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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be a bit sad at how times have changed?

160 replies

Thenotes · 04/10/2019 20:18

About 40 years ago, as a 14yo I was visiting GPs for Christmas. I was sent to deliver Christmas cards to the neighbours. Grandma was good friends with her neighbours and I knew most of them by sight but we lived 300 miles away so I didn't know them well.

I went to number one where an old man "Bert" with a Father Christmas beard lived.

He saw me approaching and was at the door by the time I got there, insisted I went in and proceeded to ply me with rhubarb wine.

I was quute tipsy and late back for dinner but no one was cross with me because they'd guessed what had happened.

It's a genuinely fond memory of mine, a pleasant afternoon with a nice man who wanted some company, telling me stories of the "olden day's", plus my first experience of the warm happy feeling of being tipsy but not drunk.

But I'm not sure it would/could happen today.

OP posts:
Rachelover60 · 04/10/2019 21:57

I think I get what the op means; in times gone by children often formed friendships with elderly people which were rewarding to both of them, it doesn't happen so much now, everyone is viewed as a potential pervert. However giving a child rhubarb wine isn't really on, is it?

Original poster
Thenotes · 04/10/2019 21:58

Yes, we know children are most vulnerable from people they know. We also don't like strangers. So does that mean they never interact with anyone? Now that is sad.

OP posts:
AutumnRose1 · 04/10/2019 22:00

"im aware the situation would be "odd" today"

I think many posters agree, it was odd then, it was odd in our great grandparents day.

purpleolive · 04/10/2019 22:01

@Thenotes I'm still interested to know if you would be happy for someone to give your 14 year old wine, enough to make them tipsy, on their own?

AutumnRose1 · 04/10/2019 22:01

OP "So does that mean they never interact with anyone?"

I think you've had a few tonight haven't you?

CodenameVillanelle · 04/10/2019 22:04

There's a fucking world of difference between having appropriate relationships with trusted adults outside the family unit and getting 'plied' with alcohol by lonely old men at the age of 14
Amazed you can't seem to see that

Original poster
Thenotes · 04/10/2019 22:05

I've answered that PurpleOlives

No, I have a stinker of a cold and haven't touched a drop Autumn. I'm generally interested, if a neighbour the family have known well for years isn't OK for a 14yo to spend an afternoon with, who can young people spend time with?

OP posts:
Cam77 · 04/10/2019 22:06

Most of the reactions to the OP kind of proving the OP’s point. People nowadays are more suspicious, more closed off to their neighbours, generally more uptight and fearful. I’d wager that most people growing up had had a few glasses wine or beer by the time they were 14, be it at home or outside. She didn’t even get drunk and shared a couple of festive drinks with a nice old man who was probably really happy for an hours company at Christmas. Isn’t that what Christmas is supposed to be about? (Ok, not the underage drinking part!)

jennymanara · 04/10/2019 22:07

I remember reading research about 35 years ago about the large proportion of teenagers who were friends with a neighbour and spent time at their house. Often a lonely young mum.

purpleolive · 04/10/2019 22:07

@Thenotes no, you didn't. You said you had teenagers and you'd be happy for someone to give them a beer. You didn't answer the question where I asked if they were 14, on their own, WINE not beer, and enough to make them tipsy. That's more in-depth than a beer.

Whatwouldbigfatfannydo · 04/10/2019 22:07

If being a neighbour GPs had been friendly with for years doesn't make him "safe" what does?

Good God Op. That attitude is not only stupid but downright dangerous. Hmm

You know BTK (serial torturer and murderer) was described as a "pillar of the community" and the neighbours he'd had for decades were completely shocked at the revelation of what he did to women.
Being friendly with neighbours means absolutely nothing and if you think a situation like that is safe, you've no business wishing it on other children...

Utterly irresponsible.

SpaceCadet4000 · 04/10/2019 22:09

Knowing your neighbours is great. I too have fond memories of dropping off Xmas cards with my siblings and being offered tea, mince pies, sweets etc. I wasn't ever alone though, and I was certainly never given alcohol by a non-family member before I was 18.

I hear so many stories from past decades of abuse that was swept under the rug or normalised, and it makes me so glad that we take reasonable precautions now to try and prevent it where we can. I really cannot be sad about that.

Cam77 · 04/10/2019 22:12

getting 'plied' with alcohol
I guess you’re a stranger to the term “figure of speech”? There are plenty of terrible human beings in the world, I’d probably reserve my ire for them rather than get worked up by kindly old family friend cheekily offering a 14 year old an alcoholic beverage at Christmas so she’d stay for a chat. !

