Thing your parents did / didnt do when you were a kid that they wouldnt admit to now?

[Loriycs]

my sister got wacked with mums slipper,she remembers it, i remember it but strangely mum doesnt!!

[saltire]

I was left outside a shop once. mum got allt eh way home and dad asked "where's the baby?".
Another time she had me sitting under a clothes pulley, and she let go of the rope and it fell on me - luckily my head went through the bars on it and it rested on ym shoulders .
used to keep ym hair very short, to teh point I looked like a boy. Now though, when I mentioned that DN needed ahair cut she said "oh no, long hair is lovely on little girls"

[ChoChoSan]

My brother and I were often left outside the bookies in the car with the engine running, whilst dad popped in to place a bet. With the instruction not to let anyone give us a parking ticket! WTF! Were we supposed to drive the car off if a warden came along?

Mum used to throw her wooden clogs at us if we were getting on her nerves, which she does admit to now, but insists she always aimed to miss us.

She also used to grab us by the hair at the sides of our head and shake us backwards and forwards saying 'Oh Dammit!'. I have just almost literally pissed myself laughing remembering that one, and I think when I have a little one that's what I will suggest doing when it's naughty - I'm sure my mum would call the Social Services!

We were latch key kids from a really young age...leading to us trying to put a telly fire out with a pan of water, having the neighbour come round to let us know the toaster was on fire. Cover the kitchen counter in molten plastic when we put the toffeee that we had just made (unupervised) in an old plastic ice cream container to cool.

My bro recalls that one day Mum and Dad popped round to the shops to find us standing in the windows frames of the open upstairs bedroom window, completely naked, on their return! I don't recall this though, and I was never one to go naked, but my bro says this was verified by dad.

...but it never did us any harm!

[Mikafan]

another one has just come back to me - being sent to our GP to collect my mums valium repeat prescription . Not sure how old I was but definately under 9.

[Milkysallgone]

This thread is very funny but in places.

My Dad sat me down to watch 'The Excorcist' alone when I was definitely no older than 8 (and I didn't ask to watch it}. Swears blind this isn't true.

Mom used to have daily naps on the sofa leaving me (6) to watch younger baby sister. I once snuk out and crossed our road, and another time left a toy pram in front of the fire and it burned a teddy bear.

Was sent to the shops frequently to purchase cigarettes . She smoked at least 30 a day in my asthmatic presence.

Spent many many hours rolling around in the back of my Dad's van on long journeys.

I'd better stop here, the list is possibly endless!

[ghosty]

Ha, I remember asking the man at the local garage for my mum's Rothman's Kingsize at the ripe old age of 5

At 8 I knew how to pour a Scotch just the way my dad liked and just how my mum liked it. On a recent visit to my parents we were talking about this and I made the mistake of telling them that DH and I have a much healthier lifestyle than our parents had at the same age. Mum absolutely denied it but then went quiet when I reminded her that she used to have 2 scotches when cooking dinner, another with Dad when he got home, one or two bottles of wine with dinner between them followed by 2 or 3 scotches AFTER dinner .... every night of the week!
They were permanently pissed but not drunk IYSWIM?
No wonder they are now (aged 70) being kept together by the NHS with bits of loo roll and sticky backed plastic
The other thing they can't remember is force feeding me when I didn't like my food .

[TheCrackFox]

Going on holiday to Wales and mum and dad going to the pub everyday for hours whilst me, bro and sis played outside. They totally deny this one - but all 3 of us remember this.

Being served liver for breakfast because we didn't eat it for dinner. Still didn't eat it for breakfast either.

Only having a bath once a week - we must have stank! On the odd occassion I don't bath the boys after dinner mum makes me feel awful.

[Loriycs]

Yes hifi . That one has always stayed with me too!!!

[hifi]

ooh, tales of the unexpected. i still think trees and flowers scream silently if you cut them.

