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!

The no drink with dinner thing stops you overeating
how weird. I always remember being told that if you drink a lot of water immediately before / during your meal then you feel full up quicker.
Your explanation makes sense though.

I don't like ginger or cinnamon!!!
I just had melon with sugar back then - they were as not as sweet as they are nowadays.

@1300cakes

My parents both always cooked every type of meat, particularly red meat, to well done ++++, the texture was like boot leather. Even sausages were cut in half and cooked so they were dry and shrivelled. I thought this was normal and liked the taste at the time.

However mind was completly blown when I tried a normally cooked steak aged around 25! And juicy lamb cutlets! Even now I can't believe how tender they can be!

Same in my house, I always wondered why it was considered a treat to have a steak the odd Sunday when it was as tough as old boots. DP cooked frying steak in the pan for 30mins then finished it off in the oven for another 30s. My mind was blown when now DH made me steak the proper way one night.

I grew up with everything well done. I cant do it any other way now as I'm phobic of it "not being cooked through " (chicken.) Or "seeing blood" (red meat) To be honest we dont eat red meat much. Id cut a sausage in half to make sure it was cooked though...

ROFLing at “being declared a fatality” although I’m sure it was less amusing at the time!

I can’t really remember anything tbh. I did tell my kids about sugar on strawberries the other day which they tried and loved - it was just dipped into a plate of granulated here though rather than left to macerate.

Never had days out as my dad was either working, sleeping or drinking. The pub cake before us. On holiday we’d have days out but he was such a grumpy bastard it was unbearable mostly. 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!’ He did it on our first holiday abroad and at the 2nd place my mum Said ‘oh hold up no chance pal I’m not trailing down this strip at your arse in 30c! Here is fine!’

Prescriptive meals. Monday was either something from the freezer or something made with mince. I hated my mums cooking so always prayed for the only two things she did well-chilli or bolognese. It would be either them or cottage pie which was rank (I like mine that I make now) or mince with gravy which was also bogging. Tuesday was chicken drumsticks usually pale and anaemia looking. Wednesday was one of the Monday things we’d but not the same as Monday, Thursday could be gammon, scotch pie or pork loin steak, Friday was fish, Saturday was a pork chop(served with chips and boiled bean sprouts for some reason), sunday was a joint roasted until it was shoe leather. My mum also made roast potatoes in the chip pan but dumped the potatoes into cold fat rather than heating first and the outside was like leather. Overdone vegetables boiled for about 35 minutes was normal, there was occasional variance in the meals, maybe a steak, or she’s try making chow mein or a weird pasta she made with Campbell’s condensed soup...all grim! Me and my brother learned to cook at 8!

We ate a lot of melon but never with ginger – this is the first I’ve heard of that! Definitely strawberries with sugar though, and grapefruit with sugar, left to crystallise overnight. My dad seemed to think he had invented this method. I won’t tell him that a significant number of mumsnetters have proved him wrong.

Our main family oddness was that my parents had a huge social life. They went out every Saturday night without fail and I would be packed off to my grandparents or sleepovers would be arranged at another friends’ house. I don’t think I spent a Saturday night in my own bed/house from the age of 4 months until I was 16. I would always be brought back from wherever I had stayed, in time for Sunday dinner, which was always a full roast will all trimmings and it was absolute law that we had this as a family; I could not have tea at a friend’s house on Sundays, even if invited. My friends all thought this was weird and draconian but I loved it as it really was the only time that we spent time together. Mum and Dad also went out separately most nights in the week with each taking turns to stay home with me. They generally went to pubs, social clubs, sometimes restaurants and bars, sometimes concerts and they always referred to my friends’ parents as sad folk with no lives. They would mock other families for spending time together, doing family activities, movie nights, staying sober on a Saturday night… As a child I hung on every word they said and absolutely believed this, looking at my friends’ parents with disdain for what seemed like empty little lives. There must have been something deep inside of me though that never quite believed this otherwise I wouldn’t have loved our Sunday dinners so much. Also, as I got older, I did start to wish, more and more, that my family were more like others and that we could do things together but whenever I suggested that we could have an evening where we all stayed in and maybe watched a film for play a boardgame, I was told off for “thinking like an American”. Looking back, I’m also pretty sure that at least one friend’s mother utterly resented being used as free childcare to facilitate their social care. I can only imagine the sort of thing she’d be posting on MN these days.

