Things your parents didn't believe in

[Aspergallus]

Inspired by the Timotei thread where someone mentioned that their mum didn't believe in hair conditioner, I realised there is actually quite a long list of things my parents didn't believe in that still leave me, at nearly 50 with DC of my own, feeling like I'm being ridiculously extra for doing every day things:

Hair conditioner as above -deemed totally unnecessary, not a real thing, and drain blocking by my parents. I had long, dry curly hair...

Vitamins -I bought my own as a teen as I thought it might help with acne. They behaved like I was shooting up H.

Make up. My mum believed that all make up (but particularly foundation) was the cause of all skin aging and would tell me (when I was wearing it to hide teenage acne) that once I was 40 I would look older than her as a result.

Tampons. Apparently if you used tampons, you'd have to go for a D&C every year or so due to "build up".

Deodorant. Not necessary if you washed apparently. They considered it something dirty people used in lieu of washing.

Sunglasses, especially when driving. Could make you go blind. Like the reading in the dark old wives tale. As a result my mum spend many a summer gardening with no eye protection and got early cataracts. Yet she still looks at me suspiciously, like I might crash, if I put them on to drive on a sunny day.

Contact lenses -seriously dangerous in their view.

Sun block -they were of that generation that used baby oil and encouraged me to do the same because I was so pale and unhealthy.

Changing job -you got one job and stuck with it or your CV would be ruined forever. And they took this literally, expecting me to stick with chambermaiding as a 17 year old. When I was in a professional role and given rotating training -shifting every 6 months, they were horrified. I'd never work again etc.

Hobbies including sport. They simply did not believe in hobbies or interests unless you were going to make it your whole life's devotion, career or it was going to take you to the Olympics. The idea that you might try something out, and not stick with it was outrageous.

I think my parents might have been particularly odd. There are other examples I can't bring myself to say out loud.

Please tell me other people have similar tales of things their parents didn't believe in...

American TV programmes
Avocados
Using the tumble drier
More than two biscuits.
Any drink other than a cup of tea with a meal

Also changing jobs!

Yes, I was horrified when I went round to a friend's house for tea and we were not allowed to watch ITV or Grange Hill. This was in about 1987.

Any drink other than a cup of tea with a meal

Yes, THIS. For so long. Always a hot drink with a hot meal, a cold drink would chill your tummy, or something! I didn't drink water until university at least.

Though I do get Proustian cravings for chip shop chips washed down with tea sometimes.

Exactly. I started my periods at age 10 in 1984. I used towels for one month and switched to tampons immediately. I had little booklets from school from Lilets and Tampax.

They were definitely recommended at any age and pre 16 we all used tampons.

My parents didn’t believe in getting taxis. If you couldn’t walk there or get a lift or a bus you weren’t going.

Oddly enough it’s something I’ve continued to believe and I absolutely hate paying for taxis and will avoid getting one where possible.

Tea bags contain the sweepings of tea leaves that have fallen on the factory floor! Should always use loose leaf tea apparently. 😂

It does sash windows! Found out at uni when I came back to a room full of hailstones. 😬

Shyness. My DF didn't believe in it, it was just selfishness and showing them up to make them look bad. Same as dyscalculia, dyslexia and mental health issues or chronic health issues. Mental health was just self pity and attention seeking .

I think my DM did believe in shyness but she was scared of DF and tended to give in to him. He was quite brutal to her at times, physically and emotionally. To all of us really. Other times he was invalidating, belittling, nasty. And still at others, perplexingly, he could be very kind.

Toilet accidents when we were young children were punished or not depending on what mood DF was in. It was all about walking on eggshells never making him cross. Or worse than cross.

There was a sense that we must not make the family look bad. We were told not to confide secrets in friends and my DF once overheard me sharing something on the phone about my mental health and ever since then would eavesdrop on the conversations I had with friends or tell me not to say certain things .

He would often try and deny our version of reality . He was very good at being "that didn't happen." Or " you're looking for sympathy. "

He hated attention seeking in any form and also self pity believed it was actually a sin and could let demons in (!) So mental illness and talking about it were forbidden. Paradoxically he could be and often was very kind to people outside the family who were mentally ill, because he didn't see it as their fault because bad things had happened to them. He would often tell me and my sibling "you had a good childhood nothing bad happened to you, you're ok." I was sexually abused as was my sibling but " nothing happened" he told us. "Shut up talking about it it wasn't serious, it didn't affect you."

He believed and actually told me I as taking sexual abuse just to cause trouble . Ditto mental and physical health issues.

He was born early 50s I think parents much stricter with their children then.

Omg. My kids are going to be saying this when they're older. 😂my husband is big on this so he knows roughly how much sugar they're having. So a mocktail mohito with soda is okay (1 teaspoon of brown sugar), freash lime instead of a coke with lots of teaspoons of sugar? I kind of get it, but he's much more worried than me. We both hate sugar substitutes as both understand pancreas/liver metabolism as work in this so diet drinks are an absolute no in our house. But yes, our kids probably might think we're weird.

There was a convention in our house that if we were having chips for dinner (from the chippy or home-made) that you drank tea with your meal, rather than a cold drink. Which is something I've stuck to, actually. My kids think I'm strange!

Nesquik! We were given 'orange milkshake" i.e. milk mixed with orange squash, and told it was the same thing. It most definitely was not

@meatbaseddessert what on earth was wrong with
American TV programmes?

