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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think this is f*cked up?

200 replies

DHsdilemma · 08/04/2022 18:23

NC as my other username is for me personally.

DH has gone LC (NC really) with his mum and sister. It came to a head as he has always said he was treated differently.

Tonight we were talking and the topic came up about one time he thinks this really exemplifies being treated differently but I’ve been left thinking wtf?!

So the story:

When DH was about 13 circa 2004, he went on holiday with his older sister (1 year older), his younger brother (2 years younger), his mum and two aunts. They rented a small 3 seater hatchback to travel around Spain and bordering countries.

When they got the car it obviously couldn’t fit everyone in, so the decision was made that DH would have to get in the boot. They removed the parcel shelf so he could see out the back window but it was very much a boot. The reason was his sister was a girl and his brother was the “baby” and got car sick.

They used this car to travel hours - they went to Gibraltar and Morocco (the port) as well as around Spain in general. Whenever they hit border security they told DH to duck.

I asked DH whether he maybe was a kid who thought the boot was exciting. But apparently he vividly remembers being very angry and upset about being put in the boot (especially when they put the parcel shelf back to conceal him from security). He remembers mostly that he was so upset and disorientated from the experience that the drum souvenir he bought he dropped as he was dizzy and he was distraught about it.

Now I think this is fucked up. Mainly from a safety perspective and know my parents would have just rented a bigger car in the same scenario. He has brought it up to his mum who dismissed it as a bit of a joke and family tale.

Is this normal / funny? Or is this just terrible parenting?

YABU: it is just something that needed to be done, no one was hurt and it’s fine
YANBU: what the fuck

OP posts:
Xpologog · 08/04/2022 19:36

@thebear1

If it had been 1970 I would have said this was standard parenting but not in 2004!!
Yes. 1970 I had to sit in a icar boot with two dogs for 8-9 hour drive. My parents thought they were being very reasonable……
bloodywhitecat · 08/04/2022 19:37

Or does he mean a 3 door hatchback?

thenightsky · 08/04/2022 19:38

@MySecretHistory

In the 1970s there were not big cars or people carriers. A care had 2 front seats and then as many as you could get in the back seat. If you had more than 4 children (back seat capacity) 1 went in the boot.
Our official school transport was a regular taxi... for 6 of us. Two on the front seat and four on the back (1977)
Benjispruce4 · 08/04/2022 19:38

2004? That’s really not on. 70s was pre seatbelt and I remember being in the boot once but was exciting with cousins etc as a one off. Not a flippin tour of Spain!

HairyScaryMonster · 08/04/2022 19:38

I've got lots of fond memories of me and a cousin or two sharing the boot and making faces at people in the 80s and early 90s. However it was for shortish journeys not an epic road trip.

VeryQuaintIrene · 08/04/2022 19:39

Certainly not OK., but presumably his parents grew up at a time when it was more normal, and perhaps normalized it more than they should have?

DragonOverTheMoon · 08/04/2022 19:39

I didn't see that it was 2004! I assumed 70s/80s!

Polyanthus2 · 08/04/2022 19:42

One awful thing is the distances they travelled - cruel!!!

MissAmbrosia · 08/04/2022 19:43

My dd was born in 2004. I was born in 1968. When I was child this would have been normal, I think even seatbelts had only just become mandatory, and then only in the front. In 2004 - absolutely not.

SeigneurLapindeGrantham · 08/04/2022 19:45

@Girlmumdogmumboymum

Sort of normal- shut parenting of its day. In 2004 we were still driving around in an old clapped out nova as a family, it was the boot or the footspace of the car for one of the four of us children.

I do understand why he's upset that it happened though, especially as it feels like a decision that's so far from the norm now.

What an unbelievable comment.

If your parents were driving around with their children in the boot or the footwell, it was very much illegal in 2004 and quite a long time before.

2004 is not that far off in the distance but I can say it was very far from normal to throw your children in the boot and hope for the best.

