What made your parents paranoid when you were growing up?

[BeCraftyFatball]

For myself -Danger when leaving the street

Ii will go one better — we grew up in a tiny, over crowded house with extended family and one tiny bathroom you had to walk through the living room and kitchen to get to. My mother thought it wasn’t ‘nice’ to have a bathroom bin (admittedly there was so little floor space that the door almost touched your knees when sitting on the loo) so she and her three daughters had to keep pads (tampons ‘weren’t nice’ either) in our knicker drawers at the other end of the house, hide them up our sleeve, walk through the living room and kitchen to the bathroom, and then carry the used pad out, wrapped in toilet paper, u0 our sleeves and put them in the kitchen bin when no man was present.

Oh my god, literally nothing. 😂 My parents were so crap that, at 15, I’d met a man - a man! - who was literally going on trial for accessory to attempted murder (his friend tried to kill someone and he went to pick him up before the cops came to hide him) and my mum literally drove me 3 hours to meet this man and dropped me off with him for 2 weeks. Nothing made my parents paranoid. They were completely oblivious to anything normal sensible parents would do. 🙄

Btw, I was fine, nothing bad happened to me. Guy and I dated for some time and became friends. He wasn’t convicted. Still super dodgy though.

My dad - nothing. He was always terrifying me by encouraging me (I am a congenital coward) to swim further, jump/climb higher etc. It actually was very good for me in the end.

My mum - the neighbours 'seeing in'. We had to close the curtains before turning on the lights, which meant the light could only go on when it was dark. On dim days in winter we just blundered around crashing into the furniture.

We watched a video at school with most of these plus rat poison 😳

Can’t recall the rat poison one but we saw all these at junior school on the big tv with video player in the hall.

That we would end up childless - a fate worse than death apparently. Big Catholic family, need I say more. When I got pregnant in my mid 20s they were DELIGHTED and my gran was giddy with excitement at being a great grandma.

Threat of abduction.

There were several scary public information films about it in the 70s. No way after seeing them would I ever touch an animal abroad. There was a poor lady a couple of years ago who caught it after being scratched by a cat in Morocco. It's a shame those films aren't shown now , as perhaps if she had been warned she could have got help earlier.

Getting a tattoo. My mum always said if got pregnant she'd support me. If I got a tattoo she'd throw me out. She wasn't joking either. I'm knocking on 50 now and my mum doesn't know about my 2 tattoos 😂

Windows. It was a mixture of utter conviction that if I stood within 3 foot of a window I'd instantly defenestrate myself and that somebody might see me through the dull grey nets.

Water. So no swimming, one trip to the seaside where I was never allowed to do anything but stand ten foot away from the shoreline and look at it, not allowed to lock the bathroom door (only allowed to use it at 5pm Sunday afternoon, shut it under duress and her bellowing at me every five minutes to confirm life), no free sailing trip offered by the school, kept off school when they were planning a pond dipping trip. She'd have had conniptions had she known about the 'Free GCSE revision' trip's actual schedule - horseriding, kayaking, trip in a fishing boat, abseiling down a sea cliff, unclipping and jumping across a ten foot drop over the water to reattach and climbing back up.

What I might say to a teacher or somebody else's parent if I were allowed to be around them. Probably justified, as I might have told them what she did to me regularly.

Having friends. Didn't like that at all. They might have told me what was happening to me indoors was wrong - or told their parents (see above).

Wearing anything red. Or green. Or striped. Or with lace (no lace trimmed socks for me at infant school). Or shiny shoes. Or anything black. Or in primary colours.

We where not allowed to watch brookside!

This was long before the lesbian kiss-i think that almost finished them off!

My mother couldn't be less homophobic to anyone who is gay (to their faces anyway-she'll slag anyone off for no reason behind their backs) and my father (who has never watched a soap in his life) couldn't be more fearful of any bloke who is gay (but gay women are fine)

(I gave up years ago trying to explain that no gay man on this earth would fancy him but I dont think that fact ever sank in)

God knows what it was about the dealings that went on in the close that set them both off!

They'd turn the tv over with faces that looked like they'd been sucking lemons

Grange hill would have been ok let's face it,jim'll fix it and rolfs cartoon time was fine but none of us (myself or my siblings) ever bothered to watch it

My mum was worried that if I walked the dog, unruly teenagers would hurt me to steal the dog and then blow him up with fireworks. Fuck knows why.

