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

Ah yes, being left alone in the car while Mum popped into the shop. She would give strict instcutions not to play with the steering wheel each time, saying that once when my brother had done that the car started up on him! (It's not really possible, is it?)

Getting smacked at school without so much as a warning! 😳

Oh yeah, schoolteachers twisting your ear if you were naughty.

There was a travel agents near me. There was no chairs to sit on you stood there like standing at a bar.
Staff used to smoke while booking your holiday.

I grew up in London in the 80s, in an immigrant/Jewish community, and there was absolutely no way that any of my family or friends would have thought any of these words were OK. They never, ever used them. It was absolutely understood that these were and had always been extremely nasty, racist terms.

One of my friends (Indian heritage) had the P word shouted at her when we were on a school trip to Docklands. It was appalling. Really upsetting for her and for all of us.

When I was a student I moved to a different part of the UK and I heard these words used casually and by friends of mine (who I knew were leftie, tolerant, liberal sort of people like me) for the first time. I couldn't believe how accepted it was. This was in the late 90s.

Smoking in the cinema, oupstairs n buses, back of planes, back of coaches, other people's houses, in lifts (even though you weren't supposed to), in offices at your desk, in the "smoking area" at school and in the loos at school too!

I was raised in the United states and my family lived in backwoods Texas so my list I would say does not necessarily represent the average American. But I'm adding the disclaimer because my list might be a bit shocking! My parents and several of the adults around me, my siblings, cousins and children from other families, did these things openly and without hesitation in front of us a lot I was born in 1990 for context.

Also I want to make this very clear that I'm not okay with the things on the list and I don't talk to many of the people who partook in these activities anymore. Within reason. Some of them changed and realized they were in the wrong but many very much think they were right and still do these things.

-Held open and loud discussions about how annoying and "problematic" Mexicans and black people were and how they feel they should leave the country.
-Used the N word (yes that N word). If anyone objected to this they were promptly told to get over it and get out. (Though by the time I was ten, 2000's to be exact, a lot of these people became closet racists)
-painful and rough spankings with pants down in front of children and adults alike with hands or common house hold objects such as wooden paddles, wooden spoons, shoes, or sometimes even leather belts. This might happen at home, in the grocery store, outside, at school during parent pickup. The only exception seemed to be restaurants because if your child misbehaved it was considered polite to take them to the bathroom to be spanked so that their cries of distress would not disrupt the ambiance for the other people dining.
-Post 9/11 while it was no longer cool to be racist to Mexicans and black people anymore it was fine to talk badly about Muslims and middle easterns! They were the new people everyone loved to hate.
-Open and outright hatred for gay people. Prior to getting the sex talk I was told gay people didn't exist. After the sex talk I discovered they were real but was told they were bad sinners and child molesters. Teachers would even tell us gay people were sinful at school. And it was not to be discussed further. We didn't talk about them.
-Talking openly about religion was very much acceptable and everyone was assumed to be the only "correct" religion which was mostly Protestant. If you were Catholic or Mormon that was okay but not really something you should brag about! If you were anything else you were wrong! 😂🤷🏻‍♀️ If you were atheist then you should set yourself on fire! Asians were given a rare free pass to not be christian but were still silently judged. If you were Jewish then you were praised! Because no one wants to compared to a Nazi! :D
-Teachers talking about religion in public school was totally okay even though it was technically illegal. No one dared to challenge them. I was even told I was going to hell for reading Harry Potter by my third grade teacher and he banned is from bringing the books to class. My parents response? Well that's his beliefs you have to respect them! He also would essentially give us sermons and read from the Bible. If a kid was outed for not being religious or the correct religion he was very mean to them. I think he got fired the next year though but it went on for a ridiculously long time.
-Parents called their children little shits when they misbehaved. I always hated this. Lucky my parents didn't do this but what the actual fuck?
-Girls were told they got their period because because of Eve eating of the fruit. So basically we were being punished because of original sin and we deserved it.

And the one before that lived through two world wars!
My grandfather was one of that generation and he was a kind, resourceful, hardworking man but very strict and (unsurprisingly) old-fashioned in his views on family, girls, etc.

That's true, I live quite rurally so I hope my child will be able to enjoy the countryside in the way I did

I watched The Man With The Golden Gun last night... Bond threatens to break a woman's arm whilst holding her down on a bed and then slaps her around the face several times.

Hitch hiking as a teenager and young woman in the 1970s.

@PissedOffAmericanWoman I remember our teacher in juniour school telling us he had visited Texas (this would be in the early 1970s) and saw the following sign displayed in a restaruant window:
NO DOGS
NO CATS
NO N*ERS

Yep and even on the nightclub dance floor!

Yes dogs out without their owners!

My parents were that generation.

Born in a world war Lived through:

Spanish flu
The general strike
The depression
Another world war
The cold war
Numerous recessions

That generation was so resourceful, as you say, resilient, hard working and thrifty. My dad’s views were surprisingly feminist, he was saddened by the fact that his intelligent mother had no educational opportunities.

Riding on the hay bales on the back of tractors.
Kids meeting at the motorway service area and playing on the slot machines.
Nuclear drills at school in the 80s.
Some of the Enid Blyton books.
Golly**gs in books and on jam.
Calling any random male friend of your parents ‘Uncle’.
Sitting on knees and kissing everybody as a child.
Piano music books had slavery tunes in them.
I had to get my father’s permission for my first mortgage in the 80s.
Sexual assault at work was common and often accepted. No point complaining.
As a child we played in any field, looked for mushrooms in any field. It would be trespass now.

I can't imagine how bad it must feel to be clumped together with dogs and cats. It's pretty disgraceful that people were treated this way.

The other day I was remembering being sent out of primary school to deliver messages to the headmaster's mother who lived about a mile away and across a busy road. I loved it because she used to give us sweets.
At grammar school a maths teacher used to fling a wooden board duster at pupils who misbehaved. And I got slapped across the head for leaving my needlework kit in the wrong room. And yes, we were taught needlework as well as Latin and Greek.

On a lighter note, chocolate cigarettes.

Bloody loved those.

No Irish
No Blacks
No dogs

Signs like this were common until the late 1960s. I can’t imagine what it was like for my Irish immigrant ancestors back in the 1840s.

And driving home after a few pints!

In the 70s I used to be sent to the shop to buy cigarettes for a grandparent. I was about 7
In junior school, I used to go to the shop down the road for a teacher's lunch.

Still surprisingly common rurally

At school in the late 60s and 70s, the amount of corporal punishment was staggering, given it's now banned. There was a story of one teacher caning every boy in one class because nobody would own up to some misdemeanour or other. I never heard of any girl getting caned, but tbf, the girls didn't usually push boundaries as much as the boys. There were certain male teachers who were known to have a cane and use it. They were detested by all of us.

As long as the child is in the line in the playground the teacher would not even know who had brought them to school!