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!

Things that happen now that people will be horrified about.

The shortage of suitable childcare for primary kids after school.

The expectation that 11 and 12 year olds are fine to be left home alone all day in the holidays and lack of provision for them.

The amount of sweetners in food and juices

I went on a French exchange in the 80s and when we visited the Lycée, students and the teacher lit up a cigarette in the classroom at the end of the lesson. When the students visited our school a French boy lit up a cigarette in the corridor. 😀In our school you hid in the toilets or behind the bike shed if you wanted a cigarette.

Drag. It's not ok!

I was 26 when I had my one and only, 30+ years ago....I was referred to as an "old" mum.

I started school in 76 and find it strange to remember teachers smacking children/the slipper in junior school. It was completely normal for parents to smack kids as well. It seems strange to assault someone who's small and vulnerable now.

Of course you still get wildlife in the bedroom if you have a light on and the window open. bugs haven't changed their habits!

@JudgeJ the numbers of bugs in the UK has dropped dramatically.

I’m confused
was wearing nappies after age 2 the norm?
or were most young children before age 2 toilet trained?
i have a 2.5 year old and every thing I read is about toilet training being “child-led” and “when your child is ready”- problem is my toddler doesn’t tell me he has been or needs to go ?
I don’t think it helps that nappies are “ultra absorbent” “dry for 12 hours” etc
i have potties all around the house and try to get him to sit on it to “go” - sometimes he does have a wee sometimes not
we read books about it
not sure what else I can do?

VAT on education. 😁

(I'm joking! Don't pile on!)

Pretty sure the Sunday Sport did a countdown to Linsey Dawn Mckenzie's 16th birthday

I recall in the late 50s, I'd be about 9 or 10, taking a neighbour's twins out for a walk round the block, it was quite a normal thing to do, she would have a queue of girls wanting to take them out!

And in the work place.

@Marveladdict I do not know what is best. But in the past children were considered ready for toilet training when you a nappy was still dry, when you would have expected it to be wet after that length of time. The reasoning was they have developed the muscle strength to hold wee in their bladder. We taught children to recognise when they needed to go to the toilet, we did not wait for them to realise the signs themselves.

We had a quilt or eiderdown in the 70s, full of feathers, worked like a duvet really I suppose but with a sheet and/or blanket underneath it.

That before the late 1990s, certainly in England, no childcare worker had a police check, Nurseries and childcare places were not negligent, but the police did not have the authority to release this information. Legislation enabled this.
I remember before then the local police telling all the local childcare places and schools not to let a named man volunteer or get work with children as he was a danger to children. The man found out, sued the police, and won.

DD is 12 now, but she did group lessons and also one to one lessons at Waves from around 7 until she was 10 so we haven't been for a couple of years. They may have recently changed the age.

Yes, I wonder if we have met. They might even be at the same school!

There has been an 83% drop in flying insects in the past 20 years in England (similar figures for Wales, Scotland etc) so I think it was the sheer numbers the PP was talking about.

MyNameIsFine · Today 15:19

VAT on education.

My dear girl, I quite agree! Those Janie and Jonnie working class types absolutely should pay VAT. After all, they don't even pay for their spawn's education, it's monstrous! I mean, when one considers the cost of educating Jocasta and Tarquin at Godolphin & Latymer and Harrow, for Heaven's sake!

This sounds weirdly cosy and I think I would have quite liked it 🤣
Obviously also highly dangerous and I’d never consider doing it now but in the days when no one considered this stuff I bet it was fun!

I think every time you look back to the 1970s in amazement, it's worth looking back another 50 years and seeing that life in the UK was on an upwards trajectory for most people. I'm not sure that's quite true any more.

we're on the same same side.. most of the MotoGP "Grid Girls" were girfriends, I know how wanky that sounds before you eat the head off me, just no one girl was exploited

I recall going to see a recording of Mastermind and as we were waiting to go in one of the staff said it was always funny to observe the differences in audiences, they had Kyle in the morning session and Mastermind in the afternoon!

Doing games on the playing fields which were on the side of the exposed Croal Valley with the wind whipping across and the teacher wearing sheepskin coat, gloves and boots telling us to run around to keep warm!

My first job aged 16 in the early 90's and women had only just been allowed to wear trousers in the office!
I'd also regularly get sent to the shop to buy the MDs cigarettes.

When I was 10, in the mid sixties, my mother used to leave me all day every Saturday babysitting my two half siblings who were 5 and 6 moths. 🙄

Then, on top of that, she temporarily split from her husband - half siblings’ father - and took a job in a nightclub so I used to be looking after same half
siblings from 7.00pm until the early hours 4 nights per week.

(As you can tell, I had a wonderful mother - NOT. I went NC with her as an adult and didn’t see her for the last 30 years of her life.)

I was an incredibly sensible child for my age but, my God, SS would have a field day if that happened today.