Original poster
Thenotes · 04/10/2019 22:19

I'd be tipsy on a beer now, I think most teenagers would. I can't imagine rhubarb wine being offered now simply because I haven't seen any in several decades but fwiw homemade fruit wine is brewed like beer and of a similar strength

OP posts:
Ellisandra · 04/10/2019 22:21

I’m your age then, and that would have been seen as odd when I was 14.

I absolutely think there are plenty of men who would just be showing Xmas spirit, nothing sinister.

But let’s say in 2019, because we are more suspicious:

  • 1000 innocent men are sad because they can’t get teenagers tipsy like the good old days.
  • 1000 children aren’t as innocent any more about what that hospitality might really mean
  • 1000 children AREN’T sexually assaulted because they know their parents would say no to going in, so don’t.

I’ll take that 🤷‍♀️

Abuse of children is RIFE. Then and now. Risks are real, and I don’t mourn a loss of an innocent time, because it sure as fuck wasn’t an innocent time for all the children who were being systematically raped.

I’m happy to live in a suspicious society, if it’s also a society that talks to children about danger, and spots warning signs in their behaviour, and believes them when they speak out.

CodenameVillanelle · 04/10/2019 22:22

I'm generally interested, if a neighbour the family have known well for years isn't OK for a 14yo to spend an afternoon with, who can young people spend time with?

I'd be happy for my DS to spend time with an adult who I know well and who he also knows well. If I knew this adult well I would be as sure as it's possible to be that they were a safe person and likely to act appropriately.
IF this adult then gave DS alcohol in their house with nobody else present, they would stop being a safe and trusted adult, and would then become an adult who I no longer trusted.
There are plenty of adults in my life who wouldn't get my child pissed and I'd be happy for him to hang out with them. It's not a high bar to set.

Mrsmadevans · 04/10/2019 22:24

That Rhubarb wine sounds delicious OP. l get your drift btw but l think it were the times we grew up in Flowers

purpleolive · 04/10/2019 22:26

@Thenotes I'm just going to take that as validation of my point, seeing as you're incapable of answering.

Original poster
Thenotes · 04/10/2019 22:29

I would be happy for a friendly neighbour to give my teens enough alcohol to get as tipsy as I was. They have occasionally had similar at home. I was clear in my OP that I was never drunk. If you need validation you have it Purple.

OP posts:
AutumnRose1 · 04/10/2019 22:29

Who is BTK please?

OP, I spent so much time with family neighbours, I had an honorary grandma! I'll be blunt, if I was delivering the cards at 14 - and I was - I'd have been told not to go inside anyone's house if I didn't know them, and if it was a man, single or not, if he was the only one home, don't go in.

You have to teach people to exercise caution. That doesn't have to mean the elderly aren't looked after. As an adult, I spend a bunch of time with elderly family friends, but I can make a choice about whose house I enter, what I consume. If you're angry that a 14 year old is thought to need a chaperone in the house of a man she doesn't know....well, there are people who share your anger but it's not generational and many people wouldn't get misty eyed over what you've described.

ImNotYourGranny · 04/10/2019 22:31

I'm a similar age to you and had a similar experience except I lived in the village so knew the neighbour well. Never saw any issue with it until a few years later when he was convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage girl who was staying with him.

AutumnRose1 · 04/10/2019 22:33

"I would be happy for a friendly neighbour to give my teens enough alcohol to get as tipsy as I was."

Now wondering if the building teens can sort me out some weed in exchange for alcohol.

UnoriginalUserName948 · 04/10/2019 22:43

Yeah, no.
I have fond memories of my childhood, but I don't think I ever went into anybody else house without an adult family member, unless it was a school friends house.
That's weird.

Timandra · 04/10/2019 22:43

40 years ago I was being taken swimming by a 'lovely, kind' friend of the family. He didn't take me so I could play with his children.

Nobody questioned why he would go out of his way to come and pick me up or why I seemed reluctant to go. Nobody had explained to me how to deal with behaviour that made me feel uncomfortable or gave me permission to refuse to do as I was told. They should have.

I'm glad that, these days, people are a bit more enlightened and I knew enough to teach my children strategies to keep themselves safer than I was.

YellWat · 04/10/2019 22:44

The issue here is the alcohol.
My kids know our neighbours and spend time with them - when my daughter was little I used to pass her over the fence to pay in their backyard with their boys. They've babysat for me, we have socialised and I do absolutely trust them and would have no issue with either of them spending an afternoon with them, provided I knew where they were.
But, if my kid was 14 and they gave them alcohol, I would be absolutely enraged. Alcohol is hugely damaging on the teenage brain and is also illegal. It's up to me if and when I want to introduce alcohol to the kids, not to my neighbours.

That's what has messed up your whole position on this. It's creepy because it's illegal, inappropriate and just wrong for him to have done it. It was illegal then too. Times haven't changed that much.