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

Carol services where all the little children wandered up the isle holding candles. I remember this particularly because I was about 3 and I set the girl in front of me's hair on fire!

An advert for British Rail that featured a woman in a bikini practically pole dancing out of the driver's cab door. Women in bikinis were used to sell A LOT of things in those days.

It was a white man's world and we didn't challenge it. Now we do and we get vile man-children like Andrew Tate trying to turn the clock back.

When I was in primary school in the 80s, one of my teachers was quite overweight. So was my best friend who was about 9. The teacher announced that her and my BF would be trying to lose weight together and would have a weigh-in every week in front of the whole class. They actually did it. When I look back, my friend must have been devastated. Imagine standing on scales in front of the whole class. Would never happen now.

It being ok for old creepy blokes to comment on young girls (literally girls, not even pre-teens) and their appearance, saying things like "you're going to be a heartbreaker" etc - and that being considered flattering/a compliment.

Thank god we've moved on from that.

Smoking at parties and flicking your ash on the carpet if there wasn't an ashtray nearby.

My god we were arrogant, entitled, posh brats back then.

I'm not sure if this was the time (90s) or my school being a bit nuts but there was a steady progression of increasingly unsupervised trips. None of the teachers ever really factored in that as the group of pupils they were in charge of got older there was more room for things to go wrong. Eventually on one trip there were 14 year old pupils out getting hammered, running away in the middle of the night, nearly drowning, going off to party with strangers and one person took too may drugs and tried to kill themselves. Funnily enough they never arranged another one.

Has cycling without a helmet been mentioned yet?

Your teacher did that??. Oh my goodness!
Having said that, a teacher once punched one of my brothers in the stomach for 'being lippy'. We didn't hear about that or the constant bullying until he reached his 40s....

Young girls always being whistled and wolf whistled at in the streets. However, I am not so sure things have improved as much as they should have. Look in, for example, the Metro and most female artists will be dressed very provocatively as though their talent isn't enough and they have to be objects of sexual desire..a very poor image to present to young girls.

A girl in the year below me aged 13 had a 21 year old boyfriend that would pick her up after school. She was the local MP's daughter! This was mid 90s.

Didn't Smithy in Gavin and Stacey have a girlfriend that was at school? Seem to remember there were jokes about him picking her up after class. So still being played for laughs in the noughties...

@whiteroseredrose I started working in London in 2004 and we still got drunk and lunch and there were smoking rooms on every floor. It changed much more recently than everyone seems to remember

@UnctuousUnicorns This sounds like our trip in 1983. Was it at ‘Robin Cottage’, a small youth hostel type place where the dorms were called things like ‘Ben Nevis’ and ‘Scafell Pike’ and there was a tiny natural history museum attached to it that was full of pickled piglets and the like?

Tape over the mouth was very common when I was at primary school in the 70s.

It was done to embarrass kids into not talking when the teacher told the class to be quiet.

and Walking to/from school aged 6 some start at age 5

I can't remember how old I was when I first did this on odd occasions, but I can remember doing it from the first school I was at and I moved moved schools just before I was 7. It was some distance away with a few roads to cross too.

When we moved I did all my walks to and from school alone as it was only a couple of hundred yards away.

i used to go home for lunch as well, which is not something kids seem to do these days.

@OnTheRoadAgain1

I'm a Fife town.

Collecting the cards out of empty benson and hedges cigarette packets then trading them in for “free gifts” like a hairdryer. The more cards you had the better the gifts. As a very young kid I used to wander the streets looking for empty packets.

Took part in the final of the school quiz when I was 13. One round was to complete the names of local pubs (The Rising … Sun, The Hare and … Hounds etc.)

1987 and had a smoking and non smoking 6th form common room. But we weren't allowed to eat in the streets....go figure.

Yes to the girls having older boyfriends who picked them up in cars.

It is nearly 40 years ago now...2 generations.

on the facebook alumni page of my secondary school (state school but won awards at the time in terms of numbers of people getting into Oxford etc which was seen as very exceptional and unusual at the time) even this week there are multiple of the boys I was at school with coming on to recount being given the cane or the slipper for various isdemeanors.
They all talk about it fondly although every single one say it hurt like hell and they couldnt sit down for a few days etc. They don't appear to be bitter about the teachers, some of the teachers they are complimentary about (he was trying to toughen me up etc)
We girls were aware of it at the time, reading it being recalled now in 2023 puts it into stark contrast. By and large these are all people who have done well for themselves and not got into serious trouble etc in their adult life.
Also the stark rules about which sports girls could play and which sports boys could play. No girls anywhere ever played football or rugby and if you did try to join in you were usually promptly discouraged by being excluded or called names (dyke etc). Fortunately my school did encourage "girls" sports tho (netball, tennis etc) so at least that was something.

I watched the first episode of Early Doors which is back on iplayer. It looked SO outdated (though hilarious) with everyone smoking and the pints were 1.54. It was first aired in 2003 which feels like only yesterday 😄😄😄

A while ago DH and I were in a pub near his old school and he told me it was where he went in school lunchtimes. Back then it had two rooms and he said that they had an agreement that the teachers used the lounge and the pupils went in the bar!!

Year 3 senior (year 9) being sent by a teacher with a shopping list for Somerfield for the PTA meeting refreshments in the middle of the school day.

Playing out for hours with no snacks, drinks or money from age of 7. We were military and often in places where we didn’t speak the language cycling miles from home. Large ponds and rivers were very often involved.

Underage drinking particularly at sixth form parties were it was accepted even the ‘square’ kids would be hammered by the time the parents came to collect.

So much teen pregnancy, fathers often grim older men. Probably due to the fact girls particularly were out drinking in pubs and clubs from early to mid teens.

Squeezing as many people as possible into banger first cars and seeing if you could ‘do a ton’ on the A roads.

Lots of opportunity for taking risks which mostly turned out ok (except where it didn’t 😔).

My aunt was a nail biter, in her school they had the desks with lift up lids and the teacher made her sit with her hands under the lid to stop her biting her nails.

@SapphosRock tape over the mouth was common in my schools in the 90s and early 00s but the teacher would give the tape to another child to tape their friend's mouth.
Being made to sit/stand facing the wall during break time was a normal punishment. I also had a stick (a pointer for the board) thrown at me and had to do a stress position as punishment. I think the latter two were weird even at the time but certainly not enough for a teacher to get in any trouble. My favourite punishment was being told to sort some kind of maths blocks into different colours then them all being mixed back together at the end with the teacher saying "you wasted my time so I wasted yours" 😂

Being told by an old male neighbour that I was "a little cracker " when I was 10 years old. While I was with my mum.

2 incidents of male teachers being in full blown relationships with current and ex pupils who were aged late teens.