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

Cleaning, cooking, sewing, looking after younger sibs, playing badminton over the back fence with the neighbours, gardening, shopping, going to the bank.

Well my dad would have been working and my mum doing normal household chores (and hopefully having time to relax a bit)! When very young my mum worked too, back in the day of cloth nappies and no washing machine/dishwasher and one telephone!

Growing pampas grass and socialising...happy the kids were out of the way 😉

Endless cups of tea and fags with the neighbours, food shopping, gardening, DIY, going to the pub, more cups of tea and fags, reading, bits of frantic cleaning here and there,baking, more tea and fags.

Some of the things people are citing as being olden days things are the way I live now though… I don’t have a dishwasher or a tumble dryer, I talk in the phone a lot, cook everything from scratch and share a car (had no car for years when kids were small) so maybe I live in the 70’s!

Our kids will say what about us?
We work from a desk in the corner of the lounge, never speak to the neighbours or our friends and spend all our time on our phones? Probably.

Mum working full time(gp), dad either working or down pub(I remember thinking when 8yrs that dad spends a lot of time in the pub)

Reading the newspaper. This seemed to take the whole afternoon.

Listening to radio 4.

Watching tv.

Fascinating thread.

Mother was working 3 mornings a week, walked back via the shops with the food shopping. Then reading, making dinner of meat and two veg or something traditional, joining us for kids TV at 4 quite often. More reading and TV when father got in from work. He kept a very neat garden, but they didn't have any hobbies beyond that.

This. I fell off my bike, lacerated my ankle-quite nasty, needed stitches and broke my arm, which swelled up hugely. Parents were in the pub. Luckily my aunt phoned and came round pretty damned quickly. My arm needed re-setting under a general.

I smashed my head open when I was 5, and my parents didn't take me to hospital, because it was too far... (still have a small bald spot at the back if my head.)

Dad was working
Mum was working. And also looking after the house, shopping, cooking etc

Everyone else's parents let their children go out so it wasn't frowned upon

I remember me and my brother sitting in the car outside the social club while our parents were inside having a drink. Every time I watch 'Early doors' and the woman asks for crisps for her kids in the car it makes me smile.
I dint think we were particularly bored. We played I spy etc and took turns in the drivers seat pretending to drive.

Fagging it

Gossiping with neighbours
Endless tea drinking
Eating/Cooking
Randon frantic cleaning whilst singing loud hymns (not even a religous family lmao)
Newspaper reading
Watching the same news on the tv 3 times a day.
Knitting/sewing
Radio
Catalogues
More cleaning
Trying to force feed us cake/sweets/ice cream etc then getting nasty if we refused (starving children in Africa comments were made)
Food shopping

and ironing!

So much ironing went on

That is true about the ironing. My mum still irons everything, including bedsheets. I think she has stopped doing pants now though in fairness to her.

I iron absolutely nothing, unless it's for a wedding / funeral / job interview.

This so much , for parents that both had to work , do housework and other tasks. There was no help at all . No help for childcare , housework right down to clean washing and doing laundry was a slog and then keeping the house warm enough with no heating . Funny the tories never believed in public services , how did they ever cope .

Are you joking ? Oh how the other half must have lived .

Cleaning, shopping, cooking, washing by hand, smoking, reading, making endless cups of tea, complaining about her ‘nerves’, hiding from the Provvy woman.

Dad was working during the day and ignoring us at night by gardening obsessively.

Mum didn’t work - none of my friends’ parents did - and spent a lot of time going to coffee mornings, buying Tupperware, smoking whilst doing the crossword and listening to Women’s Hour and Desert Island Discs.

In the garden, digging (always so much digging?). Or one in the shed and the other cooking.

My Mum spent all her time doing housework - it’s a working class pride thing. Everything was scrubbed and dusted and swept, my abiding childhood memory is of her standing at the sink, staring out into the street. I think she was lonely, the only friendly contact was when the other neighbours were hanging their washing out and they would chat over the fence. Even her job was as a part time cleaner, at night, alone.

No one was very interested in me or my siblings, we hung out in a big group of neighbourhood kids - we were each other’s family and support group in lieu of parents.

My Dad was at the pub every night and every weekend and when he was at home he was hidden behind a newspaper or doing the garden. I feel like my parents just went round and round in circles cleaning and digging things to pass the time.

I went to a friend’s house once and was shocked because her Mum was sat in an armchair smoking fags and reading a magazine - during the day. I thought she must have been ill or something - all the women I knew would never sit down, ever.

Also, they were fuelled by No6 Tips (cigarettes), PLJ, Nimble bread, Ryvita and Ayds (slimming chocolates that were probably laxatives).

I think most of them were lonely, depressed and quite unhealthy. But, I also think - spend some time with your kids, talk to them, get to know them and you might feel better!