What normal things did you not have or not have in your house growing up?

[Fairypowder13]

We ran out of kitchen roll today and it got me thinking, growing up we never had kitchen roll in the house. I can remember visiting people who did and thinking that it was quite posh.

I grew up in a very poor home and we were always warm, clean, clothed and fed, but also lacking so many basic things. My parents always had money for cigarettes and alcohol though 🙄

I can remember having to have my hair washed with washing up liquid at times, I had very long hair and my mum never bought conditioner so you can imagine how knotty my hair would be. I did eventually get access to hair conditioner after begging my mum after I’d seen it advertised.

No cushions on the sofas.

No family holidays or day trips. Didn’t see the sea until I was 16.

No fabric softener for washing.

Never had a bed or mattress of my own, had one that was given to us until I was old enough to buy my own, it was all broken in the end but it didn’t occur to my parents to buy one.

No birthday cake or celebration, we’d get one small cheap present but nothing beyond that.

No stocking for Christmas. We’d put out one of our socks.

No winter coat, I had to wait to be given one by my older cousin.

I’m really sorry OP 😢 sad that your parents would prioritise alcohol and cigarettes over shampoo for you

I was born in 1960.

My grandparents had oil fired CH and electric fires upstairs
No fitted kitchen

Until I was 7 my parents didn't have ch but there were gas fires throughout the house and my dad used to put mine on when he got up so I woke up in the warm. I also remember a twin tub which was such a pain, my mother sent the linens to Sunlight Laundry and had two/three service washes each week.

We moved when I was 7 and CH was fitted.
We always had a TV, stereo, telephone, car, etc. I also remember things like kitchen roll and clingfilm.

We did not have tissues. My mother still dislikes them and still uses proper handkerchiefs, as does DH.

I don't use kitchen roll much, just to line the kitchen caddy, under the bag, and we don't use fabric conditioner because it gives DH a rash.

To be honest, I had everything, including a pony. The thing I didn't have was a sibling and a mother who liked and loved me.

I also longed for a jumper bought from a shop. My Mum knitted mine.

@Fairypowder13some of that sounds borderline abusive, sorry.

We didn't have kitchen roll or any fizzy drinks. Basic cereals (neighbour had Alpen)

Sheets and blankets not duvets.

Does anyone remember power cuts and having to use candles???

I had a very privileged upbringing in late 60s/70s ,private school and an amazing house that even now has been on TV for documentaries.
We didn’t have a shower,dishwasher and foreign holidays . We had to walk / bus anywhere if meeting up with friends because my parents enjoyed G&Ts early in the day 🤦‍♀️
They were great generally and thoroughly enjoyed my childhood with great memories.

We didn't have a fruit bowl. We had fresh fruit occasionally but not as a regular grocery. We never had yoghurt. Those two were the things that I remember my friends houses had and I noticed the most, friends would have fruit or yoghurt for pudding, at my house it was an own brand penguin or three plain biscuits. I was always told yoghurt was too expensive.

We didn't have hand soap either but I'm the same as as you and I remember it was bar soap in schools and public toilets too until around the late 90's I think? I also got one present or £20 for birthday, but I don't think the piles of presents kids and adults typically get nowadays was the norm.

1960s/70s
Food was a sporadic event. I remember putting some hot water into a nearly empty bottle of ketchup to make 'soup'.
Heating was a small two bar electric fire.
No fridge, washing machine, tv, bedding, phone, shampoo.
Missed school a few times because I had no shoes.
Sometimes wore school uniform at weekends because I had no other clothes.

Things we didn't have that I think most people did at the time (90s):
Washing machine, microwave, toaster, central heating, TV, car, computer, foreign holidays.
We did get most of these eventually but never had a microwave, toaster, tumble dryer or dishwasher until I was an adult.
Most of our clothes and toys were second hand.

Glasses/tumblers for water or soft drinks; we always used mugs and I have no idea why. A toaster, always used the grill!

I do. A 1970s childhood!

We didn't have a microwave at home. When I went to uni we had one in our student house a d I've had one ever since. My parents eventually got one, but years after they were the norm in kitchens. I use it several times a day and can't imagine not having one.

1940-early 50s WW2 requisitioned flat in old mid victorian house with very high ceilings, shared with another family. What we did have is easier than what we didn't.