DowntonCrabby · 08/04/2022 19:46

Common, but not really normal in the 80’s at the latest. By 2004 you absolutely wouldn’t have got away with this on your roads, no idea about the continent. Parenting like this in the UK in 2004 though, very abnormal.

MySecretHistory · 08/04/2022 19:48

All these it was illegal. They were in Spain in a rented car. Do you know it was illegal? We certainly all piled into in laws car to get to beach in the early 2000s and I dont recall them being bothered about being stopped?

mizzo · 08/04/2022 19:49

I travelled on a deck chair in the back of a van a lot in my childhood, I had a bit of rope to hold onto when we went round corners. It wasn't great tbh but it was the 80's.

However I remember going mad at PIL in the early 2000's for travelling a ten minute journey with my DC sat on peoples knees in the back of the car.

aSofaNearYou · 08/04/2022 19:49

Hmm tbh I do think this was quite normal at the time. I certainly went in the boot a fair few times, but I'd have thought twice about it in a hot country like this.

lljkk · 08/04/2022 19:49

Where was the luggage?

SpringsSprung · 08/04/2022 19:49

Other than the lack of seatbelt/restraint aspect, it's no different than them god awful 7 seaters! I wonder how many kids have died from their car being rear-ended :(

SpringsSprung · 08/04/2022 19:52

Either way, OP he is winding you right up!!

ReadyToMoveIt · 08/04/2022 19:54

@MySecretHistory

All these it was illegal. They were in Spain in a rented car. Do you know it was illegal? We certainly all piled into in laws car to get to beach in the early 2000s and I dont recall them being bothered about being stopped?
Yes it was illegal in Spain in 2004. I know, I lived there then.
MistySkiesAfterRain · 08/04/2022 19:57

1985-1988 our school minibus was essentially a hollowed out bus with two opposing benches and a couple of seatbelts. I always hated when I was on last near the door. One time the door actually came open at the top of the school exit which was up a hill and a child actually fell out. Can you imagine that today?! Anyway I am pretty sure the bus was gone soon after. What you describe is really unsafe, and I can't imagine why a parent would choose to do it when seatbelts were well known about by then!

Octomore · 08/04/2022 20:00

So is he climbing they drove on to ferries like that? To visit Morocco?

It doesn't really ring true tbh.

Apileofballyhoo · 08/04/2022 20:00

This was in no way normal in 2004. My nieces and nephews were born by then and car seats and seat belts and safety were very much a thing. I'm shocked and upset for the poor child who went through that. And we did travel in the boot in 1984!

comfortablyfrumpy · 08/04/2022 20:00

I can remember going on car trips where one or two kids would be in the boot.

Of course it was wrong. It seems unconceivable now, but it was normal at the time (I'm old).

It makes me feel queasy when I think back to things like that, but it was different times with a very hazy grasp on what was considered safe. Seat belts weren't always available in the rear, and I think they weren't yet compulsory in front. Lots more drink driving, too.

Octomore · 08/04/2022 20:00

@MistySkiesAfterRain

1985-1988 our school minibus was essentially a hollowed out bus with two opposing benches and a couple of seatbelts. I always hated when I was on last near the door. One time the door actually came open at the top of the school exit which was up a hill and a child actually fell out. Can you imagine that today?! Anyway I am pretty sure the bus was gone soon after. What you describe is really unsafe, and I can't imagine why a parent would choose to do it when seatbelts were well known about by then!
I remember being on a bus like this as late as 1994!
Beautifulmonster87 · 08/04/2022 20:01

Worse things have happened!
My dad used to make me go in the back of his work van on long car journeys to take my sister back to uni as he didn’t want to use our car and pay petrol!
He also used to smoke in the car with the windows up and flick fag ash all over me if I was lucky!

comfortablyfrumpy · 08/04/2022 20:02

Sorry, just seen 2004? Absolutely not normal, not sage, nor acceptable.

I was talking early 1970s.....