[Mikafan]

when I was 7 i started sleeepwalking - badly, would even go down several flights of stairs, out the front door, along the road to the zebra crossing and crossed the road (safety consious even when asleep :0 ). I had to go to the Paddington Green Childrens Hospital and I distinctly remember him telling my mum it was stress induced and that they should take me away on holiday (had a week in Margate) but my parents deny he said that. The stress was caused by my dads alcoholism and him coming home drunk every night and causing an argument and then throwing furniture around including out the window

[random]

Sent us to the corner shop to get fags but with a little red book to get them on tick

Cut my waist length blond hair really short because I had nits

Always left us outside shops in our prams and once got all the way home before she realised that she had left my sister outside a shop

Always put vineger in the water when she rinsed our hair ..the smell of it always takes me back to sunday night hairwash night

Hit my brothers with a stick when they were fighting

[margoandjerry]

Mish sounds up there with splodge

It really was disgusting - had disintegrated bits of chicken bone in it!

The other thing my mother did was send us to school with salad in soap boxes instead of tupperware because tupperware was too expensive. I honestly can still hardly type that without flushing with shame! This story makes my friends sob with laughter. I have now outed myself as anyone who knows us knows we were the family who took our lunch in soap boxes

[Litchick]

Margoandjerry - am still weeping at 'splodge'.
During the miners strike my Dad invented corned beef bolognaise which we lovingly called 'mish'.

[Litchick]

Oh Lord too many to mention.
-Being sent to the shops at 5 for ciggies
-Being looked after by my Dad when he was pissed as a fart
-Being told to stop moaning about third degree sunburn
-Being sent to France with a man they knew nothing about because he was a teacher and I'd never been abroad.

[Loriycs]

Ive never thought of him as evil. But i have worked with Africans who do speak of him as a terrorist. As i said I cant comment personally as i dont have the knowledge to.

My dad used to think it was fun to let our grayhopund chase peoples cats,another one erased from memory.

[AuntyJ]

Hammer House, The Omen, Tales of the Unexpected. I must have been under 10 as I shared room with my brother & I was so scared that when we went to bed I hoped to go to sleep first so I wouldnt be alone!

[margoandjerry]

sent us to the corner shop for fags

went out to watch the Royal fireworks during the silver jubilee leaving all three under 10s at home alone

regular smacks

fed us simply foul food including one concotion we called splodge (pressure cooked chicken "bits" with white sauce and tinned sweetcorn)

send me to my ice skating lesson when I had a broken arm (claims she didn't know it was broken!)

None of it did me any harm whatsoever

[Loriycs]

i dont know the ins and outs of south africa's political history so i cant comment personally, but i know alot would agree with your mum.But best leave that to another thread eh, its too heavy for this one!

[ImnotOK]

My mum was putting up a curtain pole (one of the bendy ones) and I was been a little bugger hitting my sister anyway she rapped me over the hand with it and my knuckle bled .

She swears blind she didn't though.

[Loriycs]

Apparantely my DH was left out in all weathers in his pram, even the snow, all on his own, MIL still cant understand why didnt do this with mine!!

[Janus]

I don't know why but we all laugh at what my parents did when we were young ...
My Mum gave up smoking both times when pregnant and 'only got drunk on a Saturday night'!!
My Mum and Dad went to the pub when I was 6 weeks old and left me on the back seat of the car in my carrycot!
My Mum and Dad went to the pub every Saturday night with us and we used to be in the car with a packet of crips and coke until we found a beer garden, although my brother and I think we can remember peering in at them from the garden when it was snowing!!
I'm actually laughing at this now but you would be horrified if you heard it today!

[notcitrus]

My parents admit their foibles in a "it was different then way" - although my mum still doesn't see why a baby in a high chair shouldn't be given a collection of drawing pins, paper clips, pins etc to sort out - she claims they'd have to be 'really stupid' to put them in their mouth!

My mum did come up with bizarre explanations for things though, which she now denies - I asked why audiences on game shows got so excited going 'WHOO!' about crappy prizes, and she said it's because lots of naked women run around the set beforehand to get all the men excited. And when my dad went to a train toilet and didn't return for half an hour, she said it was because the Israelis had probably ambushed him and stolen all his clothes. I had nightmares about that for ages!

(in fact, the train stopped at Reading for 20 min and my dad was obediently not flushing while in the station. I have no idea why Israelis might have been on the train...)

[theexmrsfederer]

My mum used to stand by when my father belittled me as a child/teenager and knocked me down emotionally. Then make excuses the next day.

Or have a half-hearted "discussion" with him how badly he was behaving. Then carry on as normal.

Fucking toxic behaviour.

Sorry if this thread was meant to be lighthearted

[Loriycs]

We didnt even have car seats as kids!