Silly things your mother did (lighthearted)

[RaraRachael]

Trying to lighten my current mood and started to think about things my mother did - and insisted that I do - as they were "the done thing" back in the day.

Turning the clothes inside out to put on the washing line in case a bird shat on them
Lining every shelf in your kitchen unit with patterned greaseproof paper
Stuffing the chicken and then sewing it up with a needle and thread

Suffice to say, I stopped these ridiculous traditions when i realised there was no valid purpose to them

I dread to think what my son will be writing in a few years time...

Slightly different, as not cleaning (I am third generation complete slattern) but knitting.

I remember as a toddler going to the woolshop with them, and they would ponder over a pattern from Women's Weekly and then pick a different yarn. It will knit up fine in aran they'd say - and it would. Looking back, they couldn't afford the expensive yarns. But it was almost a challenge. If it was knitted in a cheap yarn, they'd find a different one, and probably fiddle with the sleeve length or cuffs while they were at it.

It also spilled over a little to cookery. We can just use mince for that bit, and I've some mushrooms that need using so that can go in and I'm not wasting cream on a midweek meal, so I'll use top of milk I can't imagine ever using cream in cooking at all now.

I suspect that they just hated being told what to do.

My mum has summer and winter curtains and each have a matching rug so she swaps everything on the appointed days. Seems like such a faff and a pain to store the others when not used.
I rinse and re-use plastic food bags (it's the guilt of so much plastic in the ocean). I also re-use plastic tubs from icecream, butter, take-away etc.
I also use the kids old socks as dusters, they seem to go through them so quickly and they are perfect size to slip over your hand and dust in tiny corners and on top of doors. Funnily enough, my mum thought this was mad but also ingenious.

What else happened? Did you put on the dress? Tell us!!

Most of these sound really sensible to me. My gran was a Geordie and we were her Bairns.

She used to collect the hair from her brushes for the birds to make nests ( she had beautiful hair).

*myusernamewastakenbyme

My mum was obsessed with airing washing too....she would go nuts if i took something off the line and put it on without it going into the airing cupboard for about 3 years firstgrin*
We had a metal box with a lid - about 4 foot high with wooden slats inside. It was called a Flatley dryer.

Yes to the most bland salads ever, I grew up thinking I hated salad but really it was just the ham, egg, lettuce & cucumber combo I hated!

An absolute slave to the ironing, every weekend evening, piles and piles!

No toys or books downstairs at all

Yes to the cupboard full of folded up carrier bags but I think she was ahead of her time on that one.

One from my DGP was no driving if there was any hint of a breeze/heavy rain, far to dangerous

@RaraRachael that made me lol with the worm!

I got the can't sit on a a toilet seat or you'll catch crabs.

Oooo I forgot dont eat sugar (from a spoon) or you’ll get worms

We're going to move this thread over to Classics now, so that all these fabulously silly things can be kept for posterity.

My mother was and still is aghast that I don't wear a petticoat under my skirt. She was troubled that someone might 'see through' the skirt or that it would stick to my tights. On pointing out that I often didn't wear tights either, she'd fling her hands up as if I was a lost cause.

She still makes me go out the same door as I entered because it's bad luck otherwise.

Will make a great play of looking at the time (she is obsessed by time) and declaring that it's nearly dinner time but she's not hungry. This is calamitous because to eat dinner outwith this set time would undoubtedly bring on armageddon. To just eat when you are hungry is a concept lost on her.

And it was always referred to as dinner because she always made two courses, except on the day we had fish when it would be referred to as tea and would just be the one course. On this day the table would be set with teacups and saucers, bread and butter and a milk jug. If we referred to this as dinner she would take umbrage and insist it was tea.

When I visit she always asks me if I'm hungry and ready for lunch even though I usually visit early and have just had breakfast.

I could write a book. She's 92 though so I smile and nod, bless 'er

Thank you LouMumsnet

Little did I think that my wee thread would go this far!

Airing cupboards. I'm surprised my children have made it to adulthood given the dire warnings I was given in our lack thereof.
Also piles. I am lucky to have escaped them from all that sitting on cold concrete I did.
And as for how my lungs have survived from not spitting up phlegm when coughing... well... I'm a medical miracle. I still want to shout 'but you can swallow phlegm because it goes down a different pipe!!!' But I restrain myself.

