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?

Aged about 11 I had enough clean uniform, breakfast etc. Mainly as I did washing and shopping.

Where I lived, there was no childcare in the 80's. There was one private nursery, but that was for well to do families. Riff raff like us couldn't afford it and I doubt they would have accepted us. There was one registered childminder in our large village who was always full. If a woman wanted to work, she had to rely on family and friends. Most women in the area I lived in, either didnt work, or just had a little part time job. Anything else was frowned upon by the local community. This was in a northern pit village. I managed to escape when my youngest was a baby

Blimey, that wasn't even my expierence as a child of the 60's and 70s and we had or kids in the 90's

As a child my mum took on part time jobs that started after school had started and was home when we got home from school. If for some reason she wasn't around dad, or grandparents would pick us up. We both worked but I did shifts with a lot of time off so was able to do pick ups most days and DP usually did mornings.

We always had breakfast as kids. Ready Brek or Porridge in winter, rice crispies or cornflakes in summer. Same with our kids. Although they didnt want breakfast as teens they did have a home made smoothie.

Neither parent smoked. Neither DP nor I smoke although MIL did.
We didn't have car seats but then no one else did. If they were a 'thing' you could be your last quid we would have had one, mum liked to ( and still does) like to keep up with whats happening! DS1 was born in 96 and we had the baby travel set ready before he was born.

Mum always took pride in her washing and ironing and is still proud about her 'whites' being 'whiter than white' I did get sick of hearing that!!! The lads uniform came off as soon as they come home and they had a couple of sets so they were always clean for school.

With regard to health, all health check ups were kept.

However with your mother, it sounds like she was doing her best in difficult circumstances.

My eldest was born in 1989 and my other 2 were born in 1993 and 1995, all had seat belts in the car, and not exposed to smoking, I was a stay at home mum until 1998 when my DD went to playgroup, but my DM and DF were my childcare so I could work part time, I wouldnt have let them come home and wait in a shed but not sure if the time is different, although my own childhood wasnt like yours either, I think all childhoods will be different regardless of the era, you sound OK now though and whilst yours wasnt perhaps ideal in some areas, you have turned out OK :)

It was only compulsory to wear seat belts at the back of the car in 1991 so it seems to me that. Soncar seat would have been pretty common in the 1980 EVEN IF some people did start using car seats etc... before then.

Two uniforms doeant surprise me (I still only buy 3 for my dcs!) but yes they could have been clean.

Chain smoking was normal in the 1980 too.

Work? Tbh hard to say. Work wouldn’t have had any flexibility at all at that time and nor would it have been easy to take time off etc... if you or your sibling was ill. It wouod also have been not so normal to work as a woman, esp full time. This was still the case where I live 15 years ago when I had my dcs! Most parents at school were either SAHM or working very part time around school hours (something that wouldn’t have existed at the time)

You turning blue is clearly not great. But then, as you said, nothing could have been done. And people would have had a very different attitude about going to the doctor.

So what makes me much more uncomfortable is the lack of clean clothes and not getting up to prepare b’fast for you.

I think it depends on which parts of the 90s you're talking about with some of things. In 1999 the dangers of second-hand smoke were well known and smoking around kids would be seen as a "no-no" by most people. In 1990, not so much.

But sending your children to school in dirty clothes would be seen as neglect in most eras.

Car seats and smoking stuff was normal in the 90s...

The rest sounds really neglectful and im sorry you had to go through that

Some of this similar, some is plain neglect - I think it takes generations and some money to see change.
Never had breakfast, I didn’t know cereal existed in primary school.
Dirty clothes, no washing machine always used launderette, once a week.
Smoked around me
Didn’t see me to school, got myself there and back
Mum didn’t work in primary years
Never, I mean never brushed my teeth until about 14 when I worked it out for myself
Never bought me sanitary products

Loads more, I’ve accepted that
She was a shit mum as her “advice” is ignored.

I was a single mother in the 90's and I can tell you that there was no help towards childcare then. Or housing benefit. If you couldn't earn enough to cover costs there was no point having a job. That changed towards the end of the 90's when labour got in and they started subsidising low wages and child care costs. Things were much more relaxed about everything to do with children. I get a bit miffed now because everyone is so uptight, but cultures change. As I recall everything was smaller back then, just less cars etc. But she should have been washing your clothes. And feeding you before school. My child was never dirty or hungry, that's just negligence. I'd say you have some reason to feel annoyed, but only around the personal care stuff!

She let you down.

Standards were lower, which was why, Every Child matters, Tax Credits being extended, Children's Centers, registration for Childcare etc started after Blair came into power.

I was considering going back to work in the early 90's, but there were enough media reports of Childminders killing/injuring children in their Care, that I decided to study instead. I couldn't do that for a few years, until 1994 and the rules about payment changed.

Some of the issues varied depending on were you lived, others were a matter of luck. I can remember there still being 'dirty' families and in some cases, their Mum's were cleaners. Washing/clean clothes were still a matter of personal opinion and even work places didn't have presentation codes. why do you think they were introduced?

