To ask about more odd family beliefs??

[Latenightthoughts111]

Hi again!

following on from my coke can/eating in the street/prostitution thread it got me thinking a LOT about my childhood and I’ve thought of some other odd things I’d like to see if we have in common or not

prefacing this with I am late 80s born to a late 40s DM

main one is only doing one thing per day. DM literally can only do one “thing” a day. Go to Asda? That’s it. Meal out? Yes that’s it then nothing else. Market day in the morning? Sure but that’s it not opening the door to do anything else today thank u!

this was all through my childhood and still now. I honestly was baffled when I heard of people popping to the shops when they’ve already been out that day!!!

another one similar is going out after dark. To be going out after sundown is soooo awesome I love it. It feels taboo to go to Aldi when it’s dark outside and all the buses are lit up. It’s magical! I wish I was joking 😂it was completely forbidden, or to be honest not even discussed, to go out for dinner or anything after school as it was too dark. We never ever went out on a Sunday either. Not massively religious but Sunday was a proper “get ready for school” day with my one bath a week!

any others out there who still feel the joy of the forbidden 6pm journey out into the great beyond???

My DM would only do one usually very small thing a day. Laundry on a Monday, possibly house cleaning until Friday when it was a trip to the store to buy bits. To my knowledge nothing on the weekend.

This continued and if anything got worse when she refused to go for a coffee with a friend she saw at M&S. Apparently she all but ran home.

Yep some of these resonate with me and my earlier thread!! I forgot about the tampons, I was never allowed to even try on as “I wouldn’t be able to do it”…..????

Drinking from a can

Ours was going to the same place year after year for our holiday.

We had a touring caravan. We could have gone anywhere with it. Nope, we had to go to the same site in South Devon. It wasn't even very fancy. Just a dozen pitches in a field behind a pub

Is your family Irish @ObjectionHearsay because this is the norm in my Irish family too!

No eating in the streets it was common (oddly chips were allowed after swimming but only in the holidays and never on a Sunday)

swimming every Sunday morning , only a small breakfast otherwise our stomachs might cramp and we could drown no snacks after as it would spoil the roast dinner that was served at 1pm we were starving by then)

no matter what the weather bedroom window would be open and no heating in the bedroom at night (this I still follow though might close the window if really cold) as it was healthier

no drinking from a can that was common

women who sit alone in a pub are working ladies (didn’t understand at the time)

Sunday was bath and hair washing night. Hair washed too often made it greasy

Front room was not to play in

Good little girls always had their white socks pulled up scruffy little girls were not good little girls according to my nanny (mine were so white they almost looked fluorescent)

having a white tongue meant you were ill. When I put talcum powder on my tongue as I fancied a day off school my nanny was so worried she wanted to call the GP (at the time home visits were still the norm if not well enough to visit GP)

Salad sandwiches on a sunday evening.
Taking a bottle of water and 2 plain biscuits EVERWHERE. God help us if we suggested going into an actual Café.
Driving to the seaside and staying in the car to drink aforementioned water and eat biscuits then driving home.

My ex's family (he was the oldest of 6, so brothers and sisters all quite a bit younger and still living at home) had this tradition of having pizzas on Friday nights (they made them themselves, it was nice). But this was literally an unmovable event. If someone wanted to see friends on a Friday evening, go to the cinema, go out for dinner etc, it wasn't exactly 'banned' but it was clear that it was considered a bit of a treachery!

Of all the weird things, this is the best by a country mile! You do realise that most children would envy you, yes?

My DM had some odd rules about clothing. New clothes must initially be saved for 'best', regardless of what they were. So even a new pair of jeans/T shirt/socks should be saved for something special at first. I think a PP mentioned something similar so perhaps it's something to do with the era (DM was a child just after the WW2). I often ended up growing out of clothes that I loved having only worn them once or twice because they'd been in my wardrobe for 6 months before there was a special reason to wear them. I really battle against doing the same as an adult and with my own DC.

I was also not allowed to wear 'fashion shoes' other than for a couple of hours to go to a party, right in to my late teens. 'Fashion shoes' in DM's view were basically anything vaguely attractive looking. The grunge fashions in the early 90s were a godsend for me- I could finally wear fashionable shoes (DMs etc) all day without a huge argument!

That thing about tampons not being for nice girls or whatever must originate from the myth that your cannot use them if you are a virgin. My DM told me so many times that "they'll just pop back out again because of the hymen". Even after the school nurse told the 14-year old me that this wasn't true, I still couldn't let my parents see me using them as they'd think I'd lost my virginity. (Which I didn't do until the age of 22, incidentally...)

Change into inside comfy clothes when you got home. I have to do this now even if my clothes are comfortable otherwise I can't relax. And I also struggle to relax when my ex would continue wearing his suit at home for example.