Just remembered, not my Mum but my Gran ( who was a terrible snob). When we were at hers we were not allowed to watch Magpie, it had to be Blue Peter.
One, because it was on that ITV, and ITV was common. Two because the presenter looked like a hippy, not like those naice ones on Blue Peter.
When I was older she thought it was just awful that Janet Ellis was pregnant on the TV, and her not being married and all. The fact that I was sat next to her pregnant and not married was different apparently as I wasn't on the television.

Yay - it's in Classics.
I proposed it to them RaraRachael as it's such a great thread. Thank you.

My mum use to spit on her hankerchief and wipe my mouth with it

Also make sure
You got clean knickers on
You might get run over

You're welcome . I wanted something to chat about in a fun way and not to degenerate into a judgey slanging match which thankfully it hasn't so far

My mother loved an affectation and had delusions of grandeur. She used to take me to classical music concerts when I was about 7. I've never been so bored in all my life but she could say to her friends, "Racheal loves classical music. She asked if I would take her to the blah blah string quarter last week" and I'd just stand there thinking what a pack of lies.

I'll never forget one occasion when she let herself down. We were in a shop and she asked for a sachet of something but pronounced it to rhyme with hatchet. The shopkeeper said it back to her correctly - her face was a picture and my sister and I were pissing ourselves laughing at her fall from grace. Needless to say she boycotted the shop after that

@InchesAway

DM repeatedly told (indoctrinated) me it was ‘common’ to allow your bra straps to show so I was always careful with what I wore. Until one day when I wanted to wear a dress with narrow shoulder straps for work (it was very hot) - so I put a bra on, then dress, then sewed the bra to the dress fabric so that it couldn’t move and be seen. Great, it worked perfectly - until I came to take the dress off and forgot I’d sewn my bra to it. I didn’t do that again (and I never wore the lovely dress again). Sad really because throughout my life I’ve never been able to shake off that voice telling me that some clothes/way of wearing them are ‘common’ or ‘fast’ and it really limited the choices I made.

My mother sewed on a little strip of ribbon and a popper the other end onto the inside of dress straps, so she could pop the dress on, the ribbon went under the bra strap and fastened with the popper, meaning never a bra strap on show. So dress straps had to be an inch wide or more.

My mother would hurriedly chop and fry an onion each evening as she heard my dad’s car pull up so that it smelled like dinner was cooking as he came in the door. Whatever went with that onion ranged from thrown together to a complete disaster . Beef mince cooked in cream of tomato soup with lumpy mash was a memorable one

@Equimum

My mum was another who had a ridiculous laundry routine that involved ironing everything (apart from socks and bras), then putting it all in the airing cupboard for two days, before putting it away in drawers!

She always cleans hard to reach places, like behind the washing machine, before going away. Apparently this is because if anything happened to her, she would not want people to think she was dirty!

Haha I do the cleaning thing too in case anyone has to go in or we get burgled whilst we are away. I spend two weeks deep cleaning every inch of the house, rearrange cupboards etc before we go on holiday.

Love this thread OP!! Mum had a twin tub washing machine clearly remember the high pitched screams when she discovered a mouse had decided to join the blanket she'd put in for a wash. Getting sent to the shop for cotton wool aka dr whites sanitary towels note for shop keeper who would then put in brown bag lol

My auntie had a twin tub top loader and on a Sunday I remember sitting on the countertop and using the big wooden stick to stir the tub. The smell and steam was amazing. I loved it.

I also remember going to my aunties with my mom and dad and we would have ham hock lentil soup with big chunks of potato and turnip in it. It was delicious. We could not afford to make a roast for that many people- but the soup was endless with big slabs of bread and butter.

Atalune you've made me all misty eyed remembering the twin tub and me stirring it with mam. Her lentil and ham hock soup was also legendary- there was always a pot of soup on the go when we all came in from school in the autumn/ winter. Such great memories .

I can’t think of many that she actually follows but she certainly spouts stuff, one she does say and tends to follow is not to cross on the stairs, put new shoes on the table and we have a bloody great box of bibles somewhere that were my nans which we can’t throw away apparently soo am already prepared that one day they will be mine and then future burden of my unsuspecting daughter!

My stepmother used to arrange our toys on the windowsill, facing outwards for the neighbours to see; the curtains had the pattern facing out towards the street rather than in towards the room. We also had a 'summer' and 'winter' arrangement of sofa and chairs, no central heating just a gas fire so that made sense, unlike the toys/curtain thing!