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

All of the smoking!

Everywhere, on the bus, in McDonalds, in the pub, in the shop, in the loo, on a plane, in the airport, at the train station, on the train...

National express coaches having little ashtrays in the arm rests, ditto trains... everywhere you went, people smoked, it was expected that you smoked, if you didn't you certainly weren't expected to object to anyone who did. Smoking was the norm. My grandma, and my mum, had a ciggie and a cup of tea for breakfast. Local shop who knew me would sell me cigs for my mum up to around 1995.

Adverts for it all over tv too, on billboards, on the bus, on formula one racing cars... everywhere.

Mind boggling now!

Seatbelts, far too many kids the car.. kids left unsupervised. We were left to sleep in the car outside village halls and venues for parties etc, sat outside pubs in the car with a bottle of pop and some crisps because NO pubs let kids in after 6pm, even if they tolerated them at lunchtime, having a meal (and a great many did not!).

Loose dogs, turfed out to roam the streets - they did get hit by cars, they did bite kids - those that did it too often would meet their maker, it wasn't tolerated, but then nor was annoying a dog, you'd get a thick ear if you were caught teasing a dog or dragging it about, or told you deserved it if you got nipped.

Oh, so you DO think it's shit parenting then, since you have, you know, rejected it for your own kids. Congratulations.

I find it so weird that people will happily accept that we now know smoking is undeniably bad for you but will argue the toss over hitting children, in 2023, after all the evidence we now have about it, and even while they reject it themselves.

Hitting your kids is shit parenting. Why do people get so defensive and angry about that fact?

I have not said anywhere that I thinking smacking children is acceptable, no idea where you got that from? You’re so angry I feel I need to put an umbrella up to read your posts as you’re spitting bitterness everywhere. I’m going to return to the other parts of this thread because your anger is spoiling what’s supposed to be a fairly lighthearted thread. I’m sorry you had a shit childhood but I’m not responsible for it, or for your healing.

Was this just about hitting children
?

I recall further back hitting children was being positioned as the opposite of child centred parenting

I don't think child centred just means any form of parenting that doesn't involve hitting

I don't think people who don't like child centred parenting approve of hitting either

I was talking to someone who trained and taught primary age children at the same time as me. We rarely smacked a bottom but it did happen - never hard and never in temper and only after warnings. 'I tell you once. I tell you twice. The 3rd time you will have a smack'. It hardly ever got to 3. Our classrooms had the usual happy buzz. Children from chaotic homes knew the boundaries and felt secure. We had fun built in to the days. I treated my children in the same way. Some people here disagree with it - that's their prerogative. They may like to consider whether using foul, intemperate language while doing so will enhance their argument.

I don’t know if this has been mentioned but having the blackboard rubber thrown at you, usually just skimming past your ears thankfully. It was quite a hefty tool as well with a wooden base.

Re 'All of the smoking'...
I remember when the old-ish slam-door trains became non-smoking. Up to then there were usually about 2 cars of 9 on our services that permitted smoking but I would seriously think of standing instead of taking a seat in there. All their plastic vents etc were horribly stained brown.

It took AGES...years.... for the smell to disperse after all cars became non-smoking. You could tell instantly when you had got on into an old smoking car.

Talking of trains, remember sticking your head out of the window, and having to lean out to open the door from the outside?
so dangerous when you think about it now!

FGW trains still have doors like this

Lack of fences around schools. At age 5 you could just walk out of school and no one would notice.

Going home for lunch when at school, letting myself in and warming up a pan of soup that my mum had left ready for me, eating it then washing the pan and my bowl up, drying them, putting them away then returning to school.....aged 9. ( Mum was at work )
Walking to the local shop on a Saturday morning with my pocket money for some sweets and a note for my dad's cigs ...aged from 5 onwards.
Coming home with 'stray ' dogs that I found in the neighbourhood and begging my mum to let me keep it, from around the same age. Obviously she never let me.
My parents used to go out on a Saturday night and my grandma would babysit. She would stay overnight squashed into my bed with me, and promptly light a cig up while reading her book.
All in the sixties.

Wasn’t it so much nicer. I hated when my sons school put fences up, they make schools look like secure units

Umm. The reason they have the fences and gates is to make it... secure.

Thy had fences at my school over 50 years ago. But there were not high and really to stop young kids running out onto the road.

Yeah, I realise that. But it’s sad that schools have to look like secure units in order to keep pupils in and dodgy people out.

I was disagreeing with the idea that it was 'so much nicer' when 5-year-olds could walk out of school - or anyone could walk into school - without anyone noticing.

They look like secure units because they are.

I like that DD's school doesn't look like a secure unit (locked doors and gates just wouldn't work there anyway, they'd have to be constantly unlocking them when different classes arrive at different times). I might feel differently about that if I lived somewhere else though.

They’re not (do you know what a secure unit is?)

It’s been possible to have fences / gates for years which don’t look like they’re there to stop offenders. The fact that clearly there is a need for them now which hasn’t always been there is sad.

Yes, I know what a secure unit is and have worked on them. I was playing on the words and pointing out that it is, in fact, a 'unit' that needs to be secure.

I was disagreeing with the idea that it was 'so much nicer' when schools were not secure.

It is not that there is a need for security now and there wasn't a need before. It is that there has always been a need for security and this is now, finally, acknowledged. Like safeguarding.

I remember a kid at my nursery (preschool) wandering off with another child and nearly walking into the very busy main road. This was the early 80s.

I also know many, many stories of horrendous child abuse and neglect from the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, etc. The past wasn't some rose-tinted wonderland where tiny children could safely wander out of school, and random adults were fine to walk into schools, and nothing bad ever happened. It's that no one was bothered enough to put measures in place to stop bad things happening.

Loads of kids in a car, not in car seats, in the boot, not wearing seatbelts, playing in rubbish tips and bomb sites, etc. - these aren't wonderful memories of a time when everything was safe and 'so much nicer'. These are the reasons that so many more kids died, were injured or were abused.

I hate this nostalgia for a pretend past that never actually existed. It isn't 'sad' that your child's school has adequate gates to keep them safe. It is a good thing.

I remember being left outside the pub for hours on end, being allowed to wander around a busy town on my own from around 8, being left home alone all day while parents were at work and until late at night. I was smacked but it never stopped me being naughty! My nan had a friend who lived in a highrise in London and from around 6 i was sent to walk down to the play ground in the courtyard on my own, anyone could of grabbed me into their flat on my way down or of the playground they would never have got down to there in time to save me! It does make me wonder were things less dangerous then?(early 90s) were they just slack? or are we now to overprotective?