Things your parents did that you wouldnt dream of?

[Frasersmum123]

Is there anything that your parents did when you were younger that you wouldnt do?

Our used to leave us in the car while they went shopping, for what seemed like hours, but in reality was probably about half an hour.

There was 4 of us and we all used to squeeze into the back of my dads car, which had three seats.

A "fun" holiday activity was collecting shellfish from a scottish beach boiling them then eating them with a pin, they looked like snot but we loved them.
I also remember lack of toilet paper being an everpresent problem and having to use ripped up newspaper. Worse still being asked by a teacher(can't blame the parents for this one) what I was going to do in the toilet and being handed 1 sheet if I said pee and 3 sheets (big wows) if the answer was the other!

Leaving us in the care of an alcoholic who drove us to school playing a harmonica and using his elbows to steer while we hung out of the sun roof singing.
Allowing my great uncle to give me wine to shut me up at six months old.
Feeding me farex at two months to make me sleep throught the night ("on the advice of the dr" ).

Going to the local newsagent with a note from my dad to buy his cigarettes, from about the age of 7

Being allowed to steer the car (in a deserted car park) at about 9 years old.

My brother and I would get the slipper if we were really naughty.

Sitting in the beer garden with my brother for hours whilst my parents and grandparents were inside the pub.

Drinking advocat (snow balls) at christmas and new year from about 10 years old.

Having a lock on the OUTSIDE of my bedroom door when I was toddling, so that I couldn't 'fall down the stairs'

Being left with anyone and everyone on the weekend so that my parents could go out on the lash.

Oh yeah-the lock on the door-had forgotten about that-mum used to lock me in if I was naughty, I used to cry until I fell asleep (this is up to me being about 10 btw!) and then she would forget I was there and go out, forgetting to undo the lock!

Left in car pretending to drive for ages. Left alone in house aged 2 - with baby brother sleeping - while mum retraced her steps round the shops to find her purse - several times. Mum pretended to be dead when she was cross - before reviving and storming out to buy cigarettes leaving us alone (3 and 5). I was often sent into the kitchen alone for making my brother laugh during meal times. I would continue laughing maniacally to show I could not be beaten! Eating loads of raw dough. Mum used to put brandy in my brother's bottle for his bedtime drink. She gave me iced coffee with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for my summer bedtime drink.

WE used to be locked in the car whilst my Mum went shopping, less traumatic than us being a pain in the shop apparently! Also used to put us to sleep in sleeping bags on the back seat of the car when they went to parties - we thought that was great

SS would come knocking these days!

Forgotten about the travelling in the boot thing too! we used to all cram in the car with two adults in the front, 3 on the back seat with children on their knees and two kids in the boot.

brilliant stories on this thread...

all mine are mainly storied from when I was very small and lived on a farm in upstate New York...

my parents put me on a cow while in the barn.. all well and good you say until the cow slipped free of the rope and went on a rampage around the barn while I clung on for dear life until I flew through the air to fall into the rubber feed tub...I was 4 I think.

then there was the time my mother gave me a stick to combat the billy goat with while she milked the nanny goat...so there is me in my strawberry dress with wild hair facing down this enormous billy goat who was rearing up on his hindlegs at me, and my mother gives me a stick?

my parents used to laugh at the gander who hated me...he would wait for me to step off the school bus pig tails swinging and then chase me across the yard nipping at my legs until I got through the front door... my parents found this hilarious thier only daughter being terrified by a christmas dinner...

leaving their twin sons (my brothers) in the cabin on a 24 hour ferry, while the rest of us went to eat. They were later found on the laps of an elderly couple in one of the lounges!

Being parked in my pram outside Boots while Mum was shopping inside - along with all the other babies. Doesn't bear thinking about these days!! Poking a needle into a teat to get more milk out of the bottle.

Saturday morning fry-ups - egg, bacon, sausages... cooked in lard!

