Was this “How things were” in the 90’s or was DM a bit Sh*t?

[ForeverBubblegum]

My Father was an absolute deadbeat who didn’t see us or pay maintenance (self-employed, cash in hand), so she was dealt a pretty crap hand. Because she was by far the better parent, I’ve always thought of her as a good parent, but since having DS I’ve started to realise quite how bad some of our childhood was. At the time it seemed normal, but now I’m not sure if it was normal for everyone then, or just normal to us.

A few examples:

Always poor but never worked – apparently there wasn’t childcare in the 90’s so she had to quit her job and say of work until I was in secondary school. Admittedly she had been doing shift work, which would have been hard to cover, but surly there were other jobs? Ironically she did do several interest courses at the local collage, so me and DSis would often have to wait in the garden or shed until she got in after 5 (didn’t want us to be latch key kids), but she couldn’t possibly have worked during the same time. This one is especially annoying as she is now playing the martyr because her pension won’t be very good due to all the time she “had to” stay home raising us.

Never had breakfast before school – not sure if it was a cost thing or a time thing, she’d shout from her room that we had to get up/dressed about 10 minutes before we had to leave, then get out of bed herself just in time to drop us off.

Always dirty – we had 2 set of school cloths to last the week, she would say she washed it every weekend but at least half the time it would get to Monday morning and it would still be dirty. We would then have to go in wearing the less mucky set whilst she washed the other, but then only have one clean for the next 4 days.

Congenital heart defect never diagnosed – it runs in the family and I had worked out I must have it by late teens, and later had it confirmed. However despite anecdotes such as I always used to turn blue as a baby and couldn’t stay awake more than 20 minutes until I was nearly 1, she never thought to get it checked at the time. Not much they could have done about it but at least if it was diagnosed I might not have got in trouble every week for not been able to run in PE.

Never used car seats, and often no seat belts – obviously don’t remember been a baby but didn’t have any at 3 or 4 when been dropped at nursery and my younger cousins definitely didn’t (remember holding baby in car) which didn’t seem odd at the time, so I suspect we didn’t either. I also remember her commenting how strange the neighbours were for using booster seats for their primary aged children. I remember going places with her friend and kids, so there would be four of us in the back seat (so can’t have had seat belt each), and also remember travelling in the foot well or boot, though less often.

Smoked like a chimney – around us in the house and car, would never even consider moving away from us or going outside. I’ve even seen pictures of her holding me as a baby, with a fag in her hand.

AIBU to feel she could have done better? Written down it sounds terrible, but at the time it didn’t feet out of the ordinary. Can anyone who remembers the 90’s tell me if it would have seemed bad to you at the time, or were standards generally lower back then?

Forever I suspect health professionals were less good at picking up things in the past with kids. My DP has a genetic illness. There are clear signs of this in his photos as a toddler, but it wasn't diagnosed until he was an adult. His family just saw it as a family peculiarity.

And before child tax credits and N,W, it was common for single mums with no family to provide free childcare, to be financially worse off if they worked.

""Child car seats and seat belts were widely available in the 70s, I used them for DS.""

Not in the UK they weren't.

The seats available weren't safe. My friends little girl was thrown through the windscreen and the weight of the car seat bouncing on her, helped kill her. That was 1989. People were wary of using them, likewise seat belts. That was when they were in the front seat, front facing.

The cars that my Dad and Granddad owned didn't even have seat belts. In my Granddads car, you would have to hold the door shut, he tied string around it.

I can remember the outcry when seat belt laws came in, most people didn't see the need for them.

I remember the out cry when it became law to wear helmets for motorbikes. And I volunteered as transport carer with disabled kids in the 80s. They all wore seat belts, but there were no booster seats or car seats for young children.

AS late as the 1990s, people still smoked in houses with kids but the rest doesn't sound 1990s at all. Sounds more Dickensian.

I had car seat and booster seat in late 70s /early 80s but no cycling helmet.

