My mums reaction to Chernobyl (lighthearted)

[Okeycokey1]

Named changed on the very slim chance that dm is a mumsnetter

On the phone to my mother having a typical catch up about what films, radio shows, tv we are watching etc and mentioned am I watching Chernobyl..

Mum says “oh I remember it at the time - I switched to buying bottled water, and also you’d only drink certain things (I was around 4 then) and I wasn’t keen on giving you your normal squash or milk. As cows may have been infected

You’d always liked coke and lilt so gave you that instead”

aibu to think this is quite sweet, and would love to hear your versions of 1980s parenting

80s child here! My dad had a big estate car and on the late night drives home from evenings with friends who lived (what seemed like a million miles) away, the four of us kids would be allowed to lie full length stretched out in the boot with sleeping bags the whole way. It was the best ever! All rolling into each other going round the corners!

We used to holiday in France so I had watered down wine from the age of 10 or 11, the water to wine ratio altering the older you got ! I actually don't think that's a bad thing, better introduced slowly and sensibly with parents than a bottle of White Lightning in a field IMO

We where allowed wine on special occasions from a young age & my parents where okay with us having a drink at home from the age of 16, neither by DB or I have ever been the type to go out and get absolutely pissed & I think that's down to our parents not making a big deal out of alcohol.

My dad put me on the back of his motorcycle without a helmet when I was about 6 and took me around the little park at the back of our house at about 4mph. When I told my mum she went mental and made my dad sell the bike!

My BILs parents used to give him coffee while sat on the potty!

I remember schools being open to the outside as well as one day it was snowing so I decided to go home. My Mam got a big shock and I was in trouble with the head.

I was born in 86 and remember getting sent to the shop for fags with a signed note, sitting on my dad's knee in the car learning to drive and sitting in the smoking area whenever we went out for dinner.

Seems bizarre nowadays thankfully!

My mum, remembering those first few weeks with me as a newborn-

“Oh it was lovely, I used to get settled in the armchair and latch you on the breastfeed. Then your dad would bring me a coffee, light me a cig and rest the ashtray on the arm”

Once we were on holiday in North Devon (I was probably 8 & DB 11?). My parents wanted to go to a fancy restaurant & DB & I wanted a Wimpy so parents bought us the Wimpy & we went & sat in the car whilst they had their meal in the restaurant!

My mum gave me coffee in a baby bottle to keep me awake for a late flight once. I was about 5. It was like gloop, full of sugar.

If I was quiet and good at the pub I could get a coke with a twist of lemon and a packet of pork scratchings. My clothes and hair would stink of fags, but my hair was long and thick and after a few glasses of Pernod my mum couldn’t be bothered washing it for me. So i would always have gross pub hair for a few days.

My grandmother used to chain smoke and light the next one off the previous one. I used to sit on her lap and she would let me hold the old one up to the new one while she chuffed away lighting it. I felt so responsible.

Another fag one, I was sent to the shop to buy fags but was so young I still played with dolls. I took my big doll with me, she stood up and was like a toddler. Went in with the money, paid for the fags and casually dropped into my light convo with Raj, the corner shop owner, “oh yeah my kid is outside, gotta go”. He must have thought I was nuts. Also bear in mind that one of his children was in my class, and he was surely very aware of exactly how old I was. Thank goodness they moved away. This is why when kids lie now I never think it’s that terrible and awful. Not ideal, but doesn’t make them destined for a life of wrongdoing either. I don’t lie as an adult - but talked absolute BS as a kid. Worst of all, I thought adults believed me!

90s kid but 90s Australia so probably the same. Sitting in the boot of the estate rather than in the seats so we could play. Being left on playgrounds or in the car by parents while they went to ride errands. Being allowed to go bush walking completely alone in a steep snake infested ravine for hours on end before someone came to look for us. It’s renarkable I survived really.