Coal fire in the kitchen to heat the water, with oven, no heating anywhere else. Chilblains ( poor coal merchant had to carry bags of it up a flight of stairs and we stored it in a small room off the hall.)

Beds, blankets, sheets, pillows, very few clothes, soap you grated to wash hair.
Gas stove, sink, meat safe, toasting fork.
Tall record player and wireless. A second hand piano.
Table and chairs, beds, settee and 2 easy chairs, unfitted carpet.
A telephone with a party line ie you shared it.
Bathroom with iron bath, toilet, sink. Milk bottles put in bucket of cold water in Summer.
A metal dust bin.

Very narrow range of food in shops, only unsliced white bread, in season UK veg/fruit but rabbits common. Home made cheese and toffee for bonfire night. No sweets, coffee, convenience/frozen foods in shops. No alcohol ever.

I had a tricycle and my sibling a small 2 wheeler ( second hand). Perhaps another 6-7 toys between us, a skipping rope, a home made teddy, a doll and dolls pram (second hand), an easel, farm animals, books.

This was a single parent lower middle class family ( teacher). No equal pay for women until 1961 though. ( She was lucky she had us in WW2 and just after, she would have been sacked when she married otherwise.)

We were pretty well off so had most things. But mum didn’t allow any toilet brushes in the house. Hated it! Regular Coke was also banned.

Born 1982
No indoor toilets
No freezer
No heating in bedrooms, only a stove in one room.
Very few clothes
Often felt so hungry, to the point of fainting.
No physical or verbal affection from either parent
Both my parents were academics, though they were young I wouldn't class them as poor, we just didn't have much.

There is a difference between things you didn't/don't have because of low income, and things you don't have through choice.

So I'm 60 and have never lived in a house with a microwave, or using fabric softener because, as an adult, I don't want them. In the last 35 years, I haven't had a TV in my living room - don't want it.

As a child, I lived in a house where we had ice on the inside of the windows - we did have central heating, but it was rarely switched on 😂

We still had those in the 00s. And when I was at university in 2015 the power was out for 3 days.

No colour tv until I was 12.
No telephone until I was 16.
I never had long hair.
Fairy lights on the artificial Christmas tree because my Uncle got an electric shock from his. In fact was it was his own fault for fiddling with the damn things.
Didn't go on holiday until I was 11 and then it was to Torquay.

How did they stay in place?

We Never had kitchen roll or fabric conditioner.

We shared an outside toilet (newspaper no toilet roll) with the people upstairs, bath under a tabletop in the kitchen, no fridge. Parkray fire in one room, gas fire in another, sometimes small electric two bar fire in bedroom. No fridge, washing machine, or toaster. We all came in the front door (with a lock). People upstairs just had an ordinary door at the bottom of stairs, we had just a corridor with separate room doors. So there was no "security". This was in Fulham (London) in the 1950s and up to 1970s. We went on one family holiday to Ramsgate (one week). Dad had poor sight so couldn't drive.

When I was 10yrs I went to my Nans in boarding school hols. She lived over her hardware shop, there wasn’t a bathroom. We had to walk into towns public baths for a bath, the lavatory was at the end of the yard. But that was 60yrs ago!

Child of the 80's.

Warmth- metal framed, single glazed windows. Only heating was a gas fire downstairs (that gave us all carbon monoxide poisoning.......). Used to find ice on the inside of the windows in the winter. The housing estate I grew up on was a council housing hellhole then but now it's a rather desirable conservation area. Windows are apparently a hot topic as they have to be replaced like for like.

Also didn't have duvets. Top sheets, bottom sheets and blankets

Shower. Rubber hose contraption instead

Oven chips and frozen pizza. I can still remember in my teens when pizzas used to come in a bag and were called 'tomato and cheese flavoured'

Cling film

Curry- although this might have have had as much to do with my Mum's ex husband who was vehemently against cooking any food that smelled/was foreign food.

And from my father (divorced parents) who I was forced to go and see every other weekend, he would use washing up liquid in the bath and wash our hair with washing up liquid as he apparently didnt see the point of buying stuff like shampoo for kids.

