Utterly insane things your parents did when you were growing up

[GetOrf]

My gran thought that liquid paraffin applied to my skin as achild would stop me from burning (in the tropics). God knows why she thought that. I stank! And was wary of lit cigarettes. Needless to say it didn't work and I fried.

She bought a 6 foot long chest freezer from a shop which was going bust, and put it in the hallway. Our house looked like Iceland (Kerry Katona, not volcano) when you walked in. She bought half a cow from a local farmer to put in the deep freeze. We could have had fillet steak, but no, she kept that for best (?) and we ate the offal. Never did eat that fillet steak, it was probably still in the freezer when she died.

Would refuse to pay the council to remove old ovens or whatever, so would wait until the dead of night, we would dress up like burglars and would fly tip the oven (by hoiking it over a 6 foot wall into allotments, or shioving it down a rough path and pushing it into the sea over the harbour wall). Ilfracombe residents of the 80s - that oven on the beach in August was mine.

Same happened with hanging baskets - she would refuse to buy Busy Lizzies or lobelias or whatever to make her hanging baskets, so we would sneak into municipal parks at dead of night and nick 'em.

What eccentric or frankly insane things did your parents or guardians do?

LeQueen - are you the sister I never knew I had?

We had hosepipes up and down the stairs........

It had started with flicking water.

I can't compete with most of these, but my dad did a great line in splinter removal. He was in the carpet trade and used to have those giant needles they use for sewing carpet together. (You can see where this is going, right?) Whenever I was unlucky enough to get a splinter, he would sterilise the needle is a lighter flame, hold me down and stab me with it until he got the splinter out. How I don't have a fear of needles I have no idea.

Mine did the usual thing in the 70s of just traveling with me as a baby in the moses basket, just resting across the back seat, no seat belts at all.
I remember then them turning a wooden stool upside down and attaching it to the carseats with a rope and sitting me in it, with my legs going through the stool legholes. Some toddler carseat that was!!
My mother only ever bought me boys shoes in grey as "they lasted better". Hence now I will let my children choose any goddamn shoe they like in the shops, even hiddeous pink sparkly lelli kellies. I indulge them as the scars of my childhood run deep....
Oh. My. God. They once bought me authentic wooden and metal CLOGS (also in grey) which I wore to school everyday for a year, including the class christmas party with my party dress.
My father decided rather than pay-out for central heating or double glazing, he'd nail plastic sheeting over all the windows on the inside. We couldn't look out for five months that winter.

Oh lordoftheflies it was exactly the same vacuum situation in our house, with Saturday tv. And, we weren't allowed to complain, or put our feet on the chairs. We had to hover our legs in the air whilst she took ages ramming the upright noisy green hoover back and forth.

And, god forbid she sucked up a single piece of lego and it rattled around the brushes, there was hell to pay and she was in a foul mood for the rest of the day.

My gran believed in the healing properties of melted snow (only snow that fell in March, mind). She would call it March-snow-water. Every March she would go out and collect piles and piles of newly fallen snow, let it melt, and bottle it. Then when any of us GCs (or anybody else) had some graze, cut or burn, out would come the March-snow-water. She usually had enough to last the year. She must have gathered huge amounts of snow...

My parents made their own wine - proper wine, from grapes. All the equipment would be set up in the bathroom. Well, in the bath to be precise. This meant we only ever had showers at those times.

Despite it being a traditional Swiss dish (I grew up in Switzerland, Dad is Swiss) we never had Rösti or at least not when my Dad was there. Reason being that he had served 4 months in prison where they had Rösti 13x/week. And his 'job' was to peel the potatoes.

Yes, the reason why he was in prison is a bit insane too. He had been away and had therefore missed his appointment to present himself to military (military duty being mandatory for men in Switzerland). He was arrested at the border on returning. He didn't really mean to refuse military service but the way he was treated when waiting for his trial made him so angry, he decided to rebel. So he staged a huge drama at his trial. Well, it didn't make the judge consider his case mildly...

My dad drove 8 of us to flamingo land in his cortina and hid the 4 kids in the boot so he didnt have to pay for us. I can remember the car stopping and being bundled in the boot

when we had a loose tooth, our dad would tie a bit of string around it, attach the other end to a door handle, then slam the door.

Gruezi Meita!

am in fits laughing at some of these.
my granny curled my hair with a hot poker, she put brandy in our bottles and rubbed on our gums, insisted children needed sugar in our blood and would give us sugar sandwiches and tea with 4 or 5teaspoons of sugar. Gramps would let me smoke his pipe and pick what horse I wanted to bet on. mum and dad left me in the back of the car sleeping, with the car parked beside the window of the pub they were in. They also brought us to folk festivals long before it became trendy to do so. Dad tells the story of me going missing (age 5) and they found me back stage chatting to Joan Baez and her mum. I was allowed to go camping with my friends at 13 with nothing more than a tent, sleeping bag and £10.

