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

My parents were not negligent, they were just of their time as were their parents.

My kids actually have far more freedom to roam than I did as a child because I live in a much safer area.

However, I too was of the generation of squishing too many people into a car, sitting in the boot etc. On long overnight drives to France we had inflatable cushions that fitted in the foot wells to turn the back into a double bed. My sister and I would lie down, no seatbelts and sleep as they drove down the motorway!

Thankfully we have rather more evidence about the consequences of not using seatbelts and carseats now and they wouldn't dream of putting my kids in the car without appropriate restraints!

My

I watched somone I know spend I hour explain to their 4 year old why they should share them the 4 year old proceeds to tell the mum

No thank you

She then says well

He’s not in the correct emotional space right now will try again in half an hour

My parents would have had that child sharing and no fucking way will my kids be telling me no thanks as if their is a choice is sharing

I was born in the 80s. No car seats or seatbelts in the back until we were teenagers! And we had to argue over who had the lap belt in the middle cos if there was crash they would end up paralysed. We weren't left alone at home. But on holiday at the Holiday club in the evening there was a kid's bit and an adult's bit and you weren't allowed in the adults bit. The child's bit was fruit machine type games but all the children would run out of money then we would all be bored wandering around whilst the parents were in a separate room watching a comedian

My mother was a teenager when she had DBro and dressed him in girls clothing (I don't know why either) Some middle class woman almost got away with stealing him from outside a shop until my mother said he was a boy and the officer checked he had a penis and she was believed. The lady was pretty much about to walk off with someone else's baby!

I was born in 1984 and none of this sounds familiar at all

My parents would never use the listening service precisely because they didn't want us potentially crying for such a long time alone, not to mention their worry in case there was a fire. We all had car seats and then booster seats. We ate healthily and were only allowed biscuits etc. as treats. If people smoked around us my parents would move seats.

I knew my friends were allowed more junk food and weren't bothered by smoking but apart from that other parents were similar to mine.

Big difference between early and later 80s. Things changed a lot in that decade.

ahh,great memories. Me sleeping in a blanket on the parcel shelf as we drove through the night to our holiday. My sister and I being left in the car with a panda pop,pack of crisps and a word search whilst parents went to the pub.

And when the grocery man visited our village in his van,all the children ran out to buy their sweets and he would give us all a ride to the other side of the village. We were packed inside and holding onto whatever shelf we could!

I think people forget what they used to find acceptable too. I was talking to my mum about potential high school choices for my dd. I mentioned a school and my mum said "the school bus stops on X street so you could drop dd there on your way to work, or I could ask your dad to drive over and drop dd, or I could on my days off.." I was .. and pointed out I had to walk myself to and from school from age 7/8 and neither my mum or dad had any idea how I got myself to high school because they both left for work before 8am everyday . The walk to the bus stop in question is under 5 minutes, but apparently an 11 year old will need driving!! They are like different people.

I was born in ‘81 and can relate to so much of this. Especially the cars- no seat belts, lying across the back seat to sleep etc.
But also going outside all day, only coming into eat. This could be at anyone’s home. Mums would make a huge pile of jam sandwiches on white bread and the bread would go black from our grubby hands. We would come in then when it was dark.
I didn’t have the most parental parents so also got myself up and ready for school and out through the door by age 7.
Would also knock on neighbours doors to take out their babies for a walk. Even when they were tiny. Would also knock on doors just to see the babies, and mums would allow us in and have a hold even if they only knew us to say hi in passing.
Also remember going to the shop for my parents and grandmother with a list and a £20 note. On the list it would often contain cigarettes for my mum. Never alcohol though I will say that.
At nans was always ‘proper’ home cooked food. When I was living mum I would have to go to nans to eat or go hungry (which I did frequently). Although I do remember mum once buying food, and it consisted of me eating a tin of hotdog sausages and a tin of sweet corn every night for about 2 weeks.
Bonfire night would also mean the kids from all the different estates going around the town asking the shop keepers for their boxes etc to see who could build the biggest bonfire.

I was lucky when my boys were little that were we lived was only approx 30 homes, so all the kids played together in the field and every home had a perfect view of it. So little ones from 3 years up, played with all he older kids. They would also go back and forth each other’s homes and run home to ask could they have tea at somebodies house. I remember one day they were in ours playing, and the 3 year old refused to leave he wanted to stay watching videos at mine. So I called mum and said it was ok with me, so he stayed until it finished then his big brother came and bribed him with chocolate leave.
So thankfully my boys did experience a lot more freedom than other children their age. To be honest if they were young now where I live, I wouldn’t have given them the freedom they had in our old house.

I was born in 1980 and I don’t recognise that parenting either. I know I had a proper car seat (there are pics of me in it, so whilst it wasn’t the law, responsible parents could get one, and we were not at all wealthy). Also loved rurally but was not aloud to roam about, until at least 11 and that was only on my pony or bike and I had set times to be home and had to say where I was going.
My parents never left us alone when on holiday or in the house until secondary school.
My mum may have been extra cautious as granny was a foster carer and so had a greater knowledge of the abuse children could suffer. But most of my childhood friends had similar boundaries.
I do think that parents of that generation had no concept of just how widespread and common childhood sexual abuse was/is and the roads were quieter so didn’t worry about child grooming or road safety as much.
I will add that a local boy drowned in a slurry pit on his parents farm, and also another suffocated in a pile of builders sand after digging a tunnel through it. Also another killed on the train tracks and another hit and died after being hit by a school bus! Not all from the same village, but all children I knew (distantly) from my childhood. All these children were between 8-12 so not like a 5 year old.

