To ask for your weird family behaviours that you didn't realise weren't normal until you were older?

[Coffeebiscuitsrepeat]

1. We called a toe poking through a sock hole a "potato".

1. Whoever made the most mess at the dinner table "won the prize"... And the prize was to clean up the mess!

@ToffeePennie

“Stand by your beds” basically my mum/dad would yell that upstairs. Me and my brother would stand to attention at the foot of our beds whilst mum/dad inspected the tidiness of our bedrooms. Fire drills! I never realised until I started living with my husband that it’s not normal to be woken up at 3am by your dad setting the fire alarm off and having to climb through your bedroom window and shimmy down the roof, onto the shed and into the back garden within 15 minutes or you’d be declared a “fatality”. It’s something we have always done growing up and I thought it was so normal. Turns out it’s not.

This is the best thing I've ever read on mumsnet.

I remember powdered ginger on melon, and the cocktail cherry was the extra bit of sophistication.
We lived in an upstairs flat when I was younger, so I played in the street; very little traffic in those days, so quite safe - but not on Sundays, because that was "common", as was eating in the street.
If I had a wash and general spruce up before leaving the house, my father would reprimand me for going out too soon after washing, as the hot water would have "left all my pores open", I didn't feel I could argue until I had Biology O-level that the human body's ability to regulate temperature was more responsive than that.
My friend's father insisted that apple cores should not be eaten, as "You'll get worms".

@SweatyAmy

DH's family are the same about "family". They have family meals for birthdays and other occasions to which only the actual family are invited - no spouses, kids etc. My parents had their faults but they always welcomed extensions to the family and saw the family growing as a good thing. Now that they are no longer around, I admit to often feeling really sad and tearful on those evenings when DH goes off to a restaurant for a family celebration. The first time it happened, DH mentioned going for a family meal for his mum's birthday and I assumed he meant both of us. It was only when we both started getting ready that we realised the mixed message but nevertheless, I insisted that DH must have understood wrongly and of course the invitation extended to his wife. I went along which was a huge mistake.

I can only assume that the in-laws are so resistant to change that they just want to keep their little family unit the same as it would have been when DH and his siblings were small. They do similar on christmas day - we always play games in teams; family vs outsiders! Even his poor uncle who married into the family over 50 years ago still gets lumped with us in the outsider team.

@AdaColeman it's funny you bring up darning mushrooms, we used to call the toe poking through the hole a 'mushroom toe' and I never had any idea why

Everything, apart from the fridge, had to be switched off at night. TV aerial pulled out of the wall as well.

My Dad always put vinegar on sprouts

I like sprouts, very much -I like vinegar. Not together, though. I’m struggling to see how adding vinegar improves them. Did he put it on other cruciferous vegetables ? Or was it that he didn’t like them, but had them as Xmas meal ‘duty’, and was trying to block the taste?

@Lincslady53

I grew up in Leicestershire. My Scouse partner thinks it is off to have a slice of bread and butter with a bowl of tinned fruit (with evap milk). I am sure it was a regular East Midlands thing. Anyone else?

I didn't have it, but I do recall older people having it. Certainly, mum liked a bit of tinned fruit with evap milk, but didn't have the bread and butter.

My late MIL used to eat a slice of bread and butter when she had a slice of a rich fruit cake like Christmas cake. Still don't get why, it wasn't something my own family did as we weren't big on rich fruit cakes.

@BiBabbles

Powdered butter in the cupboard, in a little blue plastic shaker. I remember it clearly, and I've never seen anyone else have it. As an adult, I have learned that while it's commonly used in industrial baking and can be bought in sachets in baking shops, but no one else I've met used it in sandwiches (like the previously mentioned sugar sandwiches). I used to live on the things in my teens.

I've been tempted to get the sachets, but I've learned that many things I had as a kid don't taste as nicely as I remember so haven't yet risked it.

I remember the powdered butter, little satchets called Butter Budds, purchased, if I remember rightly, from Lakeland Plastics, as they used to be called, (showing age here !).

creaturefromthedeep I can't believe that spouses and children wouldn't be invited to a family meal!!! Our family joke about our spouses 'not being blood' but they really are considered a part of our family.

My mum would overreact to the most minor of situations. I always used to marvel at my friends mums who were all so calm when a crisis (like milk boiling over in the microwave) would happen. It was only when I got to my early 20s that I thought 'actually - their mums were normal. Mine was the barking mad exception'.

I'm pretty sure my soon-to-be-teen DCs will have a few things to say about their childhood - no phones after 9.30 in their bedrooms is the current way that we are SO STRICT AND UNREASONABLE.

1960's childhood here.

No drinks with meals (it 'fills you up' apparently, so you don't eat your dinner).
Set meals each day of the week.
Sundays had to be spent 'tidying our bedrooms'. Weren't allowed out to play until rooms had been inspected by mother and passed as fit. I was, apparently, a 'slut' and my room was rarely tidy enough - I still have no idea how else I was meant to tidy it!
My friend was not allowed over to play if it was raining, but this came from her family, I've no idea why.
Strawberries always served with sugar
Half a grapefruit for breakfast, served in special little dishes with special tiny spoons!
Wrapping paper carefully flattened out and reused.
Never putting a light on until the curtains were drawn. Certainly never whilst it was daylight.
I think a lot of this was the knock on effect of my parents' war time growing up.

@Panicatthegarden Oh, that's interesting Pani, its another possible link with my "darning potato" theory. We had a couple of different sized daring mushrooms at home when I was a child, lots of images on google if you've never seen one.