Another weird thing, and apologies for lowering the tone and I promise I’m not a troll, is that I was never allowed to say the words poo or poop. My parents reacted like these were the worse swear words. In our house we used jobby. Which I now think is far worse than poo! But somehow they thought this was better. I remember getting roundly told off by a friend’s dad for using the j-word and being told to say poo instead which really confused me. All other types of swearing were also abhorrent to my parents – even “mild” words like crap or hell. I was, however, allowed and even encouraged to use bugger as an exclamation of annoyance. My dad told me it wasn’t swearing, which, again, ended up with me getting into trouble at other people’s houses.

@MsEllany it’s funny now, but as a 16 year old with a 12 hour 4am-4pm shift at a factory as well as a 20 min bike ride to get there, it definitely was not.
I was trained to do it: whenever we moved house (which was lots - I’m an army brat) my entire family would be woken up by the sound of dad setting the fire alarm off. He used to say “fires in the kitchen/on the stairs etc” and we’d have to “escape” I used to love it when he went on training, it meant we got some respite!
However, he left after 25 years and started doing it every weekend. Eventually I learned to sleep through it and just deal with being a fatality the next day. It was easier.
Plus side is I can now sleep through anything!

On the drinking with meals thing; I had a real problem with intaking fluids as a child. I just hated drinking and that sensation of liquid going down my throat (maybe I was drowned as a witch in a previous life ). I rarely got consciously thirsty, could go a long time without drinking and constantly made myself ill through dehydration. My mum used to to have to force me to drink.

I loved going to other people's houses where they were not allowed a drink with their meal. Absolute heaven for me. Then when my mum found out that this is a rule in some homes, she insisted that I had to be given a drink and that I had to take a sip between every mouthful of food. I remember sitting at the table at my friend's house with my friend and her brother whining about how it wasn't fair that I had a drink and they didn't while their mother tried to deal with both situations through gritted teeth. This is the same woman who clearly resented being used as childcare. God, she must have hated my mother! If she or her children are reading this and recognise the situation, I'm truly sorry for the way my parents dumped me on you.

It was vegetables boiled to death in our household too, or thin watery stews made in a pressure cooker. I never realised that stews could be tasty until I was an adult, and that cabbage al dente is quite nice.

My mum calls holes in socks ' spuds'
Every Sunday without fail we would have a roast dinner at 1pm , all other activities had to fall either side of this . I hated having a roast dinner when it was sweltering outside.
My dad would make cold meat sandwiches for tea every Sunday night , I really disliked cold lamb bleurgh

Reading through these has reminded me of other things.

We had to be dressed from first thing in the morning. Absolutely no breakfast in your pjs. If you came down in pjs, you were sent back up. It did relax in a little in our later teens, when we'd just shrug and say no.

You could only put your pjs (called jimmies) on when you were going to bed, or after your bath. But you couldn't have a bath "too early". Even now, if I said to my mum at 7:30 that I was going for a bath, she'll look horrified and say "it's FAR too early for a bath!"

Having a "pj day" was not something that EVER happened. To do such a thing would label you as a "slovenly layabout". The same would be said if you wanted a bath at any time before the evening. A mid-afternoon bath?! Heaven forbid!

Another thing that still strikes me as weird, is that poos and wees were referred to as bigjobs and pennies. Like, at some point my parents must have discussed that they didn't like poo and wee as names, and went for bigjobs and pennies? I understand pennies (a couple of my cousins on mums side will say "I'm just off to spend a penny"), but where the heck did "bigjob" come from?!

In many ways, my pre-teen life was quite formal and "old school", but my dad was a college lecturer who taught teenagers, so he'd seen some shit, and actually relaxed a lot when we hit our teens, and mum just sort of followed his lead. Whatever stunts we pulled, he'd just laugh, and mum would quietly tut.

That being said, I had a very happy childhood in all. Wasn't perfect (whose is?), but my parents both did their best with what they had. Mum in particular sacrificed a whole lot for us kids, which we never appreciated at the time.
Dad had a very hard loveless upbringing, with some abuse. And although he was a very complicated man, he did his absolute best with what he had, and many of my best qualities I can trace right back to him.

Not touching or hugging ever.

