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

I was born in the early 70s and tbh my childhood was not dissimilar similar to my dc's in terms of parental activities and supervision. I don't think we really had the free-range, benign neglect thing going on. Certainly no silos or inappropriate men! Dad was at work long hours including a commute. Mum did housework and cooking etc. She went back to work when we were a bit older. They had a pretty decent social life.

Indeed, my mum didn’t work until I was about 10. The average family home cost about £5000 in the 1970s, and the income to cost of living ratio was wildly different to now.

Funny how buying the daily newspapers was their way of getting a news fix, just as we pick up our phones when we wake up!

This.

I think it was more boring and lonely. It was easier to get your shit together though as you didn't have endless messages about parenting, being a woman, being a good human etc etc.

People communicated with their neighbours a lot more and got involved with their community. Where I lived, anyway. I remember mum writing long letters to her friends, enclosing bad quality photos (that had taken two weeks to be developed and posted back).

You knew where your mates were based on whose house had the most bikes strewn outside it 😂

Doing everything themselves, and properly. My mum cleaned a room every day – but PROPERLY cleaned, as in moved the furniture, polished the silver, washed all the ornaments, emptied the cupboards and wiped them out, took down the net curtains to wash, cleaned the windows inside and out – the kind of cleaning most of us do a couple of times a year, not every day. She also baked everything from scratch and we had dinner and a home made pudding every day. And of course no dishwasher or tumble dryer so everything took longer. I never ever saw her watching TV or reading or anything.

I wouldn’t want to live like that and I don’t see it as morally better than the way I live, but it was certainly a busy life.

Ironing the antimacassars

Bryl creaming their hair (hence the antimaccasars)

Getting through their 40 Richmond a day

Watching John Wayne Movies

Doing the Pools

Washing the car by hand - a very competitive sport amongst the neighbours

Reading actual newspapers

Having actual phone conversations

My mum seemed to be doing housework constantly and often unnecessarily, and grovelling around my dad who was a bastard.

My dad did whatever he liked, didn’t work most of the time, did some gardening and diy and ‘fixed things’, watched tv.

Very little care, interest or attention to what we were doing. They seemed to enjoy shouting at us and barking orders. A lot of my friends say their parents were the same, that generation of parents were terrible on the whole imo.

It’s on the way back! I just made a pot of tea, I’m reading, and I and many others have moved “worrying about being nuked” up the to-do list.

My father was working in catering eqpt sales and my mother ran our chip shop. She also made our tea, went to the launderette as we didn't have a washing machine. Dad also played bass in a band at weekends so more laundry. Yet clean clothes and laundry appeared as if by magic and I was loved. As a parent now I never appreciated it all but I'm sure that applies to us all. Those who had difficult times with parents I can only feel for you. Those formative years shouldn't have been a trial

My Dad was mostly at work or at the golf club. My Mum didn't work and I remember her cooking, cleaning, shopping and watching tv.

Now I have kids I wouldn't be happy if my OH was out golfing whilst I ran the house but that's what my Mum and her friends did.

Dad watching football, having affairs, doing as little work as possible. Mum working.

then dad watching football, stepmom working, both drinking lots of wine and watching tv.

What a lovely thread: I was born in 1972 and so much of this rings true.

i grew up on a farm (where there were obviously multiple opportunities to inflict serious harm or death on oneself as a child left to roam alone). My dad was mostly working, gardening or doing DIY. My mum worked ft as a teacher. She cooked, baked, marked in the evenings. Both of them played badminton in a club and had ‘supper’ with friends ie lots of drinks, sausage rolls and mini pizzas, then driving home with us in the back seat, usually asleep. They also hosted lots of family birthday events plus contests my Christmas etc as we had the biggest house.

Both parents, working.
Supermarkets and DIY at weekends.

