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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

AIBU in the 1970s

595 replies

cleaty · 12/05/2016 16:59

I grew up in the 1970s, the age of relaxed and free range parenting. If mumsnet had existed then, what do you think mums would have asked in AIBU?

OP posts:
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11
SirChenjin · 14/05/2016 09:48

That type of arrogance was very common back in the 70s - it was the result of very insular lives and associated narrow mindedness. People didn't move about as much and there wasn't nearly the same level of access to information and knowledge of the wider world that we have now.

Mysillydog · 14/05/2016 10:04

AIBU to mash up half an aspirin in jam for my poorly 6 year old. We don't have any Disprin in the house. My friend says the more modern doctors are saying you shouldn't give children aspirin but it never did me any harm.

MerryMarigold · 14/05/2016 10:05

AIBU to only buy one set of batteries for the tape recorder wed take on long journeys to entertain the dds? It should last them most of 'summer term at St claire's'' though they may have to miss the very end. We can spend most of the 6hr journey singing one man went to mow and 10 green bottles or gazing out of the window till we get to Stonehenge and use their free toilets. Ahhhh them were the days.

BlueberrySky · 14/05/2016 10:16

SirChenjin

YANBU, I would have hoped mine would sleep longer too. We too made the back of the estate car into a bed for them, put the luggage around the sides, got the dog and cats in, then lifted the sleeping kids in at 4am. Hoped for a peaceful 7 hour drive to our cottage.

By 7am, they had drunk all the cherry aid and were throwing up at the side of the motorway.

RuthyToothy · 14/05/2016 10:42

That type of arrogance was very common back in the 70s - it was the result of very insular lives and associated narrow mindedness. People didn't move about as much and there wasn't nearly the same level of access to information and knowledge of the wider world that we have now.

You'll be reliably informed soon that that simply didn't happen Wink

If you google 'whiskey in a baby's bottle' there are people considering it EVEN NOW! Shock You'd hope that people would be better informed by now.

When DD1 was teething, MIL said 'well you know, we used to rub brandy on their gums ...' I replied with 'ha ha, yes, I've heard that used to happen. Seems crazy, when you think about it now'.

She got very upset and started shrieking 'But we didn't know!!! It's what the doctors told us to do!! How were we supposed to know any better?!'

but nobody ever gave alcohol to a baby, ever, apparently

SirChenjin · 14/05/2016 10:50

I know Ruth Grin

Baconyum · 14/05/2016 11:33

There's some naked arrogance in this thread, isn't there? 'I don't recall seeing such a thing in my experience, therefore it cannot ever have been known to happen to anyone else.'

Absolutely!

Many of the posts have been stated as being true. My own mother was seen as unreasonable for not giving my sister and I alcohol in our bottles or on gums at teething and my sister was born late 70's! And that was by her own generation not just my grandmothers

SharonBottsPoundOfGrapes · 14/05/2016 11:40

Banana my mum kind of did that to me in 1979. :o She parked me up in my butchers stripe maclaren in cream and brown stripes. Came out of the greengrocers, grabbed the buggy and walked down the road. She heard a shout behind her and saw a woman walking up the road pushing me. The woman was fine about it and they even became friends. I have a photo of me in my buggy parked up next to a little boy in his buggy. Our mums are sat either side of us smiling broadly. :o

SuburbanCrofter · 14/05/2016 12:02

You are all BU sending your DCs to the corner shop for your B&H. It is illegal for children to buy cigarettes, we are classy and only send them for the matches & lighters Grin

Although I always go down to the corner shop in my slippers

kaitlinktm · 14/05/2016 12:14

WIBU to refuse to buy my DD (15) a mustard-coloured Dansette with psychedelic swirly patterns in the lid record-player for Christmas, and then reluctantly agree to said purchase and then buy myself and the rest of the family their choice of LPs and singles to play on it?

Of course my DD can't have a record of her own - that record-player was expensive.

Oh - and also AIBU to insist that it is kept in the living room - sorry lounge - for the whole family to enjoy - but not used whilst the telly is on basically all evening ?

