AIBU to detest this obsession with 'The Way We Were'...?

[YokoUhOh]

NB Not the Barbara Streisand song

Having just read YET ANOTHER of those Facebook 'you survived being neglected as a child, no-one died, you fell out of trees and played outside, the Elf and Safety Brigade are crackers' style posts, just wanted to check I'm not going mad. LOADS of children died in the 30s/40s/50s and beyond due to 'benign neglect'. We were the lucky ones!

My DF nearly died after setting fire to a shed; DH's great uncle got knocked down by a car, got loads more examples just from my extended family. Why do we also have to hear about weird ideas about child-rearing: My MIL showed me a photo at Christmas of tiny 2 month old DH having 'a crust with marmite' shoved down his gullet in 1972 - she then had the gall to cats bum mouth at me breast-feeding 13mo DS...

Won't anyone save us from The Good Old Days Brigade? Or AIBU?

Tarted!?
Treated!

badvoc my mother first gave birth in 1948. She blessed the NHS and hospitals.

Not that I'm saying home births are bad or that regimented shaving and enemas were good.

But she was the first of a wave of women who gave birth safely as opposed to her mother, who gave birth at home and died of an infection leaving four children and a desperate husband shortly afterwards.

Yes limited :(
Or my dads cousin who died alone in agony from a preventable infection. She was 17.
Or her brother who had severe health problems (which weren't found out about until the autopsy) and committed suicide aged 15.
They were desperate times for a vast majority of people.
My dad was born in 1946 and told me awful takes of suffering and neglect.
I get really stabby when people talk of the "golden age".
I would rather have the NHS, vaccination and a more compassionate society, thanks.

Is early weaning a proven health risk?however in my family in the early twentieth century a teenage girl died slowly and painfully of meningitis which i am fully aware can still be fatal but she may have had a better chance

I don't know what the statistical differences are between injuries now and injuries "then", but I remember seeing an interesting documentary about road safety and risk behaviour. Basically it said that research showed that people chose to live with a certain level of risk. So that if you made cars safer, people drove faster and more dangerously. So maybe the actual figures are the same over the years, because kids just take different risks instead.

Yes kids on playgrounds with rubberised surfaces, take more risks than on playgrounds with asphalt.

Yes kids on playgrounds with rubberised surfaces, take more risks than on playgrounds with asphalt

I played on asphalt grennie. I was a bit wary of skinning my knees but taking a header from the top of a climbing frame wasn't really an option.

I don't know if early weaning is a health risk or not... I just felt sad when I saw pic of newborn DH with bloody food in his little gob :( it doesn't seem right, somehow.

Interestingly road casualties (motorists and pedestrians) fallen consistently since the mid 60s, despite a huge increase in the number of cars. imagine

Most amazingly in 1926(when private car ownership was in its infancy) there were nearly 5, 000 fatalities on the road. By 1966 it had risen to 8, 000. But by 2012 it had been cut to 1, 700 fatalities. We are actually far safer on the roads then we were 50 years ago.

I also hate these tropes.

They get 'liked' by the same sort of people who think it's a shame that middle-aged paedophiles can't grope young girls on Top of the pops any longer.

I wonder do the 'pc gorn mad' people realise how ridiculous they are?

I'm pretty sure that things pioneered by ROSPA such as child proof caps, advising parents not to put bleach in pop bottles have an an impact. Likewise changing pen lids. Also, investing in good fencing on train lines has also greatly reduced the number of deaths/injuries, I imagine.

The work of Dr Hugh Jackson was hugely important and saved many lives:www.theguardian.com/society/2013/oct/17/hugh-jackson

So OP, YANBU.

I'm surprised no one's linked to Apaches ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apaches_(film) )yet. People think farms are such idyllic places for children, but it's extremely sobering at the end of the film when they show a list of all the children who had died in often entirely preventable farmyard accidents.

A working link:

www.theguardian.com/society/2013/oct/17/hugh-jackson

Is early weaning a proven health risk?"

Sorry
"Is early weaning a proven health risk?"

Yes, there is clear evidence that there is a link between early and incorrect weaning and bowel cancer.

Most people aren't around, especially from previous generations, when their adult children are diagnosed.

That is why those that lived during and just after the war years have the highest rate of bowel and stomach cancers and kits started to be offered to anyone over 55.

But there are key stages of development and nutrition that set our health patterns for certain conditions in later life.

That is why research bodies, such as the Bio Bank ask people to become involved in studies and monitor them from as early as possible.

I got the one you're probably talking about today too, OP. And it got my goat too.

YES we had more freedom; but I'm not convinced things were all so much better then! I don't cottonwool-wrap my 2 DSs, but I'm not about to let them run silly risks either! The world has changed and we have to adapt to it; some things have got safer (cars), others have got potentially more dangerous (internet-based safety issues) - it would be daft to assume we could all carry on the same way our parents/grandparents did.

I am in my 40's, I was of the "thrown out of the door all day" generation, as well.

There as a lot of unchecked bullying that went on, I know a lot of under 13 year old girls that were (what we would now consider to be) sexually assaulted and bullied by older boys.

I lived in a very Macho, victim blaming area (in hindsight).

There was a lot of DV and General DA, with Child Neglect/Abuse thrown in, not to mention animal abuse.

You may not of lived in an area that needed the law and things at the level they are today, but that was a matter of luck.

Factors such as one car in the whole street and the general lack of traffic, isn't given enough consideration.

I don't think that it is co-insistence why only now the amount of sexual crimes against children are emerging from the 60's-80's. There was so much ignored.

