What made your parents paranoid when you were growing up?

[BeCraftyFatball]

For myself -Danger when leaving the street

I love the Rhyme😄

Not my parents, but my Grandma had a horror of ' dirty old men ' and wouldn't let me near one!

That standing next to the microwave would give me cancer.

‘What will the neighbours think?’. About everything. Everything in my childhood was about being seen to be functional. At huge personal cost. It took me decades to realise that my parents should have been more concerned about my feelings and wishes rather than those of the randoms who just happened to live on our street/s.

Strangers outside. My DB always used to attract strange, weird men in parks. Didn’t help that he looked blond, angelic and baby faced.

I think similar with mine, but meant tramps and so on (though we weren’t mean to them).

Very similar. We had adventure playgrounds just held together with wood and nails and ran by volunteers. No safeguarding! Anything could’ve happened.

In fact we were left to roam the streets but usually me and DB and our friends who were same age and same sex as us. We didn’t leave anyone alone. But would offer to do and got cars to wash in our street, on a hot afternoon and then we’d go to the fairground afterwards. When we went on holiday same thing they gave us money to wander off with. A place we used to go to was Ferring near Littlehampton. Has river going to sea and caravan parks. A few years later on tv I saw a child was murdered near there. Sarah Payne, rip angel. 😢

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Sarah_Payne#:~:text=Sarah%20Evelyn%20Isobel%20Payne%20(13%20October%201991,in%20West%20Sussex%2C%20England%20in%20July%202000.

My mother: what people will think, and going anywhere further than the end of the street on my own, in case I was picked up by a grooming gang. These days, she still gives too much advice and seems to forget that I am an adult sometimes! (At the moment, it's the Perils of Poultry Keeping).

My grandfather: going outside of the boundaries of our village, because everywhere else was 'unsafe'... driving on the motorway... being late for anything... and again, what people will think. Oh, and if I smelt of smoke coming off the school bus, he would insist on smelling my breath to ensure that I hadn't been the one smoking. I've never smoked a cigarette in my life!

Boys. Now I’m an adult I can see why and I have the same worried for my DD.

Drugs. My dad was always lecturing me about drugs.

One day he brought a leaflet home on what signs to look for if your child might be on drugs.

After seeing this I started to wind him up by making flour or sugar into little white lines on the kitchen and bathroom counter top, and burning a couple of teaspoons.

I was 28 before I learned in a psychiatry seminar what burnt spoons had to do with drug use!

Yes i just googled it there was a child and mum on the escalator ,child was wearing red wellies and keeps moving her foot to the side ,it then shows a clip of a blue wellie being sucked into the side of the escalator and crushed
It must have made an impression on me as i have always jumped quickly off escalators in case my toes got sucked in at the end and crushed!

Drugs.
My parents were investigating cleaning my older brother’s room once and found some beans sprouting in a container (it was for a school assignment).
They panicked thinking they were some kind of organic drugs he was cultivating, along the lines of magic mushrooms.
So they took them to my uncle who was a hippie to see if he knew what they were. He bs’d them for a laugh and told them they were hallucinogenics known as “magic beans”.
They went back and confronted db who absolutely fell about laughing.
They have never lived it down 😄

A terror of what people might think.
I’ve grown up to be the complete opposite.

My best friend wasn’t allowed to watch Grange Hill 🤣

I can't think of anything but I fairly regularly remind my eldest DS (who is at uni) of the dangers of lift shafts, balconies, lion enclosures, iced over water, drunk swimming, mopeds. I don't think I'm neurotic

Nothing really as far as I remember. They didn't care what others thought, which looking back is very cool and definitely meant that I don't either. So I hope I've passed that on to my kids. I didn't inherit their laissez faire attitude to childcare though, I'm not sure they knew where we were half the time. The woods, abandoned hospitals, town, the park - as long as we got back home before dark. I'm the opposite and have to try hard not to be a helicopter parent.

But it was Educational! Zammo taught me about drugs..

My mum - cycling on the main road. I know this is because we knew two kids at school who were knocked over and killed on their bikes, and our paperboy was knocked off his bike and died in my mum’s arms outside our house when I was about six.

My dad - boys. I wasn’t allowed a boyfriend until I was over 18, and as a result have had lifelong social anxiety talking to the opposite sex. Had very few boyfriends and never married or had kids. I don’t think he actually wanted me to grow up.

Also wasn’t allowed to watch Grange Hill because my dad didn’t want me “growing up using that slang”. Why on earth he thought a 12 year old from north Manchester would start speaking like an Essex girl (Tricia Yates -IYKYK) I’ll never knowZ

Becoming pregnant before I was married.
I do believe they would have thrown me out it would have brought so much shame.
They did worry about a lot of things though.

Neither were me and DB but we watched it in secret or at friends house. Eventually mum relented.

Drugs, alcohol and sex. Big lectures but with books on them. Didn’t stop us though!

I thought that Grange Hill was quite moral. I was a bit older when it started so my parents didn’t say anything.
They didn’t like me watching too much tv though ‘ gives you square eyes’ .

so much I could say but on a lighter note we couldn’t leave a tampon box on display, I love leaving them out now in the bathroom when they visit 🤷🏽‍♀️

I always feel a bit nervous stepping into an escalator in summer sandals. Surely they call for steel toe capped safety boots!

I don’t like escalators. Had a friend who fell down some at a tube station in London once. Luckily she was ok, but they are lethal. It’s a wonder they keep going, but guess there arn’t too many alternatives and can’t install lifts everywhere at stations ( for example)