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!

@ilovepixie

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!

My MIL detests seeing people putting things into a butty rather than just having bread and butter with their meal

The first time she saw me do it with chips I could see her wincing!

I had the most amazingly happy childhood growing up amongst quite a big extended family. My Mum was a good cook and she worked at the village shop so often brought things home - I used to love helping her at the shop. Our cousins would often have their tea at our house!
She made sliced potatoes dipped in batter and fried that we called 'Specials' and my DC loved her proper chips and sausage. Childhood fare was stuff like meat and potato pie and she did a gorgeous 'cheese and egg' that was like a souffle. I really miss her root vegetable broth. She made sponge puddings with custard - my favourite was chocolate sponge with green mint custard! She did a roast dinner every Sunday and we went to church twice on a Sunday!

@Guineapigbridge

My lovely mother used to bake what she called 'Love Bread' and take it around to a friend or contact who she felt might've needed cheering up. She made two loaves: we had one and the other family had one.

She is so kind and I think that's rare. As I get older I think the quiet Christianity she embodies has a lot going for it.

Sounds just like something my grandparents and mum would do. My grandad was a vicar and my granny was known for being spotted cycling through town with a freshly baked loaf or cake in her bicycle basket! ❤️

it was completely normal for me and my sister to go to the shop or walk the dog in our pyjamas. I realised at some point other people do not do that and was very relieved when I started my new life in the U.K. and saw people doing it.
In terms of weird food, my great grand mother was feeding me tick slices of butter with sugar on top. Also where I come from espresso is drunk always with Coca Cola for best start of the morning. I was surprised to find out in all other countries I visited people go for water or have a milky coffee.
Another one I don’t do anymore is having a ball of ice cream into Coca Cola or apricot juice for desert.
Strawberries with sugar were also part of my childhood 😄

Summer salads always had cucumber and onion in vinegar, and there was always homemade cake at the weekend. We all sat in the same places and my Dad ALWAYS thanked her for every meal but he rarely helped or washed up....on the other hand he did the 'man's jobs'. We had our evening meal (tea) at 6:15 every night as Dad got home at 6:00.

My mum used to eat the skin on kiwi fruits and told us that was normal. My sister and I both laugh now and only found out from our respective husbands that it is not normal in any way

This might be slightly off-topic, and I know that this is a blessing to be counted, but I do think of it as a slightly unusual childhood experience, which left me in blissful ignorance: as a child and teenager, I didn't see any adults I knew starting or finishing a relationship. My parents (both aged thirty when I was born) were happily married throughout, and so were all their friends, almost without exception, as was everyone in my extended family. This gave me the idea that marriage was something that "just happened". Having never observed it, as a teenager I couldn't begin to imagine that there was a whole process leading up to it: fancying someone, falling in love, dating, living together, marriage. I also never attended a wedding before being an adult. As a result, relationships and all their nuances were a complete mystery to me as a teenager, and I saw no reason to aspire to them; I just didn't get the whole boyfriend/girlfriend thing, which all my peers were mad about, and I thought "there's an awful lot fuss in literature about falling in love". It just didn't occur to me that that was the reality that might eventually lead to marriage.

I only realised much later that I was probably in the minority with this: many children observe members of their family falling in and out of love, and friends of their family, and many children see their own parents marrying (either each other, or somebody else).

At the weekend, for a treat, we were allowed to climb up on the roof with ladders.
When visiting one relative we never used the door, we were always encouraged to climb in a window. All the adults used the door, so there was nothing wrong with the door.

Also the forced monotony of my childhood was something I didn't realise was strange until years later

Same. Looking back it was so utterly boring and rigid. Thursday nights were always food shopping at Tesco’s. Saturdays my dad dragged me round DIY shops, Sunday’s we always visited the grandparents. It never ever changed. Every school holiday we’d visit a castle of some kind because they were free then. I got so bored of walking round castles- once you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all.
Holidays were always the Isle of Wight, never anywhere exciting or exotic. Visited my parents friends every month who were just as rigid and boring and we’d always eat quiche and salad EVERY visit.
It was pretty joyless and boring tbh

@letsgomaths - did those early experiences impact your relationship forming in the long run?

