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

[BowieFan]

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!

DontPanicPyke

Also, DS1 bought a cardigan next week. I think my kids are aging faster than I am. You wouldn't catch me wearing one!

No Charley50 haha!

But I do know a mother and daughter who 'shared'

Most of my teenage stuff I'm not too fussed if DD does, like drinking or sneaking out at night (that's to be expected really as there's a ladder going from DD's window to the ground as the fire escape) as I think that's fairly benign, rite of passage stuff for teenagers. I hope she will be sensible when it comes to sex and insist on condoms though. And hopefully no staying at randomers home's because she misses the last bus/train home like I always did.

Drugs, smoking, alcohol, casual sex, skiving off school, accepting lifts from strangers, self harming.

Most of it, really.

None of this sounds THAT bad. Do you honestly think the youff of today won't be doing similar? Get real.

BowieFan I grew up in London, so no small town boredom excuses for me!

Oblomov16

Did I say that they wouldn't? The thread is about things we did but we wouldn't want our kids doing. Our parents probably did things that they wouldn't have wanted us doing either.

I don't doubt my kids will do some of these things, but I think, in general, today's youth are a bit smarter. Mainly because there's plenty of ways to document these things happening now, whereas I could always just flat-out deny things to my parents because they couldn't prove it.

E.g. I distinctly remember me uttering the phrase: "Come on mum, do you really think I threw eggs at John Major?" whereas nowadays, that definitely would've been filmed by someone.

Kids look so bloody conservative nowadays.

Yes, where are the mohawks, bright hair colours and ill advised piercings?

I remember telling my dad I was getting a mohawk (I was about 15 at the time) and him saying "well if you want to look like a rooster, love, that's up to you." So I didn't do it.

I went for the full Sinead O'Connor instead.

bowie. Completely agree that so called legal highs seem much more dangerous. In my day it was blotting paper acid tabs and White Doves. You didn't hear of teenagers wearing nappies due to incontinence from ketamine abuse, that's for sure.

bowie. I think that bloody Barclays email ad sums it up. "Don't have an identity kids, conforming is the only way to have a future". Toe the line, and we'll promise you the earth.

Bowie

It's hilarious isn't it!

Dds will purse up lips and ask 'are you drinking AGAIN!

Yes to cardigans and also flat shoes

They could do all night parties but no they do their homework and 'get early nights' I mean am relived really but still.

Think you have something about being strict. When ds 1. Was 16 he had a tattoo and a lip piercing and me and dh told him he looked great. Took out the stud abs covered the tattoo.

Smoking
Drinking
Telling my DM I was staying at best friend's house overnight, then BF telling her DM the opposite.

I'm very respectable now, mind.

I'd prefer them not to do drugs every weekend or drink to oblivion for the best part of four years but as for the sex well, I always thoroughly enjoyed it and I don't expect for my children to remain virgins much (if at all) past the age of consent.

Fine if they do but equally fine if they don't.

speckled

Are you my best friend? I dropped her It as she hadn't briefed me.

Would be 1981!

Oh and they can smoke too, I bloody loved smoking

They just need to do the sensible thing and give up by 30 (31) like I did.

Then they won't have damaged their lungs or beautiful faces too much but still enjoyed the odd insouciant L&B

It's not what I did, it's who I did it with. I ended up in an abusive teenage relationship which has affected my entire life. Throwing up after too much cider was harmless in the long run, but if DD had a boyfriend like I did, I'd probably make her move country

I work with teenagers, and so many of them do nothing but sit at home playing xbox games for hours on end. They may be safe, but gosh, they aren't living

Oh yes to the going out in a warm coat and flat shoes and I would hide a flimsy jacket and heels in the bushes down our lane and change. Spent teenage years shivering

As joking with mum last Christmas about this and she went all snotty and talked about being sly.

I am 50 she's 86.

Dontpanicpyke

I never understood Ab Fab when I was a teen but now I completely do. My kids are far more restrained and boring than I am, they always seem embarrassed by me. I can't see either of them being in the paper for trying and failing to egg Michael Gove.

Ab Fab is so true to life, my kids just stand there with a disapproving look when I get slightly tipsy. Or DS1's favourite phrase when I come up with some insane thing I want to do, "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

EllenDegenerate

So agree about smoking. I've been off them for 15 years but DP still wistfully sighs about how sexy I looked when he saw me across the room smoking a silk cut. If there was a way to, y'know, not end up dying from them, I'd take it up again tomorrow!

ellen. Why would you describe it as the "odd insouciant L&B"? I've never wanted a ciggy more...

My niece is most definitely Ad Fab's Saffy. My sister and I still argue over which roles we play (clue: I'm inclined to a bit of backcombing - not a euphemism for anything else)

I'm under no illusions about being Patsy. Between 1993 and 2002 I was never too far from a glass of something and a fag. I am also very cagey about my exact age...

My best mate is definitely Eddie and she knows it. She is still trying to find her style 30 years after everyone else found theirs. Poor bugger.

It scares me to think of all the things as I did as a teenager and in my 20's. Strangers I met staying in my hotel room; this happened on more than one occasion. So lucky nothing awful happened. Plenty of weed, some coke masses of alcohol. I smoked and drank through Uni. I was actually like Jekyll and Hyde; super sensible but had this self destruct button.
I would die if my teenage daughter did any of this or put her in the dangerous situations I did.