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

As a pp said, I also remember the "safety measure" of being told to knock on the nearest door for help if I thought someone was following me!

It was very common to leave babies in prams outside shops. I don't remember that ever causing any issues though.

My dad, growing up in the 1960s, used to be left in charge of his siblings during the school holidays while my grandparents went to work. He remembers being 10 and being in charge of his siblings, 8, 6, 3 and 6 months. Don't worry, they weren't allowed to stay in the house (that woukd have been unsafe apparently!!) so they all went to play in the woodlands and swim in the pond at the back of their house all day. How they all survived to adulthood is beyond me!!!

Times change. Far more children died accidental
Deaths back in the those days from lack of safeguarding we have in place now.

Although I was also a child of the early 80s and car seats where normal. You get parents who don’t bother using them now, no different really

That's sad, StayAChild, that you have regrets. If everything worked out ok then you really shouldn't blame yourself for following the advice of the time.

It's amazing what stupid advice used to be meted out about babies, although I'm sure some of our current advice will be bonkers in years to come. I was born during the famous heatwave. My mum was told off by a midwife/nurse/health visitor (not sure which) for not having the heating on when I came home, and only dressing me in a nappy and not full on babygro/woolly cardi/hat and booties combination.

tillytop And nearly all the time that is the right thing to do

My mum worked 12 til 3 a couple of days a week from me being 4. My dad worked nights so was in bed, gone to the world with his ear plugs in. Mum used to leave me a packed lunch and a flask of tea and sit me in front of a vhs recording of a programme I liked and leave me to it. I can't imagine doing that with my 6 year old, she'd be up to all sorts!

We would all fight for the privilege of riding in the car boot if there were too many kids in the car. It was ace!

I can relate to all the experiences above
I remember as a child of 11 helping dad with his milk round, I used to climb onto the back of the pick up and stand up behind the cab with the wind in my face - brilliant. Dad would give me £1 to collect the milk money on Sunday's, which entailed me walking 2-3miles to a estate walking round with a leather money satchel over my shoulder and a big leather wallet that would be crammed with notes!!....then walk the 2-3miles back home.
I wouldn't dare do that today even as a adult.

Yes, being left in cars or van whilst dad was in pub or mum shopping. I would often flatten the car battery listening the radio for what seemed like hours.

I’m an 80’s child and was sent down the road with a note from mum for her fags by from 4ish.

Car seats, we did have. But we’d also fit about 100 people in a small hatchback if necessary.

I was from a huge family and we basically did what we wanted from a young age. I vividly remember walking my brother as a newborn in his pram down to the corner shop. I must have been five!

We all used to pile in the back of an old Ford Cortina that had holes in the floor from the rust. If you put your hand down you could touch the road. One day my dad didn’t put the boot down properly and when we came to the first corner the boot flew up and we all fell out on to the road.

I try to give my kids lots of freedom. They climb trees and play out with their friends. The main thing that stops me is not the thought of them having a minor accident, it’s what social services would say about the circumstances surrounding that accident. “Well why was your four year old up a tree?” etc.

“I’m not actually seriously suggesting they were negligent, they were just going with the social norms of the time. And the result was that we had the sort of freedom as kids that would be pretty unheard of now in this culture, apart from in cases of negligence. Of course the risks were there but parents weren’t scare-mongered into micro managing our lives because of them. Children are seen a lot less in open spaces now, and activities tend to be organised rather than just being left to it. I think it’s sad, but agree there is a happy medium”

OP I think this raises a really good point- because it’s us, the “neglected” children of the 70s and 80s, who have chosen to parent our children the way we do now (which is referred to in this thread as over protective)

Why are we choosing to be over protective? Fashion? Modern life? Maybe not being comfortable with our own child hood experiences?

Oh, I also leave my babies in Parma outside shops. They’re strapped in and happymand I can see them from inside the shop. Lots of people stop to chat to them. I think it’s nice and makes them more sociable beings.

