To wonder if Sundays in the 80s were restful or boring

[IlovedLadybirdbooks]

Large stores were closed on Sundays. Eating out was a rare treat. No Deliveroo. 3 TV channels to choose from. People got their exercise from a walk or cycling rather than the gym. Children played out rather than being taken to organised activities.

Just pondering ... were Sundays more relaxing or a bit of a drag?

Well I guess hosting elderly relatives applies to any era and individual family set ups. I don't see how it's 80's specific. I didn't host elderly relatives in the 80's. My mum was then in her early 70's and she'd often join me and my son for a day out on a Sunday and we'd have a pub lunch.

My parents died when I was in my 20s and DH's parents live on another continent so there arent any elderly relatives for us.

Even if there were- I wouldnt force my kids to go round to their house every single Sunday for hours at a time and expect them to sit in silence with nothing to do whilst the adults gossiped about the neighbours. I already decided as a child my future life would be very different to that!

My point is that caring for elderly relatives is a choice whether you feel you need to be there for your wider family. For some families it’s about teaching kids it’s not all about you and your enjoyment, sometimes you do things for other people - which we all do to some extent as part of everyday life - It’s not something that was isolated to the 80s

Quality of life in terms of entertainment and “stuff”has massively increased since the 80s for virtually everyone, despite concerns about the cost of living crisis. But there are different measures of quality of life.

Yes I am fully aware of that - I nursed my mum through cancer and my dad through Parkinson's whilst trying to finish my degree.

Sitting in silence whilst adults talked for hours and I was bored out of my mind taught me nothing about quality family time whatsoever. My grandparents werent even in the least bit interested in what I was up to as a child /teenager and we werent close as a result. I dont miss them one jot.

Conversely, I saw my grandmother on my dad's side far less frequently but she actually took an interest in me and told me interesting stories about her life and she was the one I was close to and loved and missed the most out of all of them.

both

Picking up shit in return for a maybe 20 minute ride is 'immensely privileged'? Ok then.

You can work hard for something and still be privileged to have had the opportunity in the first place. Plenty of children in the '80s didn't have access to horses, stables, transport, or parents who could take them.

Mucking out doesn't change the fact that horse riding was an opportunity many children simply didn't have then, and still don't have today.

So yes, I'd say you were privileged to have access to that experience.

I loved Sundays in the 60s.70s and 80s.. l am 68.. looked forward to my Mums Sunday dinner when l was at school.. My Dad ..Mum
. 4 sisters and me.. then it was watching the Sunday afternoon film.. as l got older it was Sunday day trips out on my motorbike meeting up with other bikers.. when l had kids.. sometimes we would stay in have dinner together.. play together.. do crafts etc..
Or we would have a day out to the sea side etc in the summer.
My kids still love the memories.

When I was a child back in the 1950s most things were closed on sundays. Only small local shops opened and there were strict limits on what they could sell. My mother once ran our of fuse wire and could not cook the sunday roast. I was sent to the local shop but the lady told me she could not sell it to me because it was not allowed. I went home crying thinking I would get a slap. Later the shop woman brought a card round and told my mother "I cant sell you this on sunday but there is no law that says I cant give you it." My mother paid her for it anyway.

Most sundays we either visited people/relatives or they came to us. It was all arranged in advance by either letter or custom because none of us were on the phone. The adults sat nattering and drinking tea and we kids played out in the street. Sometimes the adults went to the pub and brought us packets of crisps or lemonade at intervals. No way were children allowed in pubs back then. On very special summer days we might get the train to the seaside. That happened maybe once or twice a year. Days out were expensive and as a manual worker in a factory my father did not earn a great deal.

We live much further from relatives due to work and house prices.

IL do come over for entire weekends fairly frequently but they like going out and doing things - tricky when kids were babies and in exam years but overall very positive.

Dsis who lives closer to Dmum - does shorter visits or trips out with DMum - less sitting for hours expecting kids to be quiet. When there her kids have screens - indeed get very push at them. When we do visits as we have to stop in hotel tend to fit a lot more in the weekend than just a visit to DGP.

Our parents are slightly older than our DGP but they are more active at older ages - well IL are my parents weren't but we saw them less and didn't expect kids to be still and quiet for hours. Think more places being open and more disposable income mean going out and doing things are more common.

Years dad was housebound - visits were short even when we came a long way. Think our expecation on kids sitting quiet and still for long periods were differnt having done it so much ourselves but also our parents seem to expect it less. But as parental age goes up DGP age will as well - so image that yes longer visits to inactive DGP may well get common again though screens and phones may mean not sitting in quiet bordem for kids.

This

People worried during the 70s and 80s. There were lots of turbulent times. Don’t be fooled by the whole ‘ things were fab back then ‘ as it’s simply not true.
I do feel people peddle this far too much.