Aged about 9 months I was given my dummy and a pot of hunny to dip it in. Then I was sat between my elderly, bed ridden great grans legs and left to eat the lot :O
Mum still goes on about the mess!...like it was my fault :D

Chips for every meal!

Sent strawberry picking for my lunch !

My dad used to drive me & my best friend to school squished into the front seat of his 2 seater!

My mum tells the story of leaving my brothers in the car while she popped into the shop (small village mind you) and telling them NOT to leave the car. While she was gone my brother needed a wee so he wound down the window.......

We're on a military base in Cyprus and regularly take DS to dos in the mess & leave him upstairs in someones room with the monitor on the bar . He also spends many hours sleeping in other people's houses while we have fun downstairs!!

By the way, you think the no car seat thing is a 70s & 80s thing but the amount of Cypriot kids not strapped into their cars out here is just crazy!

My parents used to leave me at home when they went to night class... they put me in the bedroom with a saucer of bicuits and a glass of milk and told me not to go downstairs because the house was "dangerous" without adults!( age 5-6)
Age 8 we moved to near the beach and myself and a friend with equally irresponsible parents used to spend the whole day swimming and climbing over the barnacle encrusted rocks ( no skin left on our legs!). We were told to be back when the streetlights went on!
( I feel a bit sorry for my kids... those were great, endless days...)

baths in about 2 inches of water! (why? no water meters in them days). used to wee in the bath and then drink bathwater... oh happy days.

forced to EAT EVERYTHING UP OR NO PUDDING. I still clean the plate even when full.

Pudding every night!

Born 1980

I remember going in the car with my Dad to pick up a load of old wood for the wood fire. I rode in the front footwell as everywhere else was full of wood!

Used to go out and play all day until it started to get dark when I was about 9ish. Parents no clue where I was.

Used to watch lots of horror films at sleepovers aged about 12/13. Wasn't that bothered at the time, but I hate horrors now!

When about 14 a group of us go the train to western super mare for the day (from Swindon). We did have some boys from the year above with us! lol. Guess that made it ok!

Just before my 16th birthday I went on holiday alone with my 16 year old bf.

I think our kids will miss out on a lot, and I will endeavour to allow them some freedom if possible!

Brilliant memories:

Making a 'nest' with duvets in the back seat with my sister so we could sleep flat on the way to France.

Not so good memories:

Waking up around 2 yrs old on new years eve and wanting a drink. Going into parents bedroom to find it empty. Woke older sister (4) in a panic and we set off to find them (we got out of the house? ). Found wandering streets by neighbour at 1am and taken back home to find parents in a panic, phoning police, having returned from a NYE party down the street. Bastards. I still have issues over that.

Asking mum & dad to "wind the window down again" in the car as they both smoked 20 a day.

Mum leathering me on backs of legs and, in one particularly fine moment, grinding her stiletto heel onto the top of my foot in a restaurant to make me shut up.

Oh the joy of it.

I have had counselling and come to the conclusion that I was actually physically & mentally abused as a child . At 36 I am still scared of my mum, so just avoid her.

My biggest worry with my DD (6 months) is that I will be like my mum in any way. Enjoying the thread though.

I was allowed to drink coffee from age 8.

I remember lots of smoking. My dad would send me to the shop to buy fags for him. '40 John Player Specials please'. It still rolls off the tongue.

Being left alone for quite long periods of time from quite a young age - from when I was 10ish I reckon. Although it never felt like we were being neglected.

As a baby they would also leave me in the back of the car in my carry cot when they went to the pub (they would occasionally pop out to check I was ok).

So basically our generation all got left in cars by ourselves a lot

Being taken to the saturday morning matinee shows (cost 50p) at the local cinema and left for a couple of hours with 200 other kids while my mum did her shopping in town.
Being left home alone with brother (8) and sister (5) when parents went out to work in the evenings.
Unlimited telly just as well programmes started at 10.00am and finished at midnight then otherwise we'd have never switched it off.
Going off exploring for hours on end and our parents never knowing where we'd gone. They always thought as long as we're with other kids we'd be ok.
4 kids in the back seat of a car.
Though my parents were very concientious about other things such as making sure we could all swim.
We went to the dentists regularly
Never given fizzy drinks
being told not to go to near the telly because it'll ruin your eyesight

I should state that my sisters and I have a pact to NEVER be like our mother. We warn each other if we show any "mum-like" behaviour. So this thread could be a major therapy session for me..

