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.

Vienetta, Ribena, Kellogg’s variety packs and drinking orange and lemonade on a night out.

Loving this thread as once again , as someone born in the mid 60s it’s just proving that my parents were apparently unusual . We were not particularly well off especially when I was small but my parents never rationed stuff , the house was always warm , baths were freely available , nice loo roll , fizzy drinks . The only thing we never did was foreign holidays and that was because mum wouldn’t fly (77 and still hasn’t) and dad wouldn’t cross the channel !

The only thing I can think of is internet usage. My parents refused to get broadband/wifi until long after it was the norm in most homes, because they said it would give us brain cancer, and I was restricted to an hour of time on the computer per day. I used to go on a sort of fiction writing forum where you wrote scenarios as your character based on Tamora pierce's books about female knights. It was just pages of text, but with dial up internet it would take up to ten minutes to load a page so most of my hour time limit was trying to find where I could post and what had developed since I'd last been on. Gave up on it in the end because it was just impossible to keep up, which was a shame as it was quite a positive use of time as it was essentially collaborative creative writing. Also if anyone called the home phone I would be booted off.

The bleeping and clicking of the dial up connecting is burned into my memory! Now DP and I have super fast fibre optic wifi and it is amazing.

Def eating out - it was a massive treat maybe 3 times a year. I can still remember the excitement of potato wedges with garlic mayo, which was unknown in our house. Takeaway (fish and chips or chinese only) maybe twice a year.
I didn't stay in a hotel till I was 18 (or go on a holiday that wasn't guide camp), or take a taxi till I was at uni.
Equally my first flight was 18, second at 25. At 27 I got a new job and suddenly plunged into a world of being a frequent flyer - so hotels, flights, taxis and eating out are an integral part of my life which dad finds it hard to get his head around.
Buying clothes (even socks) was a big thing when I was a child. You couldn't buy them in the supermarket, our town didn't have a clothes shop, so it required a massive journey of 20 miles (it seemed a massive deal back then to drive that far) twice a year to The City where you were bought what was necessary

Milk. I used to drink milk as a proper drink in a glass in Derry because my mum would hit the roof otherwise. I remember her bolting up the stairs once after me because I’d got a glass full in secret and she knocked it out my hand. I didn’t really see the point in that, it got wasted anyway and she had to clean the walls and carpets!

The weird thing was we were ‘well off’ middle class family and could more than afford milk, but for some reason Mum hated it being wasted

Things we never had growing up:

• inside toilet
• bath or shower (no bathroom)
• heating
• fruit
• squash type drinks
• dessert
• Tupperware (school lunch in paper bag)
• days out
• fashionable clothes.

In spite of this, I had a fabulous childhood!

Plastic sandwich bags, had to be washed and used over and over again.

Clingfilm, very precious stuff and treated with reverence.

Never, ever eating out and sitting in motorway service stations with bacon sandwiches watching everyone else cockily going inside. DM still goes a deadly shade of pale if lunch out is mentioned though will spend thousands on home, cars and garden!

Orange juice. Never had it as a drink but Mum used to make a recipe which called for it but used to get some weird frozen concentrated stuff in a tube.

Tinned fruit. Not allowed actual fruit juice but it was a massive treat to be given the juice from a tin of mandarins.

Toast. Regarded as a treat for Sunday’s only.

Showers. Never allowed them as they were wasteful. Bath had about an inch of water in. When I was old enough to run my own, Mum would walk in and tell me off for the amount of water I had in it.

Smoked salmon. Brought home by dad in his annual Work Christmas hamper so only had on Christmas Eve every year. It goes in my trolley once a week!

Eating out and souvenir shops.

Fizzy pop and any kind of treat.

New toys and books.

Needless to say I went the complete opposite way in parenting

Yes to phone calls before 6pm - but in those days it was much more expensive to phone during the day.

Nodding along to a lot of this!
I remember my mum being very scathing at the idea of a prepackaged sandwich. Oh the decadence!
She used to tell me off an awful lot for not eating much of my packed lunch at school. Probably because my mum really was a terrible sandwich maker and by lunch time everything smelt of warm banana.
Weak squash.
Fizzy pop only for holidays. It was always a value brand.
New clothes. Most of mine were 2nd or 3rd hand. Trousers with white rings around the ankles as they'd been turned up and then let down.
Hand knitted school jumpers. This was the real kicker. Everything else I could just about cope with, but this was the pits. Everyone else in the whole school could somehow afford proper uniform, but I had to stand out like a sore thumb with my handmade jumper.
Add it all together, I might as well have been walking round with a neon sign over my head reading "BULLY ME PLEASE".

