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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask about more odd family beliefs??

162 replies

Latenightthoughts111 · 10/05/2022 16:51

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???

OP posts:
Gawdimold · 11/05/2022 15:17

Driving miles on a Sunday afternoon down country lanes with me travel sick in the back to go for a run in the car. Then get there and just turn around and come home . Baffles me still

Cas112 · 11/05/2022 16:35

Ayeayeaye · 10/05/2022 23:09

The fridge was only to be opened for 2 seconds to quickly grab what you need then close it. My mother used to lose her shit if I had the fridge door open any longer. Absolutely no standing with the door open looking ponderously at the contents, no way.

Think this will eventually be me if my boyfriend carries on forgetting to shut the fridge door when he's been in it🤔😂

Vikinga · 11/05/2022 16:42

Cas112 · 11/05/2022 16:35

Think this will eventually be me if my boyfriend carries on forgetting to shut the fridge door when he's been in it🤔😂

My fridge beeps if it doesn't get shut after a little time. Problem is that the kids are usually upstairs again so it's only me that heard it!

Latenightthoughts111 · 11/05/2022 16:51

mubarak86 · 11/05/2022 12:05

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 cannot cope with people wearing jeans inside. Omg I literally can’t think of anything worse! You have to be in house clothes the instant you step foot in the door!! I cannot be comfortable otherwise!!

OP posts:
Thehonestybox · 11/05/2022 16:51

If you buy yourself a treat, you have to buy EVERYONE in the family one too, so that there are no arguments (this started because my dad and brother used to eat every chocolate bar or fizzy drink I bought myself if I put it down for 2 mins).

MrsPear · 11/05/2022 16:53

I still do bath night on Sunday - prep for school. They are scrubbed plus nails etc.
But then I still have the mantra we may be poor to some but we are not dirty going round my head.
I too feel wrong if I’m out after dark especially with the children - must have rubbed off as the youngest asked if we can be out when we went to the cinema. Then again that could be lockdown confusion.

Fairislefandango · 11/05/2022 17:16

I cannot cope with people wearing jeans inside. Omg I literally can’t think of anything worse! You have to be in house clothes the instant you step foot in the door!! I cannot be comfortable otherwise!!

Confused Jeans are perfectly normal indoor wear! I don't change out of the clothes I've worn all day until I go to bed (unless they are muddy dog-walking clothes, sweaty sports kit or something particularly formal like clothes for an interview or a party).

IsAnybodyListening · 11/05/2022 17:21

From my Nan. Absolutely NO drinks whilst eating, didn't matter if it was the height of summer and my mouth felt like the Sahara desert, apparently water would fill me up and I would leave my food?!

No eating whilst walking. Again, this could be a hot day and having an ice-pop. Had to sit down otherwise i would get a stitch apparently.

Leaving the house with slightly damp hair would always be met with ''You're going to catch your death of cold. So don't blame me''

Red cars were bad omens. My DM made me promise never to drive one as an adult, oddly I haven't.

Lucozade solved every ailment. Twisted ankle? Lucozade.

Likewise, Vickes Vapour Rub. Feeling under the weather? Dont worry, being slathered head to toe in the stuff would avoid a trip to the doctor.

Tampons. DM was 100% convinced i would get Toxic Shock Syndrome. Therefore these were a huge no-no.

JenniferAllisonPhillipaSue · 11/05/2022 17:36

No make-up. No boyfriends. No phone calls from friends (the phone was for adults only). And I had to be in bed before them, even at age 18 - which as they went to bed just around 10:30pm meant that I had to go to bed at 10 o'clock.

Family was paramount. If they had made arrangements with family, even distant cousins, I couldn't then make plans to go out with friends instead. At age 20, this was the straw that broke the camel's back for me - I walked out and never moved home again.

I'm sure there were food related rules that I can't remember. Bath night was Sunday for me, too. And it's taken me quite a while to get used to sometimes going out for the day from lunchtime onwards, or in the afternoon - I grew up in a family that would rise early and do things in the morning.

