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?

Most of the pubs I was taken to were within walking distance of my Dads house so he didn't have to drink and drive although it certainly happened when I was taken to pubs further afield.

However, there were at least half a dozen pubs in the village that he lived in, so I was regularly treated to a pub crawl.

There were never any pub gardens or other children to play with. It was just a congregation of pissed people that I was forced to interact with whilst feeling scared, vulnerable and alone.

I remember one occasion, I must have been about 7 and I was wearing a jumper with Snoopy on it, my Dad got up to go to the toilet leaving me alone and this miserable old bastard came up to me (pissed obviously) and said "I fucking hate Snoopy"!!

Another occasion, I was about 11 and one bloke in the pub made a sexual reference about me, In front of my Dad who did nothing.

God this thread is bringing up some bad memories for me

This was late 80's-early 90's btw

I'm 36 so maybe too young it it was mainly the 70 / 80s

I'm a year older and I definitely remember it. I don't recall getting any 'supplies' though [DM sadface] I remember at times it must have been in the evening because it was dark and really quite scary, especially if we were in a car park away from the pub itself. What was even worse though was spending two hours every single Saturday in Dorothy Perkins having to entertain my two siblings whilst my DM tried clothes on. I used to try to invent games to occupy them as i would have got told off if they misbehaved (they were about 2 and 3 at the time)

With regards to drink driving it was very commonplace to have a couple pints of beer and drive unlike nowadays where most people don't drink and drive, the drink driving law came in 1967 where you could be breathalysed.

In those days though there were sometimes some stretches of boring times, no iPads or mobile phones to keep us amused, I can't recall it was that bad though.

Ah I'm sorry to to have brought back horrid memories to some posters.

At the tender age of seven, I was left STANDING on the street outside a pub (I don't think it will out me if I reveal that it was the Downview in Worthing) by an aunt while she popped in to buy some cigarettes. My DPs were NOT amused when I told them.

Why do people look back on this with fond nostalgia, laughing at the millenials who would be upset about it if it happened now? Of course we would, its child neglect.

Not everyone on this thread btw, comments section of the post

Quite normal behaviour back in the day. One of my earliest memories is sitting in my pram/pushchair outside a shop whilst my mum went inside.

I was never left outside the pub (as far as I can remember!) but there was a little lad at my school who was left in the car on a regular basis whilst his mum went into the pub with friends until one day he released the handbrake on the car and it rolled into a stream. She always managed to find a babysitter after that

Yep, occasionally. The excitement about being allowed a coke and bag of crisps outweighed any downside.

Certainly not. we were left on the pub doorstep with crisps or a box of chocolate raisins. Unless it was the country pub when we were allowed to walk nicely ( push each other into the nettles/cow pats) along the river bank! Happy days.

Oh just remembered this, my Mum often wasn't there when I came home from school, house locked up so I would have to troop round her friend's houses hoping to find her. One memorable night I went to her friend's house and her teenage son was there, he said I could wait there and then starting saying really weird stuff like "are you scared of knives?" He went to the kitchen and got one and stood dangling it over me pretending he was about to drop it, was a big carving knife. I was terrified, he left the room and I ran out of the front door and hid in an alley opposite, my Mum turned up about an hour later, it was winter and really dark and cold. She had my younger sister with her who was a toddler so I was around 7 or 8 at the time.

In the summer, at least once a week we'd be popped in the beer garden for a few hours with a packet of smokey bacon crisps and a single lemonade (with two straws).

Got to say, it didn't scar me!

Why do people look back on this with fond nostalgia, laughing at the millenials who would be upset about it if it happened now? Of course we would, its child neglect

I suppose you had to be there.
It wasn't child neglect in most cases....I remember it fondly because it was a happy memory. Parents were certainly more relaxed and less paranoid then...We got freedom that kids today can't have today. Like I said....you had to be there

Never for the pub, but we used to spend (what seemed like) hours in the car while my parents did house calls, back in the days when doctors did that more.

I always hated it. No crisps and coke either. Hell of a better cause than the pub though, to be fair.

You have to realise communities were different then.
Everybody knew their neighbours because people did not move house often like they do now a.Kids played out from a young age and developed instincts about dangers.
Other parents were allowed to chastise you and they watched out for you.
I can see why it doesn't happen today.

Yes all the time.
And driven home when he was so drunk he could barely stand.
I spent so much time outside pubs when I was a young child and lots more inside them when I was a bit older. It's all I ever did with my dad.
He died at 49 of alcohol related problems.

Not the pub, but I was left in the car for about half an hour so my dad could go to the bookies as part of our weekly shopping routine. This was through the 80s and established before a house move when I was 7.

I'd sit in the car reading the Readers Digest atlas which was full of handy information such as how to load a roof rack aerodynamically for best fuel economy.

I liked those mornings, we'd go around the different shops to get the groceries, and a cafe for a drink. It was our quality time together well, until the bookies at the end

Not a car but would be told to go to the park down a back lane 5 mins walk from the pub. We'd be there bloody hours whilst mother was in the pub then she'd drive us all home (how we weren't killed in a car crash I'll never know).

Beer garden, salt and vinegar crisps and a can of cherry coke when we came back to the UK to stay with Grandparents. I was also allowed a magazine and often had their next door neighbour's dog for company.

Used to get left in the car when they went shopping quite a bit too. We lived in Germany at the time and they got a telling off from the police about leaving little girls in unlocked cars once. Didn't stop them doing it again though.

Pub gardens yes, both with a bunch of other kids and by myself. Parents never got drunk though, and one of them was always sober to take us home.
I also got left in the car while parents were shopping, including in shopping centres. I was fine and always had a book on me.

Yes the car with my brother and sister. Coke and crisps each.

Every Saturday my mum would work and we'd walk to town with my dad after doing the chores. He'd stop at the bookies and we'd sit on the wall outside for an hr. Then down to the conservative club and sit on the wall outside there for a few hrs. He'd occasionally pop out with a drink or crisps.

I miss pub doorways smelling of smoke and beer. They bloody stink now!

I can't remember ever being left in the car, but we used to be left in the pub garden with a coke and crisps while Mum and Dad were inside .Used to love it!

Yes. It was horrible.

I think I was also left in charged my Dsis and DB when I was 7 while they went to the pub

Obviously, driving home after a drink isn't on, but a bit of benign neglect is probably good for kids, a few hours in a beer garden on their own in summer gives them a chance to play on their own, strike up friendships and conversations with other kids, play co operatively and explore the world around them, rather than having organised 'fun' arranged by their parents and all that desperately forced 'making memories' crap.