I think there is probably a strong class and regional dimension to this.

I am a bit older than OP but all the following were entirely and completely normal to me 5 yrs previous ish to the period the op is talking about:

• very few clothes. You got them.dirty inbetween machine loads, your bad.

Car seats... hahahaà nope. Seatbelts yes, boosters, no.
-chikdcare... possibly childminders but definitely no nurseries, daycare, etx where I gtew up. Children over 9/10 had a key.

Less sure about the going to school hungry thing. I dont remember that at all.

birdsgottafly DS had a series of baby seats, toddler seats, child seat belts, all bought from Halfords, to me that is "widely available"!

Compared to today's standards it does sound very poor.
Let's face it, nothing you've said sounds like you had a warm and nurturing childhood.
I thought you were going to say this was the 70s not 90s! Standards were different in the 70s but the 90s not so much.
I'm sorry you had this as your experience of childhood.

Childcare was hard to come by and expensive, no financial help, no childcare vouchers and employers were very reluctant to offer reduced hours to new parents.
I'm sure wearing a seat belt was compulsory and I had a car seat for my dc.
Automatic washing machines were the norm and so was having breakfast.
I don't think there was much awareness of mental health problems, my post natal depression wasn't picked up by any of the healthcare professionals.

I was born in the 1990s to a single parent (father deceased), and this was not my reality. We were never wealthy, by any stretch of the imagination, but I cannot relate to anything you have posted about.

Sitting in the footwell/no seatbelt was done by my family in the 90s/00s!

We had a nova, 4 kids, generally one would be in the footwell or no seatbelts and all crushed in.
No car seats either.

Must have looked like a clown car when we were all climbing out!

Your childhood was lax, some bits not too disimillar to mine, looking back a lot was crap, but what do you intend to do about it now?
There’s not really anything that can be done thinking about it. I’m sorry you have this on your mind, it’s horrible to look back and think that she should have and could have done better. But it’ll do you no good.

The only thing you can do is ensure that your children have better in the areas you realise your mum failed you.

I'm a 70s baby, and no car seats/smoking was normal, but I was looking after other people's kids in the 1990s as a baby sitter, and car seats definitely were a thing by then. I'm.sorry that you were not better looked after and going to school dirty and hungry, well that's just really sad. That would be neglectful in any era.

Most of this doesn't sound normal. When I was growing up in the 90s I frequently was asked if our home was my baby-sitter's house because a lot of kids went to a sitter after school. We kids were RAISED on bags of second-hand clothes and had WAY more than 2 outfits each! (We had cousins who were just a little older than us so we were often given clothes they had outgrown. Up until probably my late primary school age almost all of my clothes were second hand!) We all had seatbelts and car seats. Now, we did still have lap belts only and no airbags until I was older.

I don't think congenital heart defects were screened for as often then as they are now. Case in point - I went to nursing school and graduated in 2006. I had maternity clinical in 2004. They said NOTHING about congenital heart defects. Compare when I took my nursing students to maternity clinical a couple of years ago. EVERY baby had an oxygen saturation level done on the right hand and a foot before they went home, to look for evidence of congenital heart problems.

One more detail about the seat belts - I do not know about the laws in the UK, but here in Canada there was at one point a law that if your vehicle was manufactured prior to a certain date and seat belts were not included, there was no legal requirement to put them in. I think I recall meeting someone who had actually ridden in such a vehicle. I think the law has since changed so that seat belts are required, but that was the case at the time. If there is a similar law in the UK it's possible your family car was made before that date and seat belts weren't required.

I was born early 80’s and the smoking thing was definitely the norm throughout my childhood. Also the waiting around in gardens or letting ourselves in after school from quite a young age until someone got home. My dad used to have an escort van and would take 3 of us to school in the morning, so kids had to sit in the back on the wheel arches. It seems unthinkable now but it’s actually one of my favourite memories. As kids we thought it was great being thrown around and would go in to school covered in plaster dust!
I was never hungry or dirty though, I would say that wasn’t the norm.

