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

We used to play in building sites too. They dug up the field behind our house to build new houses and as part of foundation work dug trenches everywhere. We had loads of fun running through the trenches but because they were deeper than we were tall, once we were finished we had to boost everyone out one at a time then everyone would pull the last person out. My little brother was last this one afternoon and wasn't tall enough to reach out hands to be pulled out, it didn't occur to us to jump in and boost him so we left him there. I got into a lot of trouble off my mum and we were banned from playing there again.

Parents in the pub. Left out front. Every few hours, one of them would being out a coke and packet of crisps.

No seatbelts in the back of the car back then, certainly no car seats beyond the age of about 4.

NewAccount270219

I was born in 1975 and I wasn't left unsupervised with the one exception of being left in the car (which I mentioned further back in this thread) and in that case the reasoning wasn't to do with thinking no one needed to supervise me, it was to do with proving the safety of the car to other people.

I definitely would never have been left in the car, or in a hotel room, whilst my parents went to a restaurant or anything like that, and they were tee total so no going into a pub. And even in the early 80s, my granda always went outside to smoke rather than smoke in the house.

No car seats though. I was about 8 before we even had a car that had seatbelts in the back and that was because my dad had brought a brand new expensive car. None of my friends parents had seatbelts, they all thought it a real novelty to sit in my dad's car and wear a seatbelt like a grown-up!

Chernobyl didn't register with me at the time. I was about 13 so my life revolved around long haired boys and loud music. I remember it but the gravity of it was lost on me.

I usually sat in-between the two front seats of the car to talk to my parents, no seatbelt obviously. This particular day we were arguing and I slumped down behind the passenger seat in a sulk, seconds before we were rear ended by a very fast moving car. I would have gone through the windscreen. Dad immediately bought a new car with rear belts and insisted I used them.

I had long thick hair I could sit on. Mum was paranoid I'd get head lice so every month I'd be smothered in some hideous smelling chemical just in case. I never had lice and I'm amazed my hair didn't fall out.

We were always left in the car as children when our parents went to the shops. How times have changed. First time I left my ds in the car while I popped into a shop for 5 minutes, he was 11 and perfectly happy. Despite this, some concerned busy body asked if he was ok . Fwiw, my ds is an old looking 11... could pass for secondary school age easily.

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

I remember hearing that as a cure for teething.

And I remember chicken pox parties.

I remember my younger sister's dummy being dipped in brandy (when she was poorly) and honey (as routine). God knows what they put on mine.

I also remember rolling around in the back of a vehicle on long journeys (short-based land rover in my case), packed in to nests made of duvets.

I remember friends being able to "lean forward" from the back seat of a car which meant perching on the edge of the seat and poking through the two front seats. We were never allowed to do that which I thought was very unfair.

Irish posters, does anyone remember GYE? (Guinness Yeast Extract), like a faintly alcoholic marmite, but better. DB was allowed as much as he liked, because he was 10, but as I was only 4 I was rationed. Snot fair!!

Child of the 60s/70s. I remember the sitting in the boot of cars - a great treat - and being able to disappear for hours to explore the woods around the village. My father firmly believed in his gran's cure for wind of a teaspoon of brandy, especially when suffering after eating too many raw peas when podding them.

I went to university in 1978. My first uni boyfriend drove a Mini (the real one in those days) and he and his three mates were all over 6 feet tall. I travelled in the front with an arse cheek on each front seat and my feet braced against the dashboard, doing a sort of lifting exercise whenever he needed to put the handbrake on.

There was a joke going the rounds - Don't ever buy Russian-made (all USSR then) underpants. Why not? Because Chernobyl fall out. Groan.

I was born in 1984. My parents have told me they used to leave me in bed alone in the house so my mum could go and fetch my dad from the pub.
They used to holiday at butlins and you could leave your child alone in bed in the chalet and there was someone who walked up and down and if they heard a child crying they would put the chalet number on a board at the front of the club. I was left like that every night of their stay.

I used to lie in the back of our Ford cortina estate. They would also hide me to get me into attractions for free.

I never played out alone as I was an only child and didn't live by other kids but I wish I had been able to.

They used to holiday at butlins and you could leave your child alone in bed in the chalet and there was someone who walked up and down and if they heard a child crying they would put the chalet number on a board at the front of the club. I was left like that every night of their stay.

Same here! DM said our to number was on the board one night so she gave it half an hour before heading back to check on us because she reckoned we'd go back to sleep on our own.

My father used to let us sit in the transport box on the back of the tractor, he’d raise the box and drive around the field in circles and tip us out🤣🤣
We used to sit on top of a trailer absolutely overloaded with turf. Make a little hole for ourselves and just sit there for the drive home.

Oh I’m Irish by the way! To explain the bog thing!