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!!

Actually it was 'Frankie goes to hospital' T shirt.....

My hair has been back combed and sprayed rock solid. I’m wearing Boots 17 peakin purple mascara and heather shimmer lippy. I’m going to hang around the youth club disco and show off my banarama dance moves, so cool. Obviously I’ll be marrying George Michael eventually, but Paul from the year above might have to do for now

My parents in the 80s were constantly telling me off about the phone bill..they put a lock on the phone..I learnt how to tap my friends number instead!! Actually really happy days and my dad was so impressed that I had worked it out 😊

I got caught when the phone bill arrived when I use to call a chat line called the phone bar. They put a lock on the phone but I saw where they placed the code so of course carried on ring the chat line and when phone bill arrived my brktjwe got the blame

Brother *

@FOJN

IT'S LIKE BLACKPOOL ILLUMINATIONS IN HERE

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

Dh still says this to our kids.

@Diversion

You've seen her all day at school, what else do you need to talk about? Also you can't phone until after 6pm, do you think we are made of money? She only lives around the corner why don't you go and see her at her house?

Daaaaaaaaaaad you’re so embarrassing.

Dialling 100 and asking to speak to Buzby. Operator didn’t get it at all, grumpy cow.

And answering the phone ‘Lyndhurst 2750’ because you just did

wasn't a teenager in 80s but age 2 years old and the local phone numbers were 4 digits to dial anyone in the town. Parents busted me one day whrn i was mid call asking ' 'hello, how are you?' to any random.

A wall hung phone was installed instead incase i dialled new zealand!

I didn't get my favourite Vesta curry for tea after my mum saw the phone bill, I had been ringing dial a tune again.

Wait until the Internet comes in & you have to get offline because someone wants to use the phone.

@Proudboomer

My dad used to come in to the lounge just as we had got down to the final top ten on Top of the Pops and turn over the channel( by pressing a button on the front of the big square tv). Telling us that as he paid the bill then he get to choose what to watch.

Aargh!
Why did dads do this?!

I can imagine doing it to my DC, yet in those days it was perfectly acceptable, normal parenting.

I thought the speaking clock was free...on the third beep the time will be

@Vickstory79

I thought the speaking clock was free...on the third beep the time will be

I think so. I called it regularly. Not much else to do.

Listen to Pat Simmons. Soooo many memories. telephonesuk.org.uk/speaking-clock/

After being yelled at about a phone bill, my parents started to unplug the digital push button phone from the bedroom and hide it. So, so unfair, forcing me to wait until the following day to deliver the very important band gossip I'd just read in my magazine.

@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!!

You're not being unreasonable. Word of advice, if your mother puts a lock on the phone, learn to use the plungers that the handset rests on to dial the number you need. I did this, my mum still doesn't know to this day that I still managed to make phone calls when she had put a lock on. I won that battle!

The lack of Top of the pops backfired on them as because I wasn’t listening to pop I got into punk.
The sex pistols had already come and gone but there was still some great bands. Hair back combed, bin liners and ripped jeans, studded belts and my brother multi pierced my ears with a needle and bag of peas whilst singing along to The Clash.

Mine is wondering why I am saving 5ps. Sits so 5 of us can squash into a phone box after school and talk to boys in a chat room!

If you sit on the stairs for an hour, because that’s where the phone is, you’ll get piles anyway.

@Diversion

You've seen her all day at school, what else do you need to talk about? Also you can't phone until after 6pm, do you think we are made of money? She only lives around the corner why don't you go and see her at her house?

Exactly that

An hour?

If I'd have done that they'd never have found me.

Dad ruined my recording from the telly of Top of the Pops by speaking when it was on.
He was very cross with me anyway from vacuuming up the contents of his ashtray when I was told to hoover the living room. The hoover stinks of fags a bit now, but I was only doing as I was told and now he's stopped my £1.50 pocket money this week!
And I've fun out of Impulse!
What am I going to do?

We once had a telephone engineer out and he (stupidly) told me the number to dial to test the line - so I used to make the phone ring, pretend to answer it and then secretly dial my friends back, secure in the knowledge that my mum thought they had rung me.

Also we frequently got calls for other people in the village and I often knew who they were and was able to give the caller the correct number to call (4 digits) - I was a human telephone directory for the village!

I was also lucky in that we never had a lock on the phone, and when my sister got married (1981) we all swapped bedrooms so that my mum and dad could have my sister's old bedroom which had a vanity unit with a sink! Which meant I moved into my mum and dad's old room... which had the telephone extension in it

Grandma has come to stay. It’s a Thursday in 1980 and we three youngsters are watching Top of the Pops. Grandma marches over to the telly of says “we don’t want to watch that rubbish, do we?” And switches it off. We don’t dare say that we were enjoying it, actually. So unfair!