Just realising I still do alot of this. We have one box of cereal at a time and my children have school shoes and trainers for home. We still haven't put the heat on. Takeaways are birthdays only.

From my childhood I remember not going out until after lunch so we didn't have to get food out. Anything bar an ice lolly or a chocice from the freezer was for adults. Never had coke or any fizzy drink. Squash was barely detectable the amount we were aloud. All my clothes where cheap rip off versions of my friends adidas/kappa from the market.

My Dm and stepdad are quite well off and so treat themselves with meals out, holidays etc but the other day I suggested they get a taxi somewhere are they looked at me like I was insane!!!
I explained it wouid probably cost no more than £5 and she was very surprised.
I don't use taxis much as we have 2 cars and don't drink really but I'm still pleasantly surprised when the driver tells me the fare

A couple of years ago I saw a Viennetta in the supermarket (Germany, so still more random). It was purchased in great excitement and duly hyped to my bemused kids. They've SHRUNK

Jeans Levi’s and wranglers were a total waste of money when you could get them in Tescowear. However my mum would spend lots on best clothes. The first thing I bought with my own money was a pair of Levi’s.
She also cut up mars bars to share. Choc ices were a treat. Only use the phone after 6 pm. If the phone rang earlier you worried because it must be an emergency. Orange juice extremely rare. We drank milk for breakfast till old enough for tea.
We also always had to start our tea with bread and butter!! Loathed bread and butter!

My parents reckoned you should only use one sheet of loo roll for a wee and two for a number two. Fuck that for a game of soldiers.
This, although we were allowed three sheets. My dad used to describe it as "one for wiping, two for polishing".

My mother is 89 and becoming increasingly confused. She recently came to live with us. I've noticed that she hides what she considers treats - chocolate biscuits, sweets, cakes and eats them when we are not in
She can have anything she wishes or desires, but continues to do this. I think it is a throw back to her years of austerity.

As full fledged grown ups DH and I are finding it difficult to come to terms with lights being switched off if we momentarily leave a room - similar with the TV .... oh and the sharp intake in breath through clinched teeth, if we stand for more than a second looking into the fridge or freezer with the door open 'wasting electricity' apparently

Luxury item, Christmas Day only.........Heinz cream of tomato soup

Wrapping paper, mum always told us to be careful with the big bits and not to rip them so we could reuse them
And I got a kinder egg about twice a year it was a massive treat
I work in a shop now and see kids who get a kinder egg every day!

All I remember from my childhood was that we had central heating in the house, but it was never used as it was broken. Instead we had to put an electric heater in our room, and have that until it was warm, it was then switched off, we were given a hot water bottle. I moved out as an adult and had central heating in my new house.

Clothes from a shop was a luxury, we got our clothes from jumble sales. As soon as I was earning my own money I bought myself stuff from shops.

Both my dps worked. Where was this money going? Back to their home country. It wasn’t just money it was parcels

Oh my god...yes to most of these 😂

Hot water on demand.

Cafes. (Never ever went to them.)

Angel Delight. (Instant whip all the way, sadly.)

Findus Crispy Pancakes. How I longed to try one, but never did. And now I am old and can buy one for myself, I don't want to!

Most of our clothes were hand me downs from our well off cousins
Going to mothercare or Adams to choose something new was a treat maybe once a year

Reading these I wonder what our children will say in years to come. I’m a low earner, single parent and my ds’s favourite food is fajitas which is fairly costly. He asks for them by saying ‘can you afford the stuff for fajitas this week?’
I can’t wait to tell him we have fajitas tonight!

The thing I coveted most, above all things, and never got - a KP Choc Dip! A close second, Kinder Eggs! We drank Coke like water and had a drawer full of "treats" but Mum would never ever buy those two items - complete waste of money, apparently .

Also heating - we didn't have it, just a stove in the living room. I still prefer a cold house now, and I'm the one who kvetches about the heating when DP puts it on.

Meat from the shops - we ate our own pork and goat and occasionally chicken, never bought any. Apart from the odd burger at birthday parties, I never had beef until I went on a French exchange aged 12. I feel totally decadent buying steak now (but I do!)