NeverDropYourMooncup · 11/05/2022 17:43

Definitely couldn't be out after dark, not even in the garden or taking rubbish out. The door was locked the moment it started looking a bit dimpsy out there. Or if she walked past the front door at any point after about 3.45pm.

One thing a day - more like one thing in a week, if that. And could never be started until at least 9.30am, preferably 10am and must be back again by 1.30pm. Hospital appointments were only accepted during the 10.30-11.15 slot, because any earlier could mean not getting the second bus in time to sprint across the entire site to the clinic (and it was inconceivable to leave the house before 9.30am to catch an earlier first bus), later might mean leaving the hospital at the same time as people were coming home from work, which was apparently, a disaster that must be avoided at all costs.

Washing could only be done on a Saturday, no more than two loads, one white, one dark. Vacuuming (when it actually happened) was also only ever on a Saturday morning at around 9am, followed by washload #1 at 10am.

The fridge couldn't be opened fully. You had to slide your arm in to get the milk - to actually look at what was in cupboards, the fridge or freezer was an awful act for some reason.

Curtains weren't for pulling other than one set in the front room. They also couldn't have any fullness, purely the width of the window and not a single 1/32 of an inch more. This was enforced by hanging them on net curtain wire rather than a pole or track because that would involve drilling into the wall more than once on each side - presumably the wall would fall down or the windows explode if somebody made six to eight tiny drill holes in it.

Duvets were permitted to be washed in the bath once a year when there was a heatwave. If they were dirty before the heatwave or one never materialised, that was it until the following summer, you'd missed your chance (they were single size, lightweight wadding, so would have gone into the washing machine, except that washing anything other than clothes in the machine was utterly impossible to do without causing the machine to explode.

And thunderstorms. The television had to be switched off because the lightning would know there was a television aerial socket (no aerial connected) at the back of the set with power running through it and leap through the window to that, rather than any of the houses, trees or Churches with lightning conductors attached to them. If the phone rang (which it did about once every three months or so), if thunder had been heard in the distance, it was ignored because, again, the lightning would know you were on the phone and bypass all the other better earths to come through the stairs window and travel upward to get you. But having the radio on, plugged in and with a four foot high aerial sticking up into the air was absolutely fine. maybe God approved of Radio 4 and not the lunchtime showing of Neighbours.

sueelleker · 11/05/2022 18:12

Nothing happened during Wimbledon, absolutely nothing.
We called it "shush fortnight". If you spoke to Dad while it was on, all you got was ssshhhh. And woe betide you if you walked between him and the telly!

MenaiMna · 11/05/2022 19:02

My aunt (born 1920s) thought not bathing for an hour after food for fear of cramps & drowning applied to baths and showers not just swimming. DH's grandfather (born 1910s) kept the telephone locked with a padlock in the 1970s-80s anyone wanting to make a call had to wait til after 6pm and prepay him for a local call.

BiscuitLover3678 · 11/05/2022 19:13

You weren’t allowed to eat or drink anything without permission. I sort of get it but it did seem a bit ott at times because you’d ask for a glass of water and everything. I remember going to a friend’s house and she would help herself to snacks in the fridge! Shocking.

MermaidEyes · 11/05/2022 19:21

We had a bin in the lounge that was purely ornamental! You go to put a chocolate wrapper in? 'Take it to the kitchen bin!' I still take the piss out of my mum over this 30 years later. And she still has a bin in her lounge that she never uses!

Haha is it a brass one? My house was exactly the same! I now have bins in every room in the house!

For me growing up, there were certain things. Every Sunday without fail was a roast dinner - we never went anywhere after Sunday morning because said roast dinner had to be cooked and eaten before we all fell asleep on the sofa in a food coma. Now, I completely rebel and cook roasts on a Monday, or a Wednesday.
Set meals were eaten on set days - cold leftover meat and mash on Mondays, pie on Tuesdays, fish on Fridays. I was a teenager before I ever ate pizza or curry.
Also, we could never cram too much into the week - well, we're out shopping on Monday, and at grannys on Wednesday, so we'd better not book anything else in or we'll be tired at the weekend.

