Things that were normal but wouldn't fly these days

[ChopSuey2]

Not really an AIBU but we totally derailed another thread. Following on from the thread about TV programmes that may or may not have been appropriate for young children, I'm wondering what things were totally normal in your childhood but would not be considered acceptable today.

Some of the ones I have been reminded of from the other thread include

• travelling without a seatbelt, in the footwell, in the boot, in the back of a van on a cardboard box
• graphic public safety videos at primary school
• watching graphic true crime under the age of 10
• smoking in cars and homes with kids, smoking in pubs and taking kids to pubs late at night
• playing out under the age of 10 with parents not knowing where their kids are precisely

Smoking in other people's homes without even asking. Was normal well into the 90s.

Teachers smoking in corridors and the playground.

Buying alcohol and telling the shop owner it was for your parents.

School gates and buildings being wide open to the public all day.

Walking to/from school aged 6 and being told to 'cross with an adult'.

Drink driving.

@DuplicateUserName in a similar vein, being picked up by adults without informing the school. I was shocked I had to be introduced to the teacher before picking up my nephew alone recently, although it makes a lot of sense!

People smoking on television, and not just in the Rovers Return. Whenever you see a chat show (or game show or discussion programme or even Come Dancing) from the 60s or 70s, there's always a trail of smoke in the corner of the shot that's coming from one of the participants. (Or in the case of Come Dancing, the audience. The dancers are wearing way too much flammable material to risk a lighted fag.)

Looking back, it's insane how inescapable it was. I can remember seeing tiny ashtrays fixed to the wall in public loos, too. So you didn't have to stop smoking even when you were having a wee.

It is amazing how much smoking there was everywhere only a relatively short time ago. It does give me hope that we can make changes for the better.

My parents used to leave us in the caravan at night while they buggered off to the campsite bar/entertainment. Eldest would have been around 8, youngest 2.

Hotel baby listening services. Dial switchboard, leave the phone off the hook, and go to dinner. They'd tell you if your baby cried.

And not that long ago, either!

Headmistress sending 14 year old to local shop for cigarettes, 20 Kensitas.

Yes! A lot of schools use a password now and won't hand the child over without it.

Leaving children outside a pub with pop and crisps while the adults went inside for a few pints

Also we used to go a weekly free swimming session in a nearby town, a whole group of us with parents taking it in turns to drive. 2 kids on the front seat, 6 on the back on laps and and 4 or 5 in the boot.

All the random "dolly birds" in various pre-watershed programmes - TOTP dancers, on game shows, Benny Hill, etc. 🤮 Casual sexism, racism, homophobia, etc. dressed up as jokes.

"Coming of age" type films, all soft focus, picturesque locations, etc. deemed artistic, but licence to show young teenagers (girls) in various states of undress.

Countdowns in red top papers to random young female's 16th birthday like Sam Fox and Charlotte Church.

Gross, all of it.

I can also remember a St Bernard dog being one of the prizes on 321.

OMG really??

I remember travelling fairs would give away goldfish or wild rabbits as prizes.

Buying cigarettes from the shop because you had a note from your mum 😂 This was in the 90s 😀

Oh and loads of dog owners would just let them out alone to wander the streets for a few hours.

God knows how they found their way back home and didn't get run over.

All the random "dolly birds" in various pre-watershed programmes

Post watershed but wasn't there a football programme in which a topless woman would sit with her baps out while (fully dressed) men discussed football etc and she would come in with something now and then.

It wasn't that long ago I remember seeing it on (cable) TV.

I'm amazed (horrified) that daily newspapers have always had and still have big photos of women with their breasts exposed one page in. What message did that send to us as girls growing up.

Also retrospectively aware. Of daisy duke, and all the other "eye candy" stuck in day time programmes we watched as kids. Always dressed sexily while the men were dressed normally.

Smoking on planes in the back rows. Like the smoke just knew to hang out in the back rows and not get pumped around the rest of the plane and it always been clogged up at the back with people not in the smoking seats standing back there to smoke. I flew several times a year between the UK and ME back in the 90s and there was still smoking then.

My local cinema has just been refurbed, it's art deco and has the original ashtrays in the toilet cubicles.

Kids not allowed inside pubs but perfectly acceptable to leave them in the car with a coke and a packet of crisps, and then drink drive home!

Smacking at home and at school.

Oh ... And allo Allo with ugly middle aged men having it on with young, beautiful women.

Did Renee use Jedi mind tricks on the waitress in his bar?

The thing is, while it’s really tempting to write a narrative of ‘progress’, it’s rarely that simple.

For example, playing out under the age of 10 with parents not knowing where their kids are precisely could be written as a story about how children are overscheduled and over supervised and just not allowed any freedom to play in the 21st century.

same with the idea that 6 year olds no longer walking to and from school independently is something we’ve ‘progressed’ beyond.

I view some of the changes listed as positive too (less exposure to smoking, for example). But I wouldn’t be so certain that all social change is positive. Or even viewed positively by everyone.

At the same time as it was perfectly ok to have topless women in newspapers, it was not ok to breastfeed in public!