Born in 80s. Anyone else's parents never take them to the GP?

[lumpybumper]

So this dawned on me when I was trying to sleep last night. I was born in the 80s and I remember the first time I ever got taken to the GP I was 12 with an ear infection. I must have been poorly at some point before then, but I was never taken.
I wasn't neglected in any way. Nice upbringing, holidays, hobbies.
I remember a period of when I was 7 where I would throw up every single day for pretty much a year when I woke up in the morning. My mum used to tell me it was because I "had worked myself up" and used to watch me throw up every morning and then take me to school as normal. Looking back it was probably anxiety, but I never got taken to the GP. She used to tell my teacher I had thrown up every morning and no-one batted an eye lid. If my child threw up every day for a year I would 100% be at the doctors!
Also I developed a severe mental health issue aged 10 which still affects me now. Again, never got any help or taken to the GP. If anything my parents ripped the piss out of the strange things I did and behaviours I showed for years and years.
Did parents in the 80s just not bother with GPs? It blows my mind. My kids get taken at least once a year for one issue or another, infections, rashes, etc etc.

The teachers were simply going by the 🤷 attitude of your mother op

I was born in 75 and I remember once a GP calling to the house as I was so sick. Otherwise no, GP trips didn't happen.

Your parents ripping the piss out of odd behaviors that nowadays would be seen as maybe indicative of a mental health issue rings a bell too.

My parents were great tho and I'm close to them now. They weren't neglectful at all, I had lots of other extra circular opportunities like played violin for years , residential camps, private school.
It was just different times I think .

My mum took me to the GP all the time. Lived in a village, doctors wife sometimes stepped in as reception. Doctor's son was in the same class as me at achool.

But, to be fair, we have rarely taken our pre teen to the GP. He is just lucky and blessed with a good immune system.

We gave been to thr minor injuries unit a few times though...

You had to be properly poorly to go to the Dr's. Or they would come to you.

I have 3 DC with the youngest now 15 and can count of the fingers of one hand how many times I've felt the need to take them to the gp.
I'm anything but a neglectful parent but most childhood illnesses are treated with calpol,plenty of fluids and a couple of days rest .GPs don't like prescribing AB anyway so I'm not sure what dragging them to an appointment would achieve?
I'm a child of the 70's and can remember getting a prescription almost every time I was taken by my parents for the usual coughs ,colds and sore throats..

My parents don't believe in mental illness. I was a complete mess by the time I went to university and have been having treatment for mental health problems for 20 years.

We went to the dentist regularly but literally nothing else.

I walked round with a broken arm for 4 days aged 12 before grudgingly being driven to A and E. Anything like that was a massive inconvenience to them.

If our heads not hanging off we didnt need a gp.
If we got ill we got better.
Neither did we have any injections only one that was done at school when i was 4.

This was my thought too.

I remember dd1 asking me (aged about 10yo) why she'd never been to A&E. She'd never needed to go to A&E was the answer.
Dd2 managed her first two visits within a week - totally different reasons.
Ds we had months where we got on first name terms with some of the nurses (he had a nasty habit of having non-fading rashes when ill)

But dd1 I could probably list her illnesses. She didn't have a day off school through illness from year 4 upwards. She also wasn't inclined to do things out of her comfort zone so no accidents.
When she was ill she had a temperature of 38-39 and still ate and drank. She saw the GP very rarely. I wouldn't be surprised if she has no memory of seeing the GP when ill, as the only time she saw one for illness over age 4yo was she was bad (bad enough the GP did a home visit twice a day for over a week).

Dd2 spiked very high (hitting 41 at the worst) temperatures if she was ill. She's also dramatic and given to accidents, so it could be hard to tell if she was really ill or playing it up for dramatic effect.

Ds started with ear infections at 10 weeks old, then had them about every 2 weeks until the first set of grommets... He also started non-fading viral rashes at about the same time. He also had chickenpox badly enough for them to consider hospitalising him, leukaemia scare, appendicitis, been on a drip with sickness bugs a couple of times, a couple of broken wrists (tbf was A&E not GP) etc etc.
If he is ill, and I think this year-age 17yo- is the first year he hasn't had pretty continual illness through January at least, then he is visibly very ill and needs checking out.

I was born in 84 and definitely spent plenty of time at the doctors. I had quite a bit of bother with my waterworks pre-10yrs, had a squint that needed operating on, had flat feet and needed my ears syringing fairly often.
Our family doctor used to joke that my file was thicker than anyone elses in the family, and I was the youngest.