American tv programmes were rubbish, had canned laughter,people had American accents and were all divorced.
My mother was born in 1924 and spent the 1940s in cinemas watching American film with American stars who were often divorced and had American accents. But great storylines!

Oh yes, 'trashy American TV' was awful and would rot your brain and would be vulgar and terribly bad for you!

She later expanded that judgement to trashy Australian TV too.

For some reason, watching The Generation Game and Blankety Blank and Blind Date were all fine...

She was deeply concerned when we got a video player, about us accidentally getting hold of 'video nasties' and 'snuff movies' - from the local independent video rental store, where we only went with her or Dad anyway.

Borrowing videos from the neighbours older kids (they'd had a video recorder for years longer and would tape all the christmas films) was fine, no chance kids 10 years older than us might have anything dubious or unsuitable, but the video shop definitely would.

Horror films were vile, why would anyone want to watch such things - from the woman that gave me, aged 6, a copy of Struwwelpeter and by 9 was letting me read her Agatha Christie, Neville Shute and Tolkien collection...

Oh, my mum was like this about juice as well. We just gave ours water or milk when they were very little, and she somehow saw this as a criticism of her, for having given us juice. It wasn't; it was just the choice we made. They're big now and still not juice fiends.

Oh, my granny was sure my wide feet and lack of ability to tolerate high heels for long at a time was all due to wearing "navvy's boots" (Doc Martens) through my teenage years. If I wore heels every day apparently I would soon get used to them...

Not allowed to watch American TV programmes - no particular reason given
Ditto for science fiction - far fetched rubbish
Had to be married by early 20s - if not you were a lesbian (what would people think) or an old maid. Hence I got married at 22 because I was scared to leave it any longer in case I ended up in one of those categories.
According to my mother it was terrible to be thought of as "forward" or "bold" which were really just words for confident. I was told to be quiet all the time at school, never to volunteer for anything or offer my answers or ideas. I grew up having low self esteem and zero confidence which I still have. I was bullied at high school and failed many interviews because I couldn't promote myself.

Snobbishness, I expect, same as not watching ITV. There was an enormous amount of British rubbish on TV in the 1970s, the Americans didn't have sole responsibility! I had a schoolfriend whose family didn't watch ITV. She told us this in a rather superior way, clearly parrotting her parents' views. I thought it was just plain odd. Some of the best stuff was on ITV! I loved The Sweeney. Also, there were some cracking adverts in the 1970s. We rarely ate Smash but the advert for it was one of my favourites. We had the TV on pretty much all the time and switched between the only three channels available at will. (BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. Channel 4 came along after I'd left home.)

In the early 1980s when I first visited the home of my future parents-in-law I was baffled to see that they had quite a big TV for the times, but it wasn't a colour set. At this point just about everybody people with enough money for a decent sized TV would automatically have gone for colour, even though the licence fee was higher. My FIL was too tight to cough up for a colour licence, however, so continued to watch in black and white, but with the concession that he wanted a decent sized screen. Latterly he must have had to work quite hard to find a big black and white set. Snooker and wildlife programmes were pretty awful in black and white.

Snooker is a pretty awful thing on tv anyway in any colour.

Oh yes, mine often told me I couldn't have long hair "down my back forever" and that I would have to cut it to look like everyone else when I was older/wanted to get a job/turned 30. Eventually I told her I would think about cutting it at 30. I thought... and decided not to. I'm now midforties, greying, and still haven't. I think she's accepted this is just how I have it.

To be fair, it has always been longer than most adults have it. And everyone at school also constantly told me I should cut it. Perhaps it looks terrible? 😆 My husband doesn't seem to think so.

On the other hand I was allowed to have it the way I wanted as a child, and we definitely always had conditioner! And my parents were generally kind and thoughtful, just rather conventional.

It's not my cup of tea but I don't mind it. It's strongly associated with my Dad, who loves it and has been watching it since the days of Pot Black and whispering Ted Lowe. Wikipedia tells me it was the brainchild of David Attenborough when he was Controller of BBC2, and there's this gem:

^Pot Black is credited with producing one of the most memorable British sports quotes: commentator Ted Lowe, aware that not all viewers had colour televisions, said "and for those of you who are watching in black and white, the pink is next to the green."^

Those who do the opposite of their own parents often up their children just as much by going to the other extreme.

You can never give a child too much of a sense of security , love and self worth.

@JaneFarrier I've just had my really long hair cut into a bob, just for a change, will prob grow it back long again at some point. I'm 50. DM has always favoured a sensible-undyed-short-hair-mum-bob, she's never ever had long hair in her life and has always seems vaguely puzzled by mine.

DM: oh that's much better, much more elegant, and it's more MANAGEABLE for you than long hair.

I do not choose my haircuts with elegance and manageability as the main criteria!

Paracetemol - why would anyone need that when they could have disprin or Aspro powders.
Stock cubes - gave you cancer, and stock could easily be made from bones, especially neck.
Shoes - why would anyone need more than one pair? We would have school shoes, black gymshoes, wellies, sandals in the summer, and slippers. I was 15 when I bought myself my first pair of trainers, having been one of only two in the class left still not wearing trainers for school PE.
Aspartamene, and all artificial sweetners - gave you cancer. Which was fine, we drank real sugar ribena instead.
Anti-perspirants - unnecessary if you just wash every day.