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...

Having to show my pants to my mum to prove I had my period.

Bath once a week in her water, then my stepfather. Water was disgusting.

Picking my nose would alter my eyes. I have distinctive eyes, and this is why, apparently.

Being allowed my xmas gifts for a day, then they were wrapped and put under the tree till Xmas.

Never ever allowed fruit till Xmas. But it would all be wrapped individually in foil on a foil tray, and no one was allowed to spoil the look. By the time the new year came, it was putrid. The smell I associate Xmas with now is rotten bananas

Not allowed to wear socks or undies in bed, or I would rot my feet and genitals.

I could go on and on. Suffice to say it was a shit childhood.

YY to love, affection and encouragement.

God and the supernatural - religious people were deemed to be deluded.

Children having decent clothes - ours came from charity shops or cheap shops like Mark One, bought in bulk by her and then shared clothes with similar age sisters. Meanwhile, she dressed in cashmere and jaeger type labels.

Similarly with holidays not for children - so we went to the nearby Pontins once a year whilst she went abroad leaving us with other people. Or alone by the time we were 13 ish.

Children needing monitoring and safety. No curfew ever, could roll in in early hours or morning late with no questions, stayed out until 9 as an 8 year old to see what she would do - didn’t notice. Left overnight whilst primary age. Left for a week from 13.

Sure there are others!

I'm so sorry. I hope you have a nice life now. Some people don't deserve to be parents.

Eating out! Mixture of df would look at the menu and say, "ten shillings for a drink! I'd expect to buy the table and chairs for that." This was early 90s.
Or we'd be told "aren't you so lucky that your parents love you so much that they pack a wholesome picnic as oppose to the horribly unhealthy things people are eating at the café." Boy did I want to be unlucky! 🤣

Anything that was paid for entry was a rarity and had to be justified heavily.

Buying ice creams from an ice cream van. Apparently they're full of food poisoning. I suspect that was a bit of an excuse due to not spending money-we rarely got ice cream at all.

Buying new things until they had lost their last legs and nearly disintegrated. I remember our fridge that lasted 20 years. The last 5-10years, the ice box door had to be shut with blue tac, the milk bit in the door fell off when you opened it, so to open the fridge door you had to slip your hand inside first to hold the milk still, one hinge had gone on the main door and two of the shelves slipped off if they weren't perfectly balanced. "But it is still as good as it's always been..."

Walking on the lawn. That was a thing of beauty and df's pride and joy. Walking on it might flatten the grass or something. There was often weed killer on it anyway.

White bread. Apparently this would cause everyone to be constantly constipated and probably die. Result is I can't even smell brown bread without gagging because I had to eat it too often.

Ditto mashed potato. Any meal (other than breakfast) that didn't have brown bread had mashed potato. My dc think mashed potato is a huge treat as I rarely do it.

The breakfast one is Rice Crispies. Apparently you could get more nutrition from the box than the Crispies. I solved that one by refusing to eat breakfast at all. Mind you the necessary All Bran didn't help that either.

Love my parents very much, but they did have a few little quirks.

My 40 something SIL believes this about microwaves. 😂

My parents seem relatively normal reading some of this stuff!!
My mother had quite a sheltered life and was very anti-alcohol. She believed that anyone who ever drank alcohol, even moderately/socially was an alcoholic. I was about an hour late home from school one day and my mother asked where I had been. I told her that the buses were all full so had been waiting at the bus stop (outside a pub) for ages. My mum said I sincerely hope you weren't in there drinking!!
Ermm no mum, I was 12, in my school uniform and had no money!!

Spray de-icer for the car. You had to just scrape and scrape and scrape. The first time I bought a bottle, I felt so naughty.

Microwaves - well, we didn’t have one anyway. I got into minor trouble in a school cookery lesson for almost setting the microwave going with a fork standing in the bowl. I didn’t know, I’d never ever used one…

Mental illness or having any sort of conscious regard to your mental health. Apparently no one of their generation has any mental health issues at all, despite their having friends who are alcoholics (“overdid it a bit”) or have attempted suicide (“been a bit silly”) and my mother having regular panic attacks (“a strange and undiagnosed illness”).

