Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Things that happened 20/30 years ago that wouldn't today

276 replies

Putrid46 · 22/02/2026 14:32

As a child I recall aunties, uncles and grandparents smoking around me all the time with no ventilation. I'd stay at my grandparents for the weekend and go home with a cough, it was seen as normal.

Parents driving me to school hungover from the night before possibly still slightly drunk.

As an A level pupil in the early 2000s I recall staying until around 7pm one evening with 2 teachers to finish coursework due in the next day, the teachers practically did it for me and then one of them dropped me off home in her car, nobody batted an eyelid.

We had a French language assistant, who was actually French and she invited us to her home one Sunday to do coursework and eat croissants, again it was all above board, she was a lovely Mrs Doubtfire type lady and it was all fine but looking back, that'd never happen now!

Interested to hear from anyone else

OP posts:
theallypallywasp · 27/02/2026 15:06

UnctuousUnicorns · 22/02/2026 19:30

Same here, also 14, only I stayed with a French family in Brittany. The mother was widowed so there was no man in the household, just the French girl and her twelve year old brother.

I was horrified when I read about some people on exchange with Germany where they were walking about starkers. Let it all hang out in front of your own family, but not a guest who is a stranger in your home. Thank God I wasn't subjected to any of that on my own exchange. They were reassuringly clothed and "normal".

What do kids do now on German / French exchanges?? Do they not stay with families? Shock

On my German exchange visit in 1994, aged 17, I went to a local nightclub with my exchange partner. Her mother (a teacher at the exchange school) said she wouldn't come and pick us up. She was true to her word and didn't come when phoned, so we hitchhiked back!! On a school night as well 😂

New posts on this thread. Refresh page