I don't know why she is pulling her face - honestly, we never got these nice things during the war.

CandOdad · 14/05/2016 12:25

Well - on alcohol in a bottle I was born in 81 and was often told the story of how my dad got confused and gave me a brandy in my bottle at bed time rather than the rubbing brandy on my gums that had been advised at out local clinic!

AIBU to think that my DIL should just accept a clout every now and then and do as her husband tells her rather than moving out and going all women's lib on the issue? (Not my family but my best friend)
or
AIBU to tell my husband I don't mind he has another woman and son down in the village and pretend to believe he is working nights rather than get a divorce? (another sad real life situation I know of)

namechanger456 · 14/05/2016 12:28
CandOdad · 14/05/2016 12:30

AIBU to blame everything that breaks in the house on my grandson not using it correctly even though it is about sixty years old and been fixed together with string, tape, glue several times before. (now that one is my own)

TimeIhadaNameChange · 14/05/2016 12:32

I know IANBU but my wife won't listen to me and I'm hoping she'll listen to you.

She gave birth a week ago to our lovely bonny son, and has been in hospital ever since. She's coming home tomorrow and I've told her I have expectations for tomorrow night, after I've been to the pub to wet the laddie's head (again). She says she can't as she has had stitches down there. AIBU to say that I'll take them out myself? I mean, I have NEEDS and it has been over a week.

(Friend who was a midwife at the time said it wasn't unusual to find stitches had been taken out before the first post-birth visit.)

glamorousgrandmother · 14/05/2016 12:38

till we get to Stonehenge and use their free toilets You will also be able to let them climb all over the stones.
[not fenced in until early 80s, I think.]

MyLifeisaboxofwormgears · 14/05/2016 13:08

AIBU to let DD 8 ride off all day on her horse with just a round of honey sandwiches in her pocket? She can pick bilberries on the moor and drink out of streams for heaven's sake!

WIBU to make DS, 12 mow his granny's lawn while granny and grand dad sat drinking gin and swearing at him for not getting the stripes right?

blitheringbuzzards1234 · 14/05/2016 13:16

Ooh the 70's I loved 'em. People in them days were def more ignorant/less cosmopolitan than today.

Dad would speak quite nicely to a 'turbanned gentleman' about this'n'that and as he left he'd snigger, "hope your head gets better soon" and think himself hilarious. He went to see The Black and White Minstrel show at a local theatre and declared it the best thing he'd ever seen.

If a young lady was raped she'd be considered to be 'asking for it' if she did something as daring as wearing red lipstick. And if you went to a family planning clinic for contraceptive advice you had to pretend you were engaged or about to be or they'd turf you out.

I remember buying condoms in a large chemist (not Boots) and the middle-aged lady who served me gave me the hardest stare as if she thought I was the devil.

SideOrderofChip · 14/05/2016 13:38

Some of these i remember from the 1990's as well. Like my uncle hiding two of us in the boot of his car so he didn't have to pay for us to get nto alton towers....

Original poster
cleaty · 14/05/2016 13:54

AIBU to not allow my DDs DP in the house? They have three kids, but are not married?

OP posts:
MNHQ
ToniMumsnet · 14/05/2016 14:18

AIBU to insist I take no more that 15 children on the school run in my Ford Escort Estate?

CharleyDavidson · 14/05/2016 14:22

I am absolutely in

GarlicShake · 14/05/2016 14:24

That Ceefax spoof had me guffawing very loudly Grin

GarlicShake · 14/05/2016 14:27

YABU, Toni. It's an estate, you can move house in one of them! Are you sure you've packed them in the footwells? Put the smallest one under your seat, so you can still use the pedals.

JustDanceAddict · 14/05/2016 14:30

AIBU to put the top of the milk on my Frosties every morning instead of leaving it fot the kids?

StarsAligning · 14/05/2016 14:36

AIBU to use washing up liquid on the kids hair as I've run out of Vosene?

AIBU to be angry that Dd complained about having to get in my 3 inches of cold bath water after me? I told her that when she pays the bills, she can have her own bath. Until then, she's lucky that she can have a bath once a week. Cheeky mare

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