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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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

579 replies

Coffeebiscuitsrepeat · 05/07/2020 21:56

  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!
OP posts:
MostTacticalNameChange · 06/07/2020 16:37

Yeah, and that parents liked their kids was a revelation. We were taken care of but if was always done with bad grace...sighing and rolling eyes, calling us brats and how we stopped them doing what they wanted in life.

Looking back, some of it was genuine but I think they were messing quite a bit, teasing us, but it went over my head and I felt such a burden and felt sorry for them having to look after me. Only when I got older and mum said she'd take some time off work in the summer holidays to spend some time with us that I realise they didn't actually (completely) not want us!

I call my dc a brat sometimes but make sure he always knows I'm joking and that they were and are very wanted and cherished.

Hope I do anyway. They'll probably tell a different story in 20 years!

AnneOfCleavage · 06/07/2020 16:42

Linclady53 my nanny used to give thinly sliced bread and butter to us to eat with our tinned fruit and creamy vanilla ice cream - it was the biggest treat, that and a glass of cream soda - but we only had it there never at home.

Bigjobs was a term used in our house only if we had guests present as it was deemed more polite, otherwise poo was fine ConfusedHmm and spend a penny was also used.

We had pudding every night even if just some angel delight but I don't do it often now only if we have guests. Also was brought up with a roast every Sunday and it would run on a rota: beef, chicken, lamb and pork and it came with all the extra condiments so mustard with beef and cranberry sauce with chicken (and obv turkey at Xmas) and mint sauce with lamb and apple sauce with pork. DH was astounded that I like the sauces with our meats but I rarely do now as he never does so they go off quickly.

My mum also baked all home made cakes and we always had biscuits on offer and 4 mini sweets every day after dinner (any misdemeanours meant you missed out and had to watch the others all scoffing them in front of you) - like dolly mixtures. She also read us what she called "a serial story" every night and we took turns on choosing the book and again if you misbehaved you had to stand on the front doormat and miss hearing it read in the back room. That is one thing I have taken and carried on in our family now as it was close family time and both parents were amazing at voices and I carry that on too Grin

PineappleUpsideDownCake · 06/07/2020 16:47

I hope you mean you carry on the serial story... not the having to stand on the mat bit!

PineappleUpsideDownCake · 06/07/2020 16:49

Most - I think most of the time my mum was joking but my dad meant it. Either way as you say you grow up feeling a burden.

Something I've v strongly done the opposite of with mine!

Gwenhwyfar · 06/07/2020 16:55

"My mother gave me pizza and chips for dinner every single night.

She never cooked a dinner, just put frozen pizza and chips on a tray every day."

Similar thing in our family. Modest portions and oven chips, but if it had been enough to make us overweight, I think it might have been considered neglect.

Gwenhwyfar · 06/07/2020 17:02

[quote DontWantToAdult]@Gwenhwyfar

I would love if i could walk into my childhood room[/quote]
My parents aren't house proud so if they got rid of my old things, they'd just fill it with junk, which is why I don't encourage them to re-decorate into a nice guest room or take my things away myself.

SneakersandSocks · 06/07/2020 17:03

We would always have lovely big meals for tea, lots of veg, potatoes and meat/fish , that kind of thing, simple but delicious...but puddings were not really a thing - if we ever did ask for a pudding my Dad would say ‘make yourself a jam butty’ or we’d have lemon curd butties.
It makes me laugh now.