She was also terrified of me getting fat or my blonde hair turning brown (both happened to a certain degree, but the dog was fine).

Me!!😂😂😂

1. Adverts on TV, to the point that I had some homework from school to watch an advert and write something about it for English and I had to tell the teacher in front of the whole class that I hadn’t done the homework because I wasn’t allowed to watch adverts.
2. That I was a lesbian, this was mainly because I liked wearing Doc Martens, it never occurred to her that I liked wearing flat boots because a) I was about a foot taller than all of my female friends and taller than some of the male ones too, and b) that my favourite band wore them. Nope, despite the evidence that I was boy mad the comfortable footwear was the problem.

My parents may never have allowed us to watch brookside or dip a toe nail in the sea but I was mainly brought up by my grandad

He saw danger in everything

Stood too close to the unplugged hoover?
'Move away!you might get sucked in!'

Stood too close to a window?
'Move!you might fall out!'

Doing a jigsaw?
Don't put the pieces too close to your mouth!you might choke!'

About to step on a ladder?
'Noooooo!'

Walking down the street?
'Pay close attention to where you are stepping or you'll fall and land under a bus/down a drain!'

'Don't go near the lounge bin,you might fall and trap your foot/hit your head!'

'Never walk through one of those doors at the supermarket that have a sensor to open/close it-the waves will rot your brain!'

He checked every single toy i was ever given just in case the stuffing could fall out/bits break off and id choke to death

He was a natural worrier with ptsd (he lived through two world wars and served in ww2) and ocd

I learned fast how to deal with it but he never stopped fretting over my safety

(he'd had 4 dc of his own and due to the massive age gap between my father and his 3 older siblings,im told he was much worse with my father as he was around more when he was a child/young adult)

I know he only worried as he loved me and it was his way of showing it

I'd often see my parents gawping at him as they just couldn't see what the problem was

I tried to find a balance between my parents and grandad when I had my own children (and I often failed but they made it to adulthood with only a few cuts and bruises so can't have done too badly)

Strangers
Water - rivers etc.
Drugs
Dossers
Masons
Religion pushers

Kettles. My cousin had third degree burns from knocking a boiling kettle over her legs as a child.

Oh my dad sang this and it was like a song in the car on holidays!

I didn't know it was a danger song and when we all sang the piggy bit back to him it was like piggy was a complete moron... passed us by that it was a danger song. And my dad would generally eat a handful of wine gums at the end as he is and was is our piggy...

Much like:

Give me lead in my pencil keep me writing
Give me lead in my pencil I pray
Give me lead in my pencil keep me writing
Keep me writing to the break of dayyyyyyy!

Was my childhood wrong?!

We also did the Three in the Bed but to the tune of Rule Britannia...

to Rule Britannia? I'm intrigued...

oh, did it start at the "this was the charter" line? that would work.Edit: just realised I've been thinking of Three Little Monkeys not Three in the Bed. No, I give up. How does it go?

How long did you continue singing lead in my pencil after one of you was worldly enough to start smirking?

We didn't treat Piggy as a cautionary tale either. And it was actually the engine who said I don't care. Which we would invariably follow with
Don't care was made to care
Don't care was hung
Don't care was put in a pot
and BOILED till 'e was done

Paranoid is probably too strong a word, but i was constantly aware that Cold in my Kidneys was an actual thing and I would get it from not tucking my vest into my knickers, having a gap between jumper and trousers and when I was older, wearing crop tops. I grew up n Australia ffs. Also ingrown toenails if my toenails weren't exactly cut straight. Which would entail an extremely gruesome operation. Eating vegetables that were under cooked(though raw veg was ok) Sitting too close to tv would ensure I would need glasses. The cat had to be kept out when babies were around as they would sit on their faces. But I was allowed to play out where there were spiders and snakes capable of killing me, walk to school from 8 and take myself off swimming from 12.

My best friend as a child, her dad was South African where I think they have rabies. Always told her to never touch dogs or cats over here or there for that matter, they went there on holidays. But they got a kitten when she was 9. That was ok.

Mad cow disease.

I was 14 before I had a real burger.
(I now love burgers and steak).