When we saw my grandad and step grandma it was quite boring though they had a dog. My nana and stepgrandad owned a business which was on the bottom floor of one of the two side by side houses they owned. We were allowed to play on the rotating office chair and typewriter. They also had a garden and tortoise we looked for. Their dog was a yappy pita. They got us comics early on (Twinkle then Girl and the respective annuals for me and Buster and Rupert bear annuals for DB) they kept us both busy reading them and we looked forward to going and collecting them. My mum occasionally took us to the dairy or market or toy shop. She knew the kids in the dairy and some of the market traders from her younger years.

I wasn’t around in the 80s, but I found Sundays in the 90s unspeakably boring. Same with the school holidays. We hardly did anything? Much prefer my Sundays now, which are hectic but at least I feel like I’m living.

I don’t recall much news in 70s maybe miners strike and starving children in Ethiopia. Apart from Newsround news I recall being quite sheltered from the news. You might notice a murderer on the front pages of a newspaper but it never happened in our lives. And I don’t think we knew what murder was. My nana told us gleefully about the Reginald Christie murderer as he lived where she used to live in Ladbroke Grove (after her though). My mum hissed at her to be quiet whereas my nana would’ve happily ghoulishly elaborated on it to a 7 and 9 year old. There was a funny tale once though, at same ages we used to go to the chamber of horrors in Madame Tussaud’s quite a lot. I mentioned Dr Crippen to my nana as I thought it was the same time she was alive but she was born after that. She was most put out that I thought she was that old!

Depends what you did. I was allowed out with friends on weekends and school holidays, playing out, travelling by bus to a nearby swimming pool, washing cars to get money to go to the funfair, visiting the high street for the pet shops and an old fashioned sweet shop with glass jars and an elderly owner. Going to the free adventure playground. As long as we were back by tea time we had relative freedom. Even in winter in was snow fights and sledging by ourselves.

They were both boring and restful — and doesn’t mean I don’t remember them with desperate fondness! A little princess on TV, or songs of praise. Long walk. Bike ride. Sunday roast. Maybe a board game. The slight disappointing feeling of being back at school tomorrow. I could never do it now but I think I was better for it growing up

They were often depressing as hell. Sunday roast was the best bit and recording the top 40. We had The Walton's, no shops, songs of praise. Mum spending the afternoon ironing uniforms and everything. School the next day....

Mostly fine. Spent it in the pub.

I can't understand why some posters are being so mean about those that had happy childhood memories. The thread was about Sundays in the 80s not Sundays in the 80s if you were low income. Each decade has its troubles but childhood experience is entirely subjective. Many kids with very little had glorious childhoods and didn't give a shit about interest rates or strikes. Many had plenty means and privilege, with happy memories and are entitled to express those. I don't see why people are being judged for their recollection of their own lives.

I was a teenager in the 80s and loved Sundays although I've always been a homebird. Church in the morning, then back at home I'd do some homework and listen to music with my sister - typical 80s fare (Adam and the Ants/ Duran Duran). Might watch some TV in the afternoon and we'd listen to the Top 40 in the evening. Mom would cook a proper roast and dad would read the paper and mow the lawn or do some form of DIY. Sunday evenings were usually spent watching TV or playing a board game as a family. Happy, happy times and I'd go back in a heartbeat.

We ‘played out’ an awful lot too. Doesn’t mean Sundays and (especially) the school holidays weren’t unspeakably boring. When I was old enough to get a part-time job then things improved and I was less bored. But it was mid-2000s by then and I was 16 so life was generally more interesting. Not sure where you grew up, but I grew up in England and we hardly ever had snow. Maybe a couple of days a year some years. So snowball fights were a rarity (not that they would have interested me much past the age of 8 anyway).

I was bored to tears in the late 70s and early 80s. My dad would be snoozing, my mum would be reading the paper, the house would be quiet, there was nothing to do. I used to play a game on my own, throwing/ catching a tennis ball against the in various different ways. And this was when it wasn’t tipping down with rain.
When it was raining I used to make my own pretend radio show with my cassette recorder.

Dull as fuck. I was in my 20s, so like a pp is was generally recovering. Might have a cinema date, if it was nice get the bus out into Derbyshire. Either at my parents or dp's dads for Sunday lunch.
However never quite so dull as easter weekends in the 60s and 70s in Australia. Nothing at all open. No buses. Weather generally shite. TV was religious films. I remember one when my dad was working, no car, pissing it down, skint. My mum and I were almost crying with boredom.

Totally different now though. In the 80s we’d see the elderly relatives 3-4 times a month at weekends. They’d eat the same food every time (roast dinner), avoid interacting with us children except to tut if we made too much noise (children very much seen but not heard) and sit around in the house having the same conversation every week.

Whwreas now we see elderly relatives 3-4 times per year. I’d expect them to eat what we’re eating rather than expecting one type of meal. And I’d expect all generations to take part in conversation. Oh and we might go out somewhere like a garden centre or pub with a soft play instead of expecting children to sit in silence.