What are your memories of going to friends houses when you were a child?

[MrsNandortheRelentless]

My child has had a pal round a few times and I make sure they feel safe, comfortable and have fun.

I was a child in the 70’s and feel somewhat traumatised by the way friends parents treated me and made me feel.

I ALWAYS felt ashamed of my scruffy clothes, that my mother took the absolute piss and dumped me, no food, no thanks, for days out with friends families with no money or didn’t offer to pay for me.

I remember going to a play place with an entrance fee and feeling utter utter panic that I had no money to get in.
I kind of looked round at the entrance for a suitable spot to wait for the family until they came out later in the day because I couldn’t pay to get in.

I distinctly remember the parents talking about the fact that they had not been given or even offered any money for me to get in on the journey there.

Playing with my friend in her house and being made to go into the garden and wait while they all ate sandwiches for lunch then being let back in when they had finished.

Feeling a nuisance even though I was almost mute with fear, trying to not make a sound so as not to annoy them and hope that maybe they might like me. Never asking for anything and keeping out of their way.

Obviously there was DV, abuse, neglect and a crap home life at home growing up. Adults were just fucking horrible everywhere I went.

Remembering this has made me the total opposite towards children who visit our house as I remember this so clearly.

What do you recall? Good, bad, funny?

We used to eat each other out of house and home. We took it in turns to go to each other’s houses and would just play. We were all poor so it never mattered how untidy and scruffy our houses and gardens were.

We were so poor we once had a goat in the front yard to cut our grass. A few families on the street shared it!!

No, lot further south but they cpild well have been a relative of these guys

Always had great memories of being at friends houses. Everyone had lovely parents. I always feed DS's friends!

I had this. Id played after school at a girls house who was supposedly my friend. She was quite well off but looking back - the family was incredibly dysfunctional and as an adult, she is not in a good way.

We’d been playing after school and it came to dinner time it was like a switch went and all of a sudden, I was completely ignored. Literally it was like I didn’t exist. I went to follow them into the kitchen and the door was shut in my face. While my own home wasn’t great, when people were round, everyone was included and fed! So this was absolutely alien to me. I got my coat and walked all the way home. They’d not noticed id gone until id already been home for quarter of an hour and her mother phoned my mother in a panic that I was lost! My mother gave her both barrels and I never went there again. I can remember it like it was yesterday though.

Tent sleepovers in back garden
board games
sylvanian families!
crisps- we weren’t allowed them at home

We grew up on a big council estate where all the kids used to knock about together so, by the time you’d included younger siblings, there was usually a gang of 15+ kids playing outside in all weathers from dusk til dawn, or in someone’s back garden every now & again. None of us had a pot to pee in, so none of the parents looked down on any of us, and not one of them would dream of excluding any kid from a meal, even if it was just toast. I have very happy memories of various mums coming outside in the summer with handfuls of ice poles to share between us. It was pretty idyllic to be honest. Lots of friends, everyone looking out for each other, always kids to play with. And of course we bickered, but everyone’s mum would just yell at us to behave ourselves or come indoors, so we always got over it very quickly.

I did have one posh friend from school and we’d spend a bit of time at each other’s houses until secondary school, when she went to a fee paying school and we lost touch. I remember that her mum was always nice to me and made me feel welcome. She’d often take us out to places and would pay for me without making me feel like a burden. I think it was company for her daughter and free child care for her during the school holidays when she’d come to our house. She always seemed quite lonely and it made me appreciate where I lived.

For sure!!

I was invited to a birthday sleepover in primary school with some other children for a girl called Sally. She wasn't one of my "usual" friends but I still went. I distinctly remember the food we were given (fish fingers and then rum and raisin ice cream), and that her dad, who I thought was really odd, read us a biblical bedtime story. In the morning, he took us to the park to do some exercise, but luckily my mum turned up, so I had to miss out. It was very strange.

Another time I remember going to a friends house, painting our nails black and getting it all over the carpet. Her mum must have been furious with us.

This was all in the 90's.

Sorry to hear your story OP, it's not the child's fault in situations like this, and it's a shame the families didn't realise that you likely needed a bit of love and care instead of being made to feel like a financial burden.

Child of the 70s here.

Our house was tidier and my mother would never have had underwear drying on the radiators.

But the biggest memory, the food. Angel Delight at one friends and at another one the Mum made hedgehog pie - which translates to sausage and mash.

My mother was working, I was a proper latchkey child, most of my friends had their someone to pick them up and some snacks after school.

I had the whole empty place to myself.

I was born 1958.. l had two best friends on the street.. one I'm still friends with.. my parents were friends with their parents.. whenever l went to theirs or they came to mine we were always fed if whenever the family was eating.
We went on day trips out and vice versa. My friend whom I'm still friends with .. her Dad was an ice cream man ( Italian) so was always lots of ice cream.
My Dad used to make go carts and stilts and other things for myself and friends ( he was a carpenter). Friends wanted to play in my garden because l had a swing and sea saw and climbing frame he built.
We were a great street with friendly neighbours and big get togethers at bonfire night etc.
When my daughters were young .. l was the same.. all friends made welcome and loads of sleep overs.. when they started going clubbing.. I'd get up on a Sunday morning to about 8 other teenagers asleep in the living room.. l loved it.

This is me.

I can remember having rice for the first time at a friend's house.

