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!

tobee
This thread has reminded me that when I was little and felt a bit unwell; tummy ache or whatever, my mum would ask if I was "sickening for something?" The weird bit was I never knew what she meant. And still don't really.

^^

Sickening for something simply means getting ill. My mum used to say it too

@emilybrontescorsett

My mum always put sugar on strawberries and then put them in the fridge for the sugar to cristalise. I didn't realise you could eat them without sugar until I was an adult.

It's makes them delicious though I don't do it now. We had salt in celery and ginger in melon growing up, brown sugar went on grapefruit and cinnamon or salt on porridge.

There were so many things!

My mum used to fill her belly button with salt and dip apple slices in it. I used to think “She’s foreign, it’s fine, that must just be what they do in her country!” But of course, they don’t do that there either, she was just really weird!

My dad used to put mattresses on the stairs so we could slide down them all the way to the bottom.

We never ate a meal together except at Christmas. Then the aim seemed to be to eat as much as you possibly could. They all used to moan at me for only eating one helping rather than eating until it hurt, as if I’d really let them down. We also NEVER had a takeaway or went to a restaurant. All our Christmas presents were given away to our poorer cousins abroad the next day so we only had a few hours to play with nice things before they were gone forever.

My dad wouldn’t let us use shampoo on our hair - - he made us use a bar of soap, even though my mum had bought shampoo for us. I think he thought it was a bit decadent.

He would hit us if we cried when we fell over or if we “didn’t smile enough”.

We always went on holiday to Blackpool or Wales when my school friends went abroad to Spain, Italy and USA but back then we said America .lol
I went to Tenerife when I was 18 .

At my grandparents wake, I went to make hot drinks.
My DP asked me "how do you know who has what?" I had never thought about it but each aunt, uncle, cousin etc has a favourite coffee brand and they bring them when visiting family.
All of us know which ones for who (some take only tea in the evenings) and I'm from a large family.

We're black and one of my parents had white foster parents as well as bio family. Took me donkeys years to realise it was weird that we had a set of white grandparents. And another bunch to wonder why parent had been in and out of care in the first place.

Still don't know why.

My granddad mentioned the no drinks when i was giving DS water with lunch, it was because they thought a drink would fill you up and you wouldn't eat your meal

Had a roast dinner every Sunday, no matter what.

I'm married now with my own family and still have an odd feeling inside me on Sundays when we don't have a roast (which is more often than when we do have one!). Almost like I've not had a 'proper' Sunday!!

My parents were obsessive about privacy. "What will the neighbours think?" was always a major issue for them, as was hunting for cumbersome window dressings to ensure no cheeky light or air could get in.

Mum: "'Close those curtains! Do you want all the neighbours to see in?"
Me: "We're on the top floor of a three-storey building with a view of Sydney Harbour. No one's looking in. No one cares."
Mum: "Keep the window shut and the curtains closed, and don't make me say it again! And close that balcony door! Do you want to fall off?"

Later, we bought a house in a Sydney beachside suburb. "It's north-facing; look at that beautiful sunshine!" my DM exclaimed. She then put up two layers of curtains "to make sure the neighbours can't see in", installed a "safety" grille so that the windows couldn't be opened properly, grew thick shrubs in front of the windows "for privacy" and hid the whole hot, stifling lot behind a high hedge. When my brother and I (who now own the house) pulled down the old flock wallpaper, we found the walls black with mould.

My dad wouldn't allow me to eat in a restaurant until my table manners were flawless. Straight back, napkin in lap, the whole bit.

My grandmother always made Yorkshire pudding in a square tin with dripping from the roast beef. Also from Lancashire!

groovergirl,
Omg you have just brought it back to me ( memories ) talking about keeping the window shut.
When I was a kid growing up and a only child my mum wouldn’t let me have my bedroom window open at night on second floor in a house .
Even in the hot weather , she thought somebody was going to break in to our house .😬
She used to lock it with a key and I remember stealing the key to un lock it and then putting it back .
To this day , even it is snow, ice or freezing or gale force winds I always have to have my bedroom window open .

Now DF who was a Lancastrian would eat his cold sometimes, with jam!

Sacrilege, the big square pud with gravy before the meal and small ones cold with golden syrup ( Sunday evening or Monday breakfast).

My mother always called a corkscrew a screwdriver and the remote was the flat controller.

Not my family but a friend's. I couldn't understand why my friend hated BBQs, he likes sausage and burgers and is happy to drink in the garden.

Then I went to a BBQ at his mother's.

ALL the meat was put on the BBQ at once, no feeling for hot spots or taking in to account how long things take to cook.

Once there is a bit of a char on the meat it then goes into the oven, the oven is on full.

Then you set the table in the garden, with a table cloth and place settings.

Then someone makes a salad.

Finally everyone sits down at the table and plates of cremated meat are passed around for everyone to take a small amount to eat with the salad, one bread roll each is allowed.

She used to lock it with a key and I remember stealing the key to unlock it and then putting it back.

My DM would barge into my bedroom while I was quietly reading Cosmo doing my homework, rage about insects and neighbours, slam down the window, pull down the blind and draw the curtains. She'd leave, I'd re-open everything and 20 minutes later she'd be back ... Repeat. Eventually we compromised with a removable flyscreen.