Gliblet · 11/05/2022 19:37

Holidays start in the dark. Doesn't matter where you're going or what you're doing when you get there, the initial journey must start at 4am to beat The Traffic. I don't have a single memory of a childhood holiday that doesn't start with being bundled up in the back of the car dozing and watching headlights or streetlights zipping by.

Guests are to be fed. Even if they're not actually hungry. If they don't eat while they're in your home you have failed in some undefined but massive and unforgiveable way. My 80-something year old great auntie's default response to surprise visitors, even at 8am (because we'd set off in the middle of the fucking night), was to scurry off to the corner shop for a tin of corned beef and a packet of Penguin bars to make emergency sandwich and tea rations. If we didn't eat it there it was tin foiled to take with us.

northernsquirrel · 11/05/2022 20:51

Some of these are classic!
Remember no calls until 6pm and what a performance to leave the house- blow nose, pick up a spare tissue and have a 'try' even if you think you don't need the toilet!

northernsquirrel · 11/05/2022 20:53

Wonder if some of the concerns about looking like a prostitute was due to the Yorkshire Ripper and his hunting pattern. So terrible to have women so scared.

HRTQueen · 11/05/2022 21:21

It’s was an terrible faux pas to switch the light on before pulling the curtains as people would be able to see through the nets (brightest of white nets of course)

HRTQueen · 11/05/2022 21:22

Yes and food that wasn’t eaten by guests was wrapped in tin foil for them to take home

MardyOldGoth · 11/05/2022 21:41

Haha is it a brass one? My house was exactly the same! I now have bins in every room in the house!

@MermaidEyes I think it actually was at that time! I'm so glad it wasn't just my mum! 😄

GnomeDePlume · 11/05/2022 22:38

All the compulsory Sunday baths! All over the country reservoirs must have been refilled on a Saturday to make sure there was enough water available.

Funny how often the rules are around food.

My DM never asks people what they like to eat. Guests are expected to eat whatever is put in front of them and finish it. This was also the rule throughout my childhood. It is still a joy now to eat food I like.

Sunday lunch was sacrosanct. I was expected to cycle home from my job in the next town to have Sunday lunch then cycle back to work.

DParents did not have a cooked evening meal. DF didnt like it. All meal planning was focussed on DF's likes and dislikes so we had a cooked meal at lunchtime (which we had to be there for).

IamtheDevilsAvocado · 12/05/2022 03:07

Our family it's the opposite....

Sometimes we have a huge Sunday lunch, and older relatives INSIST on having food at 'tea time' at 5pm, regardless of when lunch finishes... As 'it's teatime' and you MUST eat as the clock says so... 😁

whydoesthedog · 12/05/2022 07:00

This has reminded me that my mum absolutely hated me calling my friends on the house phone after school. 'You've seen them all day, what else is there to talk about?'
She'd hang around so I didn't have privacy and bug me to get off. For absolutely no reason.

Clearly my friend's mum felt the same as they told her calls were charged by the minute.

Pollydonia · 12/05/2022 07:32

If going to a friends house having to phone home and only let it ring twice before putting it down as the " I'm safe" signal.

Help19376 · 12/05/2022 08:43

My stepdad used to leave laminated pass agg notes everywhere (still does even though it's only him and my long-suffering mum at home). Faves include:

'SLIPPERS ONLY' on the kitchen and bathroom doors

'Use scissors to cut a small bunch of grapes. Don't pull them off leaving a 'skeleton' (it makes the fruit bowl look messy)

List of morning chores suddenly appeared stuck to my bed

Wasn't allowed to close my bedroom door because the flat needed to air

Wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything without asking