My DM always bought fruit but we weren’t allowed to eat it - it was just for show so that people could see we were not poor. She also used to refuse to buy biscuits because “we would just eat them”. She also had plastic carrier bags rated like Monica from friends - everyday, one use, fancy etc. I bloody still do it myself as in “DC don’t use one of my good carriers for that”

My neighbours always wore their coats indoors - I now realise they couldn’t afford central heating.

We’d eat out on holiday but he had this weird quirk of walking up reading the menu at the door then and walk along to the next place. This could go on for an hour and we never found out what he was actually looking for, trailing after him miserably and starving saying ‘anywhere will do!’

My ex was like this. We would be trailing from place to place while he looked for something to take his fancy, and crucially, didn't cost much. Half the time he would then, when we'd reached the last restaurant in town, declare that he wasn't hungry after all, and we'd trail back to the B&B and have sandwiches in the room.

Wasn't much fun. I mean, the point of a holiday is to go out and do stuff/eat out and have fun. One of many, many reasons he's an ex.

Butter Budds

They still sell them

I think quite a lot of mine probably came down to not having a lot of money growing up...

Very rarely ate out - Aunty & Uncle might take us to Maccas if they took us shopping. Think I was 16 when I had my first Chinese takeaway with my boyfriend's family, I was asked what I'd like ... I've no idea?!

Pizza was cheese and tomato (like these www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/288442525 ) Finding out you could have extra toppings was a revelation!!

We didn't have snacks in the house.

Pudding was a Sunday only thing, and not every week. I find it strange now, that DH will want something sweet almost immediately after finishing his dinner.

A slice of bread and butter with our meals - probably to help fill us up.

I also can't remember drinking much as a child? We would have a glass of water with our school meal, and maybe a glass of fruit squash at home. Maybe that was just because the importance of being hydrated wasn't a big thing then?
I used to have constant headaches when I was younger, I probably just needed a drink!!

If we were visiting anyone - " you only speak when you're spoken to" I don't like social situations if I don't know people, because I find it hard to start conversations. I'll wait for them to come up to me.

We always got lucozade and grapes when we took ill as kids. It didn't matter what the ailment was broken arm, bad flu or icky tummy my nan insisted it was the miraculous cure all. She'd be round first thing with them when she heard one of us took ill.

I didn't realise it was weird until I was too sick to visit her one afternoon, so she rang my DH to check I had the lucozade and grapes and give him a firm telling off when he admitted he hadn't, he didn't know I needed them or if they'd even be the best thing to give me during a 24 hour bug. .

Now if I even stub my toe DH "we must get to the shop ASAP for the lucozade and grapes or your nan will be on the warpath"

@BitOfANameChange it was the moment he decided in Majorca he was going to do what he always did and my mum was just like ‘NO!‘ it was 30c and everywhere is pretty much the same really.

So many similar things- pj's were for sleeping in only, we were dressed before going downstairs. If we were poorly enough to want to stay in pajamas then we had to stay in bed.
A lot of things were responded to with 'what will the neighbours think' from teenage outfit choices to lights on in rooms with open curtains.
Sunday was always a roast - either pork, lamb or beef in rotation and each set of grandparents taking it in turns to visit.
Sugar on strawberries and cinnamon on melon, salt on celery.
Eating out was berni inn or suchlike and take away was fish and chips - I had my first Chinese takeaway at 18.

@CreaturefromtheDeep - the games sound awful, I can't believe no-one has challenged it.

My Mum's family all speak a language Dad and I don't so they just speak that when they don't want to include us. Dad and I are English, Mum's family aren't and they don't like English people, which is awkward. They didn't attend my parents wedding.

There's nowt as queer as folk.

"That mums and dads actually loved or even liked each other."

Yes, that was a shock to me as well. Wasn't just the way I was brought up - jokes at the time included lots of men complaining about their wives coming after them with a rolling pin for going to the pub, etc.
I thought dating couples liked each other, but then 'familiarity breeds contempt' for married couples
.
I was shocked once when my friends' parents came to pick him up and give me a lift and they were both in the car. His DM had come just to keep his DF company on the way there.

I still find Gogglebox with the whole family squashed onto the same sofa quite odd.

Thanks OP for starting such an interesting thread! Loads of weird stuff from my childhood as my DPs were immigrants so mixed lots of traditions/norms of the times.

So we had tinned fruit and evaporated milk but never a roast, the eldest child was never let out in thunder (no idea!), we weren't allowed drinks with meals as it would fill you up. My DM used to make a kind of soup on Sunday and we would eat it for at least 3 days, I realise now its because we were poor. When visitors came they were offered biscuits but like a PP were trained to say no. We always had a house full of guests and visitors with lots of noise, literally writing this has made me realise that's properly why I love time alone

@SauvignonBlanketyBlank

In the summer we had strawberries with (full fat) milk on so my mum didn't have to buy cream.Tasted lovely but I don't know any other household that did it

Not with strawberries, but milk instead of custard was a thing e.g. an apple tart with milk instead of cream or custard. Wasn't just my family, but I remember some friends being bemused by it.

Little Chef was a birthday treat. It was so exciting!

"My room and my brother's are still full of all our toys, trinkets and children's books. Stars are still stencilled on my walls. I'm 37 and he's 39. I'm quite glad that the house will be sold soon, it's like a shrine to the past."

I think that's quite widespread. I'm 43 and my old room still has my Home and Away posters and my old bookshelf.

@Gwenhwyfar

I would love if i could walk into my childhood room