I dont recognise this, things must have changed very quickly. I was born in 85 and my sis in 87, I came home from hospital strapped safely in a car seat, and my parents took us on holiday abroad every year and would never have left us alone in the room to go out in the evening- they used to sit on the hotel room balcony with a few bottles of wine and bags of crisps.

We weren't allowed to go swimming by ourselves until I was 8 and sis was 6 and the roads were too busy for us to go by ourselves- we'd be dropped off and picked up.

Freedom was earned at home- we played on the green out front with other kids age 4-5, could knock for friends in the same/nearby streets 6-9 and then roam the streets from age 10.

Looking back I think it was the right balance of neglect and parenting. I still live in the same town and the risks haven't changed, I plan to parent in a similar fashion as she grows up.

In prams, not in Parma. That would be negligent.

I relate to all of this and then some! My mum was definitely negligent in a lot of ways (more than just the social norms of parenting in the 80s and early 90s) but I always put this down to her being young and a lot less aware of things than we are now.

It was so different then! But as kids we also had a lot more responsibility than kids today.

At the age of 12 I would go to the supermarket and do the family grocery shop alone, then catch a taxi home, because my mother wasn’t mobile. I think eyebrows would be raised today if some kid was doing the shoppong alone kn the supermarket. But then online shopping didn’t exist then!

I was born in the 70’s, I remember my dad once transported the majority of my brownie group in his estate car. We fought over who got to sit in the boot 😂

One of my older sisters used to walk us 2 miles home from infant school. She was 6/7. We were 5 and 4.

We set the house on fire making toast on a grill. We ruined a cooker by leaving a plastic tub of sugar on a hot hob ring.

We played out in the street, the woods and beyond from about age 5.

We weren't unusual. It's just the way it was. Our parents loved and cared for us, taught us right from wrong- but didn't hover over us, so we had lots of freedom and adventures...

My mum once needed to go to the shop for milk and left me 7 to watch my baby sister 1 Years old at the time ! 😱 she said it wasn't long but I dread to think what could have happened. Also through the 6 weeks holiday I used to be from breakfast time to tea time and no phones no clue where I was !

I grew up in the 70s and can think of so many examples of stuff like this! Being left in the car while my dad spent the afternoon in the pub, he or his friends would regularly bring me coke and crisps! Going out to play all day until it got dark, with my parents having no clue where I was! Yes definitely no car safety. I was coming home from school alone from around the age of 7, and the school was a good 3 or 4 miles from our house. My mum did give me bus fare but I used to spend it on sweets and walk instead

I was talking to my son, now 36, the other day and he thanked me for the childhood he had. He was a 'free range' child, always off out, doing things such as building dens, scrumping apples (!) walking for miles or cycling. Then he progressed to fishing and camping with a tent. He often had the dog with him, who he adored. He says he had an amazing childhood and what a shame today's generation will never have the same.

cantfindaname - why hasn’t he given his children the same amazing childhood he had?

ScrambledSmegs it's since having DGC that I've realised how stupid it all was.

One of my DCs was born in an unseasonal early spring heatwave. I had put them in the pram outside (we were all outside), 3 days old, but they had to be kept warm at all times, with pram suit, hat, mittens, hood up and apron on big pram. Midwife called and immediately started to strip the baby. Her exact words were 'get some clothes off this baby'.

Born in the 60s.

My parents would often leave me at home asleep as a baby. I was apparently horrendous if woken, so my mum would leave me asleep to take my brothers to school, or I'd be left while they went to church on Sundays.

I was horrified when she told me-mainly about fire or sickness-she said she wouldn't do it if I'd been ill. We lived in a brand new council flat with underfloor heating and apparently minimum risk of fire.

We used to play out all day-by this time we'd moved from the flats into an owner occupied house and would play on street all the time.

Car seats and seat belts were unheard of. When we used to go on our annual holiday to visit grandparents in Ireland, there would be 4 kids squashed in the back with no belts and at the time my dad was a heavy smoker which he would do in the car and the house.

Would also be left in the car while mum went shopping. One time, she left us in the car, went to the bakers, bought a split tin then started walking the mile long journey home before remembering as she got to the house her four children were in a parked car off the high street.