It's the 80s and I'm a teenager - is my mother being unreasonable?

[PresidentJoey]

She's just gone mental about the phone bill Apparently I'm not allowed to speak to my best friend on the phone for an hour after school!?? I'm sick of her controlling me!!

My DH had a party line and had to share with the neighbours. There were apparently constant bollockings over the phone bill until itemised billing came in and MIL finally understood she's the family gasbag

Switch mum to dad and it’s the story of my teen years.

Kids these days don’t know they’re born.

I’m going to go into the village to use my BT phone card. Unfortunately it won’t be changed over until the early 90’s though so I’ll have to walk into town.
Luckily people still stop on the road and give me a lift 😬

Wow, I totally forgot about calls being cheaper before six😂 When our phone bill arrived, everyone got a highlighter and had to pay for their calls.

@Georgyporky

MIL was that DM, & would yell at all 3 kids for wasting money on the 'phone.

Now, her DS pays for her mobile as she's in a care home,
and could scream at her 'phoning friends in Canada & nattering on about the weather, what they saw on TV etc.

Haha - love it. Pay back!!

@Watchingyou2sleezes I promise you it did. My Dad is a hoarder - he throws nothing away. I found a jar of old 10 pence pieces in the garage and thought I'd try them. This was in 1992 (having checked that's when the changeover happened) so I think phones were accepting both types.

Love this thread, btw. I wasn’t a teenager until the 90s though so feeling a little left out

I think ‘are you still in that bloody phone’ has become my dad’s catchphrase

Think yourself lucky, we won't be getting a phone until 1987. It's use will be short lived because my fucking sister is going to run up a £130 phone bill calling a French exchange student in Paris, the phone will be unplugged from the socket in the hallway until she's paid it back from her Saturday job.

'Are you on the phone again?'
''Get off the phone and off the bloody stairs'
Actually picking up the extension and interfering. There is literally no privacy. Huff. Nag nag nag. All they ever do. Sooooooo unreasonable

We had a party line. I used to love listening to other peoples’ conversations.

Mum had one of these little beauties on the phone so we didnt get to make many calls without an inquistion first about who and why we needed to call and instructions on how long we were allowed on for.

Every time a bill came through we all got shown it and lectured we were not to use the phone so much and everyone argued or wasnt them.

I remember the first itemised phone bill. It was finally proof it wasn't me running up the bill

We didn't have a phone until 1984 when I was 16. My Mother would frequently wave the egg timer at me if I dared to use it.

@ThatCampWitch

YANBU. Write in your diary and have a good vent! My dad has just come in and shouted ‘It’s like the bloody Blackpool illuminations in here!’ AIBU to think he’s really embarrassing?

My dad does this too. That and "all the burglars in the neighbourhood will be looking through the windows if you don't close the curtains".

Yeah, Dad, we're just surrounded by burglars in a country lane in Sussex.

@planDeraccordement, something tells me you weren't around at the time! You didn't buy minutes, on top of your monthly fee you got charged for all calls. Your parents got a bill that listed all the calls and how much they cost. Once, after I got a Saturday job, I got hold of the bill, laughed at my dad, and offered him the £3.50 or whatever that my after school chats with my friend (who I walked to and from school with and lived two streets from) had cost. It wasn't mentioned again.

@FOJN

Think yourself lucky, we won't be getting a phone until 1987. It's use will be short lived because my fucking sister is going to run up a £130 phone bill calling a French exchange student in Paris, the phone will be unplugged from the socket in the hallway until she's paid it back from her Saturday job.

@Watchingyou2sleezes

If you didn't go through the phone book looking for "amusing" names to phone uo and talk shite to. You weren't an older child in the 80s

I hereby apologise profusely to all the Balls of Brighton and Hove.

But we had important issues to discuss. Like what perfume Simon Le Bon would like us to wear when we meet him one day . Dewberry or White Musk???

PresidentJoey

Quite, you can imagine the row that followed receiving that phone bill, which was delivered by post!

@mineofuselessinformation

You could get round the phone lock by jiggling the cradle to dial the number....

Yes, did this all the time . Think it's what caused my parents divorce as obviously they were the only one with keys so couldn't have possibly been us teens , one of them was obviously having an affair 😳 God teenagers are selfish fuckers

Ahhh...sweet memories of post 6pm calls, and a shout out to the special part of my brain that still knows all of my friends home numbers!

@nancy75

I think ‘are you still in that bloody phone’ has become my dad’s catchphrase

Definitely. And, IT'S LIKE BLACKPOOL ILLUMINATIONS IN HERE 🙄. I am NEVER, EVER, EVER going to be like that, EVER. It's so unfair

our phone is in the draughty hall opp the front door between the living room then the bathroom and kitchen and it is so surprising how many times mum and dad suddenly need to walk across the hallway to the bathroom or to make a hot drink! I mean I had to ring my friend from school to tell her I had the kissing disease that's why I was absent! then to add insult in comes my sister insisting she really needs to go up the stairs where I am sat then back down again for the bathroom then up again then back down again for a drink then up again ha ha! only the dog left to disturb me now!

IT'S LIKE BLACKPOOL ILLUMINATIONS IN HERE

I had no idea it was a standard parent phrase, I thought it was just my dad.

@MrsMoastyToasty

But we had important issues to discuss. Like what perfume Simon Le Bon would like us to wear when we meet him one day . Dewberry or White Musk???

John Taylor all the way. Sorry.

I know the phone number of the fan club off by heart. I keep dialling it but when someone answers, I put the phone down because I'm too scared to say anything. I also spend Saturday mornings trying to ring Saturday Superstore if DD are on, because if JT hears me speak, he will fall in love with me and we will get married and live happily ever after because my dad has got an Aston Martin and so has he, so we have got everything in common.