People were still of the opinion that you were bothering the doctor, that's why we got more screening programs and adverts to encourage getting checked out. Early intervention and preventative healthcare was starting to be properly funded.

As said, it sounds as though your Mum's MH was the biggest factor, which wouldn't have got much help, except AD's thrown at you.

She struggled, got some things wrong, but seems to have done her best.

My life and the life of my DD is very different to what I experienced in the 80/90's and so is that of the people who live around me.

That's without the lack of rights for Parents at work and all the other employment rights that wasn't around. They may have existed on paper, but you were scared to lose your job and insist on them.

The '90s were really not the dark ages. Lots of my friends were getting married and having kids at that time and standards of care for children were as they are now.

Not keeping your children clean and fed is basic neglect.

I was 12 in 1990 and I recognise a lot of that. My mum worked though which meant coming home to an empty house a lot of the time, going to holiday clubs or older bullying brother 'looking after' us both. My mum has never eaten breakfast and therefore didn't think it was important for us. Chips every night for tea. To this day I haven't sat in a booster or car seat and my parents think it is 'pandering' that we have them for our DCs! Similarly sun cream, how we all don't have skin cancer I don't know - they still "don't believe" in it. One bath a week and we shared the water. Never taken to doctors and forced to go into school when I was ill so she didn't have to take time off.

My clothes were clean though so I can think myself lucky.

It needs context really. If she was abandoned by your dad, isolated, depressed, poor, generally overwhelmed and struggling then you can sort of see why the stuff happened.

However, one persons “best” is not the same as another person’s best. Some people cope much better than others. Some people are more resourceful than others.

You are best placed to make the judgement, you were there and you know her. Do you think she did her best or not? Is she kind and decent person?

Were standards really lower in the 90s? My dad was born in 1995, and I don’t think things were very different. People are talking as if it was all tin baths in front of the fire!

My dad was born in 1995
Suddenly I feel ancient so I hope that's a typo!

I was a young adult in the 90s, and I’m afraid what you’ve described doesn’t sound very good.
Mothers working was totally normal, childcare was widely available, I think car seats were a legal requirement for babies at least, and heavy smoking near kids was already becoming taboo.
Sorry OP.

She does sound lazy tbh. My friends mum never had a job "because of the dog". At the time that seemed reasonable. Now I'm like "for 18 years???"

I do raise my eyebrows at a few things from my past (another 70s baby) but I was always in clean clothes and had a key to get in (why the fuck us the garden shed preferable to being indoors?!) I was warm fed and cuddled and there was always food on the table. I was left to get on with things from an earlier age than my kids but it was a safer small town not inner city etc.

I was born in 1987 and while we did have little booster seats in primary school, we also used to do a school run with a couple of other families which always involved kids sitting 4 to the back seat, in the footwells and in the boot (if it was a spacious one).

The other stuff sounds a bit odd. There was definitely childcare but perhaps your mum couldn't afford it. With the dirty, smelly clothes and having to hang about outside the house a lot (not out of choice - we all roamed about outdoors without anybody knowing exactly where we were), you sound like the really poor family in our village. My mum had a huge soft spot for those kids, and there was a lot of tacit acceptance that they were low-level neglected.

I was a latchkey kid, as my mum worked. Born early 80s. There was definitely a lot of benign neglect but again not as far as dirty clothes and no breakfast. I had clean clothes and breakfast but to be honest I didn’t get much attention beyond that. Was expected to get to and from school and feed myself from about age 9. Summer holidays I was a street kid and used to let myself in to eat whatever was there, it was never good food or organised. There may have been cheese but no bread, or something like that. I would cobble together whatever was going. The smoking was dreadful, I can almost smell and see the thick smoke in our house, in pubs and in the car.... just bloody awful

I remember getting the coach to swimming lessons at school c. 1983 and it was "three to a seat!"

It does sound as though she didn't stretch herself enough but if you were happy with your mother, or reasonably so, don't be too hard on her.

I was a mother in the 1980s and 1990s and went to work, had childcare etc. Got a lot of stick about it from some quarters even though there was no problem and certainly no neglect. Seems unfair now but attitudes carried on from previous eras and were hard to shake off.

Mine would not eat any breakfast regardless of what it was and I tried to accommodate tastes. Took snack to school instead.

Thinking about it, I could never eat early breakfast either and went to school on an empty stomach except for a drink. Must have driven my mum up the wall (especially when we had a talk at school - hee hee - about the importance of breakfast, which I regaled to my mother). Just couldn't stomach anything until I'd been out in the air, same when I was older.

Your mother probably did the best she could according to her lights and if you still like her - forgive her for her shortcomings. There are plenty worse!

I was a single parent from 95 onwards. Ds was born in 93. He was in childcare from 9 months, and there was plenty of childcare around. He always had clean clothes practically every day and always had breakfast. So it was all there in the 90’s.

And he always had a child seat in my car.