DV, Child Abuse/Neglect, rape in marriage, sexual assaults, wasn't illegal or prosecuted. As well as Race/Disability Hate Crime, of course.

I live in Germany and the vast majority of children of all ages still get to school under their own steam. That is, primary age children walk to school alone and children at Kindergarten (pre-school) ages 4, 5 and 6 can walk to school alone with their parents written permission. School starts early at 7:45am so at this time of year child are walking to school in darkness. Secondary school starts at age 10 and again most children walk, bike, take the bus or train.

When we moved here five years ago from the USA in January I was astonished at the tiny children that were making their way to Kindergarten or school alone in the snow! The schools and parents do spend time early on teaching the children the best and safest routes to school but often there is a lot of emphasis on not dawdling or taking time to play on the way to school in case the student is late. Tardiness is totally unacceptable here! Even in the 1970s my brother and I got a lift in the car to school as it wasn't within walking distance. The pace of life is very humane here and much more balanced than I've experienced living in the UK or US.

I can hardly believe that people used to go to the doctor's with a cough or sore throat and were told to have a cigarette to sort it out.

Now that does show how far thinking has come since the "good old days"!

I bet its not the 70+ year old parents of the 50's 60's 70's kids who are looking back so fondly ( at least not when they're being honest and not putting on a front in a judging way ).
Life was simpler ( yes in some ways ) but frinking hard. Icicles on the inside of the bedroom window... Washing clothes by hand or at the launderette, and in cold damp december bringing them in off the line and hanging them to finish drying front of the fire ( coal ) including endless terry nappies ( no disposables or quick dry synthetic fabrics).
No phone in the house to call up a friend for a cheery chat if the DC driven you mad all day and certainly no glass of wine to 'relax' away the stress of the day.
Sexism part of everyday life ... Arse pinching, boob grabbing lewdness ( a la Benny Hill ) 'just a bit of fun' and women knowing their place ( lower wages, less rights even relating to their children). Racism and disablism ( ugh the games/ names that were common usage ) at school, work, social environments.
And then they had to actually look after DC in days when clothes toys food were not mass produced overseas and everything had to be recycled, re-stiched and reheated out of necessity not artsy crafty hobbying cutesy smugness ( yes you Kirsty thingy with your tie die pants for Christmas ffs) .
Anyway YANBU these rose tinted look backs give me the rage too and it's blinking scary how we seem to be slipping back that way through austerity Britain and making Britain great again blah blah blah politics. . Be careful what you wish for people!

Life changes - but not everyone has this "wrap them in cotton wool" approach to life...

I have friends who still drive their kids to school in Y8, won't let them out round town, they hang out with friends at home etc... they panic if something comes up and they can't be there to pick the kids up

I have friends (and us) who put their kids on the public bus to school and let the kids take the bus to town with their friends and hang out with their mates in the park/library/bowling alley etc

Some things have got better, some have got worse, some have both aspects....

Medical advances have been fantastic - to a point.... my gran was kept alive well beyond what she wanted by medical advances - just for the sake of a few extra months she was put through operations, pain, chemo, radiotherapy etc when she didn't really want that - but felt pressure - "they can do so much more nowadays" was touted to her for months...

Car travel has got safer, but we are ruining the environment for the sake of a journey in solitude... as I wait for the bus for 10 min at 8.30 am around 80 cars go past - most going to town, most with one person in there.

Loans and mortgages are so available nowadays, but people treat debt as a way of life - they think nothing of borrowing to go on holiday - and end up paying for that holiday months after it has been forgotten.. there is no delayed gratification now, the joy of a holiday after saving for it is so much nicer than the heavy heart of having it now and paying for it for months after... too much has become "want it now" and "I'm entitled to have some fun"

(sorry - sound like I'm 70 but I'm really not!! still in my 40's but feeling jaded)

these rose tinted look backs give me the rage too and it's blinking scary how we seem to be slipping back that way through austerity Britain and making Britain great again blah blah blah politics. . Be careful what you wish for people!

ohmergerd I had to step away from a thread on here a couple of years ago where the OP had mused that austerity might be good thing and we could all eat nourishing cheap cuts and make our own entertainment like in the good old days and loads of people were joining in.

Now we know what it's like when wages stagnate and the cost of living rises - scrag end isn't so cheap when it costs a fortune to cook it - I don't see threads like that any more.

Limited - some people have a ludicrous fetish for "austerity living" on here. There was the most OTT troll OP who claimed they were living in a bedsit with their child, washing her clothes by hand with homemade detergent, while also maintaining an allotment - all to avoid claiming tax credits apparently.

People lapped it up!

Gosh Maybe I should try starting one of those threads. Or would it be trolling?

In the one I'm talking about, I gave an anecdote about my father and his older brother.

Between their births there was a significant uplift to the family fortunes. My father was 6ft. His brother was 5ft 5ins. I said, in my unscientific way, that it might have been in part attributable to better diet.

No, I was completely wrong. I don't think I was. I think better nutrition not only made my father taller, it made him more robust than his brother and elder sisters.

I gave other examples - also admittedly anecdotes - about my parents and their friends who were born in the late teens and 20s of the 20th century and dealt with malnutrition and appalling living conditions, like er, frost on the inside of the windows, which does carry the weak off, no matter how charmingly you want to put it.

My maternal grandmother died in the early '20s after having four children, so ironically they were well off because there were only five mouths to feed, not 10 or more.

Again, I didn't know what I was talking about. So I bowed out.

I must search for that thread and see how those posters are getting on