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

Brave to admit you're silly enough to think crap parenting wasn't just as rampant in the 90s.

I think child centric parenting and child centric schooling has a lot to answer for. It has produced generation(s) of kids/people who lack robustness or resilience and are too in tune with their ‘feelings’ to think about the bigger picture. It came from America unsurprisingly. Everyone’s a winner is a terrible philosophy.

My mum was a Redcoat and she told me about this - they called it the "Baby Crying Board". It was lower-tech in Pwllheli in the 60s though, I think they just wrote the numbers on a blackboard.

I well remember being left in the car with a bag of crisps while my parents did the weekly shop or went to the pub. I was asked if I wanted to go in with them but I preferred the car, as it had a radio and the pub was full of boring drunk people.

Budgies being kept in a tiny cage and never allowed out. Ditto tiny goldfish bowls with nothing in them except a bit of gravel.

Kids being encouraged going sit on the knees of random men who were dressed up as beer mascots or fire safety awareness elephants.

Yeah, that's backseat psychology bullshit.

Anyone born after 1990 in the UK has come of age into a global economic crash > never-ending housing crisis > austerity > brexit > covid. Calling them overly sensitive is missing the woods for the trees.

I watched a clip of Soccer AM the other day from the early 2000s and it has not aged well! I used to love watching it on a Saturday morning as a teenager but the Soccerette segment would definitely not fly now.

I keep hearing this, and yet the parent centric, angry, shitty parenting of the 80s and 90s apparently raised this terrible generation. How great could the tactics have been? The next generation rejected them entirely.

The absolute irony of people who can't see why parenting should be child centred complaining about people being "too in tune with their feelings to see the bigger picture"...

We (DP, DB and myself) went on holiday to Cornwall with our uncle (DF's brother), aunt and cousin. All seven piled into one estate car. We kids were bouncing around in the back, seemed great fun at the time. This would have been '77 or '78.

My MIL was furious with me in 1999 when I wouldn't let her smoke in my flat. Genuinely thought I was picking on her, being inhospitable, rude etc.

Was parenting in the 80s and 90s really ‘parent centric, angry and shitty’?

what’s that assessment based on?

When I was 13 I had a little ID provided by the school that allowed me to buy cigarettes for the man I used to visit in his home once a week. He'd give me money and I'd go down the shop and buy him a week's worth of JPS and buy pouches of tobacco and rizla with my own money to sell in school.

Our school also at age 13 used to have this initiation kind of thing where they took a group of you on Friday afternoon, drove you 30 miles away in a minibus, gave you a map, compass and camping equipment and told you to be back at school in time for Sunday evening service. There was a way point on the map showing a farmers field we were allowed to camp in. On the Saturday night a teacher appeared to make sure we weren't dead but then left us once we were all accounted for. I actually needed to go to hospital so he took me to hospital and then took me back 🙃 Our trip was fairly routine but according to teachers some of them had gone full lord of the flies in the past

There was a teacher in my school that other teachers used to warn you against being alone with him because he was a nonce.

There was a pub near our school that served anyone from about 14 onwards. They used to get regularly in trouble from the police but never lost their license. The landlord used to accost us in the street after a raid to tell us to come back because the business was better than the fines. There was also another pub nearby that used to have 2 separate bars and on Saturday afternoons they used to have adults in one bar and kids 14+ in the other bar. The kids were allowed into the adult side to play pool (1 at a time, against adults) but you had to go back to the other side when you weren't playing

I always think I’d be ok letting my kids watch horror or true crime as I did when I was a kid and it was fine but when push comes to shove I think that if I did let them watch a scary movie and they spoke about it outside I’d end up in trouble. It definitely feels like I am policing and censoring myself quite often these days. We also used to walk to school and back alone at 5 years old but that would never happen now.

I grew up in the 80s and I thought it was fine, I did get the occasional smack usually when I was doing something stupid and potentially dangerous but it didn’t do me any harm. We become independent and self sufficient in some ways quite young really and I think that was good for us. Obviously no social media to follow us home so home was a safe loving place to retreat to.

*@Blossomtoes we can all only act on the info. we're given.

My mum and dad both smoked in the house when i was little. My dad had a heart attack due to smoking (survived, just) aged 40 and overnight he, my mum and the neighbours both sides stopped smoking!

When i first joined mumsnet (2007 ish) there were often threads about ''How do i stop MIL, FIL, DM, ect smoking before holding baby''. Not so many saying smoking in the house, but still a few.

You don't see it come up now.
Good thing obvs.

But the generation before that had imminent nuclear death - imminent AIDS death - drugs that were gonna get ya - contemporary financial disasters etc.

Fear is definitely more efficiently mongered now though

Thank you @Laiste. It doesn’t stop you feeling guilty though!

And the generation before that lived through a world war. Every generation has lived through shit.

Well said There has always been bad parenting.

A 20 something university lecturer, saying to a nervous female student at first tutorial, ‘Your essay was fine, I’ve given you a B - now, how’s your sex life?’
(late 1960s).

Yes, so maybe the conclusion we can draw is that it's stupid generalising about entire generations going through economic/social hardships.

Sadly, kids walking to school rather than being driven by parents. It was quite usual for siblings to go off together in a bunch or for older neighborhood children to supervise the younger ones. My brother used to ride his bicycle to secondary school (gasp) all on his own!

It's currently being repeated :-)

Being sent to the wine stores with a note and money for booze and fags, I could spend the change on sweets :-) woot!

Playing out from morning till night without any adult supervision.

Going to Saturday Morning minors - not a parent in sight, just 3 or 4 members of staff and several hundred excited, noisy kids. :-D #GoodTimes!

Kids setting the living room fire and setting fire to it.

Nitty Norah visiting schools

Icicles on the inside of your bedroom windows

Bob A Job week

Loads of things spring to mind but one which really stands out for me.

When I was 10 I won a scholarship to a very prestigious private grammar school which was situated at the opposite end, (Very posh end), of the city where I lived.

I lived with my grandmother at the time in a brand new council maisonette on a beautiful newly built council estate. (Yes, unbelievable nowadays but this was the mid 60's). School was 2 very long bus rides away. I had a 2 mile walk to the bus stop, a 45 minute bus ride into the city centre, a 10 minute walk to the next bus stop followed by a further 30 minute bus ride to reach school. I had to leave the house at 0645 am to reach school for 0900am.

The route from my home to the first bus stop was through the estate down long, winding little pathways with very high bushes at either side. Looked beautiful but thinking back was incredibly unsafe for a 10 yr old to walk alone and particularly during dark mornings and nights in the winter.

I wouldn't walk down those pathways alone now 50 plus years later although the estate is not so beautiful these days.☹️

Life is sooo different today!

Oh grrr, I do wish you could edit posts! I forgot to add

Taking part in tatey picking week! Kids and adults alike, picked up at about 4am by someone in a flat bed truck and driven out to farms to pick the tateys during the October half term break.

I went to New York on a trip with college (year 12) when I was 16.

We were allowed to just roam the city for a week. There were a few organised trips etc but apart from that we were left to our own devices.

We had mobiles but they wouldn't work outside the UK so no way of knowing where we were at any time