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

146 replies

coxesorangepippin · 19/04/2024 22:01

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

OP posts:
greengreyblue · 20/04/2024 09:14

This is interesting. I was born in 71, the last of 3 chn. Mum was mainly a sahm. As soon as I was 5 I was allowed to play out with my siblings and all the other chn in our small pedestrianised road. We’d be up the fields at the back of our houses, making dens, playing ‘run outs’, acting out Grease!🤣
Mum would come and stand at the corner when we had to go in. We’d always get called in before anyone else to get washed up for dinner then bath. We’d moan we could hear the others still outside when we ( all 3 at once ) were in the bath. Happy days. Mum always made nice dinners and made lots of our clothes. Obviously we were at school in the week and mum would walks miles to pick us up then we’d all walk home together. Dad would drop us off in the morning.

user1471538283 · 20/04/2024 09:16

My DF worked long hours. My DM did laundry on Mondays, made dinner, sat around drinking tea, doing little bits of housework and going out with her affair partners. But she was always so busy apparently. But then her idea of busy was doing one very small thing a day like going to the store and buying ham.

I was home from school sick one day and whilst I was in the lounge she sat at the dining table drinking tea all day. I remember thinking she does nothing. When my DS was sick I looked after him.

Most of my friends had mothers that worked full time and still managed the tiny amount of things she did.

Italianita · 20/04/2024 09:16

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piscofrisco · 20/04/2024 09:18

Gardening. Or at work.

Sandalwoodrose · 20/04/2024 09:18

Dad - Working full time
Brewing home beer in the cupboard under the stairs
Tinkering in the shed
Various DIY jobs
Mending the car
Walking the dog
Mowing the lawn
Down the allotment
Mum - Working full time
Talking to friends on the phone (for hours)
Cooking from scratch
washing
Getting us kids to do the housework
She didn't really do much for fun or have actual hobbies, except people, she was a people person (still is).

Desecratedcoconut · 20/04/2024 09:19

Working and sleeping after a night shift. There was a remarkable number of people sleeping after a night shift. Bounce a ball on a wall a few times and they'd all be handing out of their bedroom window telling you to clear off.

TheLurpackYears · 20/04/2024 09:22

Single-handedly earning a living and running a home.
As an adult we talked and she thought I was safe.

Octavia64 · 20/04/2024 09:24

Both worked full time.

Both teachers so had marking/planning/prep to do at weekends.

Dad never voluntarily spent time with us.

Mum was also dealing with elderly relatives - dad's mum moved up to be near us when I was 11 and she was pretty frail. She came over to us every weekend and my dad would just completely ignore her.

My brother and I when not at school would be running wild with a whole group of kids. Dad didn't care what we did and mum thought we were safe because there was a whole group of us.

She did drill into us not to go certain places on our own - blokes with knives etc.

Youdontknowmedoyou · 20/04/2024 09:31

I'm not sure. Dad worked a lot, mum did a bit of working from home and cleaned, cooked, knitted, and so on. They both had wine in the evenings. They weren't hands on as in parenting but we weren't allowed to hang out or have friends round so much was done during allowed clubs and school hours. I fit a lot in in a short time and learnt the hard way because of lack of parenting due to having evil siblings who caused them not to care. It's not fun to look back.

JustRollWithIt · 20/04/2024 09:39

Mum - Hauling the twin tub out the cupboard, hoovering with a green bagged 'hoover', baking cakes with white icing and sprinkles, and endless cups of tea with a tea strainer
Dad - Working then pub for a pint

ArseholeCatIsABlackAndWhiteCat · 20/04/2024 09:43

Watched telly (A LOT) ,read the paper , pottered about, cooked , chores. That's in the afternoon after work.

