Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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:
Glitterblue · 14/05/2022 13:33

I was once shopping in the city centre with my mum and grandma when I was in my late teens. I had a headache and we stopped outside a shop and my mum got some paracetamol out to give me. My granny gave us a lecture about not handing pills over in public because people would think we were on drugs 😂😂 She used to also refuse to to into a shop to browse alone because people would think she was shoplifting 🤔

JudgeJ · 14/05/2022 13:36

Crocky · 10/05/2022 21:03

If you are planning to do something you have to get up early and get it done.
I was visiting a friend in my twenties and it got to about two in the afternoon and she suggested we took a trip to a shopping centre. I couldn’t get my head around just spontaneously going somewhere in the middle of the afternoon.

That sounds like my dear late OH, if it got to about 11 am and I said I fancy a run up to the coast, lunch and a walk on the dunes. He would say Oh, it's too late now, the journey is about 40 minutes!

JudgeJ · 14/05/2022 13:37

MardyOldGoth · 11/05/2022 01:03

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!

She also had a thing about Doc Marten boots. Absolutely not, no way, no how! Wasn't the cost, she just hated them! Eventually I saved up my birthday/Christmas/pocket money and bought my own and she decided they weren't so bad actually. Two years I'd been asking for some and hearing about how ugly they were! 🙄

They were only ugly when she was expected to pay for them, when you were paying, crack on!

JudgeJ · 14/05/2022 13:42

MiniTheMinx · 11/05/2022 06:50

Yogurt. It was the 70s. My mother insisted I eat yogurt every day.

Nothing happened during Wimbledon, absolutely nothing.

You must always blow your nose before you leave the house, and if you're are delayed leaving, go and blow it again.

We were often delayed leaving, we were out by the door when my mother would have to check all the cushions were plumped up on the sofas. Always.

Meals ran on for hours. As a child this was boring.

Even I was expected to watch the news and read a paper, at age 3 my lunch was combined with watching the news.

After school I was allowed one cup of tea and exactly three biscuits, and limited to one childrens programme.

I once had a neighbour who, if they were going off on holiday in the car, got all the family, OH and children, into the car then went back inside and dusted/hoovered all through the house. Not sure if she thought that dust also went on holiday.

JudgeJ · 14/05/2022 13:51

Latenightthoughts111 · 11/05/2022 08:51

Can’t have the telly on either with lightning or thunder, was that the same for you too?

Show quote history

I think that the thunder and TV thing must date back to the days when you had an aerial on the chimney, sticking up 4 or 5 feet into the air!
My late MIL wouldn't leave a socket switched on with no plug in it, all the electricity would leak out apparently.

JudgeJ · 14/05/2022 14:03

SNAFU247 · 11/05/2022 14:03

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!

Show quote history

AT their age they were probably used to using public transport and waiting for buses could be a pain.

JudgeJ · 14/05/2022 14:07

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🤔😂

Show quote history

Worst still not shutting the freezer door properly so it needs constantly defrosting.

JudgeJ · 14/05/2022 14:16

the80sweregreat · 12/05/2022 11:21

Some people say that opening windows in hot weather makes the situation worse ! I have them all open , even in colder weather I might open one or two a tiny bit for a little while to air a room , but it's amazing how many people don't.
A lot of these rules ( my parents had many ) are mostly money related I suppose. My parents managed , but only just, but anything seen as treats were off the menu or saved up for over the year or only using the landline phone for real emergencies, turning off the heating and lights not owning a car or having any snacks in the house , you just ate what was put in front of you, no choices.
Taking shoes off is to protect the carpets.
It was how so many of us lived.

Many people lived like that , keeping within their income and tailoring their lives accordingly. I recall my parents, very working class, I was a boomer, there was nothing on hire purchase, ie credit, if they could afford it they didn't have it. Was that such a bad thing? We were loved and happy.

alfagirl73 · 14/05/2022 16:01

A PP asked about using the phone after 6pm - it was because it was a cheaper rate. I can't remember how much cheaper but it must've been enough because we didn't dare ask to call anyone before 6pm. There was no unlimited plans then or anything like that - every call was charged per min.

Some of these on here though are making me smile - somewhat fondly - I know many of these beliefs were a bit bonkers, but they remind me of a simpler time I guess.

tillytoodles1 · 15/05/2022 22:55

Strawberryfieldsfornever · 14/05/2022 03:23

I remember reading that women were only served half pints in pubs back in the day. A woman could have two halves but it was Never acceptable then for women to be served a pint. Odd times.

And in a ladies glass.

Babdoc · 15/05/2022 23:11

My parents never took us to the GP if we were ill. They were born in WW1, so grew up long before the NHS existed, and their own parents couldn’t afford a doctor, so it never occurred to them that doctors were now readily available for poor people.
My own GP thought he’d somehow lost all my medical notes from childhood, as there was nothing listed at all, apart from a hospitalisation for an arm fracture at age 4!

Original poster
Latenightthoughts111 · 19/05/2022 16:04

Babdoc · 15/05/2022 23:11

My parents never took us to the GP if we were ill. They were born in WW1, so grew up long before the NHS existed, and their own parents couldn’t afford a doctor, so it never occurred to them that doctors were now readily available for poor people.
My own GP thought he’d somehow lost all my medical notes from childhood, as there was nothing listed at all, apart from a hospitalisation for an arm fracture at age 4!

It’s odd from this thread either doctors were something to go to all the time or never at all!

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page