Wealthy parents, older brothers & a sister went to private boarding school from age of 5. I arrived unexpectedly 10 years after my sister. I stayed at home, I think I'd have been better away at school. Never had breakfast. Didn't get a drink till the free milk at first break at school. Had hot lunch at school & a sandwich sometimes when I got home if someone thought about it. I became independent very quickly. Uniform was washed once a week. Sports kit only if grandma was about. Had hand me down clothes from cousins, We had many holidays abroad in the early 70s. Usually ended up with us flown home after 1 week unaccompanied, whilst parents stayed away for weeks sometimes months. Looked after by grandparents or aunts & uncles, which was lovely. We had colour TV in the 70s, landline, central heating, washer & dryer imported from USA, 2 mercedes in the garage, I had a pony & we had several pets, all better cared for than me. Never had a birthday party or a birthday cake, till my first boss, when I was 18 brought one for me. Father died when I was 12. Everything was sold including the pony. Moved to a small house, Mother remarried within 2 years, to a drunk & very handsy man, who brought nothing with him & just leeched off my mom, who was oblivious as long as she had a 'man' to look after her. My brothers & sister had left home way before this rarely visited & just left me to it. I left home at 17. Worked overseas as a nanny, for a few years, I'm very independent. Rarely went 'home' found out when my mother died (I was 20 ) that the house that my step father was still living in was mine. Something to do with an uncle ( who I'd met maybe twice) stepping in when everything was sold, any actual money was all gone as was all the silver. So I kicked him out sold it & brought a house just for me. I didn't realise really that wasn't normal family life, till I met & married my lovely husband. Who still thinks my childhood was batshit crazy, Incredible wealth & privilege on one hand, terrible neglect on the other. It definitely left a mark on me. We now live in a smallish bungalow. Numerous pets, very happy & about to retire. I rarely see brothers & sister or any remaining family. Who are all quite elderly now. They are more like acquaintances, they reap as they sowed. Very odd childhood.

Born in 1981, we had no indoor toilet.
We had no bathroom - once a week strip wash on a Sunday. Even as teenagers, we must have stunk, parents were indoor smokers as well.
No healthy foods - our diet was absolutely atrocious, all junk nothing healthy. Mum (a sahm) did bugger all to ensure a good diet - she didn't want to make the effort. She fed us pre packaged everything.
No trips to the dentist until much later in childhood.... hence why I have 10 fillings - all before I turned 14.
We weren't allowed to brush our teeth before school because it would mean taking up the kitchen sink (no bathroom) and mum liked to empty every kitchen cupboard first thing in the morning (looking back she must have had ocd or something- she was constantly cleaning)
We also never brushed them at night, once in year 5 we had to do disclosing tablets (i think that is the name) and the terror I felt that my teeth would be red and blue because they were never brushed resulted in a panic attack and throwing up in the classroom.
No interest in anything I was into/had done, unless it was something that they could boast about.
No central heating
No double glazing
No landlines
No new clothes or books (luckily my grandparents would some of these for us for Xmas, my dad would call us spoilt)
No time for us.
The risk of us losing the house on account of their absolutely ridiculous frittering away of money on stuff for them. The true extent was apparent when I had to do their probate and had to go through about 50 years worth of paperwork. I genuinely have no idea how we did not end up homeless multiple times throughout the 80's, 90's and early 00's
No feeling that they had your back, I was bullied relentlessly for my entire primary years and most of my secondary and they did nothing about it.
Yet they would do absolutely anything for other people and were always dressed nicely.
I have 4 kids and I couldn't imagine being like that. I think there has been a lot of trauma linked to the way my childhood was.

We didn't have a bathroom until I was 7. We had toilets inside though and made do with a plastic bath my mum filled up with warm water for baths. My baby siblings got washed in the kitchen sink.

No telephone inside our flat until around this same time. My parents used the communal one in the corridor outside.

No TV until I was 13 but that was a choice my parents made.

My parents didn't have a bedroom and had their bed in the living room. That doubled up as a sofa for visitors. They shared their bedrwitj one or two of the youngest (they were 6 of us).

We had mice crawling up the curtains and one even bit my little sister. I was so scared of them after one ran between my feet as I sat on the toilet. They are still one of my worst phobias.

However, we had books everywhere, and we were all avid readers.

We moved in a brand new house when I was 13. I had my own room. It was great but I have plenty of lovely memories from our flat.

I was born at the end of the 70s.