmaciatedPoorKid. Christ those kids made us all look like we’d stepped out a catalogue. It was known they were dirt poor, hungry and they were made an object of ridicule by teachers who should have known better

Reading some of these replies, christ, it's a wonder we made it to the 21st century in one piece..

My mum used to drop me off alone at the library in the mid 80s with a packed lunch while she did her shift in the supermarket next door. I was 5. 😱