Washing your hair every day would make it greasy.

Bathing only on a Sunday. Baths at any other time were not tolerated.

Central heating. Too expensive. We used to have to get dressed in winter literally against a storage heater which was lukewarm at best.

Clothes for fashion. Clothes should be functional and worn until they fall apart.

Piercings and brightly coloured hair marked you out as a common deviant. When I had my ears pierced for a second time at the age of 17, the rents were not impressed.

Wasn't it.

I remember being angry with my mum when dd was doing some sort of speech or UCAS and mum saying she shouldn't be boasting etc

I feel your pain with the hair conditioner.
My Dsis and I had long thick hair. I hate having my hair combed, I feel like I’ve been assaulted when I have my hair cut.

Forced to do ballet, to live my Mum’s dream of being a a dancer. I hated it.

Also she insisted the only exercise you should do is for your inner thighs. My Mum is horrified that DD1 does strength training and has built muscle.

Suncream all through my childhood. Changed her mind later though.

Her DH died of skin cancer ironically enough.

Plucking your eyebrows. Because once, during the war, my mum met a lady with a boil on her eyebrow, apparently caused by plucking.

Dishwashers. Pure laziness.

Married women socialising anywhere without their husbands. The root cause of all divorce.

Scholl clogs. A one way ticket to a broken ankle.

Same here about conditioner - ‘it’ll make your hair greasy’ (and then we might have had to wash it more than once a week 🙄). Better to have a head full of frizz and knots.

Suntan lotion - my Mum believed in baking in the sun, would encourage us all to do the same and would only consider it a succesful holiday if you came back with a very dark tan. Unfortunately 30 years later I had melanoma and had to have a large section of my arm removed and stressful annual check ups. She still bakes in the sun.....

I always felt deeply frumpy growing up. I think my mum had this idea that we were children and so should wear children's clothes. I hated non uniform days - I always had clean things in good condition but not fashionable. My mum didn't like anything she considered tacky or common looking.
Tbf, my parents loved us a lot, went without things to make sure we had what we needed, I never lacked for books or entertainment - they put a lot of effort into taking us to places to keep us to museums and parks and swimming etc. They did their best to get us into good schools and support us.
But things teenage girls care about, like being the same as their friends, was totally lost on my mum.

I have gone the other way with my daughter - she wears make up, I buy her lots of clothes and let her wear stick on eyelashes and nails and ignore my mum when she thinks dd shouldn't paint her eyebrows so dark etc! I never want her to feel plain by comparison to her friends.

@Thehonestybox Did they ever explain the logic of this? Its insane!

Exercising. Going for a run was considered the height of vanity and therefore an eye-rolling embarrassment (but my brother going to the gym was fine).

Nice clothes, same as above.

Spending more than twenty quid on shoes.

Mental health problems- were considered weakness or a source of embarrassment.

Gay people being able to get married.

The creative field being anything other than a hobby.

People of colour or immigrants being equal to anyone else.

And yes, I am now a well-dressed writer who runs frequently and has been NC for over a decade 😊good riddance.

sleeping in. was up at 8 the latest at the weekend.

conventional medicine. was 'treated' with sugar pills (homeopathy) for everything incl broken bones and asthma

My parents were fundamentalist sort of Christians (a bizarre mix of independent baptist and evangelical/charismatic) so we had a lot of things that weren't believed in or allowed:

mental health treatment (because it was invented by occultists) .

Expressing mental health distress including self harm meant punishment or being screamed at or ignored.

Getting assessed for learning disabilities/neurodivergent because "it's either a demon or some sin you have committed." learning disabilities were "spanked out" of children as it's bad behaviour. I had dyscaluclia and some other issues so had a miserable time .

Psychotherapy, psychology, social work. Because it means Jesus doesn't get credit for your healing, also it's worldly

divorce if there is abuse in a relationship. Separation only but even that was often discouraged unless actual infidelity . A husband had the right to discipline his wife harshly if she disobeyed his rules or went against the bible

secular music allowed but if you wanted to sing or play an instrument to a professional level it had to be sacred music or you're not using your gift for God's glory. My parents didn't mind listening to opera etc but they didn't like me learning to sing it and told me I was going the worlds way.

socialism, left wing politics

European union (was of the devil)

self pity as a sin. Self compassion and self validation weren't seen as necessary

If we told them we had been abused in any way by someone (my sister and I both were by more than one person )we were told to forgive the offender and not talk about it again. Speaking about it or talking about mental health meant we got a punishment .

