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.

The council put central heating in our house when I was at university, I remember the Christmas I came home and it was so amazing to be warm there for the first winter ever.

We didn’t have broccoli. Or any other veg apart from peas. Which I hate.

And the first time I has a pizza was when I was about 23.

and you tell the young folk today about that, they don’t believe you. Etc.

I don’t think there’s anything we didn’t have - maybe those boxes of tissues around the house that my GPs had.. but my mum always had a stash of those small handbag packets of tissues so I guess that covers it 🤣

Central heating, car, phone, lots of other stuff but definitely no kitchen will

No phone, no car, no holidays.

Grim....no toothbrush or winter coats, only whatever hand me down was going.
Underwear and bedding less than decent supply, quite embarrassing frankly

Yes, I also remember the lack of vegetables. I had them at friend’s houses so I knew they existed.

Dont worry you will be sadly disappointed! Dirty Dancing and Pretty Woman are the most over hyped films ever!! Literally the 2 films I, and many others, can't stand! I do however LOVE dirty Dancing soundtrack.

One of my school friends said she used rolled up socks. i recall a number of us looking at her in awe at the sense of it and I did that for a while too.

To be fair, I don't remember broccoli, except for home or locally grown purple sprouting, before about 1975/6. I had pizza in the UK for the first time in 1976 when I was 16 - it wasn't a thing much before that.

We had plentiful veg but it was much more seasonal. Carrots and cabbage were staples, supplemented by root and sprout in winter, cauliflowers, beans, peas, asparagus, spinach in season.

A few things similar to thise already listed. I never thought we were poor because I knew we were better off than a lot of my friends families, however as an adult I realised that ut must have been really tight for my parents.

No central heating until mid 80s and that was electric storage heaters as DM refused to have gas in the home.
Coal fire in living room, plug in electric fire in sitting room and a paraffin heater in the bathroom.
No double glazing, ice inside in the winter, cloths and an absorbent strip to soak up the condensation, often frozen to the window, i still need a cold bedroom.
Hit water initially from the fire, back boiler, then an immersion heater which had to be 'planned' and switched on for baths etc.
No shower just that tap hose type.
Cant recall having a birthday party with friends invited (never thought about that until today!)
No phone until mid 80s.
Did have a fridge but it must have broken and been unable to be replaced immediately because I can recall milk bottles in buckets if water.
Hand me down and home.made clothes but DM was great at that.
No extra activities but went swimming as a family every week. (Youngest DSis did dance classes)
Cant ever recall going to a restaurant for an occasion but we did go to cafes ie Littlewoods/BHS if shopping in town, but never extravagant.

We did have a car when most friends didn't.
We got a caravan holiday for a week, usually Scotland, and I loved them, still do! Can't have been much of a holiday for DM!

We didn't have a lot but never felt we did without. As a kid you dont really understand that but even then I knew I shouldnt ask for stuff so didn't.

No phone, we had to use the local phone box, mobile phones weren't invented. No colour TV, it was back and white. No washing machine, we went to the coin op. No double glazing. No freezer , we had a small fridge with a tiny Ice box. This was late 70s to mid 80s.

We didn't have a telephone until I was in my teens, or a hairdryer; i remember having to sit in front of the electric fire to dry my hair as a kid. When I started work at 17 I bought my own hairdryer, and I remember my mum & sisters borrowing it.

One if the first things I also bought was a duvet for my single bed, as we only had sheets and blankets. That seemed a real luxury!

Much the same here! But so many people were the same - it was pretty much normal.

We did usually have a fortnight at the U.K. seaside though, in a rented house. We ate out maybe once a year! Ditto fish and chips, usually just once while on holiday,

Comparatively few people had holidays abroad, though our cousins whose parents were much better off did, even in the late 50s. They also had a ‘proper’ brick-built Wendy House in their garden!

Most of my clothes were hand me downs from them, but they were fatter than us, so the things tended not to fit very well. I still remember hating a particular ‘fat’ coat I had to wear - it was probably a very expensive one, though.

Gosh yes conditioner, I remember buying a bottle myself when I was 16, life changing.

My parents still only use soap, basic shampoo and bicarb for teeth, with liberal use of mega strong cologne stuff applied by hand if they go out-out.

My experience was been the same as many of the other PPs. Things just cost more years ago, and we were a working class family so money went on the basics.

I vowed when I was a grown up I'd be able to wash my hair everyday day in hot water as I seem to remember not being able to wash a lot as we didn't have central heating, there was a lot of kettle boiling to wash in the sink. And this was in the 90s...

No central heating - gas fire in our main room
No double glazing - I remember the windows streaming with water on the inside and getting into bed and it always felt damp.
No shower - Hair washed with washing up liquid in a dettol bath.
I remember going to a friends and they had ice in fizzy drinks and I thought that was posh!
My Dad always had money for booze and fags tho - Mum used to squirrel money away for bills. God knows how she put up with him 🙄

A hand towel on bathroom, we never had lunch, it would be a breakfast at the weekend then next meal was dinner, never had juice, I remember going to a fronds house for lunch and getting a cartoon of juice either it and thinking it was all so posh

Central heating - we had a wood burners in tbe doenstaors rooms and an aga in the kitchen and portable electric heaters in the bedrooms.

Shower - we had one small bathroom with a bath and hair was washed leanimg over the sink or rinsed in the bath with a platic jug.

I grew up in the 80s and early 90s 😳

Juice and fizzy drinks were rare.

We didn't have a shower either, just a bath with a rubber thing that attached to the taps. I tried to hide that from friends as I was embarassed.

New clothes didn't happen very much. I remember getting lots of hand me downs from cousins though.

We didn't go on holidays abroad, but we did have time at the seaside in Ireland/UK.

My parents didn't have much money, but we had a good life all in all.

We did lots of extra curricular stuff, food was good (my parents are great cooks), my education was top notch (grammar school). I think I had a much better childhood than many these days.

Omg I remember those!! I was 11 or 12, teased by other girls in school for having periods first, my mum was quite old fashioned and I had the giant sanitary pads with a belt thing, needlessly complicated. I hated it. Being a girl at that time seemed like a prison, my mum was very controlling and always assumed the worst about me. My childhood wasn't great.

Dishwasher.
Just myself and my husband, living off rental properties, not "cooking" much. Both hate it.

I dont think there was a conditioner in the 60s? or fabric softeners /kitchenroll DM had a twin tub .No TD or DW though . She didnt drive .Always had good shoes and warm coats though .DGP used to take me out in A40.and would collect me on a wednesday as well

We went from rags to riches over the course of my childhood ( business thst became sucessful) . Born early 70's . So no central heating , no car, basic fridge, no freezer, black and white TV. No duvets. Did have an ancient twin tub . Then whenever I was 11 the business took off big time and took over parents life. House suddenly had all mod cons, shower, microwave, chest freezer, central heating, car each for mum and dad , video recorder, TV in every bedroom BUT I got myself up for school and came home to an empty house every day. No one noticed when I grew out of my clothes - well, school did and contacted my parents. I was warm, well fed but otherwise pretty neglected. Saw parents for maybe an hour a day. I HATED the business, I just wanted my parents back, not " stuff"

And now it needs 2 incomes to run a home. Standards are so much higher these days, 2 new(ish) cars, foreign holidays, new kitchens and extensions, Netflix and prime. And as mothers we complain about work life balance?!?

After years of dragging a comb through our hair I remember my Mum buying this in the 70s - life changing!