To think our parents were all negligent?

[hooveringhamabeads]

(Lighthearted)

By today’s standards at least?

Inspired by some of the threads I’ve read this week, about 7 year olds playing out alone, or a baby being left for 5 mins while the Mum goes to the shop, I’ve been thinking about my own childhood and some of the (perfectly normal for then) stuff that happened. For context, I was born in the early 80s.

As babies, car seats weren’t a thing, so we’d be put in the carrycot on the back seat. My DM says that if we were asleep when we got to town, she’d leave us in the car, lock it and go and do her shopping.

We had a Subaru van with no seats in the back, and my brother and I would sit in the back, each on a wheel arch, and we’d love it because we’d get flung around the back as we were travelling along, which we found hilarious.

If we were on holiday at Butlins my parents would use the ‘baby listening service’ while they went out of an evening, which consisted of one person patrolling the massive site and putting their ear to the relevant doors to see if anyone was crying. What they did if there was I have no idea as no one had mobiles then.

My friend who’s DCs are now 24 and 28 used to leave her kids alone when holidaying abroad when they went out at night. But they’d leave a shoe in the door so that the kids weren’t shut in if there was a fire .

It’s a miracle we all survived

Wow yep this is pretty negligent by today’s standards but I was a child of the 80s and wasn’t ever left alone at a young age. I had a babysitter who came to look after us 6 days a week as my parents both worked, was never left in a hotel etc by ourselves (don’t know anyone that was to be honest ) but I do remember once being put in the boot of a car with the hood off with my friend both aged 7 as the car was full already. We loved it but now I realise how dangerous it was as does my mother who never did it again.

Aged 6 ish ,I was sent to the corner shop for a small food shop ( a good 20 min walk from home ) , I was given a list and envelop with money in it to give to the shop lady . She'd put the food in my bag take the money and put the change back in the envelop.

I had to cross a major road to get there and was told by my mum to ask any passing adult to see me across .

Our car seats consisted of a piece of foam to make us high enough for the seatbelt.
Regularly had rides in the boot.
My parents used the butlins listening service once, but came back to find me hysterical, so never did that again.

I was talking about this with DM, the recommendations for babies today are so much stricter that it does make them look negligent and make you wonder how anyone survived infancy.

Negligent or in some ways better? I sometimes feel we’ve traded off risk for our resilience and mental health.

(Of course better car safety is simply an improvement with no downside).

Yes, I remember the first car my parents owned that had seat belts in the back. I was 11, so too late for car seats! Kids riding in the boot was a regular thing too.

We also used to get left in the car while my mum shopped, and left in the garden outside the pub while my parents went in for a drink.

I don't consider my parents to have been negligent. Standards were just different.

We didn't have seat belts when I was a kid , all our car journeys were spent kneeling up looking out of the rear window seeing how many people we could get to wave at us !

I was born in 1961 and remember, as a 4-5 yr old, standing on the front seat while my Mum drove. When she braked, she'd put her arm out to hold me up!

When I was 8 and cycling home from school, I was knocked off my bike. Total stranger (man) picked me up, put me in his car with my bike and offered to take me home. No one thought that was risky at all!

I think info overload has just meant that a lot of people are way more acceptable mental now than then

The baby listening thing worked by a sign being put up on the baby crying board in the ballroom. I remember it being my job to watch the board when DSis was a baby whilst my parents were dancing.

I remember driving on holiday at night and my sister and me were laid in our sleeping bags with the back seats down! Madness now but I remember it was great fun at the time (@ 1980)!

I was allowed to roam as long as I was home for street lamps coming on. It makes me sad that my boys won't experience this kind of freedom (I lived in the country, I now live in the city).

I agree with you Hideandgo. Car safety is obviously wonderful progress, but everything else I'm less sure about.

I read Free Range Kids by Lenore Skenazy a few years ago and found it really thought provoking (and right!)

Scary isn’t it, re the listening service, the baby could have been crying for a good while before the listener heard, then they would have to put the sign up, then it would have to be noticed, then the parents would have to get back which could be quite a walk. The baby could be left screaming for an hour or more

Born in '75 and my mum told me literally this week that whilst on holiday in Spain age 9 mum, dad and brothers(a few years younger than me) walked into town one evening for a few hours leaving me in hotel basement bar (around 7pm) to watch a movie on my own! Apparently it was jaws and I insisted I wanted to stay and watch it, the bar man offered to watch me!!! The.mind truly boggles!

My DM always told the story of how she as a baby being left on the hotel listening service ended up crawling on to a conservatory roof

I grew up in the country too on a 500 acre farm, and we could have been quite literally anywhere, with 4 of us my mum had no hope of knowing where a lot of the time. We’d be doing stuff like quad biking (we’d go for miles across the moors), horse riding, making dens on high, unstable hay ricks, flinging ourselves down the steep lanes in go karts made out old prams with no brakes. It was great fun...we’d just come back when we were hungry.

I was born in 81 and don't recognise this bar the car seat thing. But even then my dad didn't think it seed right so devised a ratchet straps system to secure our carry cots in. I guess cars weren't as fast, knowledge moves on.

I was never left on my own, in a car or otherwise. I will leave mine while I go to post office or similar though.

We were allowed comparative freedom on the beach and sailing club though.

I would argue the opposite, modern parents are being negligent by sheltering our kids from the real world. Risk and risk management is part of life.

That sounds quite negligent even for the 80s!

I was born in the mid 70's. I remember in the 80's, from about age 8, going off on my bike to the park, visiting friends, just cycling about randomly, and no-one would no where I was for hours on end. Like PP I'd usually only return when I got hungry. For context, I grew up in an upper-middle class sort of household with loving parents.

I was a " street runner" from the age of 3 in a large council estate in the 1960s.
All the kids were simply left to their own devices and came home when they were hungry.

I shudder as I remember the dangers that I was subjected to.

know not no! Good grief

I was brought up in the 70s and 80's. My parents had car seats (Dad was a road safety officer so he went out of his way to ensure we had them) and we had cars with rear belts and used them. We were never left alone in the house, Mum was always around. From the age of 5 or 6 we played in the very quiet village street outside the house - Mum popped in and out to keep an eye, babies were put to sleep outside in the back garden. We were fed healthy home cooked food - premade was v.expensive and generally not available to vesta curries came along. I used to drive the car aged 6 up the drive with my Dad. I grew up with my head under a bonnet and watching oil changes etc. We weren't smacked and if we were ill we were kept off school not sent in to spread it around. I even went home for lunch at one point from school

of one person patrolling the massive site and putting their ear to the relevant doors to see if anyone was crying. What they did if there was I have no idea as no one had mobiles then.

They put an announcement over the tannoy

I was born early 1970s and when I was 3 or 4 we flew from London to Melbourne - that time it had about four stops: Frankfurt; Bahrain; maybe Singapore then Melbourne. Anyway not only do I remember getting my pillow and blanket and sleeping on the floor in front of our seats, but once I woke up and we were stopped at Bahrain, I think, and the plane was empty apart from stewards and cleaners! Yes my family had gone for a wander through the airport for an hour and the steward said they'd keep an eye on me. Can't believe it! My mum says she can't remember this incident. But I do.

Also I never had a car seat and stood between the drivers and passenger seat when we went in the car; played out till dark etc.

My mum (born 1940s) used to have her 10 year old sister get her up in the morning when she was a baby, change her nappy, give her some milk and then leave for school. My mum used to sit in her cot for 2-3 hours until my grandmother's work shift finished and she returned home. Poor baby. Apparently my grandmother used to wake up in a cold sweat in her later years remembering this type of thing.