When I had my first boyfriend and his mum hugged me, I nearly jumped out of my skin

She thought I was very odd.

Omg we had bigjobs but hadn't come across others who had! I assume it was big job as opposed to little jib but as a child I heard it as all one word almost "bidge-ob"

I remember inyr1 mentioning to another child (god knows why!?!? Maybe I needed the loo!?) and the shock they didnt know what I meant!

My granny used to say "spend a penny". I can picture her now .

My childhood was pretty awful and we didnt know we were loved, especially as we became teens. Its left me a bit rootless as an adult I think.

I don’t think my family would have known what a melon was never mind the ginger you were supposed to put on it.

We had quite a few weird food routines, including having chip shop chips for tea every Friday but then also for lunch every Saturday.

Sunday, we usually had a big roast lunch. But then at 4pm, my dad would go to the kitchen and make himself and my eldest brother a boiled egg. Nobody else was invited to partake of an egg, the rest of us (my other brother, my mum and my three sisters) weren’t allowed to have anything else to eat that day because we’d had a big roast.

I'd forgotten sugar sandwiches and a spoonful of sugar wrapped in a lettuce leaf.

And the no hugging. We got a handshake from our parents on birthdays, Christmas and New Year (that's a 1950s Scottish Presbyterian upbringing for you - lots of sugar but no hugs)

@coffeecup34 we weren’t allowed to watch commercial tv either. It’s reassuring to know we weren’t the only ones.

Thinking about the potato/spud thing for holes in socks, and how its use is obviously widespread, I wonder if it stems from darning socks. Back in the day it was usual to darn socks, and you used a wooden darning mushroom to provide the shape and support as you darned.
In households without the benefit of a darning mushroom, a potato would be a handy substitute, and could still be eaten afterwards!

I didnt allow my kids to watch commercial tv....

Not a lot when they were v small then Cbeebies. Its worked tbh! No pestering for things in commercials. And as theyve got older we've had things like netflix so they dont see ads these days anyway!

A couple from my grandparents.

You had to open a door in a thunder storm in case a lightening bolt came in.

They also had a has fridge and would turn off the gas when they went on holiday and there was a huge issue to relight the pilot light when they came back.

Another house where ITV children's programmes were banned. And we were not allowed any toys advertised on TV.

I still pit ginger on melon. - lovely .

My upbringing was very happy but also very formal. My parents still have very formal meals which take ages ... always set the table, proper glasses, cutlery etc. I sometimes dread just popping round at lunch time because even a sandwich type meal is served formally and takes at least an hour and a half .... The idea of snacking on a slice of toast for breakfast whilst getting ready to leave for work would horrify my DPs!

Meals out were rare and only for special occasions like a birthday meal at the Berni Inn. Now my DPs love eating out and as relatively wealthy pensioners eat out a lot (pre Lockdown of course) and I am pleased they can enjoy it.

That other families weren't so territorial over things.
My brother, my sister and I each had our own specific bowl, plate and mug. We even had our own scatter cushion. They all looked different. I don't think it mattered much when we were little, but I'm pretty sure my sister was embarrassed to still be using a flower fairy themed bowl and cup as a teen. It never occurred to my mum we might have changed our minds!
It's funny though because my sister and I shared a room and we were only allowed matching bed linen. I can remember being on holiday for a fortnight in a self catering cottage. My mum insisted on a bed linen change after a week (fair enough) but was totally freaked out by me choosing a frilly patterned set and my sister a bright but plain set from what was on offer. She was repeating "But wouldn't you prefer matching?" over and over. No, I really wanted the frilly pillows!
A lot of the perceived oddness was down to my parents and my dad in particular, not understanding that what we were happy with aged five might have changed somewhat by the time we were fifteen.

The central heating was only allowed on after a certain date (I think October the 31st) and then back off at the end of February. It didn't actually matter what the temperature was. If you were cold put more clothes on or your coat! Plus the heating was switched off at night. I had two cats and we'd all cuddle up in my bed to keep warm in the freezing nights as I watched my breath in the frigid bedroom air

' trolley tea' Sunday evening, on an actual gold coloured trolley, with egg sandwiches, a pot of tea and bourbon biscuits artfully arranged in a concentric circle. Best meal of the week, there would always be a nice posh of James or similar murder on, and it was cosy and warm.