The thing is, I don't think all fundamentalist Christians are as strict as this . Quite a few do take this stance but I think my father was just obsessed with the rules . He had a morbid fear of disobeying God or going against the rules .

My parents were like that too with tea. Rarely drank water. I’ve just realised that it’s probably the root cause of why I find it very hard to drink water and struggle to drink enough. I really have to force myself to drink water and really hate it.

@LaMaG Mine did the feeding thing too. I was an overweight child and have battled with weight all my life. Mum was so weird about it. it was desirable for babies to be fat - “bonny” or “healthy” was what she called it. She’d criticise normal weight children as being skinny. Excellent way to prime your kids for having lifelong food issues!

Me 😆

Uni, clubs, hobbies activities were only for rich people so I’d better not get any ideas. Once I asked about uni and was told I was getting ideas above my station and was too stupid anyway, only exceptionally clever poor people got scholarships and made it out of our circle. Yet couldn’t stop raving about my cousin who got a degree because her parents paid for her to go to uni.

Processed food - wish I’d stuck to this one a bit more. They did relax in thins over time.

Washing your hair twice with shampoo was a trick shampoo companies came up with to use more products. They even managed to con hairdressers too.

My parents were very chalk and cheese about a lot of things and definitely thought differently than yours on some things OP.

Cosmetics, toiletries, perfume - my mother was obsessed, always needed the latest, had loads of makeup on and woe betide anyone to try and stop her. My DF was a soap, water and talc man, couldn’t stand deodorant or aftershave.

Hairdressers appointments was a weekly thing, never mind no money for bills or the kids, mothers hair appointment went ahead as she couldn’t dream of missing out going with my Nan (DFs mum) in case she was talked about behind her back.

DF needed his hair cut at least fortnightly, in his defence he had the most amazing think fast growing hair.

We were lucky we could have baths when ever we wanted, we weren’t posh enough to have a shower. My parents were both ocd on cleanliness so washing and bathing was a big thing. Bath water was shared were possible though, even if it was used to water the plants.

My mother was a Narcissistic so everything was about how she was perceived so life would be very keeping up with the Jones with some things. Although I was her favourite victim I think reading some of these posts I got away with things relatively easy when it came to some things.

My favourite was being a vegetarian, my mother used to give my DBs children fish fingers and hide bits of chicken in their food because my DB was neglecting his children and it was abuse to bring them up vegetarian.

I think some of the things they did believe in were more problematic than the things they didn't believe in!

However: didn't believe in piercing your ears because "if God had meant you to have holes in your earlobes he would have put them there" 😂

Also that lifts to school (3 miles away) were unnecessary, even in 3 inches of snow, because you had a perfectly good bike. Even though you had no gloves or helmet or suitable shoes / boots. 😵‍💫

My parents always liked a gadget so we had a microwave, dishwasher and video in the late 1970s/early 1980s. I was amazed when my parents moved into a bungalow in 1993 that the microwave was banished to the utility room due to the radiation from the microwaves. They used to start it and then dash out of the room until it beeped.

Hair conditioner wasn’t widely available when I was a teen in the 1970s, and when I first used it I washed my hair with one of those shower attachments you put over the taps (or a jug) so it was difficult to get out without leaving the hair sticky. Even now I prefer leave in conditioner.

Some of this is learned behaviour. My parents never had a microwave and so neither have I. When we bought our own house in the late 80s my parents-in-law offered to give us a microwave, but I said "no". To be honest, I don't think I've really missed out by not having one, and they are very ugly and bulky things to clutter up the kitchen 😂 But lots of stuff on this thread is familiar to those of us who had a 1970s childhood (being told you only needed 3 or 4 bits of loo paper, anyone?). I think it was because our parents were children in the war and with rationing, so learnt much of this from their parents.