Only have a takeaway on a fri or Saturday and really nice food reserved for Saturday evenings. Now I just cook and eat what I fancy when I fancy it.

Having a nicely laid table and sitting there for hours. Bored stiff as kids and even though i enjoy chatting after a meal with my oh, i don't make my children stay beyond eating their food and i also let them eat in their bedrooms some of the time (would never have been allowed that).

Not being allowed to wear make up like it is a crime. It took some adjustment to allow my daughters to wear make up and dye their hair, wear fake tan when only young teens (I wiped my make up off before I got home).

Not allowed boyfriends. I got grounded and seriously told off for having one at 14. When I told my mum about my 15 year old having a boyfriend she said she would never have allowed that (and I thought that's right, but why? Why wasn't I allowed to have boyfriends. It affected my relationship with them for life and I never told them about my relationships). She would be horrified to know that I took her to be put on the pill).

So my house and my life may be more chaotic but I think we are happy and respectful and my kids have a more enjoyable life. But they grew up in different times with different rules.

My dad used to go berserk if someone had used the last of something in the fridge. Think apocalyptic rages because there was no cheese, bacon, juice, salad etc when he wanted it. This meant our fridge at home was full of little bits of things as no one wanted to incur his wrath. As a result it took me years to be able to finish the last of anything in the fridge and even now feel incredibly rebellious when I do.

Are you my sibling?!

There were always shouts of "SOMEBODY has eaten all the xxx"

That reminds me my DH was brought up to change into his pyjamas (or house clothes as they call them) immediately when he came home, and outdoor clothes cannot be worn in the toilet. So they'll all be at home during the day, cooking/cleaning with pyjamas on. MIL was very shocked to know that my DM woke up every morning, had a shower and got dressed, even if she wasn't going on. She thought it was mind boggling that she even put shoes on!

I wasn't allowed friends in at all, my mum didn't let me or my sister do any tidying because it was never up to her standards.
Was never allowed outdoor shoes on in the house(even when I split my head open,was more concerned with my shoes).
Was only allowed sweets on a Friday after school.

It sounds like you were born in the 60s not the late 80s!

@ObjectionHearsay What happens if there's a thunderstorm when nobody's home to cover the mirrors? Will you get cursed in absentia?

I wasn't allowed to lie in at weekends. Mum would put the Hoover on or just wake me up.
If you ate anything the table had to be laid properly, I brought a takeaway home once and that was frowned on ( they never ate takeaways !)
If you went out to the shops or whatever it was in the morning only ! Afternoons at home dragged , especially on a Sunday. Hated Sundays.
They had a lot of rules!

I am 70, and after reading a previous thread I was curious to know if me and DH had any wierd practices or rules. I asked the adult DS's the other night, and the only thing they could come up with was they were expected to change and strip their own beds.
I can't remember my parents having any weird rules or practices like some of them listed by PP's.

My gran insists it's the height of bad manners to have a drink during a meal (alcoholic or otherwise) if you have soup. Apparently restaurants that follow proper etiquette don't take a drinks order until after the food order so that if anyone orders soup, that person is not offered a drink until the offending course is finished! I'm yet to find one that actually follows this or hear it mentioned by anyone apart from her.

My mum was very superstitious about saying "one last go" about anything as she thought it brought bad luck/injuries. For example as a kid if I asked for one last go on the bouncy castle I wouldn't be allowed. I now do indoor climbing and automatically feel a bit uneasy if I catch myself saying one last route or similar.

We were watching the ' it's a sin ' drama on Channel 4 and the landlord said to his new tenant ' no phone calls till after six o clock ' Dh and I started laughing , ds 2 just looked puzzled !! 😂
It was a phone call rate thing back then. We didn't get a landline until I was 12. Then it was almost under lock and key and scarcely used and if you did use it they wouldn't be happy until you hung up!

Sunday mornings were for church only. She tried to enforce this when I was in my 20s and down for a visit. I wanted to go to a coffee shop but I was told the choice was church or hers, so I stayed at hers and chatted to my cat instead. She eventually relented.

Tampons couldn't be used by virgins, so I wasn't allowed them.

Skirts and dresses are the only smart options for women. Was not allowed jeans til I was a teenager.

I was reading a teen magazine once aged about 14 , Mum wasn't happy about it as some of the stories were about relationships etc. it was age appropriate.
I noticed it was missing the following day , probably thrown out!

OMG this was so my nan too!

I'd pop by to say hello and she would be very theatrical and concerned that I'd 'come out in all this weather'. I used to be so confused as she knew I'd been at work all day, which is an hour commute away so why she thought a quick drive round the corner to her place was going to finish me off, I don't know!

@SNAFU247 Mine also used to phone my mom on the day we were due to visit and say ‘Come now, there’s a good parking space!’ We were a 40-minute drive away 😁