Teen stories from the 90s (or earlier) that would never be allowed today

[Martinii]

And most for good reason!

My sister who was 15/16 in 1997 told me the story of when her and her friends (same age) used to go to/hang out at a blokes flat to smoke fags and weed, he was 26. One of her friends was shagging his his upstairs neighbour, also 26, and one day (whilst the girls were playing truant) the guy upstairs's girlfriend went storming upstairs and caught them. She threw a glass at my sisters friend, cutting her face.

The guy downstairs apparently drove them to a&e where she received some butterfly stitches (all in their school uniform) then dropped them off at school 🤔 No way would anyone get away with this nowadays without serious questions!

Do you have any teen stories you'd never get away with nowadays?

Some of these stories are shocking! So little child protection even in schools.

It makes me wonder if we as parents have gone to the other extreme; very over protective as we don’t want the same things to happen to our children?

£10 nights at our local rock club. Paid for entry and unlimited booze once you were in. Seems utter madness now!

When I was 14 we had an annual school exchange trip to France. The French students came here for 2 weeks and stayed with English students families then we went to France and stayed at the homes of the French kids for 2 weeks. No checks were ever done that these homes were safe, who exactly lived there and where students would be sleeping etc, it was just presumed that everything was OK and we never thought to question it. Luckily my French family were lovely people and I felt quite safe but the morning after the first night in France, one of my classmates arrived at the French school in a terrible state. The night before she'd practically had to barricade herself in her bedroom at the French students house where she was staying, a remote farm in a very rural area, as the dad and brothers had all tried get into her bedroom at some stage during the night. She was immediately removed from the house and had to stay where our teachers were staying for the rest of the trip but there were no investigations by our teachers etc it was just never mentioned again and the rest of us weren't asked if we felt safe where we were staying. There's no way I'd let my 14 year old daughter/son move in with a family in another country who I'd never met!

My £1 dinner money used to buy me 10 fags and a box of matches each morning on the way to school! Dressed in full school uniform aged 13-14 😳

Just remembered another one. There was a massive girl guide/scout Jamboree in Lincoln in 1977, so I'd be 14. You could buy cigarettes and booze on site and the discos went on until 2am. My friend and I had a threesome with a guy in the middle of the main showground...

Wow, how many cigarettes would £2.30 (?) dinner money get you now?

As 6th formers going to the pub with the 'trendy' English teachers.

So saddened by how many of
these stories described Grooming / statuary rape
so very sad
praying this is now a very rare occurrence and not something that happens very regularly.

ps. All the parents described as ‘not minding’ about the much older boyfriends absolutely failed in their parenting and I wonder what the hell they were thinking tbh

The type of parents who were shit in the 90’s at caring for their kids are still going to be shit today .

I know I look back at some things and think

a) that was wrong
and
b) what the hell were my parents thinking?

I just remember it being a time where schoolgirls in uniforms were still sexualised in quite an everyday way. e.g the Britney video but also Page 3 was still something everyone kind of accepted and often featured young women with references to their school days - either in words or by half dressing them in uniforms etc.

I think also parents tended to be younger back then and risk acceptance is something that is quite high when you are young and goes down as you age - so older parents are probably more risk adverse, I would think. Mine were 21 and 23 when I was born and they say that was totally normal for the time. Not everyone was having kids at that age but enough that it was not seen as weird to. As the average age of first time parents has got older, I could imagine so could their cautiousness.

@Smokeysgirl my school did French exchange too. The girl who stayed with me spoke barely any English and cried every night for 2 weeks because she was homesick. I refused to go when it was our turn as she lived on a farm in the middle of nowhere and I just didn't want to. Two girls who did go lost their virginity to random French boys while they were there.

@MermaidEyes Sounds so similar to what happened with my school. The French girls were definitely much more "adventurous" than us English and encouraged us to get up to stuff with the local lads etc Plus we had total freedom, I hardly saw my penfriend's parents as they worked all hours and we even hung around with some soldiers from the local army base who got wind of our visit. The teachers weren't interested, they were staying in the homes of the French teachers and spent most of their time drinking wine, totally oblivious as to what we were all getting up to!

@Smokeysgirl I really can't imagine that now! And even without safeguarding, my kids would absolutely hate the idea of staying in a house with complete strangers!

So so many.
Teachers going to pub at lunchtime and teaching drunk in the PM.
Spending lunchtime in the pub at 16, clubbing at over 21s clubs at 16.
Hanging out down the YMCA aged 15 with the 20 year old blokes.
Teachers clearly abusing teenagers that thought they were in relationships! 😵😵
Catching a bus with group of friends to a place 250 miles away for the weekend and staying in a youth hostel together.
We were the "good" kids!

Loving this thread. All these adventures with no contact with your parents. Couldn’t imagine that today!

Hitch hiking was another thing which seems to have almost died out. Didn’t go it myself but my db used to hitchhike to and from university. Guess people get cars at a much younger age now.

I think hitch hiking has died out because we're all much more aware of the dangers of getting in cars with random strange men!

The number concept is about unprotected sex, in which case it’s true in relation to STIs if you have unprotected sex because you can pick up an infection that a previous partner passed to the person you’re sleeping with.

Oh my god yes - we were taken to Paris when we were in 6th form, given a lunch allowance we spent on beer and just let loose for hours at a time with instructions just to make our way back to the bus (obvs no phones, don’t remember having a map)

I think access to social media has made a huge difference, if a teen did something like get completely pissed or whatever back then it’d be forgotten about in a week or so, now it’d be filmed shared online and all over WhatsApp groups etc. I think it’s made teens much more aware of behaviour/actions.

And it was impossible to know where anyone was when with no mobiles, once you were out you were out and that was that!

I agree. They are over protected now, kids need to learn how to deal with real life situations but cant if they are not exposed to it. Plus they need to have fun! Most of the stories here are about young girls drinking and clubbing and pursuing relationships because they enjoyed it first and foremost. They weren't groomed or coerced into it, they chose it unlike kids today who would not be allowed for their own protection.

Me and my best mate used to get picked up from the school gates after morning registration by two motorway maintenance workmen in their van. We were 15 and they were 20-22 ish. We would go back to their minging caravan and spend the day getting stoned and fucking like rabbits. If we weren't with them in the day time we would be shopping in Liverpool, spending all our part time wages in Quiggins buying rainbow cigarette paper by the roll. We would go clubbing in town, dressed up to the nines with £10 between us and come home without having bought a single drink all night. We would hitch hike and get in strangers cars and we took the most ridiculous risks but we had a total blast.

I forgot about going abroad with the school. I'm sure they used a group passport. Not sure if they are still a thing . I didn't have a proper passport until I was 18.

We visited Paris when we were 12/13. I remember been told we can go off for a certain length of time and been given a meeting place and time. The same happened on a day trip to Edinburgh, but we just went to McDonald’s.

I went on a French exchange when I was 14. I'm glad my teen didn't do anything like that as I wouldn't like a stranger in my house. They all smoked in France , and drank wine with their evening meal . All us English ones were binge drinking.

We went sailing there, and myself and one of the girls from my school were let loose in a small boat in the middle of the Mediterranean without idea what we were doing. The thought scares me now.

So much of this resonates , nicking make up from the local chemist , clubbing at 13 much older boyfriends and much more...I grew up in a seaside/ party town in cornwall. So bad when I think about it now. Wouldn't trade it for being a teenager now though!

Wow, reading some of these stories is scary!

Yeah, but most of us survived unscathed and with memories that make us smile. Is that good or bad?