ConnectFortyFour · 20/04/2024 09:53

I walked home everyday a mile through country lanes from primary school. When I got home my mother was usually lying on the sofa listening to radio 4. I was followed once by a dubious man who wanted to hold my hand and I had to be rescued by a passer by.

they really were different times

JasmineTea11 · 20/04/2024 09:54

My parents were busy campaigning to ban the bomb, save the pits and free Nelson Mandela. All very well intentioned but ultimately fruitless.

greengreyblue · 20/04/2024 09:57

Just remembered though mum was primarily a sahm in the 70s she did things like lampshade fringing at home. The frames would get delivered and she got paid per shade! She occasionally helped out at school . This was pre TA era.

Usou · 20/04/2024 09:57

Playing bingo and going to working men's clubs!

The kids all hung around in a big tribe on the street. One major difference was no school run. I only realised looking at this thread that I never saw kids get dropped to school by car even when I left school in the 70s. At the age of 5 or 6 we were put into a group with some older kids (8?) and walked the 30 minutes to school. Even at secondary it was bus or bike.

As numerous pps have mentioned, life was far less technical. No CH, one TV, one car maybe, no big supermarkets - everything took longer.

andHelenknowsimmiserablenow · 20/04/2024 09:59

Drinking beer in front of the TV.
Chatting to neighbours.
Reading the paper.
Hauling the twin tub out and attaching the hoses to the taps on wash days.
Sweeping the front.
Going to co op.

sockarefootwear · 20/04/2024 10:10

My parents shared one car, which Dad had for work all week so mum went everywhere on foot or on the bus which made things take longer. Also, before really big supermarkets food shopping involved going to several shops. When they first started doing a weekly 'big shop' at a supermarket in the next town this was a major event that took several hours every weekend.

In the 80s they (and seemingly everyone else) became slightly obsessed with home brew (wine and beer). They bought kits but it still involved endless hours doing... who knows... with large glass containers of murky looking liquid all at different stages in the process. This also meant that as teenagers we could sneak one of the many bottles of slightly iffy wine without anyone noticing.

Mrsjayy · 20/04/2024 10:10

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Really ?all the women I knew worked proper jobs although my mum had 2 as I mentioned, my Gran was a widow and worked up until she was 68,

isthismylifenow · 20/04/2024 10:11

Itradehorses · 19/04/2024 22:23

Standing in line at the bank to cash cheques. Doing the Friday big shop. Working. Not outsourcing all the cleaning, car valeting etc. Running errands. Seeing a man about a dog. Et cetera.

😂 yes my mum was always seeing a man about a dog. To this day I still don't know what she was actually doing. We didn't get a dog 😂

My dad worked away mostly and my mum was either having more babies (no prizes for what she did when dad was home), cooking, baking, doing the shop and then there was the one whole day at the start of each month that was paying the bills. It did really take a whole day as we had accounts everywhere. The chemist, the butcher, the local clothes shop you name it.

Actually the clothing shop we didn't buy the clothes there and then. We would go in and book out what we fancied on appro, then take them home to try on. They were all filled in in a book, and then what wasn't wanted went back to the shop and the items kept on appro were added to the account.

My mother was always doing something though. She never seemed to just sit down. Or lay on the couch in front of the telly. Or read Actually I don't even remember her watching telly. I had a wardrobe of dolls clothes that she had knitted and sewn, she did pottery, made some of our clothes, knitted winter jumpers, chatted to the neighbour at the fence disguised as lending her a cup of sugar. She would go to the library and take out records and then she would play them to death until it it was time for them to to back. And we had to go straight there first, as we couldn't have a record in the car long, as the heat in the car would warp it. And she wasn't parting with any money that she didn't need to.

And here I cannot sew or knit for love nor money.

I miss those days.

EBearhug · 20/04/2024 10:12

We didn't have a TV till the late '80s

Dad mostly worked. Sometimes went out to NFU meetings and to give blood. I remember helping him count out the weekly wages (brown envelopes laid across the desk, payslip on top, then notes and coins and all double checked before being put into the envelope and sealed.) He also seemed to go to a lot of funerals - I think he was often representing the farm. Also at weekends, he cut the grass and did the fruit and veg side of the garden.

