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

My dad let me sit on his lap and steer the car while he worked the pedals

Only round and round our cul de sac though

My Dad smoked roll ups and when he was in the bath he’d ask me to roll them for him then pass one in.

I could roll the perfect roll up at 7!

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

Oh for sure. I can quite picture the scene in future where my adult DC are 'driving' automated cars and I tell them about how we used to drive ourselves back in the day, "I drove for myself with you lot sitting in car seats in the back", and them being horrified because automated cars are so much safer and how on earth did they manage to reach adulthood unscathed when I took so many risks with their safety

We drove from Dorset to Cornwall on holiday with me in the boot very comfy indeed laying on a duvet. They left the parcel shelf off (unless we were going into an attraction where we had too many kids for the family pass, at which point one of us was hidden!)

I'm getting very nostalgic, I might need to go and passive smoke outside the pub down the road

Ah yes schools being open. My Primary School was literally across the road from my house & I often went home alone at lunchtime for lunch which was totally allowed.
Once I thought it was lunchtime at morning break, & went home. Realised the time when I got home & had to sneak back in case I got caught.

Loved my childhood - left to run wild in the woods by our house with zero parent supervision but never came to any harm. Same on holiday to the seaside; always knew what the tides were doing and what pub dear parents would be in. Best days!

Sitting on the wall outside the pub with a packet of crisps!

I am another one who would love long journeys and getting to lie down with my brothers in the boot. Everyone thought we were posh as we had a Rover car.

My dad teaching me how to jump on the back of the milk float as it drove off. Oh! My dad was a smoker, buying single fags from the corner shop for him as we were too broke for him to afford a full packet. My mum made him give up, and when he died we found a secret packet in the glove box of his car and a packet of mints to hide the smell on his breath. I miss him!

As the youngest in the family I was delighted from the age of about 5 to be taken out to sit in the car whilst a parent or older sibling went to the shop (1980s N Ireland where you weren't allowed to park in the street and leave the car unoccupied). But even better was at school when a teacher or the school secretary would get you out of class to do the same. Can you even image that now?

Regarding Chernobyl, DH and I watched this last week. I was 6months old when it happened, he was inutero. When Jared Harris’s character was talking about the possible secondary explosion leaving just a smoking crater where Eurasia used to be from Iceland to Japan, my DH said “Oh God
I didn’t know that there was a secondary explosion!”

I had to explain in words of one syllable that there obviously wasn’t was there, otherwise he would never have been born 😂 this man is allegedly clever. He’s got a chemistry A level.

Rub a bit of brandy on his gums.
Put a bit of baby rice in his bottle.
Rub a bit of Vaseline on the bridge of his nose (for a cold).

I had the most hippie, lentil-weaving parents imaginable - we lived pretty off the grid miles away from the nearest village in a farm house. And I used to help in mummy and daddy's garden.

It wasn't until my teens that I realised that my parents operated a pretty lucrative pot and magic mushroom growing business back in the days and that the remote house may not have been entirely down to cars being bad for children. 😂

My mum grew up at some point, mind. At which point we moved to London. My dad never did but, luckily for his criminal record, has never been organised enough to pull something like it off without help.

I actually had a lovely childhood - never mind how the family holidays got paid for.

I had a friend in primary school (into the early 90s now) whose dad had a transit van for work. The massive treat was being allowed to go in the back and roll round as he drove round corners !! We'd all still need car seats now.

Rub a bit of brandy on his gums.
Put a bit of baby rice in his bottle.
Rub a bit of Vaseline on the bridge of his nose

Can you imagine the the uproar on here if people where doing this now 😂 there's a thread going now of a woman complaining that her dad passively said the word nasty infront of her kids and she's taken offence 🙈

60’s child here. It was only brothers who were allowed to “drive” Dad’s van on his knee but I do remember travelling for several miles on public roads, standing on the bit between the back of the tractor and the trailer behind whilst Dad drove at what felt like an alarmingly fast speed which was probably 20mph, with hindsight. Having my face cleaned with petrol after using bitumen to lay a flat roof on an outbuilding has probably contributed to my less than fresh complexion 50 years later. 2 of us fell in slurry pits and had our legs slapped (in relief) my our mother. Those were the days!

I remember being very jealous of a friend who’s dad had a van and there was a mattress and duvet in the back for when they went down to Devon (tbh / I still think this would be lovely)

Don't remember it but I was given some sherry by my Godmother on my first birthday, there is a picture of me looking very merry in my high chair! Loved being allowed to ride in the boot of the car.

Oh, we also had one of those cars where there were proper seats that folded up in the boot, and you basically sat in the boot facing the car behind you.

I've not seen one of those for years. I'm guessing it became unfashionable to use small children to cushion the impact of a car crash 🤷‍♀️

We had an old van with thick sheets of foam covering the floor and walls, we just rolled around on top, no seats or belts or anything.
I remember sitting in the car in thunder and lightening whilst Dad popped in for a quick drink.
He was a money lender so I used to goin the car on his collection rounds as he went house to house, with the dog to keep me company just in case someone decided to bother us!
Great Fun!

I’m a child of the late 60s/early 70s. On the rare occasions my mum went out and dad was looking after us (six kids), he’d give us little ones a small measure of red wine in the bottom of a mug. No wonder I’m such a wino now.

Also mum was from rural Ireland and had never been taught about such fancy things as putting sun tan lotion on in hot weather. When eventually it started being a thing parents were supposed to do, She decided to do her own version of it and covered us all in Nivea.

We burned a lot.

DM doesn't think you need suncream in the UK, it's a different type of sun to the sun abroad

As a child my dad used to make me travel in the horsebox so I could calm the horses down if they got upset en route 😬

OMG Granny57 you were lucky to get out of the slurry pit!!!! No wonder your mum got cross. Our dog wandered in off the ramp the tractor used and got hosed down by Dad with the pressure washer. Oh and driving the John Deere home when I was 15 and putting it through a hedge!!

When I was small I regularly rode in the car sitting in the front passenger footwell with the dog.

I also remember being wedged into the backseat of the car with a lot of other kids. The door burst open, fortunately at a red traffic light, and I fell out into the road. I remember everyone laughing and piling me back in. It gives me the horrors thinking about it these days.

We all used to travel to France with 4 of us laid down in the boot in a lovely comfy bed. We did have a trailer tent on the back though which my dad said would absorb any collision

My mum recently scoffed at calpol saying they used to make some terrific stuff when we were small that would knock you right out

We had a Ford Escort estate and would sit in the boot for the journey.
My dad had a large work van and we would be allowed to fart about in the back whilst he was driving.
I remember having two-pin plugs in the house and regularly getting a significant shock from one. Explains a lot.🙈