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 😂

Most of it, little of it good or amusing. Apart from the thrill of being allowed in the boot while driving. It was the most exciting thing!

Remember doing cross country in secondary school and the route actually left the school grounds and went down a back lane, no tall green fence in those days.

The teacher swapping my pen into my right hand when I am left handed. Kept on doing it even in my 11+ exam I just swapped back every time.

My grandfather taking us to the circus (with performing animals) and dolphinarium. At the time I loved watching the dolphins, but it is horrific looking back. It was an indoor one, so depressing. What makes it even more bizarre is my grandfather was always a vegetarian and animal lover.

Also going on holiday during term time. No one cared if you went for one week.

Sharing a bath with siblings or even family friends kids and sharing bath water as we got older.

All of these. Bath once a week. God must we have stunk. Parents drinking and driving. Never even questioned it. No seatbelts. Freedom to roam. Back for dinner. Never told parents if you were in trouble at school as you’d get it again at home.

I don't know. For people I know now who are parents their whole weekends are geared around what the kids want so trips to the park, softplay, children's activities, etc. Pretty boring for the adults.

At Sunday school vicar told me to stop swinging my legs, I refused, he slapped me so I kicked him & he banned me. I was 5 😆

I remember our year 4 teacher picking up a kid and throwing him into/through a row of desks. And the same kid being strapped in year 6 until his hands were red raw. He committed suicide when he was 19 or 20. I always wonder how much the brutality he'd experienced at school contributed.
A different kid was strapped so hard by our Year 3 teacher that it broke some of the bones in his hand. All early 80's. Religious school. Men of god, you know.

Actually thinking about it I often bathed my own kids when they were little together so maybe that’s not a wrong thing but sharing bath water with 3 other siblings definitely gross

Staying home once a week to walk to the post office to collect the family allowance. Then getting 20 fags and walking home again....with several £100s in my pocket 🫣
Mum reaching for the slipper when anyone misbehaved.
Teacher smacking my bum when I talked back. ..circa late 80s.
Walking 3 miles there & back to high school through a gully rain or shine .. because we couldn't afford a bus ticket.
Trying to dress in front of the fire in winter as no other heating in the house.
Baths on Sunday only ...

Glad those days are well gone!

I remember sometimes I’d pretend to have a bath because I was too cold to get in so that’d be two weeks I bathed !

God that poor poor lad.

We do a mix of both, and so do most people I know. I was once told on MN that it was very cruel that I make my children go to church, which they might find a bit boring (I even do it on Christmas Day! Which means they have to get dressed!) - but this isn't an attitude I've ever encountered in real life!

Today DH took the kids to do a trail at the local nature reserve, so a kid-centred thing, but yesterday he spent all day gardening and the kids kind of pottered around him, sometimes 'helping'. I don't recognise this world where everyday has to be Disneyland!

I am another one who used to ride in the boot of our estate car with my friends. My mum just used to say 'duck' if we saw a police car.
We also used to go to a bar which was in a big park with a green and a large area of trees with no lighting, not visible from the bar. We weren't allowed in the bar with our parents so all the children were in the children's room or running wild outside, where no one could see them, in the dark.

I never told my dad. Just kept going to church and praying.
I told him when he was dying - we needed the laughs - and he said…
What were you listening to that shite for?
Insisted on a funeral that had nothing to do with church.
During WW2 the local C of E church had a little hall where they’d show a cartoon every Sunday and each child got a small biscuit. He told me in 1944 this was a big deal. He got caught going every week, the priest would complain to my nan, he’d go to confession and do it all over again the next week.

My biological father used to breed border collie dogs for the kennel club and would religiously attend big dog shows like Crufts. He hired a removal van that could only seat 3 adults so it was him, my mum and a hitchhiker that they give a lift to whilst we 3 kids were in the back of the pitch black van holding onto 6/7 dog cages as they slid around. It took many hours to get from South Wales to England and back. Our food for the day was plastic pots of fruit in syrup, it was a treat.

I remember cross country in the 80s. We were supposed to run from the field out onto the street and all the way down to the beach and back. This was quite a distance from school and there was no attempt to see if the kids were actually still there. We were not there, because we didn't like cross country and walked off and went somewhere else as soon as the teacher had gone ahead. We were about 11/12.

2 bad but quite amusing ones...
At the kids club in a holiday camp the entertainers gave us sweets to place bets on football games on the TV. They wanted to watch the football so had us gamble on it so "entertain" us. 😂 TBF, they included different odds etc so put some thought into it!

My grandad won a talent competition for being able to roll and smoke a cigarette the fatest! All indoors and surrounded by kids obviously.

Not so funny...
We wore vests and pants for PE. One time I had a vest and petticoat in one. The teacher made me do it in just my knickers. I had started to develop and I can still remember how exposed and embarrassed I felt. For ages afterwards, the boys would tease me. My mum just said I should have remembered it was PE and not worn it.

McDonald’s had smoking and non smoking sections. And branded ashtrays.

I boy in my primary class had his pants pulled down infront of the class and spanked by the teacher on the bum. I think the offence was that he broke a pencil.

One thing I remember is older boys digging 'dens' in fields etc, where they excavated quite a large area, put chairs and tables and candles in them, and sat in them playing cards and smoking etc. I wonder if I'm imagining it sometimes, but I have a memory of being brought down to see inside one by my friend, as a special favour. They would all have been buried alive if the thing had collapsed.

Same

Riding in the boot of my uncles estate car with my cousins and siblings on the way to the park. All crammed in, not a seatbelt in sight 🤣

Just zero concern for the health and safety of any child really.