Things your parents led you to think were 'special' or 'expensive' that you now take for granted?

[VladmirsPoutine]

for the po-faced

Growing up my siblings and I were wary over using too much kitchen roll - we'd get a sheet and fold it in half to tear before using, the faff was a PITA but to this day I still get a bit territorial over my kitchen roll.

We also had 'special' China plates, cups, cutlery, that sort of thing. Only used when we had guests or at Christmas - I didn't carry that into adulthood but whenever I visit my DM I still fondly look at the unit containing all those 'special' cups

My dad died when I was relatively young but prior to this death he used to always take us (siblings&I) to our weekend clubs when we were young, on Saturdays one of my sisters and I attended clubs that finished at similar times and it was always Saturdays that mum worked nights so the 4 us: dad+siblings would always get McDs and think it was basically gourmet dining.

I didn't have a deprived childhood by any definition but I do find those quirks quite funny looking back.

I still get a thrill from being to eat a whole bar now!

PissedOffNeighbour I think it's really quite interesting to see how certain things still stick with us into adulthood. My sisters and I have a bit of an in-joke with each other about feeling 'flush' whenever one of us uses a whole sheet of kitchen paper despite us eating out quite frequently at places a few rungs higher than McDs.

Yeah my mum did that too seagreen

Oh yes real nuts and satsumas only at Xmas!

And my parents wouldnt have dreamt of buying us a stocking a Xmas we used one of my dad's old black socks I still remember the thrill of finding it full.

When I was little the poorest children were very thin (from not eating enough). Now the poorest children are very overweight (from eating processed food).

Food prices are definitely cheaper than they were - bags of frozen oven chips for a quid and a tin of beans for 50p, for example.

We never went near a motorway service station for anything but a wee throughout my whole childhood.

My dses think I'm weird because I still get excited about visiting service stations and getting lunch. I like to visit new ones and revisit old favourites. I can almost hear my parents disapproval as I'm tucking in to my shite food

Takeaways were rare, fish and chips or Chinese. The children would only get a supersized spring roll and sweet and sour sauce, nothing else. I didn't have a takeaway curry until I left home!

Our holidays were always in my parents caravan, the only hotel we stayed in was when I was 19 and we went to a funeral.

My life as an adult is much more frivolous and fun.

felt tip pens - oh yes.

no-one had them unless they were properly posh

We never got pens bought for us my dad worked for a big national service so if we needed pens;tippex, pencils ,rubbers etc we would phone him up at work and e would come home with them ....

My mother was a strict plastic sandwich/freezer bag reuser and I still agonise over throwing away the (very robust actually) plastic sandwich bags we get in huge boxes and a variety of sizes from Ikea.

I still reuse wrapping paper sometimes, if it's particularly nice. I don't tend to have gift bags, tbh, but if I end up with one I definitely reuse it.

Germans mainly use little plastic resealable packs of 10 tissues. They're very convenient but I still consider them indulgent and wasteful. I've noticed fairly recently that you can get the Brit-type boxes too.

I love a service station we went in one on the A1m recently i think it had been there since 1950s was surreal.

People mentioning Magnums - is it only me who finds them just too big? (I don't have a particularly small appetite either, tbh). The mini ones are the right size for me, but they don't tend to do them in the interesting flavours

I think 'adult food' and inferior 'children's food' was a thing. Anyone remember that chocolate mousse ad (can't remember the brand) in the 80s where the selling point was basically that it was 'too good for children' - a line actually used in the ad? I'm guessing the point was a conscious branding as 'adult' of a food that might have been thought of as kids' food. I'm very, very glad that food has become more (so to speak) democratic.

Vienetta! It seemed so sophisticated and was a rare treat . I bought one not long ago in the coop for £1 (more than enough for whole family) was probably better leaving it to nostalgia!

I got a Vienetta recently for my kids and told them about what a huge treat it was for me when I was little. My 5 year old poked it with a spoon and said "Why?" I had no answer, to be honest!
My parents used to by plastic sleeves of little pots of frozen mousse. I can't remember what they were called, but they always seemed to be raspberry ripple flavour. We thought they were a real treat, I'd pay to avoid eating one now!

Thanks Brasty for writing all that information out - really interesting to read.

Veinetta never had it as a child "too dear" I bought one when I had a visitor to my own house and forgot to put it back in the freezer.
Got up the next morning to a strange lump on the worktop. It seemed to have conjealed during the night it certainly didn't melt like ice cream.

Photos were expensive Before getting digital camera a 24 film was about £4.00 and processing about £6.00. That's about 40p a photo.

No problem. I quite enjoyed looking for the info

Any mention of the immersion heater was met with outrage. Cold baths a plenty round ours...

muller corner yogurts

Ready meals - we didn’t have a microwave though, so they had to go in the oven and took longer than cooking a meal did

Colour television - we finally got one when I was 10, in 1988...

VHS - Mum finally caved well after I went to uni, and about 10 minutes before DVD become the norm.

*I read recently about The Divide. When I, now 53, was a kid; If Dad Was Happy The Whole Family Was Happy.

It morphed into If The Kids Are Happy, The Family Are Happy...*
This is so true. I often wonder if I'll ever get a turn!

Orange juice

Brand new bikes (we never ever had one)

Going abroad/flying

Smoked salmon

Eating out (commonplace for my DC - treat of the year for me when I was their age!)

Vidal Sassoon shampoo and conditioner

Andrex

We didn't have a colour TV until 1993.

I finally got a TV capable of getting teletext, just as they were switching off the service.

Haven’t RTFT as want not to be influenced so sorry if these have been mentioned.

Hot water: was always strictly rationed and you had to sneak up and turn on the immersion which was against the rules “ we’ll have a bill a mile long!” Otherwise washing your hair involved kettles and jugs.

Wine: nobody drank wine at home. Serious drinkers drank spirits.

All sorts of food stuffs were unheard of, extravagant or exotic: avocados, mangoes, pineapples (unless tinned). Olive oil cane in tiny bottles from Boots the chemist for use in ears. You couldn’t buy it in the supermarket.

Pasta was in a tin, first saw spaghetti in about 1974.

Heating was a huge extravagance - you had to shovel the coal into the Rayburn and hope the heat rose upstairs (it didn’t).

Electricity in general, one light bulb on at a time. For much of the 70s electricity was on a rota anyway (in the whole country) so you’d end up eating Sunday lunch at 11am.

Showers in houses: they were a rarity until late in the 20th century.

Sharing a Milky Way with my sister as a treat on a Sunday night. One cut and the other would choose.

Baths once a week only. And then only enough water to reach ankles.

One piece of fruit as a treat on Fridays and Saturdays. Making an orange last an hour, segment by segment.

Thursdays was the day we were allowed a bag of crisps.

Weirdly though, taxis were ok to use whenever needed.

Oh God yes my mum cutting a single Mars Bar up, for five kids. Very thin slices.