To think the younger MN generation would be shocked at things we did decades ago...

[Allonthesametrain]

It was such a different time, before the days of hand gel, smartphones, ordering online, house cctv, awareness etc.

This is from a background of a good home with values, DF worked hard, DM did everything for us 3 DC and also worked early before we got up and during school hours when we of that age.

Things we would do...

All 3 have a bath together every night when young, also go into after bath DF or DM.

Most clothes were hand me downs/passed on from friends and neighbours and anything new was for a special occasion.

If we wanted anything special we had to wait until Christmas or birthdays and were delighted and grateful

Lucky to have a house phone, it was in the hall way so no privacy and a shout how long are you going to be on there if you rang out

Bedrooms were sparse, we put colour on our walls with posters we got from magazines

Fun time meeting your friends, on foot or bikes, roller boots, usually at the school you've been at all day because it was known and had no big fences around it.

We collected tapes, later CDs, which we listened to over again and had to rewind, also recorded from friends on a double deck

Recorded our favourite songs from the radio, had to pause before next one to not include the DJ's blitherings

Young teens, oldest looking member of group bought a couple of 2L cheapest cider, we all drank from

Pubs, rarely enough loo roll, we never thought to bring our own, wipe by hand or drip dry

Need a wee, you went anywhere

You walked to meet your friends then walked/staggered back, split up on way to walk on your own as girls

You didn't dare argue with a teacher, even when it was unfair as a good student

If you went to university it was a shared bathroom and kitchen between 12, one tine fridge, old pans. Then when you moved out to house share the furniture was from the 1940s, mattresses had springs sticking out, slugs were a normal practice to put outside.

You qualify, get your own first flat, most basic furnished, the slug relatives are there, you still have to go to the laundrette as no washing machine. Single glazing, you put your own film up to help.

This was if lucky, friends from less privileged areas and backgrounds were left to roam, hungry, sniffed glue, caused chaos, were always dirty, same clothes every day. When 'naughty' they were beaten by their parents and disrespected, often hit by teachers.

Things have progressed so much but there are still many living this life within their homes.

So, with the observation of MN posts about things like should I be upset about DC not being offered his favourite food at lunch time just seems so trivial compared to the reality of us as older parents.

Are younger parents picking arguments about what could be deemed as insignificant just because they can now on SM?

Yeah, I know, I will seem as a dinosaur, but Im not. Basic values need to come from home, which we as gen X experienced growing up. When you're a young child and all you know is instant gratification from screens then this is their norm, then going forward their DC. Not saying all parents do this, of course not, but sadly many do.

My point? Oh yes, growing up in harsher times, which wasn't ideal at all but it was what it was and now we appreciate the positives of now, but without knowing what it was like before is it difficult to appreciate and not succumb to a lazier way of parenting?

Me too, no showers!

OP has written as if this was everyone’s experience from her generation and it’s far from it.

Exactly that! I used to go and get my mum’s fags (dad had asthma would you believe). My mum smoked everywhere all day long. Used to make me mad, guess what I ended up smoking for years too, gave it up many years ago thankfully.

Wow, looked that up. I remember it coming in when I was 9 to wear them in the front and didn’t realise it became law for seats in the back in 1991! Shocking stuff!!

My two shared till age 6, boy and girl it seemed better to then bath separately, but they had loads of fun. So cute!

I understand that. My father was a man who shared 50% of the load, cooked, darned, ironed, fully hands on. He was amazing. He was also a soldier (hence the darning/ironing) and was horribly beaten as a child by his cunt of a father. He had scarring all over his back from being beaten. Only told my Mum when he was in his eighties. He could have been a different man had he given in to his anger: instead he chose to be the best husband and Dad he could be. He DID have very

I remember my mum's work colleagues coming over for lunch and a few had babies under a year. Me and my sister used to put them in their buggies and take them a walk around the streets so they could eat lunch in peace. We were 7 and 9 at the time and they were all child protection social workers. This was early 90s.

