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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to ask what things you did as a teenager but would be horrified by if your DCs did them now?

133 replies

BowieFan · 12/10/2016 17:42

I'll start:

*Smoking when I was about 15
*Drinking when I was about 14
*Copping off with lads
*Immediately taking off my sensible skirt when I got round the corner and changing into a leather mini skirt and heels at my friend's house...
*Getting arrested for throwing eggs at John Major (actually, I'd be proud of the kids if they did that to David Cameron!)

I wasn't a wild child, honest!

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TheSconeOfStone · 12/10/2016 18:39

Drink and drugs but more worryingly going back to blokes places for a snog. I rarely went further and luckily they respected that but when I think about what might have happened.... Also walking miles home to sober up and save taxi fares. Often alone. I was so naive but also didn't really care much about myself at the time.

CrabbyJo · 12/10/2016 18:40

Smoking 11
Drinking 13
Getting in cars with boys that I'm pretty sure were stolen 13
Clubbing 14

FarAwayHills · 12/10/2016 18:54

Smoking, stopping for a fag in the park before and after school.
Telling my parents I was going bowling or to the cinema when I was going to the pub at 15.
Boys, boys and more boys. When I think of what i was doing at the same age DD is now I feel sick Blush

Original poster
BowieFan · 12/10/2016 19:03

ItShouldHaveBeenJess

I was 19 as well before other stuff! Only because I couldn't give it away And actually, my first time was with an actual prince! (So he said, I never did check. He did sound foreign though.)

I'd tried when I was about 15 but his dad found us together in a barn and chased me off, half-dressed. I realise this makes me sound like a character in a Jackie Collins novel, but I don't care.

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Original poster
BowieFan · 12/10/2016 19:08

I remember me and my friends wearing extra pairs of tights and wearing "older" clothes so that we could get in to see Body of Evidence, because we'd heard Willem Dafoe got his cock out in it (a lie by the way, don't waste your time. I was told the same lie about Jamie Dornan in 50 Shades of Grey and believed it, so I haven't learned my lesson.)

I don't think the cinema really cared what age we were, but we were 16 and thought everybody knew we were, so we obviously came up with elaborate schemes to appear older.

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PetraDelphiki · 12/10/2016 19:10

Got on a motorbike with a stranger after we had met in a bar on a holiday island without even a helmet (18) must have been insane!!!!

Snogged same guy on beach after , refused to have sex without a condom - it's only now I realize how lucky I was to get away with it!

Circuscats · 12/10/2016 19:11

To be honest I hope my DD "lives" a bit more than I did. I don't want her going off the rails but a bit of hanging round at festivals and drinking is fine by me.

Charley50 · 12/10/2016 19:11

Getting taken home by head of year pissed out of our heads on Mad Dog 20/20 aged 15, taking acid in school sixth form (although that is a memory that has continued to provide many laughs over the years!), getting so pissed I didn't know what was going on, and also having my first sex with someone I was in love with, but who didn't love me. I don't regret shoplifting it was kind of fun, although I limit myself to the old bulb of garlic or piece of ginger in Morrisons these days! My mates and I took an ounce of hash to France in a marmite jar too when we were 17. I didn't even smoke!
These are fond memories for me but I'm terrified of my son smoking really strong weed and becoming psychotic. He's quite conservative (small c!!) at the mo, and hopefully he will stay that way.

LastBusHome · 12/10/2016 19:13

Take unknown drugs with strange lads age 16.
Travel to other part of country to stay with lad I met online age 15 whilst lying to parents about where I was.
Chatting to pedos online age 12+.

Charley50 · 12/10/2016 19:13

I don't regret the clubbing years at all.. They were brilliant; but I don't want my DS taking legal highs and ketamine and all that crap you read about these days. It terrifies me. I suppose I'm a hypocrite.

klassy · 12/10/2016 19:13

On the flip side, I had an extremely repressed (and unconventional) upbringing and didn't do any of these, I wouldn't have dared or didn't have the chance.

Honestly? I'd think I'd RATHER my kids did at least some of them and were normal people with some fun life experience, then had the completely opposite uptight existence I had!

Circuscats · 12/10/2016 19:15

Yes, same as me klassy :)

I try not to dwell and I don't really but it does sadden me I have no hedonistic memories to fondly look back on!

RebelandaStunner · 12/10/2016 19:16

Hitchhiking 15
Going at stupid speeds on the back of bf motorbike around 16+
Dabbling in drugs 17ish
Being a heart breaker 17+ - moving on from one boyfriend to the next and not giving a shit about the last one ( my dmum ended up consoling a few) Blush

Didn't smoke and or excessively drink though.

WhooooAmI24601 · 12/10/2016 19:20

I was reasonably sensible (never smoked or did drugs) but was out nightclubbing with my older sister from 15 onwards. She used to take me to clubs that had free entry for women if there was a stripper on and me and my best friend would take a tenner each and compete to see who could get home without spending it. We were shits for getting men to buy us drinks, and lifts home. God only know how we survived.

