To ask if anyone else’s family had this belief growing up?

[Latenightthoughts111]

NC for this as it seems like all my threads lately have been about my family and don’t want them linked

late night thought tonight is about when I was growing up (late 80s born to a mid 40s born DM) I was told that drinking from a can and eating in the street was like being a prostitute

im not exaggerating I can clearly remember being about 10 and told that walking home from swimming with my hair down and wet and drinking from a can made me look like a prostitute! What was this about?? Where did it come from?? Even now I struggle to drink from a can and I don’t think I ever eat whilst walking!

I think litter, and eating in the street are 2 separate (although admittedly linked) issues. I don't have a problem with eating an ice cream while walking along, or very occassionally a bag of crisps. But I'd never drop the wrapper of either.

Picnics have seemed acceptable to people who might otherwise frown at eating in the street/in public but a whole picnic is likely to generate more rubbish than a single ice cream?

I don't generally eat on the train but then I rarely do long train journeys. Lots of MN would be horrified at the amount of food we consume on (what I consider) long car journeys! My in-laws live about 1 hr 20 min away (obviously that isn't particularly long) and my DC generally have a bag of crisps on the journey there. They both get car sick but crisps or other carbs seem to help. When we drive to Cornwall or France there is a bag of biscuits, apples and crisps that we graze on all day long! (Some out of boredom and some to deter travel sickness)

I do iron sheets and bedding though, if that makes me any less uncouth!? 🤣

my dad always said that we shouldn’t look down on prostitutes: they probably saved lots of other women from being raped that's awful! 😮

The amount of actions that denoted you were common, hard or looked like a "Parisian prostitute" were many, growing up in 70s & 80s.

Chewing gum (especially with an open mouth)
Pierced ears (like an African native, said DF)
Shirt skirts
Tight clothing
Blue eyeliner
Red lips
Painted nails
Long nails
Any makeup really
Hairdye
Fashionable clothes
Slouchy socks
Heels
Strong perfume
Bikinis
Not wearing bras
Wearing bras
Eating making any noise
Using fingers, not cutlery
Not using plates or saucers (picnics required full cutlery & crockery, plus cloth napkins & tablecloth)
Sitting with your legs anyway apart
Eating too much
Putting on weight
Having an argument in public
Short haircuts

My DF was born in the 40s going on the 1880s.

For those who say they don’t eat outside because it’s common, they might want to consider it also might also not be a great look to consider yourself better than someone else because of something they are doing.

I absolutely hate having wet hair in public...it just screams "I'm stressed and can't cope"

I went out with wet hair this morning. I had a doctor appointment and my hairdryer wouldn’t work. I used to go out with wet hair when I had lovely long thick hair because drying it took an age and it went frizzy. When it naturally dried it went curly. It was dry by the time I got to work but to leave it to properly dry naturally I’d have to get up at 6am then sit about for an hour and that wasn’t happening.

For those who say they don’t eat outside

Not outside. On the street. I don’t think I’m any better than anyone else, it’s just so engrained I couldn’t do it.

thats just reminded me I wasn’t allowed a screwball from the ice cream van because of the bubble gum. My mum was also obsessed with pointing out people who had been prostitutes back in the day (usually fairly innocuous looking middle aged women doing their shopping).

For those who say they don’t eat outside because it’s common, they might want to consider it also might also not be a great look to consider yourself better than someone else because of something they are doing

Has anyone said that though?

I have seen people say they were told it and that its become something they feel uncomfortable with, because they had it drilled into them. That doesn't mean they believe its common.

Who was being told off for brushing their hair in the street? How did it even occur to you to do that?Hair brushing was for the bathroom or bedroom only! Or risk being hit with the brush!

Some historic reasons occurred to me, not sure if i am correct

Ww2 and food rationing could be relevant- not considering others around you being hungry or showing you have extra

Reflecting badly on your family not being able to provide for you if you are buying food away from home

Not eating when you get home and wasting food as you are full

More wealthy households- women being controlled by food and tight corsets in Victorian times so couldn't be seen to be greedy etc or allowed to make own choices

The 'pierced ears' thing utterly bemuses me. The Queen has pierced ears, for god's sake!
My mother once had a fit when l bought low rise knickers from M&S. She was outraged. I was young (well.... late teens) at the time and didn't have the sense to tell her that M&S knickers are not the same as the stuff Ann Summers sell.
Oh, and she said that "only strippers and prostitutes wear thongs". I do, and l'm neither. I don't like big knickers. I get too hot (post menopausal).