Meita - my mum used to use string too. I used to think it was quite normal until I mentioned it to my MIL a few years ago and she was totally shocked. I think she thought my mum was some kind of child abuser!!

Pah! I used string on the DDs teeth. Well strong cotton anyway... I'm not supposed to have confessed to that am I?

We used to visit the seaside quite often - not resorts but bleak places like Dunwich and Southwold. We even went in winter and we would have to wear our waterproofs in the sea incase it rained.

The Op has reminded me I once had a huge chest freezer in my bedroom.
We lived in a 4 bed house, and my (much) elder siblings had moved out, so why the hell I chose to sleep in that room is .

My mother used to and still makes pancakes with melted snow, because she thinks they taste better.

She also used to keep pound notes/cheques in her shoe so she didn't have to carry a bag.

I was allowed to eat "asorbic acid"...it was quite a thrill when used as ice cream topping. It was something to do with wine making.....we had what seemed like hundreds of demijohns containing home made with sloe gin, which nobody ever drank.

Is Southwold bleak? My mother tells me it's fabulous.

ALl these stories are wonderful and very endearing and make me long for the simpler life of childhood ...

In our house, Mum's Sunday treat was to watch Songs of Praise(!) in peace and quiet. So during this half hour, my dad would entertain me and sister with wildly exciting games including 'Hide the Rawlplug' and 'Hunt the Thimble'. Thing was, my dad being the hilarious dad he is, these half hours used to be the highlight of the weekend

Mum and Dad also used to hire a sunbed a couple of weeks before our summer holiday to 'get our skin ready'. This was the early 80's, and my sister and I were regularly sent to the sunbed for 10mins at a time so we wouldn't burn in Spain the following week ...

Another belter was my dad warming up ice cream on the hob so it didn't give my sister an ice cream headache. He also used to put ice cubes in the bath if he thought it was too hot ...

We had a fab childhood though, and if I can give my DC even a hint of what I had, I'll be doing ruddy marvellously :)

This is one of many. It was 1976 and I had just got a skateboard. So I learned some basic 1976 tricks and was pretty pleased with myself.

My competitive father came in from work and decided he must learn these tricks too. Without pausing to take off his flared suit and kipper tie he launched himself into a 360 tailspin. After a few brave attempts he fell, quite spectacularly, through a glazed door panel, destroying his jacket and lacerating his lower arm, leaving a gaping wound about 8 inches long.

While everyone ran around panicking he decided he'd like something to eat before he went to have it stitched. He asked my mother to make him some cream of toamto soup which he sat and ate while he rested his injured arm on a large serving dish in a pool of blood.

Then off to the doctor, who was a friend, to have it stitched. The dotor couldn't find his glasses, so after he had stitched a bit he went off to the car to get his wife's spare reading glasses and carried on. My father now has a hideous lumpy scar, but a good story about how he got it.

My mum used to buy old knitwear at charity shops, then reuse the wool to knit my jumpers (including school ones) and my socks!

She believed in giving me practical presents, so used to give me cough sweets, tissues and tampons for Christmas. One year my sister did really well and received a school blazer!

She bought me jeans too big, so I'd grow into them, they'd have 2 inch turnups.

She didn't drive and so had a tricycle with 2 seats on the back, that my sister and I had to sit on- up to the age of about 10! We were in the local paper- mortifying.

Well I dont think its that bleak, but when all your friends are going to Yarmouth or Clacton it can be a bit depressing as there isnt alot to do.

Plus any seaside town would be bordering on bleak in mid Feb.

My mum used to cut our hair. With huge fringes, combed down from the crown (seriously) so my fringe was half my hair. Then she would moan there was not enough hair to make decent pigtails. Because half my hair was a fringe!

Also used to do the cotton thread round tooth and tied to the door thing. And the digging out a splinter with a needle sterlised over the gas hob.

Used to give me a shot of whiskey todd for a cold from the age of about 12

One of the best things my mum ever did was insist onme playing the chocolate game with her (where you have to throw a 6 on a dice, and then dress up and eat a bar of wrapped up chocolate with a knife and fork). We used to do it every time my dad was away over night.

TV was obviously rubbish in those days.

My parents would regularly both get ready to go out, then both spend half an hour sitting in the car/another room waiting for the other one to finish getting ready.

My mum went through a phase of buying maternity clothes from mother care. Not because she was pregnant, but because she was fat allover. That was embarrassing.

The stool as a car seat!!

Actually, that could have happened in my family tbh