ClashCityRocker · 12/10/2016 19:21

My teen nieces are far more sensible than I ever was....or so I think.

Just out of interest, did your parents know what you were up to?

TheRadiantAerynSun · 12/10/2016 19:22

If my hypothetical 16yr old DD came home with a 21yr old man who was unemployed, in a band, lived with his parents and had long scraggy hair I would freak the fuck out.

Even 21yrs of extremely happy relationship with that same guy; now hardworking, domestically wonderful and bald (but still scruffy) guy would persuade me otherwise.

Charley50 · 12/10/2016 19:22

RebelandaStunner
Re: your heartbroken boyfriends.. I hope your mum didn't console them console them! Grin

Original poster
BowieFan · 12/10/2016 19:24

Charley50

I think the difference is all the drugs we did were kind of the genuine article. Nowadays, even the legal highs you can get are stronger than the worst LSD or acid I did. It seems like these days there's much more of an industry and profit were involved, whereas we got our stuff from a variety of people, most of whom had normal day jobs and just flogged it for a couple of quid.

Now, I'd be worried if the acid was genuinely acid or if the weed was stronger than the dealer said. In our day, you heard stories of people killing themselves when high, but you never heard of the drugs themselves having poison in them or anything. First drug related death I remember being a thing was Leah Betts and even then it was because she'd drank too much water and poisoned herself. These days, kids are dying because the ecstasy has got rat poison in it, or worse.

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Original poster
BowieFan · 12/10/2016 19:31

TheRadiantAerynSun

As a mother, I now completely understand my mum and dad's relief when I told them that DP was the "one". After a parade of shaggy, unwashed, idiotic and thick boyfriends, my DP, a trainee RAF pilot with a sensible haircut and from a nice area probably seemed like a miracle! Grin

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Original poster
BowieFan · 12/10/2016 19:34

ClashCityRockers

Probably they did. I don't think it bothered them that much as I generally had a sensible head on their shoulders. I was the 5th of 7 kids so they'd been through it all four times before. I don't think they'd have been happy if they knew the full extent of my commitment to raving, but they're aware of it now and we can laugh about it because I turned out alright. All 7 of us did, actually. Well, except for my brother who got a suspended sentence for possession, but he's a solicitor now. Or, as we call him, a Narc. Grin

Actually, all of my friendship group turned out fine. It was the kids who had too many rules and lived under the thumb of their parents that went off the rails and ended up in a bad way. I know someone who overdosed in the 90s. They came from a strict family, his dad was a Vicar and he was Head Boy. I think, at the end of the day, if you have too many rules, you'll never discover your limits until it's too late.

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Charley50 · 12/10/2016 19:41

Bowie Fan - I agree. About the strength of the drugs etc and about the too strict parents. Leah Betts was about the only person to die of ecstasy back in those days and now you hear of so many more deaths. And the link to skunk and psychosis.. That's why I just hope my DS is a lot more sensible than I was.
My dad actually was very strict but I refused to stay home. It caused a LOT of conflict between us.

Dontpanicpyke · 12/10/2016 19:42

Not going to list either mine or dhs numerous crimes although we met at 18 and married at 20 so pretty tame by then.

Our older 2 lads did usual drinking and mild fighting, smoking around 15/16 and then got pretty sensible.

My dds now teens although drop dead gorgeous think drinking is for twats and clubbing boring.

They have had steady boyfriends since 15 and the 4 of them watch the TV sat night like old married couples. Grin

Me and dh are far wilder than them. Kind of worrying really Hmm

Dontpanicpyke · 12/10/2016 19:44

To add as parents we are the least strict of any we know really. ''Tis odd.

thatsn0tmyname · 12/10/2016 19:47

Lighting aerosols with lighters to make blow torches.
Running around the common with pants down, ' moonies'.
Spending most of Saturday sucking on a giant slab of honeycomb.
Sliding down the by-pass embankment on sheets of corrugated iron, 'summer sledges'.

Original poster
BowieFan · 12/10/2016 19:52

Dontpanicpyke

Yes, we're the same. Even though me and DP did all the stuff we did, we're generally quite free when it comes to rules.

DS1 (15 in two weeks) came home from a party last weekend after having three cans of cider and puked all over my bathroom. "I'm never drinking again," he exclaimed. Aww, bless.

DS2's just not interested at all. He spent that Saturday night in his shed, building a robot of some kind.

It does baffle me that today's kids are a bit more... well, sensible, than we were. I'm pleased though. If kids today really aren't that interested in drugs and petty theft, good for them! I suppose part of it comes from the fact that we all grew up in small towns where there was bugger all else to do. It's the only explanation for why I stole our town sign and still have it.

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