Hm it obviously wasn't ideal! Breakfast, someone to greet you when you got back from school (or at least access to the house!), a smoke free environment, a booster seat and someone who woke you up in plenty of time with a set of clean school clothes each morning would have been nice!

Could she have had Depression or alcohol issues? or any other psychological issues? Did she really struggle not having a partner/husband to help out?

Parents are people who make mistakes and unfortunately it sounds like your Mum made plenty!

zzzz

Our practice was to wear each set of clothes twice. (Unless it was Sunday - then you put on clean clothes for church.) Once we reached puberty we would change our shirts daily. Underwear was changed daily except bras which were changed once or twice a week. Pajamas were changed once every two weeks with the bed change.

My 90s childhood:

• Woken up, with a hug each morning
• Breakfast: usually a bowl of cereal
• Clean school clothes
• Mum there when I got back from school
• Booster seat but only until I was about 5 as that was normal back then (babies had car seats, then kids had booster seat until about 5)
• Smoke free environment because Mum's Dad died from smoking related disease.

And yet I've definitely blamed my parents for all the things they did wrong/didn't do. There were some things lacking from your childhood but it might not help to dwell on them, just use it to inform your parenting now and have a lovely time raising your DC.

It all sounds exactly like my childhood, I was born in 1983. The no breakfast and being dirty especially ring a bell - my shirt collars were filthy and I remember the teacher ringing my mum and asking quite sharply why I hadn't had breakfast before coming to school after I almost fainted in class.

What's done is done though, it's in the past. I'll make sure my children don't go to school dirty or hungry or smokey.

This sounds more like the 60’s/70’s when I was a child/teenager.

I had my first child in 1985 and I wasn’t allowed to leave the hospital unless he had a car seat. All my 3 children had car seats/booster seats.

Getting childcare was very expensive with no help from the Government. Maybe possible with just one child, but with 2 or 3 impossible to earn enough unless you had a profession that paid a really good wage. I was a childminder for 10 years, the only way that I could juggle 3 children and make a decent wage.

My children’s uniforms might have been second hand or hand me downs but always clean and pressed. Breakfast was cereal or toast and packed lunches cheaper and preferred by them to school dinners.

My parents smoked when I was young and I hated it. If they visited me or my children, they smoked in the garden, their choice, both died younger than average because of their smoking habit.

Even if your Mum didn’t work much she would still have had NI contributions credited to her for up to 20 years if she was claiming child benefit.

That sounds like my DMs childhood and she was born in 1960

Definitely not normal for 90s, that's when I grew up, I remember being nearly 10 and being so embarrassed my mum made me use a booster seat still. (I was pretty tiny)

My parents definitely parented differently than I did/do. Yet I know that they did the best they could with the information/knowledge they had. Doesn't matter what the decade.
I have a hereditary condition diagnosed in my early 20s. Signs were always there but hindsight doesn't help. Never held it against them. My parents are not educated people. They are kind people. Loving people but not super worldly people.
I've never ever considered that they are not worthy to look after my children because they didn't parent that fantastically. Never.
I'm the parent. They respect that and for the brief amount of time in the scheme of things that my children were with them, I can't say I cared that much what they got up to. They are AMAZING grandparents.

I don’t mean to be unkind but I think this might be more about socioeconomics. I was born in ‘73, sister in ‘70. Mum stayed at home, dad worked. Naice house. We always had clean clothes, but people wore the same clothes several days in a row back then. We always had breakfast- toast, hot or cold cereal, muesli...same things I feed my kids for breakfast! I was a nanny in the ‘90s. I have a 13 year old and a one year old and I mentioned to my husband today that they are being brought up in a very similar way to my sister and I and the kids I used to nanny for despite the different eras

I knew the lady who became our large villages first childminder in about 1994/5. There was no after school or holiday club.