What were the parents doing, whilst we were all rolling down silos and meeting inappropriate men?

[coxesorangepippin]

What were the parents of the 70s/80s/90s doing whilst we were all 'playing out?'

🤔

Tea can't have taken that long to make?

I do remember my mother having a lot of baths, and my dad reading books on trains

Rural childhood . Dad was a tenant farmer and mum took all the runts of piggies lambs etc and raised them at the house .. she baked and cleaned and read a lot of books.. also very active on various village committees.

At 7/8 ish I can remember saddling up next doors ponies and heading out all day to wander around the local roads and fields .. can't remember either sets of parents being around .. or having a clue where we were .. just instructions to be home for supper at 6pm and lunch was at 1pm if we wanted any ..

Working. DIY. House work. Gardening. Socialising with lots of booze and music.
Keep fit-aerobics, running or ‘conditioning classes’. Not involved much with schoolwork or school life. Not knowing where we were most of the time and certainly not knowing what we were up to or what substances we were taking 😝

Dm worked ft, summer gardened a bit, pm read (no TV), knitted, prepared lessons or went to meetings, weekends sometimes visited her friends, many siblings and their families with her dc.

Maybe did a bit of vacuuming, ( My aunt cooked /kept house/ did washing/shopping etc).Otherwise I don't know. I wasn't there to see. I was off out.

Df had left when I was 1.

Mine were playing squash!

Yes, my mum had neighbours round especially to look at the catalogue. God knows why there was only one between the whole street

My Dad was working long hours to avoid my SAHM, whilst funding her alcoholism.

You got there before me with the smoking!

Let's see.......

Mam was usually busy tending to my younger brother and she was also a carer for her elderly mother who lived with us. My parents never drove, so Mam would walk to the shop every day to buy groceries and fags for her large family. She's have a good natter to any friends or acquaintances she met there. We'd no central heating, so in winter she'd clear out the grate every day and set the fire. She listened to the radio a lot when I was small, but at some point she made the switch to daytime TV. She knitted a lot and would have knitted cardigans for us when we were small. Obviously when we became cool teenagers, we didn't want hand knitted stuff. She went to a ladies club one night a week - sometimes they put on shows. She smoked a lot. She read a lot too - lots of Mills & Boon. She'd a thing for Doctor Nurse romances. Sometimes she'd buy a magazine as a treat. She was a big Corrie fan. She liked to go into town on a Saturday and look around the shops.

Dad worked Monday - Friday. Weekends? I'm not sure, really. He did a lot of DIY stuff. I remember him painting walls and hanging wallpaper etc. I guess he maintained the garden also and mowed the lawn. He's a quiet chap and didn't go to pubs or meet up with friends. He visited his mother every Saturday night. He watched nature documentaries or astronomy programmes on TV and read a bit also - not Mills & Boon though.

To be fair, they brought us on day trips a good bit, especially in summer. We'd make a packed lunch and take the bus to the beach or the zoo. They tried to take us away for a holiday each year, even if it was just a week in a caravan.

Mum was either at work, or reading and baking and gardening.

Dad was in his study writing bad cowboy books, which oddly sold well in libraries and in Poland (no idea why...) or building his catamaran. Oh and looking after the house, including all laundry etc.

It's amazing they still love each other really.

This really made me laugh! YES parents doing sensible things while kids were off derring do - rowing boats on the sea against the tide, climbing cliffs, having bonfires ...

Working long hours
Washing clothes by hand
Maintaining a house without all the modern conveniences we take for granted
Cooking from scratch every day
Walking everywhere because we didn't have a car

My dad was either at work or in the pub

My mother would have been at work or sleeping on the sofa in front of a black and white film, or reading a Catherine Cookson novel.

My parents are mid/late 80s and I am mid fifties. They had 4 children, I am the youngest and we were young from 1960s to 1980s (10 years between me and my oldest sister). I was chatting to my parents just recently about their childhoods - they had no gas or electricity in their homes, just oil lamps downstairs and candles upstairs. They were born just before WWII began and knew nothing but rationing until their teens. Me and my siblings had so much freedom and got up to all sorts of stuff that would not be considered acceptable now, but given my parent's backgrounds, it's hardly surprising that they weren't helicopter parents. My own 3 DC were born from late 80s to early 00s and also had more freedom than kids do today. The youngest, less so, because it was less acceptable by the time he came along, but more than was usual at the time. I feel quite strongly that it's important for children's development to learn to cope with things by themselves. Yes, there are risks, but there are also risks to wrapping them up in cotton wool and not allowing independence. I'm convinced that's a big factor in the rise in mental health problems in young people. Anyway, when we were playing out, my parents were either working, or doing housework/DIY/gardening, or reading, doing crosswords, allsorts. Same for me with mine. Or just getting on with my life. I did 2 degrees when my older children were young and worked full time with the youngest. I think parents and children were both closer and less enmeshed. We did do stuff together (church, walks, trips out, occasional holidays), but we also had our own lives.

Dad was at the pub or at work. Mum was at the pub or at work.

Dad would be in the shed, nursing and fretting over his home brew, or hiding in the greenhouse with the paper.

Mum would be knitting or on the phone to her mum.

Both worked full time.

They both decided that my DF would make ginger beer one year (DM liked it). We were all sat having tea one evening and heard a series of explosions coming from the shed. Upon investigation, all the bottles of ginger beer had blown up in order like a row of dominos falling. You couldn't see through the shed window because of the beer. DF opened the door, a small river poured out of the shed and there was ginger beer dripping from the shed roof!

My mum was having an affair with the next door neighbour, my stepdad was at work and so was my Dad when he wasn't downing glasses of Brandy in the working men's club!

My mum was also really naive and didn't think I was capable of lying so really had no clue what I was doing or who with.

@OldTinHat That reads like a Tom Sharp novel!

knitting, sewing, cooking, working
in the garage, making computers
in later years having affairs- seemingly!!

Working but sporadic hours as a professional in the arts.
Metal detecting, photography and developing photographs in the cellar, homebrews with damsons and gooseberries, classic cars etc, magazines, music, cine films - making and watching, affairs, DIY, pub. DF

SAHM and then part time admin job, baking, cleaning, walking dogs, always on the phone. DM

Growing up in the 70s and 80s. I'm sure there must have been all the extra housework PPs mention but it didn't really feature in my mind. The thing I remember my DPs doing is really phenomenal, time-consuming, life-defining, friendship-cementing hobbies.

DF played instruments, sang with at least 3 groups and choirs. DM directed major shows. They sailed and walked. They had time to relax and read, every day. They tried crafts and skills. We kids just sort of got swept along to whatever they were doing, or vanished off to do our own thing.

They both had jobs, but didn't end up like DH and I at the end of the day, wrung out and collapsed on the sofa not doing anything apart from being a taxi for the kids. I think I'm doing this all wrong.

Your mum was the agent, she got discount/commission on others orders but on the flip side had the responsibility of sending off the orders and dealing with the item returns for things that didn't fit. The others could have been agents if they'd wanted but many preferred the convenience of someone else doing it all.

To be fair, I didn't pay much attention to my parents or their lives. What was going on with my friends or school or girl guides was my main concern. Sounds bad but I kind of saw my parents as permanent fixtures, like the furniture. I didn't really see them as people with their own hopes or dreams.

My dad would be making computer games and my mum would be gardening.

Working sleeping and drinking (him) my mum had a couple of pt jobs probably to make up for my Stepdads drinking I remember my mum napping a lot.

Standing in queues at the post office sorting out admin

Oh I remember my mum having a catalogue and everyone ordering from it,