OhSweetNuthin · 06/07/2020 17:07

Salt & vinegar on cabbage, raw rhubarb stalks dipped in sugar. Peanut butter on celery. Cream crackers with cheese as a bedtime supper. In bed. Brushing our teeth with ashes from the fire mixed with a bit of salt.

olderthanilookapparently · 06/07/2020 17:33

We had no drinks with a meal but Tea afterward
We had 'afters' rather than dessert or pudding this was often Angel delight!
Roast dinner on a Sunday and if my Mum didn't make an apple pie my Dad sulked
Most evening meals were meat and 2 veg the only pasta we ever had was spaghetti
Take away was only fish and chips (none of that fancy foreign stuff)
I didn't have a curry until I was 20 at university (I still remember it) and a kebab because a boyfriend said it was cruel that I had never had once and marched me to the kebab shop immediately
We did eat out at pubs with restaurants attached but not in an actual restaurant (I have only just realised this just now) and meat and 2 veg meals were really the only thing you could have there (now I get it)

I love food now and have a varied diet and my work takes me to lots of different restaurants I had a lovely childhood bu the food was pedestrian to say the least (we were from the north I think this was influential)

CookieSue222 · 06/07/2020 17:37

Ginger and sugar on honeydew melon was a standard back in the 70's along with fruit juice as a 'starter' on menus.
The height of sophistication at our house was a Vesta Beef Curry, or Chow Mein made entirely from dried ingredients (just add water) - kind of like a Pot Noodle on steroids!
If you were ill, along with lucozade Mum would purchase a Ski strawberry yogurt (just one mind) - it was years later I realised you didn't have to be ill to eat a fruit yogurt.
Both my Grans from Leicester served tinned fruit with Carnation evaporated milk and little triangles of bread and butter. One of my lovely Grans would not permit you to either wash your hair or go swimming if it was 'the wrong time of the month' - god knows what would have happened to you if you did.

Zaphodsotherhead · 06/07/2020 17:37

Oh, I've just been reminded by the milk thing - we used to have to pour the 'top of the milk' (the creamy part that settles at the top of the full fat milk we got back then) off into a special jug. It was then served on puddings. My brother used to sneak into the fridge and drink it from the jug!

Dried fruit was guarded like it was something very special. I think it was relatively expensive back when I was growing up. We certainly weren't allowed to eat it as a snack - and my mum used to hide it around the house to stop my brother from eating it by the handful.

We were poor, so never NEVER ate out. Fish and chips maybe once a year and that was it. But in that post war era, a lot of us were in the same boat, so it never felt as though we were any harder up than anyone else.

MrsNoah2020 · 06/07/2020 17:46

Not allowed to walk around barefoot (must wear slippers or shoes)

My SIL is obsessive about this with her DC. I don't get it - they live in a warm country with no dangerous insects: WTF does she think is going to happen?

MingeofDeath · 06/07/2020 17:47

@ LakieLady

I used to "hoover " my old cat with the brush attachment as she was constantly moulting. She loved it and always meowed for more!

ladybird69 · 06/07/2020 17:54

We were very poor growing up so our meals were lots of offal very cheap from the butchers shop in stews pies and just plain boiled up. I can still remember mum cooking pigs trotters, pigs tails, ox tails and tripe us kids were allowed to get away with hearts, kidneys and liver! Sugar sandwiches and tinned fruit with milk for pudding after Sunday roast that was cheapest bit of pork. I can remember topping and tailing sprats and weekly having elvers! Before they became a delicacy and the price rose. Thank god when fishfingers came on sale we’d have them every day.

rosegoldwatcher · 06/07/2020 18:39

In the 70s my sister and I lived with my (divorced) dad and our nana. We looked forward to steak and chips night; my dad had the steak - no one else was served it. We stood at his shoulder, waiting for him to finish so that we could pounce on the bits of fat and gristle that he left - all covered in Colman's mustard.
He was a 'ginger in the melon boat' man - until he got a 'posh' girlfriend in the mid 70s. Then he discovered melon with port - basically half a honeydew melon with all of the seeds removed and ruby port poured into the hollow. They must have had it in a restaurant.
Thankfully, charentais and cantaloupe melon are widely available these days. They need nothing other than a chill.