""I know I had a proper car seat (there are pics of me in it, so whilst it wasn’t the law, responsible parents could get one, and we were not at all wealthy)""

There were concerns around the safety of them. Which was quite right, many just went flying through the windscreen wen a crash occurred, or caused injuries, often fatal, in the child.

I experienced all of 'neglectful' things that others did, in the 70-80's and when my DD was born in 1985, left her outside a shop etc.

Late 1980's baby.
I remember dad's land rover having seatbelts installed. Prior to that dbro and I would sit loose in the back while dad was off roading.
I had a car seat as a baby but dbro didn't.
I remember laying in the back of the car on long drives.
We lived in a quiet village, we'd be off all day, mostly playing in an abandoned air raid shelter, all day. Aged 8 dbro and I would cycle to the shop in the next village. We barely ever saw a car. We knew everyone.
If we lived in the same village my DD's would do the same, but we live on a busy road in a busy town so they won't be!

I was born in '86 and I remember having a car seat, not being left alone until around 11/12 (but only for an hour at most and I was told not to answer the door). But I do remember my Mum saying that when she hired a nanny, she just called a random advert she saw in the paper. This 18 yr old girl turned up (with her mum!) and my mum just hired her - no CRB, no references! My mum is a little horrified by this looking back but at the same time, said girl looked after me for years and is now a close family friend!

We had ours in the mid and late 70s, they travelled in the luggage part of an estate car in their snug-bugs for trips back to the UK, wedged between the cases, later they sat on the tail going through Blackpool lights, very slowly!
Other than car safety, will today's children thank you for the hyper-safety or will they wish they had had a bit more freedom to make age-appropriate mistakes? I've watched friends of my grandchildren whose parents never leave them alone, a three year old was 'supervised' by Daddy climbing the steps on a 3 foot high slide and Mummy was stationed at the bottom to supervise the sliding! Poor child!

adult strangers would tell you off and if they knew you tell your parents who would tell you off again.

Oh this reminds me of when my brother came home late from school.
B I were in detention
Dad What were you doing?
B Nowt, weren't fair!
Dad What should you have been doing?

No running off to that paper with a sad face, that's called being a good parent, he never complained about detention again!

70s baby

Remember playing out from a very young age - 7?
Getting train to school aged 8 with 6 year
Old sibling

I remember someone lost me in a park and someone walked me home

Lots of things about my childhood were really odd and neglectful by today’s standards.

Oh wow I can totally relate to this.

My dad used to drive my brother and I around in the (single) front seat of a ford pickup until we no longer both fit on the one seat (I was 10).

I was a carrycot on the backseat baby.

My friend was one of 6 children whose mother used to drive the whole family around in an old Renault espace. They didn't all have seats of course! She then downsized to a Toyota Yaris and drove all 6 of her children, plus the neighbours children 5 miles to school each morning. It was always entertaining watching 8-9 children pile out of a 3 door supermini.

I agree with done if the posters who say it's a bit of both.

My parents didn't do most of these things.
I don't consider them negligent, at all.
Some things were probably too casual, but no harm was done, generally.
But some things are now safer and that is of course better.
But also,
I think we wrap children too much in cotton wool these days.

"When I was a child I remember seeing a woman leave a baby in a pram outside a shop on a busy road. People were stopping and looking in the pram and touching the baby. I remember thinking someone could just wander up and take or hurt the baby. A minute later she came rushing out looking aghast.. and retrieved her handbag from underneath the pram. It was obvious where her priorities lay."

Her priorities lay? Said with such scorn?

I don't see it that way. People left their children safely outside say, the post office. Because they were safe. And it was the done thing. And no one worried that someone was going to run off with their child. Because generally, no one did.

And I don't see that this was so very awful.

I kind of think it was better and am sad that I've never been of that generation that was able to safely leave their baby in a pram outside the post office.

I agree car seats weren’t up to much back then. My youngest brother, who’s now 26, used to have one and my mum would often glance into the back of the car to see that it was actually pretty much sideways on the back seat, would happen whenever she went round a sharp corner. He never seemed to mind though.

I remember sitting in the front footwell of a car, I must have been about 4.

For years I say on a pillow on the front seat.

All adults smoked like chimneys in the car with the windows up in winter.

Everyone smoked indoors - I remember sitting in clouds of smoke for about 15 years.

My mum used to leave us in the Early Learning Centre to play while she went off shopping.

My friend was one of 6 children whose mother used to drive the whole family around in an old Renault espace.

I had a friend like this too! Except the car was an old Citroen 2cv, and if you lifted the mats up in the back you could see the road go by underneath. All 6 of the children could fit in at once.

Late 70s. Went to Spain with parents. Was about 7. They went down to dinner with my sister who was older and I stayed locked in a 6th floor hotel room to sleep. I can still remember the waiter coming up with my dinner (sandwiches) and my family leaving to go downstairs. I cried myself to sleep each night .......