I was not taken to the GP very often. Certainly not as often as I take my own kids. But they wouldn’t have left me in pain like that either.

I’m not sure if it’s a generational thing. Sounds neglectful.

At that time I think giving too much attention to anxiety like that would have been seen as not helpful - better to play it down, especially if you settled quickly once you were in. As you say they tried plenty of home remedies so it's not like they weren't trying to help you or didn't have your best interests in mind, it just wasn't something to speak to the GP about.

In fact even now I'd say the same - if my DC was throwing up every morning before school because of anxiety I'd consider that a parenting issue first. How can I reassure her, how can school and I work together to fix the issue, all those things. I wouldn't be going to the GP until I'd tried all that, and even at that I'd only consider medication as a last resort. Going to the GP for that issue in the 80s probably didn't even occur to them.

My parents took me to the GP. However, when I became ill, I had to be really really poorly before they would do anything.
I was the child repeatedly sent to school feverish and vomiting. When I did throw up at school, I was left for hours because my parents wouldn't collect me.
At home, I was an inconvenience for being so sick. I was never really given calpol or anything like that and just expected to "fight it".
I've suffered with repeated tonsillitis, throat infections and glandular fever all my life because my mum refused to let me have the tonsillectomy as it would interfere with her working.

Some children these days get taken to the GP for 2 days, or less, for sniffles and a few hours after a bout of diarrhoea and/or vomiting.

I was born in the 70s and definitely attended both the GP and A&E in childhood. All for physical ailments though - ear infections, high fever, chest infections, asthma.

I don't think many parents would've attended the GP for mental health issues in their children. I'm not sure it was really recognised that children could have mental health issues.

I was born in the 80s and I can remember the GP coming to our house to see me when I had a temperature or if I was unwell. Once when I was in my teens I went to the GP, but on the way there I can’t remember exactly what happened but a grown man shouted at me and really upset me, when my mum went to the GP later the same day the GP told her what had happened to me. Now I can’t even see the same GP, I can’t imagine them remembering who my family members are!

Hes, we went but he aas horrible, always dismissed my mum, talked doen to her like a stupid little woman and she hated him. Think Dr Martin on steroids with a large does of misogyny.. So I think she did avoid where necessary.

My DC were born in the 70s and rarely went to the GP. I always treated them at home if I could. As a result when DS was ill and had only one piece of paper in his file I was taken seriously by the GP and fast tracked to hospital where it was found that he needed a life saving operation.

Reminds me, I walked around for weeks or longer with a broken wrist. I'd fallen off a horse, but didnt want to say that in case I was stopped from riding. My only outlet.
I never told a soul, I only found out it had been broken when I needed an xray in that area, about 30 years later.

I grew up in the 70s, I rarely went to the drs, if ever. I also remember going blue in the face and struggling to breathe for weeks, my mom collared some other woman with a child with asthma and asked if she could use an inhaler on me. I took a puff as best I could being unable to breathe and when this other woman asked if I was ok now I just nodded my head. I was very obviously not ok. But nothing was done, no one called social services on my mom. My own children were rarely Ill, I think they both saw a dr about 3 times each outside of vaccination.

My husband threw up regularly, not daily but certainly regularly.
It turned out he had h-pylori. It only became known about when he was in his early 20s and it took 3 visits to the GP before the GP would listen and test him.
Until then they really didn't have anything to offer him, other than Rennie's etc.

But, they don’t do anything for a broken collar bone anyway - it’s just left to heal by itself - so what would going to the GP with it achieve?

Not a lot. I did get it put in a sling and given some pain relief. I was also told not to take part in PE for a few weeks which up to that point I had been doing. I guess the x-ray confirmed nothing needed to be done (sometimes completely broken bones need to be pinned). Just giving an example of how parents didn't always get things checked out back then. I'm not upset about it.

@motherofonegirl sorry, I jumbled up your original post in my head (multitasking).

we used to get dragged to the gp for pretty much anything.

even now if one of my dc has a cold for more than 24 hrs my mother will start saying I should take them to the GP, “they might be able to do something”, or “go and get antibiotics, it might clear it up”

what makes it worse is I work in healthcare and know fine well there’s nothing to “do”, aside from rest and general symptomatic care.

Am an 80s child was rarely at the doctors but was taken. My guardians at the time didn't notice how bad my eyesight was at one point and now am very short sighted

@PoorUncleBarry

I'm so sorry that you didn't get the care you should have 😥😥