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?

No. We were either allowed in the pub (on strict instructions not to mess about) or left at home (my mum and step-dad used to arrange babysitters and my dad used to just leave us at his house, by ourselves, for hours when he went to the pub and should come back absolutely steaming drunk). This was the 80s and early 90s.

Ah yes, happy memories!
In the late 50's , early 60's. Left with my brother sitting on the back steps of the pub. The only time we ever got lemonade. We were in a village and would never have wandered off. Us kids were pretty obedient in those days !

oh another occasion we slept in the back of the car

Honestly Womblingthree, you don't have to feel sorry for me! I had an amazing childhood and was loved dearly by my Dad. Sitting outside the pub on a Sunday dinner time, inventing my own games, playing dominos, reading my book, talking to other children. I look back now and don't consider it neglectful or abusive and no I'm not in a deep denial about the "neglect" either.

I felt safe because it was the local pub, everyone knew everyone, and there was always someone looking out for you. I remember falling off my bike, grazing my knees and cutting my chin open and within seconds of it happening, a neighbour came out with Dettol, cleaned me up and her Husband carried me home. My Dad fetched my bike later that day from where I'd left it on the pavement.

I'm not fantasising the childhood. I grew up safe and secure and felt it. My child is hopefully growing up the same, except now I take appropriate risks that are suitable. We are fortunate to know our neighbours, we help each other out and this adds to security on our street.

this was the 70s in my case

Wombling I completely disagree about it necessarily being neglectful. It may have been. But not necessarily so.

Some posters have themselves said that it happened to them occasionally, not from r that long a time, that they loved it, never felt in danger and liked it. How is that neglectful?

Do you know the true definition of neglect?

Neglect is defined in Working Together to Safeguard Children 2015 as "the persistent failure to meet a child's basic physical, emotional and/or .....

Persistent.

Not a child happily reading their book in peace, away from siblings.

Neglect is very serious. And the word shouldn't be used flippantly.

Oh yes, happy memories of coke and crisps in the car with my sibling and dog while dad (and sometimes mum too) in the pub. This was a country pub with private car park in the early 70s. Not every week but enough that I remember it clearly.

We would be in the beer garden climbing the one tree. We would get drinks and crisps though. Vimto was particularly popular

It wasn't neglectful as back then it was standard parenting

Kids weren't allowed in pubs ,only in the gardens iirc,not like these days.

It was a HUGE treat for us as it meant pop and crisps and unless you were a 70's child you have no idea just how exciting that was! We also usually had a couple of mates with us so we'd play/ tell stories and later go in the beer garden. It wasn't a regular thing in my family but I loved it!

I agree with PP that it was normal then, no children were allowed in pubs at all. I think the facebook poster was joking. If it happened in the 70s neither the parents nor the children thought that was neglect. In our case it was an occasional summer evening and we were always home in bed by 8.

It happened to me too and I'm 48.

Children weren't allowed in pubs in those days (70's) so it was the beer garden if there was one, car if not.

I'm 58 so it would have been in the 1960s.

1960s. Not at the pub, but dh says he and his siblings used to get left in the car for a couple of hours once or twice a month while his mum went in to visit her friend. I don't know whether the friend had made it clear that the children weren't welcome, or whether his mum didn't want to be bothered with the kids while she had a chat.

His mum had a hard time of it, with little time to relax, so I don't think this was selfish of her. Pity there wasn't somewhere the kids could have run around outdoors instead of being stuck in the car though.

Yup. Me too.

It usually happened in North Wales, so bitterly cold beer garden, or a draughty skittles alley. Occasionally the car, but we had a VW camper.

No. My parents didn't have a car and they never went to the pub.

We have a car and go to the pub, but we never left DD in the car.