Bluetrews25 · 06/07/2020 18:44

When we were going on holiday (towing the caravan somewhere) we would unplug the telly and move it to somewhere in the house that you could not see it through the window. So any thieves looking through the window would think we didn't have one, so would not break in.
And if there was a thunderstorm, we'd have to unplug the same telly from the mains and the aerial to ensure it did not explode or something if struck by lightening.
Fish and chips every friday. Burgers for lunch every sunday until DF discovered Chinese stir fry in the early 80s. Then we would have practically raw veggies (you cook it quickly!) in no sauce with fairly plain chicken and rice. Lots of cook books, never used them

SleepingStandingUp · 06/07/2020 18:49

Coffee (the v cheap chicory stuff) from a young age because we had to have a hot drink.
Golden syrup on breadas as a treat

SleepingStandingUp · 06/07/2020 18:52

Not being allowed to walk up the stairs once mum has vacuumed them, even though we been the house the whole time. If you needed loo desperately you crept up with feet in the v far side until it has "settled,"

NatalieLollipop · 06/07/2020 19:01

My dad had me and my sister inhaling snuff at a very young age, we must have been pre 10 as we left at that age and didn't see him again for many years...He also used to sit us on top of the cigarette machine in the corridor on the way into the pub while he disappeared inside for an indeterminate length of time. I can still remember feeling really uncomfortable when some random stranger would be rummaging around by my ankles for their cigarettes!

Ohffs66 · 06/07/2020 19:11

No watching of ITV (because it was 'common')

Cauliflower and cabbage boiled together for Sunday dinner until it was basically a paste. I was in my twenties before I knew they were 2 separate vegetables!

Andrews liver salts being forced down you every time you had a bad tummy or felt sick

Ears cleaned with Kirby grips (WTAF?!)

Orange milkshake as a treat (orange squash and milk Envy< not envy)

Every time my mother went out you had to go down and shut the garage door behind her. When she came back she would beep outside and you had to go down and open it again. She used to be furious if you took too long to do it!

AnneOfCleavage · 06/07/2020 19:27

Pineapple yes 😂 obviously the story reading and the voices. It really was the one thing I remember v vividly and begging for another chapter. I would get paid 50p to brush mum's hair which I would do so the story would last longer.

ilovepixie · 06/07/2020 19:46

A family our family were friends with weren't allowed to make chip butties, it was common! They were allowed chips and bread and butter but not allowed to make a buttie. The first time I went to tea and was served chips and bread and butter I made a buttie! They all looked on aghast!

ilovepixie · 06/07/2020 19:46

A family our family were friends with weren't allowed to make chip butties, it was common! They were allowed chips and bread and butter but not allowed to make a buttie. The first time I went to tea and was served chips and bread and butter I made a buttie! They all looked on aghast!

letsgomaths · 06/07/2020 20:31

This is a great thread! @AnneOfCleavage My dad was good at doing voices while reading. I vividly remember him being "high and flutey" while he read Willy Wonka saying "But I'll get it right soon, and when I do, there'll be no excuse for little boys and girls going around with bald heads!" I hope being made to miss the story while standing on the mat didn't happen to you too often; what kind of misbehaviour would warrant that?

My parents never played pop music: I wasn't even aware it really existed until I was a teenager. Instead, we were brought up to love Radio 3. One of our favourite childhood records was one of renaissance instruments such as shawms and crumhorns; we liked it because most of the music was upbeat. Our childhood nanny told me some years later that she used to tune the radio to a pop station, and had to remember to put it back afterwards!

We had a gadget for making home made yogurt, which my mum saw as far more economical than buying yogurt pots. It contained six glasses with rubber lids, which would be slowly heated for a few hours. It did not have an automatic timer: instead, one of the pots had a lid with the numbers of a clock, which had to be turned to face an arrow saying "ready by".

BathshebaKnickerStickers · 06/07/2020 20:44

Many people are wrong. It’s cinnamon on melon. And a cocktail stick with a bent orange slice to make a sail, and a maraschino cherry to top it off.

Because then it’s a boat.

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