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Original poster

Parenting in the past - what were they thinking?!

180 replies

maGicGift · 05/05/2011 14:21

For example... alcohol in baby's bottle to help him sleep, leaving baby in the back garden/front porch for nap time (so parents can't here him cry) feeding baby condensed milk in a bottle instead of formula.

It's amazing how advise changes so quickly - do you have any more funny/strange past parenting stories? Those above were from my Mum/Gran

OP posts:
OTheHugeManatee · 05/05/2011 15:25

Isn't the Hasidic balcony thing some religious requirement? I'm not Jewish, but IIRC from a Brooklyn-based Jewish friend of mine it's something to do with a religious festival, where they have to build an outdoor tabernacle or something. So the ones that live in apartment blocks extend out from the window.

ashamedandconfused · 05/05/2011 15:27

DH was fed evaporated milk from a tin off a spoon by his dad when MIL coulld not cope with ffrequent BFing all night long - he survived!

My dads gran always dipped his brothers dummy in jam - he lost all his teeth after they went completely rotten at a very young age and was very self conscious.

thefruitwhisperer · 05/05/2011 15:31

I personally cant wait to start giving my kids screwy advice.

'Yes, in my day we used to let the cat lick you clean and feed you KFC. Its just what everyone did. WHAT! You mean you DONT let the baby sleep with the dog???'

Tut Tut

SarkyLady · 05/05/2011 15:31

My parents thought they were being very modern and protective by having a car seat for me.

The car seat was in no way attached to the car :)

gawdblimey · 05/05/2011 15:33

just because its old, doesnt mean its necessarily bad

i have heard more cobblers about parenting since I have been on MN than ever in my life Grin

gawdblimey · 05/05/2011 15:34

I'm sure parents of the past would be quite horrified at the parents of today...

Going out to work, giving childcare to strangers.... buying and feeding shop bought meals to their families... broken families... latchkey kids... violence and vandalism perpetrated by kids.... absent parents... drunk/drugged parents and children... bad behaviour in schools... lack of discipline and manners... treating PILs/GPs and other family members as 'disposable' unless they want something... and some spending all day chatting on a computer instead of 'doing stuff' with their kids.

absolutely, i cant imagine ever letting strangers bring up my child

and as for parents who have never cooked a meal in the kids whole life, words fail me

fatlazymummy · 05/05/2011 15:36

My SIL fed her children carnation milk in the 1970's. All of them are very healthy. My ex was put on to silvertop milk at 1 week old.
goodynuff we used to have an old car that hed a long seat across the front. My little sister used to sit between our parents. Luckily they never had an accident!

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 05/05/2011 15:37

SarkyLady... that has made me laugh so much... GrinGrin

psiloveyou · 05/05/2011 15:41

Well we are all still here so can't have been all that bad

Actually I think there were a lot of positives about old parenting styles.

alexandra65 · 05/05/2011 15:43

I was a Carnation baby!

We would have been ok in the event of a car crash we would have been ok as as my Mum used to pack six of us like sardines in the back of her mini - we were wedged in solidly.

Balsam · 05/05/2011 15:45

Not really related to parenting but the drink driving always amazes me. My dad always tells me how he and his mates used to go to the cricket, drinking all day, then race each other home.

Goodynuff · 05/05/2011 15:46

fatlazymummy Grin
Our cars and trucks had the bench seat too. No one wanted to be front middle, because you got elbowed from both sides, and bashed on the shins by the gear shifter!

bruffin · 05/05/2011 15:53

I actually remember when back seat belts became law. It was the old G reg cars.
i have heard more cobblers about parenting since I have been on MN than ever in my life

You are so right gawdblimey- thankfully in RL most people are more sensible

bruffin · 05/05/2011 15:53

i have heard more cobblers about parenting since I have been on MN than ever in my life

sorry didn't mean to strike it out

HellNoSayItAintSo · 05/05/2011 15:56

twat off, gawdblimey.

Chil1234 · 05/05/2011 15:57

As a new mum in 2000, my mum passed onto me the advice booklet that she was given when she had me back in the sixties. I remember cheery things like 'rather than washing baby's clothes, simply air them well!'. There were whole sections on nappy buckets. Introducing a taste of soft-boiled egg yolk at 3 weeks was mentioned. And all written in that 'Mr Cholmondley-Warner' sort of way with black and white illustrations. I found it quite charming.

What I didn't realise until last week, in fact, was that she had seriously meant me to follow the advice. Very grumpy when finding out that I hadn't. Blush

exoticfruits · 05/05/2011 16:16

i have heard more cobblers about parenting since I have been on MN than ever in my life

Agreed, I can't stay off some of the threads they are so funny!! (and written so seriously)
I can think of some DC of posters who are going to have a good laugh about their parents in later years-and resolve to be completely different!

RhinestoneCowgirl · 05/05/2011 16:25

Some things go full circle though - my maternal great grandmother had 7 children (including a set of twins) and bf them all, as that was how you fed babies at the time. And when they were tiny babies, she would apparently tie them into her shawl and carry them to stop them crying.

exoticfruits · 05/05/2011 16:31

Perhaps if we all copied great grandmothers, stopped reading books, used common sense and instinct we wouldn't have the problems!

wotnochocs · 05/05/2011 16:32

condensed milk WAS formula.You had to mix it up with x parts water yourself which is where the term 'formula' has come from.What do you think babies who couldn't breastfeed should do...Starve?
What is wrong with babies napping in teh back garden.They always settle better in teh fresh air.

jeckadeck · 05/05/2011 16:36

its snakes and roundabouts, as LyingWitch suggests. Some of the things which went on in the past were horrifying (alcohol in baby's bottles). But in my view parenting today has become a fast route to neurosis with all the guidelines, the guilt, the judgement. My sense is and this may be rose tinted specs that in the past people pulled together more and parenting was less a competition and more a communal activity. Less looking down one's nose at other parents for failing to adhere to some bit of fashionable child development theory (breastfeeding, failure to deploy adequate tummy time, weaning at the wrong time etc)

gawdblimey · 05/05/2011 16:39

twat off, gawdblimey.

Wink

you must be one of them spouting the cobblers

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 05/05/2011 16:42

gawdblimey... I think that might have been intended for me. You quoted some of my post.

Ormirian · 05/05/2011 16:46

"leaving baby in the back garden/front porch for nap time (so parents can't here him cry) " Nope. It was because of the old 'fresh air is always good for you' mantra.

And condensed milk wasn't 'instead' of formula it was when there wasn't any formula. Mum was given diluted condensed milk because she was born in the outback in the 1930s and there was no supply of formula.

PoppaRob · 05/05/2011 16:47

My sister and I were talking the other day about how our Mum and Dad had that reflex action where as they hit the brake their left arm would come out to hold us back on the bench seat. Then in 1970something Dad bought a new car that actually had lap-sash seatbelts in the front (but only lap belts in the back). Mum had an old 1950s Hillman Minx that had no seatbelts - it even had the little flick out trafficators on the B pillars!

Back when I was a fresh parent of bottle-fed toddlers in the early 1980s we used "Infant Polaramine" to settle the rugrats. They're now aged from 28 to 35, fit and healthy productive members of society with kids of their own. No harm - no foul.

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