Yes, had forgotten till this thread. About once a month we would be left in a pub garden, parents would check on us every hour or so. Sometimes on long journeys they'd pull into pubs and we'd be left in the car for what felt like endless hours. My Dad drank a LOT, many weekends he'd go out on a Friday and then lie in bed all day long while we had to be quiet. My Mum did too really. There's a family story where I got up alone aged three (apparently this was the norm ) and drank the dregs of the drinks still standing around - Pernod in case you're interested - and was apparently a bit tipsy - age 3...

My parents never went to the pub unless we were all going to a country sort of pub for a family meal. Even now, I have never known them go to a pub just for a drink, unless I drag them down to their 'local' when I visit them!

My DH's dad used regularly to play the accordion in pubs when he was a child (1960s), and DH used to be left outside with a bag of crisps, a comic, a lemonade, and an occasional wave through the window. He assures me he was perfectly content!

Never heard of this before! I was a kid in the eighties, which am assuming is the right era?

perhaps this still happened in the 80s, I don't know, but it was very much a 1960s early 70s thing and for lots of us, if it was just the odd occasion, great fun

I think saying the children didn't think it was neglect is a bit odd. As a child i had no idea what neglect was. I did know i was sad and lonely. As i got older i look back and yes i do see it as neglect. My parents would also see it as neglect now and i'm pretty sure if then they had to say it in a court or justify it (like drink driving) they's know it was 'not right'.

I think the odd hour with a bottle of lemonade etc is fine. But a lot of people when i grew up spent hours and hours in cars or outside pubs. And the idea that 'well, kids weren't allowed in pubs, so what else could they do?' is bizarre. Surely you just don't go! I don't think, oh i'd love to go to a nightclub but it's no kids so i'll leave them in the car. I realise that having children means i can't do that. It boggles my minds that children were so expected to fit in with adult life styles and in a lot of cases adults never saw any reason to adapt at all.

Not left in a car but we were taken into the pub and sat in the corner (90's child).

My brother was even given a shandy back then!

Ah yes, I do vividly remember the smoke! Stinking of fags when you left.

Funnily enough the landlords daughter started smoking from a young age, she didn't get caught until the smoking ban came in!!

I'm 45. This never happened to me but the pub my parents occasionally visited used to allow children to come in as long as they remained inconspicuous and quiet - we wouldn't have been allowed to mill about in there as kids do now. Friends of mine have stories of waiting in the car with coke and crisps though, and seem to have fond memories of it, maybe because fizzy drinks and crisps weren't as commonly available at home as they are now.

I remember the neat rows of prams outside shops in the late 1970s. That's something I would not have done when my sons were babies 11-13 years ago.

It boggles my minds that children were so expected to fit in with adult life styles and in a lot of cases adults never saw any reason to adapt at all

Tbh I think we a lot better for it sometimes, the pandering that goes on these days is what is mind boggling.

Not left in the car no. But in pub gardens or outside pubs which had a climbing frame and slide on the opposite side of a small quiet road or pub which had a large garden.

In games rooms in seaside/country pubs where the landlord would let us in (with orange juice and crisps).

There was one pub years ago I was about 8, in a hop picking part of Kent, it was a longish (30 mins) drive down a country lane but the pub had a garden with play equipment and they seemed friendly. Parents were over the moon!

Hate to say it but kids were far better behaved back then as the landlords word was law and most didn't let you in, even into gardens or games rooms and even if bad weather!

Yes. All the time.

I spent the weekends at my Dads and we would spend the afternoons in the pub gardens having lots of fun with lots of other children and it was pretty great.

Then all the other children went home, it got dark and me and my sistera toddler at the timehad to either sit in the entry or the car while my Dad kept drinking.

If we were lucky we got a lemonade. usually we got nothing.

Not something I recall with fond nostalgia TBH.

No, but my Dad used to quite often take DB and I to the pub with him on a Saturday afternoon to give my DM a break. It wasn't a family friendly pub either, proper old man's drinking pub. We used to drink cartons of Calypso pop and play with the dominos. I can also remember my Dad lifting us up so we could reach the dart board!