Things that you can’t quite believe were the norm

[ItsNotAShopItsAStore]

What’s one of those things you think in 10/20/30 years people will go “WTF why was that acceptable?”

For me - the Jeremy Kyle show. I’m so pleased it’s off air - awful poverty porn hosted by a nasty little bully and enabled by god-complex shit stirring producers. Also who wants to watch so much shouting and arguing at 9.25am!

Another woman who had to endure school showers as a teenager. No escape unfortunately. Arses slapped with rolled up towels by female PE teachers.
Being told by male PE teacher I could join rugby but only if I changed shirts with boys at the end 😡

Chumming a parent to a London cancer hospital as a teen for their radiotherapy and being left in a tiny room crammed full of people smoking.
Sadly I was already smoking by then.

I truly hope the danger of allowing perverts and paedophiles unfettered access to our kids online is taken seriously and the age at which children can legally have Internet access is set in law.

Totally agree with others about plastic grass. It's abhorrent.

When the next pandemic hits, I hope enough was learnt from covid and we won't have a repeat. Covid the debacle, not the illness, fucked me up and I'm still suffering now.

We’re Northumberland.

They are also allowed from 8 in Lanarkshire, Scotland, where my BiL lives.

Where my SIL lives in Coventry it’s either 10 or 11 to go alone.

My friends and I regularly went to the swimming baths without adults from.the age of 10. We could swim and were quite sensible. We also used to often visit the large amusement park close to home, roaming around the slot machine arcades looking for pennies. Very few folk had cars back then and we used to walk or cycle everywhere. We were all slim and healthy and obesity was virtually unheard of. We had no money to buy sweets and chocolate and the only takeaway was fish and chips or the rarely seen Chinese takeaway. No fast food outlets. Its a shame today's children won't get to experience the simple fun and freedom we have back then, late 60s/early 70s

This is a really interesting thread, especially the pps who have highlighted things that happen now which will be looked back upon with incredulity.
I think this generation of parents - probably due to affirmation on social media - have a tendency to think they are year zero and all guidelines and advice given now is the definitive advice. Hence the constant friction between mums and their parents and ILs about trivia such as letting a child drink weak milky tea or giving them solid food when they are five months and 29 days old.
Times change and things progress, but it doesn't mean they way things were done then were dangerous, as was suggested in the recent thread about rear-facing car seats. RF may be marginally safer but it doesn't mean FF is 'dangerous'!
I also agree that people are a lot more insular and selfish now, with a lot less thought given to how an individual's behaviour impacts the wider community.
Back in my day, a new baby was cause for celebration for the whole family and everyone wanted to see it and stopped you when you were out to admire the baby.
Nowadays the new baby is a cause for friction, carping and controlling what others do, with great suspicion of anyone who wants to admire, talk to or - God forbid - touch the baby.

My feet aren't particularly sweaty either, normally they are freezing. But those trainers were stinking.
Might have been the warm hospitals, and adrenalin or something but they stank!

Chris Moyles was the Dj and that did happen. then we had the phone hacking of seemingly everyone and anyone. Elton john, Mrs Lawrence (mother of Stephen). no one seemed to be off limits

No, it was normal to be toilet trained by age 2 when children wore Terry neppurs. This is because they were uncomfortable and wanted out of the nappy. Children in disposables are comfortable and don’t see a need to a toilet. The modern move back towards cloth nappies means many are toilet trained before the 2nd birthday once again.

looking back - Jimmy Saville
now - influencers and the khardashians

I'm not saying that's not part of the issue. But there must always have been children starting school with undiagnosed additional needs. ASD and ADHD aren't new.
Admittedly some of the more obvious cases would have been filtered off into special needs schools. But their must always have been children going under the radar with additional needs.

Agree with all of it.

Open plan- fully agree, it's just the most unpractical and nonsensical thing and everyone right now is still knocking their walls.
My previous house was open plan and everyone thought look amazing.
The tidying up is endless as there are no walls to put your storage furniture and you can see every single thing outside the place.
Kitchen smells everywhere. Cold and high heating bills as a result.
Open plan will be a crazy concept in a few years time.
(Our house now has all the walls, I'm so greatful!)

Oh gosh, you've taken me right back. On the rare occasions I went into the staff room at school to deliver a message you couldn't see across the room because of the smoke.
Also, I had a board rubber (wooden thing) thrown across the room at me once because i was daydreaming. It hit me on the head!

Agree

Clueless humans keeping animals as pets.

Same here with the showering, running through while the teacher held your towel and handed it to you as you came out. The showers were always freezing cold too.

If a child is still in nappies when they go to school then there are additional needs and it needs to be looked at before they start school. There’s no way a teacher or ta should be changing nappies. A special care plan needs to be set up with a one on one ta provision. It’s when a parent hides the fact that their child is in nappies that’s there’s a big problem. These cases happen a lot and they simply want the school to do their job and toilet train their kid which is shockingly negligent.

Yes. Along with garden bonfires and noisy fireworks.

Plus the obvious benefits of being younger Grandparents if repeated.

Fireworks... I agree. Whoever thought it was a good idea to sell explosives to the general public, and all that pollution being shot into the air.

Fireworks. So selfish. Poor, terrified wild creatures, birds and animals.

This ! (minus the smoking) We used to argue over who got to sit in the tailgate 😬

Slightly unfair here I think. Dogs or cats make great companions, especially people who live alone. Family pets teach children to be kind to animals. Most people who have a pet are far from "clueless"
I don't agree with snakes and exotic species being kept in cages in a domestic setting though

Clueless humans breeding up more clueless humans!

RainbowZebraWarrior · Today 13:21

The rules at our local pool are the same. Allowed to swim unaccompanied from 8 yo. Whitley Bay, North Tyneside.

Waves told us 9, the bastards! I take her down with her mate/s and let her go now (11). I wonder if we've met....

Oh God yes. Don't miss bloody showers after P.E. or smoking, anywhere. One of the offices in the hospital I used to work in, if you went in the room you had to let the blue haze settle before you could see anyone! I loathed cigarette smoke and even now if a smoker sits next to me on a bus and they recently smoked, it starts me off coughing!!!

Your interpretation of the original comment is probably right. I just know my brother was still in nappies when I was born so over two wasn’t completely unknown even in the 1960s in a family without an automatic washing machine.