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

ReneBumsWombats

The problem is you can’t have it both ways , it’s every woman’s choose what to wear and what to work at even if you or I would not do it or agree with it.

I personally don’t enjoy watch a lot of music videos from young female artists, as I also think they are often very sexual, but it’s there choice.

the same as it every girls or woman’s choice to walk about half naked on a night out most of the summer. It’s there choice.

Primary age kids knocking on the doors to ask friends to play is still a thing in my neighborhood in Auckland New Zealand. My 9 year old does it

Would be fascinating to have a mumsnet to look on going back decades.

Discover the difference in worries and concerns of parents, the difference in expectations and what people where judgemental about!!

Would the OP of an 80's "AIBU to not like my child sitting in the footwell. I think it's dangerous" thread be sneered at, called pathetic and made to feel neurotic?!

Started secondary school in 1990 and our chemistry teacher dangling the smallest but mouthiest lad in the class from the 3rd floor window of the science block. We called him the BBB Big Bastard Bully. We'd all been warned he was horrible and thought all the stories were just bull, till saw with own eyes.

Our primary school headteacher would load us up in his Rover estate and take us to visit all the old people in the village and give them food from the harvest festival. Then we'd have to sit and make small talk with them.

We had a female teacher who did this more than once.

I walked to school with friends from age 5, about a mile away.

I had to walk and do the shopping at the local parade as soon as I was able to read the list.

I had a morning paper round. I mentioned to DM fairly recently that I was always scared of going to some flats down a funnel. She said that’s where I’d been flashed then followed so my dad had gone with me the next day but nobody was there. I didn’t remember the incident but remembered being petrified and running that part of the round.

Dogs being absolute mixed breeds and behaving fine in the house despite not going to classes!

eating crisps or sweets that weren’t from share bags

not needing bottled water because a) there was none but
b) it tasted fine out of the tap!!!

doing fine without an en suite bathroom

Kids not needing screens to be happy, being allowed to get bored so they could have fun!

Women often not allowed to wear trousers in the workplace

Oh god I’d forgotten about this!
During my interview for my second teaching post in 1989 I was told categorically that “It is traditional in this school that women wear skirts” (comprehensive school in south Wales).
One young woman got a bollocking for wearing jeans on a snow day when she’d battled about 15 miles to get to work so she stood up for herself and said “Well I’ll go home then, but I won’t be coming back.”

Bob a job week. Cubs (small boys) knocking on doors asking if there is any jobs they can do for a bit of money.

Where we are is like this, kids still playing out and walk to school from around six. You can walk into schools and the playgrounds are a throughway for swimming pool, community centres library etc. I remember my MiL in England being horrified the kids were still playing out at 9pm but it was drill daylight.

Wow @PissedOffAmericanWoman your post is really shocking . Being born in the 60s, everyone's reminiscences about growing up in the 70s and starting work in the 80s is a reflection on my own life . But yours is so recent, although I imagine a particular reflection on the place that you grew up in.

😳😳😳

Not just "dolly birds" on TV but actual full on sexual assault. If you watch the start of On The Buses when the new female ticket inspector turns up, the two men grope and touch her up until the boss comes over to "rescue" her and it's just painted as a bit of a laugh and that was considered high brow.

I remember childhood in the70s being really dull. Lots of visiting relations, and having to sit quietly in the corner - not allowed to read or sew or do anything as it would have looked rude. In the evening, being left in the pub car park with my cousin until closing time, with someone occasionally bringing us a bottle of pop or some crisps.

Also completely unsupervised days out. We used to live by the river and used to go there swimming in the morning, with a packed lunch and a Tupperware of squash. We’d pick up friends on the way and someone’s Mum would bring more squash and biscuits in the afternoon if we were lucky. Told not to swim out to the island, which we did as there was a rope tied to a tree and you could swing out and drop in the river.

Just remembered a game we played where you had a pack of cards and then pinched the other person a certain number of times depending on the type of card!!! Also the teachers smoking and drinking gin and tonics at lunch time.

We got left at ages 7 and 5 in a cabin on a Scandinavian ferry at night, and when they got back, got told off for crying as they were "only going for a walk" and that they "thought we were asleep." 🙄

We stay at a hotel once or twice a year that still offers this! Or at least it was still offered late last summer.

In the 70's newborn baby brother in the big silver Cross pram, me sat on top in a seat aged 2.5 and older brother 3.5 holding on to the pram parked outside tescos while mum went round doing the shopping. This on a busy high street with traffic. She would say be good and I'll buy sweets.

My cousin's told me they regularly took long haul flights without parents aged 10 and under

Plenty about the current fads which I could describe in the same colourful way, so much damage is being done to children.

It's also due to so much being dumped under the umbrella of 'mental health', eg no-one is fed up, they have anxiety, can't be bothered to keep the house clean so it's now designated a MH issue, off to the GP etc etc. Not hard to see part of the reason that the NHS is in meltdown.

Over 50 years ago, when I was 8 or 9 years old me and my same-age best friend were allowed to buy a Red Rover ticket for London buses and ride around all day without any adult supervision and of course there were no mobile phones then, so out parents had no idea where we were, or when we'd be home.

Starting a new job in 1977 the supervisor called me into a her office and told me that, as a woman, I was not allowed to wear trousers to work. This was on a large private switchboard, where the public never saw us.

I totally agree. Kids seem smothered now compared to previous decades.