Like you, Avamiah, to this day I prize good air flow, and I don't care who sees me enjoying it!

We actually went out to eat quite a lot - my parents loved restaurants and weren't going to miss out because they had children - and DB and I had to bring books to read so we didn't keep interrupting their scintillating adult conversation. Everyone thought they were fantastic parents!

When we were at restaurants, my mother never let us have any bread from the bread basket, because it was free and then we'd spoil our supper that they were paying for. To this day I look at the bread basket in restaurants with deep suspicion and never ever have any.

groovergirl,
I’ve actually just opened another window in my bedroom ( just a bit ) because it’s my window and I can .
X

We never, ever had take-aways or went out for family meals unless on holiday (and even then, only very occasionally as we predominantly went self-catering). The reason wasn't lack of money (father was a very well paid financial director) more that my father saw it as a waste of money. I didn't realise other people did these things with their families until I was an adult!

Yes to the powdered ginger on melon, together with a glace cherry on a cocktail stick. Eat the cherry first - or lay it aside to eat last - then use the cocktail stick to eat the precut sections of melon 'boat' - no spoons with melon. Just as pomegranates had to be eaten with a pin. We were all about the sharp spoon substitutes!
A friend's family, originally from Lancashire, serve freshly cooked, hot Yorkshire pudding with the main course, including gravy, horseradish or mustard or whatever. So far, so normal. Except they don't eat it. They eat everything else, then pour golden syrup on the now cold Yorkshire and eat it like that. Golden syrup with gravy and cold Yorkshire pudding is an odd combination, but I now join in at their house...

We never, ever went on family days out or had family holidays. About every three years, we would be loaded up for a relative checking-off road trip though. I grew up in one of the most beautiful spots in the world. We would pass world-famous destinations on our way to whatever relative was being checkboxed that time. On the way, we would pass everything from amazing things to kitsch things. We stopped at nothing. Any Australian who ever has traveled the east coast would have a family snap in front of the Big Banana, the supreme kitschy site. Not us! We would arrive at said relatives house and my brother and I were expected to sit and listen to the adults talk for three or four days. Then a 3000km drive back home again.

Once on our way back we stopped to see relatives holidaying on the Gold Coast. Great for my parents- two sets of relatives check-boxed on one trip. We were staying for three days. I remember my uncle asking my parents on what day they were planning to take us to Dream World, a big theme park. No family in the 80’s would miss Dreamworld if they were visiting the Gold Coast. My parents faces were completely blank. My uncle laughed at them and said they were the type to go to Anaheim and not take their children to Disneyland. This was the first time I realised that they were not normal and parents did take real life children to these El Dorados.

My parents were not child hating monsters. Doing occasional fun kid stuff that occurred to most parents just never occurred to them. Plus they were always highly anxious that doing something solely for the children, with no further purpose, would spoil us.

My mum used to serve mushy peas with Sunday roast and put sugar on them.

Then a 3000km drive back home again. This sounds horrific! Probably in a car with hot vinyl and a busted AM radio, too. And to not even stop at the Big Banana! I hope you go there one day, as it's interesting for history and botany as well as for kitsch, and worth a visit.

Speaking of food and this is not my family thing, more of a general observation about 1970s Australia kids were never allowed to make their own sandwiches, or "sangwidges", as the olds would say. If you dared to slip a hand inside the Tip Top bread bag, someone would snatch it away from you. Two flabby white slices would then be engulfed in margarine, with just a dab of Vegemite or whatever in the middle. "There yar. That'll keep ya going 'til tea."

I once got busted for wiping the marge off on a tree, and also for eating just the crusts (which had escaped the marge) and frisbeeing the rest over a fence. I hated margarine so much and couldn't understand why it was compulsory. I've eaten plain, dry bread many times and not once has it killed me! Or glommed up my gullet!

@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!

Am totally stealing the won the prize thing.

OP my husband calls toes poking through socks jacket potatoes and he's not even British! So maybe not so odd after all!

My mother said you'd 'catch your death of cold' if you went out after a bath.

Strawberry varieties you get today are a lot sweeter than the ones you got in the 70s. Hence,you needed to put sugar on in the past.

Not British but we called toes sticking out of the sock potatoes too. Definitely a world-wide phenomenon :)

Sunday roast was a tradition. Start every meal with a soup. 'Eating with the spoon' was super important to my parents and grandparents. It was considered unhealthy to eat a lot of fried/roasted stuff so veggie stews and soups were a big thing. My DH was completely flabbergasted when I observed he 'doesn't eat enough with the spoon'. He actually asked me how is he supposed to eat pizza with the spoon :D

Sunday lunch was a big thing - start with the homemade clear nudle soup (chicken or veal), continue with the roast+potatoes+carrots+green veggie and my favourite part - lettuce with spring onions and radishes with apple cider vinegar/olive oil dressing. I still think that's a perfect Sunday lunch and if I can't make the salad - its just not the real thing.

Oh, and in our house, for some reason, we called the remote 'remotometer'. It was a joke that started off between our parents but it was so popular that my sister discovered that is not how you call the remote only when she was 8.