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

Driving to the local shops without sitting in traffic. It's crazy to think that my uncle used to drive to Trafalgar Square and park his car near the National Gallery!! Today, a 20 mile journey in Essex is like setting out on an expedition.
I watched the first series of Morse the other night. It was filmed in Oxford in the late 1980s. God, I was really struck by how peaceful everywhere seemed.

I agree about sexual abuse. The sexual abuse of young people, especially girls, was very common. People didn't approve, but they did turn a blind eye. It just wasn't spoken about.

I live in Scotland and there is no way our school would be happy with 5 year olds walking to and from school themselves (neither would I). The norm is they are taken to and from school until around 9/10. You also cannot enter the school without pressing the security buzzer, although you can access the playground.

After walking me to primary school on day one, aged 5, my mother then delegated the task to an older girl (aged about 7) to walk me to school for a week. I was then deemed capable of doing the walk there and home by myself.

Also the children who get the school bus are supervised to and from bus until the end of primary 7.

I read her book as a teenager. I think lots of kids like themes like this. They are too young to really get it and it just seems like drama.

Yes our dog had every kind of leftover going and my mum would even give him tea, instead of tipping the slops down the sink!

Poor thing did have a lot of itchy patches that we had to keep putting cream on, so that was probably diet related.

@babsanderson she wrote a whole series. All similarly grim and normalised child abuse. I was given one by a foster child my parents cared for in the 90s. Guess what had happened to her. I only found out as an adult.

Playing out all day long in the 90’s (primary age) with our parents having no clue where we were. Back home for tea.

@OnTheRoadAgain1

Fair enough. But in my part of Scotland it's totally fine. And having discussed this with other Scot's on MN many times it's pretty common throughout Scotland.

When I was 10, brothers 8 and 5, my mum would go to work every day during the summer holidays and we'd stay home. We got 'paid' for doing the chores and staying alive but could basically do as we liked for 8 hrs, make ourselves lunch, play out with friends or have friends over.

Buying my Nan’s cigarettes with a note ‘please send 20 Craven A Red’ aged about 8

smoking on left hand side of the cinema

8 people in an Austin Allegro

wet t-shirt contests

Totally normal where I live still. Right down the the street lights bring curfew.

@NEmama I am sorry about what happened to your foster child.
I read them and did not have an abusive childhood. And the books did not normalise them. They were the fictional equivalent of misery lit like a A Child Called IT. You were not supposed to think what happened was okay. I was a child and knew it was all very wrong, but I also knew it was made up.

Making jokes

Going to school by myself on the tube - 3 stops with a change at Victoria - and crossing a really busy road by myself at the other end. My DPs advice re: road crossing was to follow the parents of someone I knew.

I only did it once a week, but I was also only 7!

Teachers going to the pub at lunchtime for a few pints

In sixth form we joined them!

This.

Its much harder to be a kid now, and its more work for parents. Kids did use to just take themselves off with their mates. I think that is much better for them.

Now parents are relied on to arrange activities for them at the weekends and evenings. Its so much work for parents. No wonder so many working parents are so stressed and so many kids get bored and argumentative at home when their parents don't have time, or money, to schedule 'activities'.

Where roughly are you located? Is it a city/town/village? I'm just curious why there are different ways of doing things. We are a small village so not sure if it's just because it's easier to keep tabs on all the children than it would be if you were at a larger school.

My girls ' grammar school held fashion and beauty contests every year. The beauty contests involved walking up and down in a swimming costume and were judged by a panel of male members of staff.

I remember there being ashtrays everywhere. Trains, planes, buses, cafés, restaurants. I can't remember if the cinema had them, but I wouldn't be surprised. In the pottery lesson in art class in school, about 90% of us made ashtrays for our mothers.

Pre-central heating days, every child knew how to light a coal fire and keep it lit.

You had to kiss anyone who requested it, whether you wanted to or not, because it was rude to say no to adults.

Getting smacked with a slipper.

Other adults were allowed to smack you.

Being left home alone while mother worked/partied.

Being a babysitter at 12 years old.

Of course it was ok! Without malice, it was the same as calling Brits Brits! The term was used so dreadfully by a small percentage of society that over time it became unacceptable to use. If racism had never happened the P word would be perfectly acceptable today.

Smoking on the plane was great

It's a shame not many kids play in their streets now (I'm not talking about very young ones), because we learned so much about fairness, taking turns, that being a dick would make you unpopular.

We played hopscotch, runouts, off ground touch etc, and when we were called in for lunch/dinner, we'd beg to be able to go straight back out again. I truly believe it was one of the reasons so few children were overweight.

Compare that to now and so many kids get just a tiny fraction of that amount of exercise, and they're rarely left to sort out their own disagreements about fairness etc, because they're always under the watchful eyes of adults who'll jump in and sort it for them immediately.

I mean it wasn't all green fields and wonderfulness but on the whole, it was a very healthy way to spend a childhood and learn some independence.

I was a latch key kid (many in my class were) from about 8. Let myself in and watched television.

I worked in London in the 1980s and we smoked in the office and sometimes got drunk at lunchtime. Seems incredible now!

Frost on the inside of your bedroom window in the winter. That's returned for some people...😞
Bathing once a week...
Euthanising old pets 'to put them out of their misery ' using poison bought from the chemist..( my ancient father helped his father do this!