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?

Years ago, my neighbours used to strap their kids to the bed and go out on the town. They used to get pissed and drive home in the early hours of the morning.They didn't think they were doing wrong, the kids would be asleep anyway!

I used to love going to pub with my dad.
We'd spend the day together going somewhere i liked then few hours in the pub with my dad and his mates.
Certainly wouldn't call it neglect , Though i was never left in the car whilst my dad went to the pub.

user1468353179

Yes and I am 36 now so it was the late 80s/ early 90s. Used to sit in the car with my cousin and fight over one packet of crisps. We were also left on the step outside the bookies for hours and outside the bingo hall.

I am in my early 50s. My parents were divorced. Dad had us weekends.
We went to the conservative club with him. No other kids there.
We learnt how to play skittles and card games.Favourite drink was lime and lemonade. On rare occasions we had a Babycham, in a proper Babycham glass. Don't think the manager knew about it !
Bag of chips for the walk home through the park. It was pitch black.
Loved it.

Yes. Bottle of coke with a straw and a packet of salt and shake. No radio, doors locked, my sibling and I hated each other and used to fight in the back of the car.

Would be scared shitless on the drunken drive home.

All car journeys included adults smoking with the windows shut. Cars would be packed so often I was shoved in the foot well. Seat belts were never used.

The drunken pub nights were the least of my childhood worries.

Parents have a selective memory and deny any of it happened.

I had forgotten about the smoking in the cars, my parents didn't smoke but a lot of people did, it was like a fog

Yes, we were. Crisps and lemonade in the car, or in the beer garden. My mum and dad were the first amongst their peers to have children. They'd go drinking at Sunday lunchtime with my dad's boss and wife, who were very vocal about how much they disliked children.... until they had their own kids later on in life and wouldn't stop banging on about how amazing they were! Pissed my mum off big time with the double standards, she had to bite her tongue.

We used to go to a rugby club with our dad. We'd get crisps, pop and sometimes Mars bars. He never drove; we didn't live too far away so we walked. We'd play outside, climbing on the shed or pallets at the back of the club, or kick the spare balls about. Used to get freezing in the winter! I enjoyed it a lot. Didn't stop going till I was 12/13. This is late 80s/early 90s.

Not in my case apart from once where a pub had to be used as my grandmother needed the toilet in a hurry. Indeed I was an adult before I went to the pub nearest my house.

Not in the car. My mum was really neglectful. Would have me sitting in the corner of the pub until late. Then would either go upstairs or home. Sometimes with her, sometimes with my cousins who weren't really much older than me. Or at times alone. She'd run me across the road and told me to stay in bed.

Don't be ridiculous kali110. There's a hell of a difference between a nice day out with your dad followed by a trip to the pub and being abandoned all day in a hot car with one drink.

I don't think anyone has suggested going to the pub with your parents is neglect. But more that being left alone in a car for hours is. I think there is a world of difference being in a pub garden with siblings or other kids, where your parents can see you/were near, to being left alone in a car in the heat or cold.

I take my dc to the pub, there are lots round here with nice gardens. I let them go off and play with other children while i sit and have a drink and a chat. That's not neglect .

I also am really surprised at how many people thought coke and crisps as kids were a treat! I hated both. I had an orange juice - which was freely available at home, so no treat there. But also i didn't grow up with any food as a treat. I had access to whatever i wanted whenever i wanted, which meant bribery with food never worked!

x-post Wombling

Great minds MrsK

My sister and I would get a packet of crisps and a drink whilst the parents went in for a drink, at the time family friendly pubs didn't exist and not many had beer gardens. God I'm old

Never happened to me but I am certainly not averse to taking dcs to the pub now

My DH and his brother were left outside a pub most nights and certainly every weekend while both his parents were in the pub. When they were on holiday it could be most of the day spent in the carpark of the pub and then his dad would drive them back to their holiday rental. He says at the time they didn't think anything of it as it started when they were 5 or 6. Looking back on it he is upset his parents did this, but his mum still thinks it was good parenting as they gave them a pack of crisps and a coke!!

Not in the car but we often sat in the beer garden or on a chair in the corridor, with a coke and pack of crisps.

We loved it!

Never in the car, we didn't have a car! Lots of happy days rampaging in pub gardens, car parks, back rooms for hours with cokes and crisps and sneaky sips of beer.

Yes in the car in the pub car park (rural pub) with an ice cold Coke and a packet of crisps. Coke always tasted special in a glass bottle and we loved a trip to the pub. We were never allowed out if the car though which is something I just can't imagine doing with my own kids.

Wow am shocked at how common this was! I'm not judging though - it WAS a different era back then.

I was left alone from around aged 9 if ill and off school because my mam worked as well as my dad, tucked up on the sofa in a sleeping bag with sweets and crisps and the phone number of mam's work, and also left alone at the same age while they went to the social club of a weekend. I used to love it as would be able to play out late on my bike with friends whose parents did the same. It was the norm for parents not to mollycoddle their children - we never expected our parents to 'entertain' us and from morning till it got dark we were out playing with our friends in school holidays etc.

Had a lovely childhood - I really do think it's a shame that most children nowadays don't have the same freedom I had.

Pubs didn't have beer gardens when we were children. We had to play in the nearest park. After a few hours it was very dull. DSis cut her knee on some broken glass which bled profusely. (she still has the scar.) I don't remember getting anything to eat or drink. It was not fun, it was tedious and worse when we realised we could get hurt and there wouldn't be any adult help. There were lots of pubs around in our large town and of course town was full of strangers, none of this "everyone knew everyone" crap

The smell of pubs (then) and beer on people's breath still makes me shudder.

My mum didn't drink, she was out in her full time job trying to support her kids and an alcoholic, so it's not a good old days memory for me

Jesus no. My parents and their friends just used to get pissed at each other's houses so us kids could amuse ourselves with party nibbles and stealing martini.

Completely agree with MrsK and Wombling. A garden where you can run about in the fresh air with other kids is not the same as three or four hours sitting in a too hot or too cold car, looking after younger siblings, sharing a bag of crisp and a bottle of Coke while wondering if you're going to make it home that day because you've already been close to run off the road thanks to your blootered parent many times before. Then you get home and your mum is mad at you because you let him stay in the sodding pub all day.