Mum did all the housework (including the twin tub,) and shopping. I remember rainy days in the holidays where the kitchen table was covered with newspaper and we cleaned all the brass and silver stuff. In summer, we also prepared lots of soft fruit there (topping and tailing) for the freezer, and vegetables, especially runner beans. And the Christmas cake and Christmas puddings were mixed there, everyone taking a turn and making a wish.

Mum sewed a lot of our clothes when we were little - there were a lot of hand-me-downs, too. And she knitted a lot

She also had an NHR group (National Housewives Register - think it's the Nationsl Women's Register these days.) They read books like the Female Eunuch and had a baby sitting circle. I still send Christmas cards to a couple of those women. She was secretary for the local WEA. She did a meals-on-wheels round for the WRVS. She did books-on-wheels for the library (we got taken round too in the school holidays, because her old ladies liked seeing how we were growing - and it helped get me my first Saturday job at the library, as I knew a lot about their behind-the-scenes services.) She was a PT secretary for the local agricultural show. She did various AdEd classes over the years, particularly literature ones. She took us to Brownies and swimming club - and became a lifeguard and swimming teacher, so many school hols were spent up the pool - basically free childcare. Saturday mornings was music club. And later she was involved with the local gardening club.

Sundays we all went to church where Dad was a church warden (the parish was basically the farm) until it was made redundant, but he was still involved with one-off services like Christmas carols (as were we.) They were both also in the PTA at school (Dad later became a governor) and were very involved with fundraising.

They also had big parties once or twice a year - parents downstairs, we kids either upstairs (winter) or in the garden (summer.) If it was going on late, there would be loads of children in sleeping bags across the bedroom floor while they carried on downstairs.

And in the summer after work/school, we'd sometimes go down to the sea for a swim. Occasionally, Dad would come, too. I also remember some wonderful picnic teas in the harvest field.

It was just busy all the time, everyone doing their own things. There was a lot of coordination in our teenage years, sharing lifts with other parents for swimming club/guides/YFC/DofE as well as their own things. Once in a while, Dad's NFU meetings would coincide with my YFC meetings, both up at the local ag coll, but mostly it was more complicated.

itsmylife7 · 20/04/2024 10:16

What will your children be saying when they're adults......What were my Parents doing while I was in my room on the Internet?

Sewaccidentprone · 20/04/2024 10:16

Twin tub washing machine, small fridge with minute freezer, shopping done in person, no car, no phone.

i remember endless hours of helping with clothes washing in the twin tubs and hanging everything out. Plus it leaked, so the floor needed constant mopping.

there were 3 adults and 2 children in the house on with one wage and one state pension, plus child benefit.

there was loads of cooking as everything was made from scratch (apart from bread, bought from the local bakers).

my dad used to pickle his own veg ie beetroot, onions etc for the winter when there wasn’t as much choice.

going to the bank to withdraw money took an hour or so to walk there and back. But not at lunchtime when it was closed.

walking to the post office to collect child benefit and my grans pension.

i was expected to help as the eldest child and remember spending what felt like hours peeling potato’s

the rest of the time we’d just go where we wanted - explored for miles

my dad made us a go cart and we used to go bombing down the middle of the road ( it had a brake). It was very steep and quite scary sometimes. They were very few cars in the 70’s

Bigearringsbigsmile · 20/04/2024 10:17

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Not for working class women!! Small part time jobs don't pay the bills

LunaTheCat · 20/04/2024 10:19

BrieHugger · 19/04/2024 22:09

Not worrying about where we were or what we were doing, because there was no way of checking and therefore no point.

Not doing endless electronic admin or fannying about resetting passwords and technology. Or ordering mundane stuff.

Not spending hours a day chatting on internet forums / browsing things to buy / researching endless shit.

It must have been LOVELY

I think you are absolutely right!
Plus. They probably weren’t working all-the-hours-god-sends just to pay the mortgage.. one working adult could support a family.

TheCatOnTheBedIsAllMineAllMine · 20/04/2024 10:19

Working full time
Shopping
Launderette
Rolling fags
Betting shop
Watching Dad’sArmy

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