I absolutely hate having wet hair in public...it just screams "I'm stressed and can't cope"

or, alternatively, that using a dryer is too much faff when the air will do it for me. I'm afraid that I routinely go out with wet hair (or did, before WFH became a thing).

It is also better for the hair

My mum told me off once for going down to breakfast at a hotel with wet hair, so it's not an uncommon dislike though.

I don't think I'm better than everyone else. I want to create and maintain a pleasant environment for people around me by not filling public spaces with smell, crumbs, greasy fingers, and the sound of rustling and chewing. I want other people to do this for me in return.

I don't think this is a bad look for me.

My mother 'let' (was not bothered to address it) me drink excessively from a young age, stay out all night with boys, sunbathe topless in the front garden, smoke cigarettes, smoke weed but... If I was spotted lighting a cigarette on the street the world would literally end.

*Also, spitting, laughing loudly, using coarse language and being underdressed in public were all not to be done(

I agree with all of those because it has a negative impact on other people - maybe not the underdressed one but I don't really want to see some mens' naked saggy bellies.

Eating and drinking in public does not affect others (unless alcohol to excess, or you litter everywhere).

Maybe we need a new rule "no using your mobile phone when walking along the street"

It was seen as common, I still can't get over walking down the street and seeing people eating. Drinking though doesn't worry me. I told my kids not to eat or drink in the street due to choking risk

I grew up having been told that eating or drinking in the street was 'common', especially if you were walking along. A picnic was all right, as long as you were sitting down.

I don't recall being told not to do those things but we just didn't.
There wasn't any eating outside as we only ate at meal times and didn't have snacks.
We were taught table manners, etiquette, how to dress for different events, penmanship.

I'll eating something in the street now or drink water. Heat bothers me more and sometimes I get caught out with low blood sugar.

I don't regret learning all the social lubricants. It may be old fashioned but it has helped a lot in dealing with all types of people.

I was definitely told it was common to eat in the street, and I still think it’s a bit unseemly. No link to being a hooker, however 😂

my strict girls’ school had a very strict rule about never eating or drinking on the streets when in uniform. You’d get detention if you were caught.

Same here; 1960s girls’ grammar school. Even now I’m not keen on eating in the street.

There are sooo many things that my mother would never let us do because they were ‘common’😂…..many of which I happily let my kids do now😁!! HOWEVER, I must admit there are things I quietly dissuade my kids from doing because they’re a little chavvy so I suppose I’m no better really!!!

I bought an ankle chain to wear on holiday. Would never have told my Mum ! She thought the same... still got it somewhere 40yrs later!

I had a gorgeous pair of red shoes but when introduced to my future MIL, she called me 'Lilo Lil'!! Having never seen 'Bread', I didn't understand the relevance - it was explained that good old Lil was a lady of certain reputation who would lie down anywhere... hence the lilo. Red shoes were a pointer to a prostitute!
Twenty years plus later, she'll still joke about them and I'll still wear red shoes when we visit her!

Reading some of these almost makes me glad I grew up dirt poor in a rubbish area. I couldn’t put up with older family members having a conniption if I did something as unseemly and whorish as drinking from a can.

The only two examples I can think of that are close to this behaviour is my mum telling me that “only strippers shave above the knee” and also not letting me take jam sandwiches to school because it made us “look poor” (we were!)

My gran told me I’d “look like a wino drinking from a can in the street”

I remember my grandmother being appalled at my ‘greed’ when out for tea with my parents. I was also not allowed to say I was ‘full’ as that was very common.
My mother always made much of her tiny waist when she was young. Eating has never been something she allowed herself to enjoy at all. She can’t cook either. I read some of her letters to her mother who lived in another country. There is a lot of discussion of ‘reducing’ and other women’s figures.