I was born in ‘74. Dad was military so he was working or in the the mess drinking. Mum couldn’t drive so was stuck on whatever estate we were living on at the time. Proper dinners every night, knitting, sewing, she joined clubs like quilting but also sports like netball, organising wive’s club, baking, making wine from blackberries or tins from Boots. There would be a lot of gardening as we would always inherit a jungle when we moved quarters. Next person got my mum’s lovely veg patches and flower beds. My mum always seemed so posh compared to the other wives. She should have married an officer.

I remember my mum reading a lot and watching the soaps. She didn’t do a lot of cleaning, the basics, it wasn’t dirty. She hated cooking. When dad died and we moved out she never cooked another meal. Lived on snacks and sandwiches.

looking back I think she was frustrated with her life. She was very bright, got into grammar school and got a good job in the civil service but had to give it up when she adopted me and my brother in the late 60s.

Washing by hand. Black & white TV. Hanging washing outside on makeshift clotheslines. Mum baking all the time - and lots of boiled food - boiled potatoes, boiled cabbage, greens, pies made from scratch & horrible stew which I hated. We had an old crappy metro which all five of us got in. We drove for outings on a Sunday - here there and everywhere. Driving was a thing.

No central heating so we used to light the fires downstairs and we had gas fires in each bedroom which were really old and dangerous, & we had to light them with matches. If you watched TV it was a family affair on a Fri/Sat night and you had Top of the Pops, Blind Date etc.

It always amuses me that "lazy parenting" is seen as a modern phenomenon. Parenting nowadays seems much more labour-intensive than it used to be a few decades ago!

Standing in the hall on the phone for at least 20 mins per call. About 2 - 3 calls a day.

Grocery shopping almost every day, maybe butchers one day, greengrocers the next. Taking a long time to prepare a meal or batch cook for the next day.

Reading the newspaper cover to cover.

What they were not doing:

• sending each other links, reading those links, sending messages about the links and eventually making a decision on where to go for dinner in 3 weeks time or what toaster to buy

• standing freezing making small chat with strangers while watching their children play, then flinging a highly processed meal together because its now late and child is cranky. Then deciding tomorrow the kids needs a good wholesome meal so they can go on tablets while it's being prepared as sadly children playing and house work are now mutually exclusive.

• driving a child to and from a local activity with a toddler in tow and sitting in the car with toddler for a hour, although said activity is 15 minutes walk for an 8 year old.

As you can tell I'm firmly in favour of the older ways, my parents were strict, we certainly weren't allowed play in dangerous places and as teens never went out drinking or hanging out with boys. But we had physical freedom as children and were sent out to play until hunger or darkness brought us home. We were always greeted with a smile and would tell of our adventures. I often think how much less stressed my mother was because she had head space time which I am not permitted as a modern mother.

My mum doing housework and my dad watching footy

This is similar to my adventure. I missed the school bus home and was completely unsocialised (shit parents) so it was terrifying. I caught a bus that turned up an hour later and was told I was going the wrong way so the conductor put me off at the next stop. I had absolutely no idea how to get home. Some time later kind old lady took me in and made me a cup of tea then put me on the correct bus home. Three and a half hours had passed and I thought the parents might have missed me but no, never even noticed.

Working.

Hand washing clothes and then spin drying before hanging them out.

Regularly shopping as we only had a tiny freezer section in our fridge.

Cooking from scratch.

Watching a black and white tv.

Using the phone box until we got a telephone.

Walking, cycling or travelling by bus as no car.

Trundling to the petrol station with a shopping basket on wheels for paraffin for our heaters.

Yup, ignoring children, it's ignoring children. Whether it's in their home or outside.

@EatCrow, crikey, that sounds very scary

Working all the fucking hours god sends trying to build my career after taking a year's maternity leave in an industry where many people were very sniffy and asked why anyone would have children and then pay someone else to look after them.
Luckily I had a supportive, similarly hard working DH and great child care so I was reasonably successful. And that attitude seems to have died out now, at least in public.

Dad was either working, bowling, watching the news or reading the paper. Mum was working, constantly cleaning, ironing, wringing the washing out through a mangle 😁 (70s), watching Emmerdale Farm.