I had Ribena in a bottle - NOT recommended but I have never had a filling, I’m just lucky

Yeah, my mother chainsmoked all the way through the 90s! Still waiting to see if dsis or I develop lung cancer....

Mid eighties child here.

I was told a story of a relative giving a young cousin alcohol on the gums when teething.

Oh yes schools just being wide open.

I used to get very easily wound up and often got told off. Once a teacher gave me such a bollocking at playtime that I stomped off and decided to just go home (latchkey kid). Went home, calmed down and then realised my mum would kill me so I turned around and went back. Nobody had even realised I’d gone so I sort of slipped back into the school day and didn’t get into trouble for it!

My parents didn't smoke so we missed that particular delight at least.

DM worked in a bar and when she was working late dad would leave us tucked up in bed at-home while he drove the 15 minute journey/30 minute round trip to go pick her up.

Lemonade and shandy with Sunday lunch from 8 years old

Also going out for the day with eight people in a five seater car.

sitting in the boot of my god mother's estate car waving at the cars behind - mainly because there where already 6 children on the back seat!

My mum giving me Valium and tixilix so get me to sleep (this is in her diary from 1974!)

Having sandwiches 'like the queen' with the crusts cut off - these had to be eaten with your little finger in the air - I found out years later she only made them when the bread was mouldy and she had to cut the green bits out!

@GrumpySausage it was quite a legitimate concern at the time. I remember at school we were all panicked about ‘acid rain’ coming from Chernobyl.

I remember my aunt giving me fags at 10 years old 😳

I remember visiting family every weekend and leaving at all hours in the morning. Dad would have Micheal Jackson's thriller album on we'd be driving through pitch black woods terrified 😂 me and my little brother would have a big blanket on the seat and we'd be hiding under the blankets.

Remember my man running whisky on my sisters gums because she was teething. Said sister is a crazy loon now 😂

Standing on the back of my daddy's lorry while he drove round fields to work.

My mum a dad didn’t smoke but there’s a photo of me aged scout 18 months balanced between my Nan and an ashtray.

To those judging - times were different and I imagine our children/grandchildren may look horrified at us putting a mobile phone anywhere near a child

I'm an 80s child. I remember coming into the living room when my Mum's friends were round and there was so much cigarette smoke it was lying in layers in the air.
Any damage from that was probably undone by all the fresh air from the time spent mooching round the pub carpark eating Salt 'n' Shake crisps while Dad had a quick pint.
But again negated by him driving us home after, with one of us lying on the parcel shelve - we used to bicker for the privilege
When you throw in the periodic episodes of maniacy from all the sugar and e numbers, its amazing anyone survived at all.

In the late eighties my toddler sister ended up eating a cigarette she'd found lying round the house. We had to go to A&E. I'm sure that you'd be referred to social services nowadays for that.

I used to get to play in the bookies while my grandad put bets on. And I’d be given loads of the little duplicate slips and pens to draw with.

Mum uses to make me and my siblings warm milk with a sugar cube in before bed.. I've always been brought up that warm sweet milk before bed makes you sleepy.

As I discovered a few months ago, warm milk at bedtime does really make you sleepy.. it was just the sleeping tablets she was putting in our pre-bedtime drinks. 🙃🙃

Being left in the car while my parents went for a pub lunch.

Mental. I read a story where parent did that. Completely normal. But one of the children decided to play with the cigarette lighter - one of them died, the other had life changing burns. Horrific.

Being woken up with my brother at 6am one Sunday morning to watch Aliens with my Dad. I was 5
Also another one here allowed to 'steer' the car at a young age - but we also got to change gear!

Survivor of the 70’s here but still had formative years in 80’s.

Concrete under swing ‘to stop us trashing the lawn’

Sent home by friends mum in (probably unlicensed) minicab with £3 to pay. My Mum had no idea - so could have been a crime statistic.

Being shoved across busy road to get a bottle of R Whites with the empties for the 5p back. And then guided back across road remotely by mum checking and yelling “NOW!”.

Happy Days