Were you left in the car while parents went to the pub?

[ruru1981]

Sorry didn't know where else to put this.

I've just seen this meme on Facebook and so many people are saying this used to happen to them.

Quite a lot said they would sit in the car for hours. Some said they shared a drink between 4 kids. Some said they didn't get a drink. Most are laughing about what would happen if it happened these days.

Did / does this really happen?

Am I lucky that this never happened to us growing up or is this unusual?

DH was, regularly.
Right up until he and his siblings got taken into care.
Might be a correlation...

YES LEft loads of times by loads of diff people.

One day a tramp banged on the car window and spat at it scared me to death and I wet the seat of the car, they were due to sell it that week...I wasnt left by those people again

Sorry idont I snorted with laughter there

Yep loads of times. My grandad collected me from primary school on a Thursday and friday. Pub was along the road from school and the lollipop lady used to watch for me coming and nip into pub and let grandad know to order my lemonade. I used to sit in the pub with my lemonade and crisps and he would often go along the road to the bookies and leave me in the pub.

Sounds horrendous now over 35 years later but I was safe, fed and watered. Better than some of the kids who went home to an empty house.

yep! on a Friday night my mum would drop my dad off to the pub (with me in tow) and then we'd go back home. I'd have to stay awake until she went to pick him up which was around 11.30pm but he was never ready! we would sit in the car and play cards but he would always pop out and insist she came inside for a drink which meant I was left on my own in the car until the pub finally decided enough was enough and chucked everyone out!

On a Saturday night it was different - my mum would also go to the pub which meant I was either left in the car or if I was lucky there was a beer garden there with other kids that were left on their own aswell, although I remember being sad because as soon as it got dark the other kids parents would take them home and I'd be left out there on my own :-(

Occasionally we would go to a different pub and the landlord allowed me in the lounge area because I was well behaved (translate didn't dare to put a foot wrong). I wasn't allowed to speak all night unless spoken to and I certainly wasn't allowed to join in any conversations or go wandering off etc.

Happy times

I was a child in the 80's and we went to the pub with my mum and were left in the Beer Garden (The Endwood) with lemonade and crisps open the funny way and left to it for a couple of hours, there would always be some other kids to play with we all loved it.

We had an endwood too with a beer garden user

You know what Gottagetmoving and others. Perverted men getting away with sexually assaulting and abusing young women (just because they were on the telly) was a way of life then too. Thankfully people realised it was fucking wrong!

Yeah... that's really not the same at all is it?

WomblingThree
I really can't see how you can equate leaving kids in a car outside a pub with child rape and sexually abuse. Not sure what point you are trying to make.

We went in working mens clubs. Kids were allowed in there all night. Various people came round selling seafood, sweets etc which we blagged some and family used to take in pork pie and sandwiches etc to munch on. One parent always stuck to soft drinks though and drove home. Loved dancing with my sisters, cousins and friends to a naff Cher tribute and banging beer bottles on the table at the end for one last song!

Not in the car - on a bench outside the pub with a packet of crisps and a coke each.

There was one pub where kids were allowed into a "lounge" bit that didn't have any actual bar in it, so if it was rainy we'd be taken there instead. I do remember one time when a very pissed old man came and sat with me and my sisters and tried to start up a conversation and I had no idea how to cope, but fortunately my dad came in to check on us and asked him kindly to desist.

It seemed normal at the time. Our parents weren't particularly negligent - they were early adopters of seat belts for children and adults alike when many didn't bother.

People are misunderstanding the post. It's not about who went to the pub with family and look back on fond memories.

I used to love the children's room in the pub, it had loads of books and board games, we used to get a cherry coke and crisps and thought it was amazing!

I can see the connection Wombling made. It was all part and parcel of 70s culture, like drinking and driving. So ingrained to go to the pub was it that even when you had children who were young and vulnerable you people still felt it their right to continue and just lock them in a car or a boot (lovely child rooms in pubs are not the same thing .

It is the same culture of disregarding childrens rights that also led to a lot of abuse being seen as just part of the time (which lots of people still feel). Watch something like the sweeney and see what they say about young school girls etc.

By the same token because I was taken to pubs with a lot of this culture I was groped, leered at, scared, intimidated by adult men who saw me as fair game because I was young and female. My parents always just laughed it off.

And as for drink driving the attitude is the same. 'How else will we get home from the pub' was the logic. Not 'well we don't go to the pub if we have to drive' or 'I won't be able to drink'. Which seems the logical conclusion to us now.

All of it is part of the zeitgeist.

*not ' you people' you/people

Yes my brother and I were often left in the car with a bottle of Coke and a packet of crisps.

Even when there was a beer garden, mostly out parents would sit inside the pub smoking while we sat in the car. Usually summer too.

And if we messed around, beeping the horn, pretending to drive etc we'd get a wallop.

Yes I see wombling and MrsK post.

Children were defiantly regarded as seen and not heard and that extended to all areas of life.

We watched an episode of 'on the buses' the other day which we had watched as a family in the 70s.

Me and dh were absolutlry shocked at the fiilthy jokes the sexism and racism and there was actually a serious sexua. Assault on screen and the assaulted woman was giggling.

It was indeed another age.

Thank you for that MrsKoala and waitforit.

For the hard of thinking: no I am not equating trips to the pub with child abuse (although being left in a car for hours is abusive in my opinion) ffs. I am saying that brushing things off as "oh that's how it was then" is a dangerous attitude.

I grew up in the 90's.

This never happened to me. Ever!

Imagine doing that now. Police & social services would be involved immediately.

Waitforitdear was it in Birmingham?, if so we went to the same pub

I grew up in the 70's and my dad left me outside in the car waiting for him when he was in the pub. It must of been from when i was 7 or 8, he never brought out crisps or drinks. Sometimes because it was winter it got dark early and because i was in a car park at the back of the pub it was isolated and scary. His need for a drink over rode his need to care for me better.

Imagine doing that now. Police & social services would be involved immediately.

Laughs a bitter laugh

Have you seen social services caseloads?

Twiggy have your parents mentioned thus since you got older? X

I was left in the car a lot, normally with my sister, while my dad went about work stuff. But my parents didn't really go to the pub, so avoided that one.