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.

Eating out.

Not sharing bath water - I hated having to use my sister’s grubby, not piping hot bath water. And only 2 baths a week - Sunday and Wednesday nights. Oh, and only 2 clean school shirts a week, plus no antiperspirant. I hated feeling so grubby and looking back, I must have whiffed.

Mushrooms - they must have been either pricy, or hard to get hold of, because they were a real, and very occasional treat - I will now have a whole punnet of them in an omelette, for lunch.

Drawing paper - occasionally we’d get bought a pad of drawing paper each, but once it was gone, we couldn’t do any more drawing until the next time they lashed out on more paper for us. When we had the dses, I bought them reams of cheap paper, so they always had something to draw on.

STAMPS. Even if we went on cheap caravan Holiday and bought grandparents a postcard a stamp was to expensive or wasteful. So paycatds had to be given in person. You could never do any competitions or send in tony heart gallery work because it
Needed a stamp. Seemed so restricting what was very cheap!

Tv times only at Xmas and Easter. Amazed as adult they on sale all
Year.
Writing paper- mum would write a note on a4 paper to say you had been sick. She would then fold it and rip it so it was just bigger than the few lines. Why she couldn’t have used a whole page I don’t know. Even then a4 pad wasn’t that bad for occasional notes.

This is a lovely nostalgic thread.
Mine is a fish and chip supper on a Saturday night that we had to walk a mile to collect. There was no such thing as delivery.
Fizzy drink was only allowed at birthday parties... and only 1 glass allowed because of all the E-numbers that used to mess with our brains. 🙄

Inspired do by this thread I asked my now adult son what he thought we were tight about when he was growing up.
He had an answer ready. - coco pops!

I never bought them and he said he loved being invited to sleepovers as other kids were allowed them!

I still wont buy them!

Wrapping paper. Used for family birthdays and Christmas presents, but if I went to a friend's birthday party I used to have to give them their present in the paper bag it had been bought in, much to my shame when all the other kids started teasing me about it. Mum refused to wrap friends' presents, even in paper that was saved to be used again, which we always did.

Another thing for me was cars and driving generally. Neither my Mum or Dad drove. Taxis were far too extravagant so we walked or went on the bus everywhere. Again, at friends' parties, if we were going anywhere such as swimming the highlight of the party for me was the ride in a car to and from the destination. Was a real novelty for me. My DH likes to make out his family were really poor and working class, but to me they were really rich. Not only did his Dad drive, but both his Grandads did too. So we're talking driving and owning cars way back in the 1930's. That's super posh to me!

I'd forgotten about Tizer. Tizer was a treat.

My grandmother drove and always had her own cars. I never realised this was unusual until I was an adult. Dad's family was dysfunctional but well-off - they were the first in their street to have a TV and they went on a lot of holidays. Although the lady I thought for years and years was a nanny was actually Dad's foster carer .

Kitchen bin-bags were unheard when I was a kid (late 1960s/early 1970s).

Indeed, we didn't even have a proper kitchen bin: we had an open plastic bucket which my parents lined with two or three layers of old newspaper before gradually filling it up with vegetable peelings and tired-out, twice-used teabags.

In summertime, by about the third day of the week it used to have a cloud of flies in hovering over it. Shudder.

Rubens for sure. We never had blackcurrant squash, just orange or lemon. We used to occasionally visit my Mum's friend's house and they had Rubens. When she offered it to us, we were like 'Wow!' Then she'd fill the cup about a third full with Ribena so it was super strong - even better!!!!!
Plus only ever sitting on the sofa or even being in the 'best' room at the front of the house when friend's came over for dinner or at Christmas. I still can't get my head around that. Who would save one whole room in their house to use only about 8 times a year?

Bloody autocorrect!!! Ribena, not Rubens!

Be fair, I think most families would consider a Rubens to be expensive and special :o :o :o

Fizzy drinks only ever at Christmas.

I think my children are spoilt as I don't really ban anything. That said, they hate anything fizzy and have only started to regularly drink squash in the last few months. Before that, they were happy with water/milk.

Pyong

Who would save one whole room in their house to use only about 8 times a year?

My grandparents had a "front room" which to my knowledge they never used and they lived there for 40 years! The only people who ever went in there were me, sis and cousins to play when the weather was bad and Grandma to clean it once a week!

My parents did the bag/bucket for rubbish for ages. Their excuse was they needed to keep in on the worktop to make sure the dog didn't get in there. They now have upmarket Brabantia bins.

Scented soap was always a luxury. I'd get it as a present occasionally. I still love the look and smell of Pears clear soap, even though it isn't quite the same as it used to be.

My Auntie had a second reception room that we were never allowed in. We considered her vair posh for that.

I always considered one of our neighbours posh as they had triangular sandwiches and her cheese and pineapple hedgehogs at parties.

I was also seriously impressed by my friends Mum having Sainsbury's Neapolitan ice cream and you could have beans with cheese on toast there not just one or the other!

you could have beans with cheese on toast there not just one or the other!

I didnt even know that cheesy beans on toast was a thing until my thirties!
My mum is appalled that I give it to the kids "but you dont need both!" We werent poor but she was tight when we were kids except for things she wanted, and despite spunking tens of thousands on new kitchen//bathroom/garden/ etc etc in the last 2 years, would have a coniption if someone had cheesy beans!

Frozen food. We didn't have a freezer so fish fingers were a real treat and I would have to go ot the shop to buy them.

No idea why we were without a freezer for so long, we had a dishwasher, 3 week holidays in France 2-3 times a year so not for a lack of money.

Twiglets.

One night dad woke us all and carried us downstairs, wrapped in our blankets, then out the door and into our neighbours' house. We were startled, to say the least. It appeared the chimney had caught fire and the fire brigade had been called.

We sat bleary eyed on our neighburs' couch, then spotted a bowl of twiglets still left out in a bowl on their coffee table from a party they had had earlier. The neigbours told us to help ourselves. Mrs Neighbour brought hot chocolate. What fun that night turned out to be!

Afterwards, we couldn't convince mum and dad to buy either twiglets or a coffee table to put them on.

Roast chicken
Switching a heater on
KFC

So many of these ring true. I really hadn't realised what a wastrel I am. I am so properly decadent, I should probably just go with it and prance about my fully heated house drinking tizer with the television and all lights in the house on in the nude and be done with it.

I've remembered a weird one.

We were never allowed to have tomato ketchup with eggs - there was no way we could mix the red sauce with runny yoke.
So in all our childhood we never had this combination or even tinned tomatoes with egg.

Was horrified when I met DH and watched him smother his egg and chips with ketchup, he was like and offered me a taste ... nothing bad happened to me and I've mixed the two happily for the past 30 years.
When I asked mum why we never had egg and red sauce together she simply said 'because' and has never given an answer.

Remember Mum telling me to tell my friends at Cambridge University that our caravan holidays were expensive and giving me costings to prove it to them.

Bearing in mind these other students were mainly public school boys who spent the summer holidays in expensive hotels in tropical destinations I don't know what she was thinking. I told one which was so embarrassing and kept my mouth shout after that.