We assume that a stable parental relationship will be nothing but advantageous to our children - I have never thought that my DSs would have suffered from not seeing love bloom.

As I got older and wanted to start doing my own thing, there was he'll to pay if I dared suggest not conforming to the weekly plan. Actually I think I'm going off on a whole different thread here...

I left home at 20 after a huge row where I wanted to do my own thing on a Saturday and not visit relatives with my parents. These were the same parents with a set menu for days of the week, we didn't have a drink with dinner unless it was a small glass of wine on Sunday, little girls should be seen and not heard, etc.

I wasn't allowed to watch ITV unless Magpie was on. On the book front I wasn't allowed to read Enid Blyton because my father though it held children back with its simplistic language.

Aside from roast we didn’t have any veg at all. Maybe the odd side of peas with fish or tinned mushrooms in a spaghetti bolognese. I remember going to a friends who had a side salad with dinner and marvelling at the chopped raw peppers

And doing nothing at weekends while my parents watched Tv, drank and napped. I remember finding it strange that my friends had parents who took them out in the afternoon

We weren't allowed anything at all to drink after 6pm.

We had set meals for almost every day too (Grew up in the 80s)

Monday was left over meat from Sunday’s roast dinner with chips and beans (if no left over meat it was an omelette with the chips and beans)
Tuesday was fish, potato waffles and peas
Wednesday was either spag Bol or corned beef hash
Thursday was burger in a bun (homemade)
Friday fish, chips and peas
Saturday was the only day variety was permitted
Sunday was roast dinner with all the trimmings

Oh and every meal was served with a slice of bread and butter, except the roast dinner.

It’s only now looking back that I realise that my parents had to stick to a very strict budget so meal planning was essential. My dad had long periods out of work due to disability and my mum only ever worked part time.

I can remember going to the supermarket with my mum, she had her shopping list and on the back of it she’d write the price of every item she put in the trolley. At the end she’d tot up how much she had spent and if she’d gone over her budget something had to go back on the shelf, or if we were under budget we could choose a treat, usually ice cream!

@IDontLikeZombies I'd have loved climbing on the roof with ladders! When there was scaffolding on our house, I made good use of it, and saw parts of the house I had never seen before. With the doors thing, at my grandparents' house there was easy access to the back door. While the rest of my family rang the front doorbell, I would sneak in at the back door.

Hole in sock with toe out was called a spud!

Our remote control was always there box of tricks’

‘The box of tricks’

We never had set meals but often similar meals each week. Always a fried breakfast on Sunday though and often fish n chips on a Friday which was the only meal served with a pot of tea on the table! WTH?

Blotbot is how we greet each other

Lifting the dog into the air shouting 'meeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaa' as in, come here/c'mere because DDog always runs away from us at any sign of loving

'Check the flaps' - post man has been

The mokon troll is not just a remote, but a living being in our house (mainly because it seems to go walk abouts and hide itself). Examples - 'where's mokon? Has anyone seen mokon? Check the sofa for the troll! Ah I think I took him in the kitchen with me'

We had set meals every day, she wasn't a good cook and they were bloody awful. But strangely breakfast was nice, bacon and beans on toast or sausage and tomato's on toast. We had a gas cooker with an eye level grill and every day would she set fire to the tea towel.

We barely drank as children. Parents would drink small cups of coffee but nothing after 8pm. I'm amazed we weren't dehydrated, I do remember glugging a glass of water immediately after dinner so perhaps that helped.

10pm bedtimes for parents, as a result children (even in late teens) had to go to bed at that time also. But other than bedtime, we were only allowed in our rooms for homework. All other times we had to be "sociable", i.e. had to remain in sight in the living room.