Things you remember from your childhood that would not be ok today!

[Starlight1984]

Light-hearted and inspired by the comments on the baby in the pub thread (and TikTok!)😀

But what are things you remember from your childhood that people would be absolutely outraged at today?!

I remember being babysat by our neighbours child when I was 4/5 and she was about 12/13. God knows what she would have done if anything went wrong as there were no mobile phones to get hold of our parents?! 🤔

Also remember going to the pub in the summer but kids weren't allowed inside so we sat in the beer garden with a coca cola and bag of crisps whilst the adults were inside 😂

I come from a country with a lot of lakes and seas and we went swimming on our own all day every day during summer as long as we came home for dinner that was fine. Although we shouldn't swim for half an hour after eating because that could cause cramp and death 😂

We also knocked on neighbours with dogs to take them out, massive dogs, used to drag us along and we used to go swimming with them too

Going to an outdoor swimming pool with no adults, no lifeguards. Just me and my cousins me 5, them 5 &7 yo.
I decided to put my armbands on my ankles and nearly drowned.

Teachers letting primary school children out at the end of the day no checking whether there was an adult to pick them up. One day my reception aged sister was supposed to be picked up by a friend who didn’t show… so she walked home by herself! Crossing about 8/9 busy roads. TBF my mum was furious the friend had forgotten to collect her as they’d agreed.

I have photos from my christening and you can barely see the room through all of the cigarette smoke 😃

On car journeys late at night, having to sit on the edge of the back seat so my sister could lie down and sleep - no seat belts, of course.

Mum smoking in the car - and refusing to stop even when I asked her to, because it made me car sick and headache-y.

There was a brilliant letter in the Telegraph a few years ago about someone who age 11 and with his brother age 10 had taken themselves off to the Norfolk Broads for a weeks sailing holiday on their own. Their parents thought that was perfectly reasonable.

Being hit with mums slipper and every world she spoke was one bit of the slipper.

Rolled suet with fatty bits of bacon rolled in it, that was nasty

Stuffed marrow - slightly better

Stinky margarine form Tesco

My parents got divorced. Mum, Sister and I up north, my Dad in London. She used to drop my sister (from aged 10) and I (12) at the train station, and my dad would pick us up at the other end three hours later.

I was into football at that age. Used to go to big away games alone, sometimes night time ones, often involving public transport.

Used to get two buses to school, including walking across the middle of a city centre alone at 7.45am every day.

This was the early/mid 90s.

As a really young kid I used to loll about on the back seat of the car with no seatbelt on long journeys whilst parents smoked in the front.

Amazing to think back now, but considered it totally normal at the time.

I'd have loved to have seen a Mumsnet from the 60s, 70s and 80s perspective. I wonder what the issues would have been? What topics would have been discussed? I was born in the early 80s to an 18 year old mum and dad (who were bloody brilliant) and I will have to ask mum later on what she would have posted about.

I remember going to the shop with a friend who had a note from her mum for cigarettes.

Same friend sat in the back of the car rolling round the back seat as her Dad turned the corner.

At my aunts wedding I remember my brother going round tables drinking the dregs from peoples beer and soft drinks he was 5!

On holiday- sitting in the car with a bottle of coke and a packet of crisps while my parents went into the pub for a drink ( before kids were allowed in pubs) My DSis and I might have been around 5 and 7.

Same holiday- being left in the caravan which was in a site behind a hotel where parents went to have a drink and a meal.

Babysitting for a male teacher at my school.

Being babysat by my neighbours daughter who was 11.

Sitting in the back of the car with no car seat or seat belts ( no seat belts were available although they were in the front seats.

Smoking allowed in the school staff room. ( This was allowed as late as 1987 - the first school I worked in as a teacher was like this.)

Swimming in an out door school pool with my granny supervising ( she got permission from the head who was a friend) No life guard. Neither my dsis or I could swim. Neither could my granny and the pool was too deep for either of us to touch the bottom with our feet! We just bobbed around with arm bands and rubber rings.

You'd have found me standing outside the betting shop on the weekend waiting for my dad to come out 😂

Oh this would be good!!! An "AIBU" from the 70s and 80s!!!

I love this, wonderful.

It would have been full of stuff like how to wash nappies in a bucket.

My dad threw a still lit fag end out of the window, it blew into the open back window and hit me in the eye, it burnt and I screamed!

Definitely- my mum had a massive frizzy perm, so I can imagine her on style and beauty discussing the maintenance for that.

Yes the smoking thing has changed so much. Smoking on planes (just the back seats though, mind), the tube, in the office. Weird to think now.

A Catholic childhood memory. I was 8 and went to
Mass every day but Saturday. The weekday ones were half an hour long. You couldn’t eat for an hour before Holy Communion. One day I forgot I’d eaten half a Penguin biscuit half an hour before Mass. I was so upset I told my teacher the next day. She told me it was terrible sin, told the Priest, who turned up
at my parents’ the same evening. I had to go to confession and the shame was awful. I now wish I’d eaten the while fecking biscuit.
Same year. Northern town most of our dads worked in a nearby factory. It was the 80’s so if there was weekend overtime it was jumped on. The same teacher asked us in class one day if we had a dad who
worked on a Sunday. Most hands shot up. We were then informed that our dads were mortal sinners and would burn in hell.
Hence why I was always in Mass, praying for sinners. And when I hadn’t sinned I would go to confession with a made up list.
I do hope God will forgive me over the Penguin when the time comes.
Edited to add: and all the other things I have done which are far, far worse!

Or what to do with your kids on a.sunday after sunday school due to no open shops and nothing fun on tv other than snooker.

Babysitting when I was 12. A weirdo from school found out where I was, came round with a knife and threatened to kill me. Rang 999 they didn’t come.

They did however turn up at my home address the following day at teatime and told me off for wasting police time!!!

Another one would be getting regular beatings from my mum if I stepped out of line. Mouth washed out with fairy liquid. English mustard covering my tea if I had been naughty

The smoking section on a plane was hilarious because you are literally in a metal tube in the sky so what was the point of confining it to one part of the plane?! 😂

Do they still have smoking rooms at the airport?! They used to be brilliant too 😄

So many things…
Walking to the sweet shop with my friend when we were 4 or 5
Going to the cinema with a friend when we were 9
Being left home alone all day when I was unwell (cough/ cold) etc when I was 10
Kneeling up on the back seat of the car to wave at drivers behind
Being piled into neighbours car with 8 other kids to get to school
Going on caravan holidays and being allowed to roam in the woods with a pack of others kids ages 6/7
Baby sitting when I was 12
Playing on building sites as a teenager!

The same teacher asked us in class one day if we had a dad who worked on a Sunday. Most hands shot up. We were then informed that our dads were mortal sinners and would burn in hell.

😃

How Swallows And Amazons! There was an AIBU thread once from the perspective of the parents in S & A and lots of people didn’t get the reference and took it seriously, it was quite funny! I can’t remember the name of the thread.