Everyone had a house phone? I was born in the mid-sixties and we didn't get a house phone until I was 18. My friend's parents had a 'party line' meaning they shared a phoneline with their next door neighbours, so if they picked up the reciver to make a call and neighbour was already chatting to someone, they could listen in. And did. That's how they found out Mr Boring was having an affair.

90s actually for rear seats

You don’t know Monty Python then, nothing to do with mocking anyone, it’s joke about who had it worse. Too young to have heard of it I assume.

Born early 70s no seatbelt. The man in the van next to us actually told my dad to put my seatbelt on, I was in the front of my dad’s VW van!

I’m 51. I have never used my parents bath water, mostly because we had a shower as well as a bath! Hand me downs were occasional, and we always had enough loo roll. Luxury!

Well I was talking about the 80s. Seat belts only became compulsory in the rear seats about 1985. We had to get special anchor points fitted for a car seat on our car but people did.

Very split on work. My parents were not violent, nor had any extreme views. It would be wrong to assume all households were like that. They were not.
Dad did his work, mum did hers. They didn’t do each others. Each work had different stresses and strains.
I was happy to do work around the house too when young. And did not feel bad in anyway for doing so. Cooking mostly. Which I was good at.

Maybe but depends what generation you are talking we never had smart phones and the net was new but Me and my friends were more the binge drinking, clubbing dance till we drop party girls of the 90s. So they would prob relete minus the internet.

It was just different 🤷,of course it was it was in the past. The world has changed so much largely due to tech and the internet, social media etc. I doubt this generation give a flying fuck as to what we were doing in the seventies,just as we didn't give a shit as to what our parents were doing in the fifties, young people are way too self obsessed to be anything else.
We only become thoughtful and reflective as we age.

Well, I think younger generations this can be true, alarmingly.
But being interested in the past was certainly usual when I was younger. And we did bother. I think our parents had been through a lot and you listened when they spoke about it.

They didn’t it was 1983 front, hard to believe, but 1991 for the rear seats!!

I was born in 75 and I remember getting a house phone - must have been about 5 - because no one else had one...

This isn’t a ‘I was poorer than you’ competition
but…..
60/early 70s I had lots of friends who had coats on the bed not blankets and went to school in plimsolls winter and summer. My best friend and her 3 sisters slept across a 3/4 bed (I was envious of this novelty)
None of us had central heating or landlines, some didn’t have lampshades on ceiling lights. Every dad and a lot of mums on our long road had full time jobs.
I had a key from 7 and (honestly) had to make the fire in winter as I’d be first in. Coal was kept outside and wood that needed chopping into sticks with a little axe. No fire lighters that was a luxury. Even I find this hard to believe but true!
I wouldn’t let my kids boil a kettle until they were in high school 🤣
The good old days???

Yes you are right but I think nearly all cars produced after 1985 had rear seat belts as they knew the rule was coming in and buyers wouldn’t want to get them retro fitted.

I recognise quite a bit from OPs list. Born in '66. Had hand-me-down clothes from friends and cousins. I remember my first bra was all cotton and very pointy..when Madonna wore a pointy bra in , what? The mid- eighties? It was very much like my first ever bra.

Think I shared a bath with my brother almost up to when we both developed sexual characteristics. It didn't strike me as embarrassing until my mum said we should stop..

When I had a sleepover with my friend, if it was cold, we went to sleep with coats over the bed to keep warm.

Yep. I’m 68. Lots of this is very familiar. Bathes weren’t shared but they were once or twice a week. Showers at uni were a revelation.

I’m 10 yrs older than you and didn’t know anyone with a shower. (as a teen). Daily baths would have been too expensive.

Oh I see, yes, and I maybe we wore them so that’s why 1991 seems so late. I do remember being 8 and my friend and I plus 2 brothers crammed in the back seats. 1982!