I had salami for the first time at a friend’s house. We were a boring meat and 3 (boiled until mushy) veg family! 😂

Thats awful OP. I was an 80s kid and spent most of the summer holidays at my best friends house or her at mine. We treated each others houses as our own. Her whole family came to ours for boxing day every year. If she was at mine and I got a new dress, she got one too. If I was at hers and they were going on holiday, I went too. If I was at other friends and they were having tea they made me tea too and vice versa. I never once give that type of thing a thought. In hindsight I realise I had quite a blessed childhood. There was always food warmth and love, we are a very close family and have very close family friends. My friends mums were my mums friends and our grandparents were friends too. The 80s was a different world. I'm disgusted at your parents and your friends parents.

Mum tried her best, but home was far from ideal. From age 10-12 I practically moved myself into my friends house, not full but I went round for tea 4/5 day a week and slept over most weekends. Literally no discussion of this with the parents or awareness of how much of the piss I was taking. Wasn't until yeas later I really understood how much that family did for me.

I had a bunch of friends I would go and see but we had a nanny who would organised everything. We’d go on trips out and picnics in the park. She even took us swimming. It was great fun as you were with your mates. It was pretty much like that until I went away to school at 12.

Then I made new friends ( which I still see today ) but me and my sisters would spent long summers at our grandparents in Provence.

Home and school were two totally separate worlds. My parents and grandparents were caring and lovely but I was happy at school and I thrived there. It was busy and crazy. And it was both boys and girls 🤭.

My strongest memory is of the first time I ever went back to a friends for "tea" and they served us fish fingers and potato waffles. I was totally freaked out as I had never in my life seen either food, and didn't eat it. When my mum picked me up I told her and said "fish don't even have fingers" 😂
My family are French and my Mum being from a little mountain village and recently having moved to the UK cooked very traditionally French stuff and I had never had any frozen beige food, or even seen it!
After that, when I had friends for tea to my house I would beg my mum to cook fish fingers so other kids didn't thing we were weird! (She did,disaster averted!)

I remember being sat at a table at a friend's house (must have been about 8 years old) and one of their giant Great Danes put it's jaws around my arm for a few seconds. It shocked me but it didn't draw blood. The mum just laughed it off.

I don't know how anyone could be so cold as to make a child wait without any food or drink, while their family is having a meal. The adults were horrid to do that. I remember my friend having a sweetie box which her mum brought out after we had tea. Her mum asked if we had a sweetie box at home (no). I thought it was a brilliant idea. I also remember going to town with them and in Tammy girl her mum bought us both luminous yellow cycling shorts. I don't think my mum ever took me to Tammy girl either so that was a treat.

We weren't allowed to. My f was controlling/abusive and didn't want us having contact with anyone outside of school.

We weren't allowed to have visitors (he wasn't having people judging him in his own home). I wouldn't have invited anyone anyway. Too ashamed.

It was another era, although I am sure there are still plenty suffering the same due to vile parents. I am careful always to invite all ds' friends and have spare kit if I can, for those that turn up without.

Surely if you invite another child somewhere you’re paying for them? I’d never invite my dc’s friends to go somewhere with us and expect them to bring money to pay for themselves! It’s awful that they just left you outside!

I do remember going to one friend’s house after school on a Friday and having to sit on my own in the living room while my friend did “homework hour” in their bedroom. I didn’t really understand why we couldn’t do it together if they really had to do it immediately after school. Then I got half an hour with my friend before their dinner was ready and I had to sit there on my own again while they all ate. Then it was time for me to go home. Just seemed a bit pointless for them to have invited me round!

Another friend had a beautiful huge living room but nobody was allowed in it so the whole family squeezed into a tiny room instead. It was literally two two seater sofas facing each other with about 15cm between them. You had to stagger legs with the person opposite you and look sideways to watch the tv which was on the end wall. I felt really uncomfortable sitting in there!

Another friend had cream leather sofas and I wasn’t allowed to sit down because I was wearing jeans so just loitered uncomfortably. The carpet was also cream so I didn’t dare sit on that either in case it was the colour that meant I wasn’t allowed to sit down. Nobody suggested an alternative place for me to sit so it was really awkward.

Apart from that I think all my experiences were normal!

Your experiences sound disgraceful. It is not normal for a family to send a guest into the garden while the hosts sit inside and eat their sandwiches, its not normal to take a child to a play area and make them wait outside, you normally pay for the child. The people whose house you went to sound disgraceful. Im sorry you went through that.

I recall dancing in the living room to Take That videos, playing out and having tea....with them!! .....at the table !!!

Primary school was awkward, I remember being invited round the friends houses and being sent out whilst they are too. This was in the 1980's

Secondary was nicer, I particularly used to spend a lot of time with one friend who was an only child to the loveliest single mum. She was so welcoming.

As a parent, I've always remembered the unwelcoming early years and how much I appreciated my teens, so I've always made my house a welcoming one. Always have a bit of extra food it - nothing fancy, just frozen pizzas/chicken gougons etc. I just wouldn't want any of my DS's friends having the same awkwardness that I had!

@MrsNandortheRelentless

OP I'm so sorry for the unhappy childhood you had. Your painful memories jump out of your post - I found this

Playing with my friend in her house and being made to go into the garden and wait while they all ate sandwiches for lunch then being let back in when they had finished.

particularly sad. Not only were you neglected by your parents but humiliated by the adults in whose home you were in.

I know money can be very tight (remember my own childhood where I quickly learned not to ask for things my parents couldn't afford, school trips, shoes, a new dress...) but really could they not have pitied that child and an extra sandwich and a glass of milk or squash? Shame in them and your parents too. I hope you were able to get away from them at an early stage in your life for a better future. 🌹