Sample of the hated behaviours:

• dressing us in second hand clothes when we weren't actually poor, and spending the money on things that made her look good to whoever it was she was trying to impress
• every Saturday night, putting curlers in our wet hair and making us SLEEP IN THEM just so that she could march us off to church on Sunday morning with matching blond curls
• taking the day off work when I was sick supposedly so she could take me to the doctor... then leaving me in the car for ages while she went shopping (and being surprised that I was crying in pain when she got back)

Imoscarsmum (hi btw!) my DH thinks I should get counselling. Both of my sisters have, but I got off lightly compared to them - they both suffered from her prudish denial attitude to teenage sex (which had predicatable consequences ). I moved to the other side of the world partly to get away from the memories of the frankly neglectful mothering.

Sorry if this is a bit of a down posting. There was great stuff too: we had freedom, ponies, open fields to play in... I like those memories better!

Ahh, the seventies...

Four of us ( my brother and me, and two kids whose parents were friends with mine) left in the car outside a pub all evening with occasional crisps and coke to keep us quiet. Once a woman walking by ( it wasn't in a car park!) heard the youngest one crying and marched us all into the pub, shouting 'Whose children are these?' You could have heard a pin drop - I still remember the other kids' mum turning round from the dart board open-mouthed. About 1976 I think.

Sleeping under duvets in the back of a pick-up truck all the way down to Brighton on the A23. That was quite fun but makes me shudder to think about what might have happened.

Walking 2 miles to school and back across fields on our own from ages 5 and 7. Mercifully flashed at only the once...

Regularly having to walk several miles home across the same fields in the dark when I was a teenager ( mid 1980s) because there was no public transport, no money for cabs, neither parent would give me a lift and anyway they elected not to have a telephone. Still have issues with that one - doesn't exactly make you feel valued!

Both parents' prodigious smoking - eg driving all the way to Wales in 1980 in a Ford Escort with 3 kids in the back, including my 2 year old brother standing up between the seats, and the air thick with Golden Virginia.

Oh so many memories! How about my dm smacking me so hard she left hand-shaped marks, which were my fault as I had "sensitive skin", or whacking me with a bamboo cane (once for standing up on a bus! shock horror! when even a nun on the bus pleading with her not to hit me didn't stop my very catholic dm from belting me). Or, throwing away any of my stuff she didn't like, even when I was a teenager. I used to have to hide my favorite jeans as rips would mysteriously appear in them when I didn't...... Or never having fresh fruit or veg, especially bananas as they were "indigestible". Or making us eat handfuls of salt when it was hot "to replace what we had sweated out" ( I was a grosly overweight and bullied child - I wonder why?) Telling my horror stories about my birth when I was pregnant for the 1st time then yelling me she never wanted to look after my child. Do I sound bitter? I wonder why

Posting my carry cot through the window of the car and onto the back seat, cos the door was broken. D'you know, until now I had never thought to ask if I was in the carry cot at the time! Feeding me Carnation evaporated milk (on doc's advice) as a formula milk.

Riding in the back of Dad's estate car, two kids and a dog. (We loved that!)

Riding around in the back of Dad's LandRover (it had a cab and a pick-up back). Riding in a wooden box that was screwed to the flat bed of his 'Whitby Warrior' pick-up. This was great fun as the box had a hinged lid, which you could shut on yourself and pretend you'd fallen off. Should add that these two were while we lived on a Pacific island and such behaviour was perfectly normal.

Leaving us at home with the baby monitor, while they went next door to the High Commissioner's house to watch 'The 39 Steps'. As we ended up round there watching the film, that can't have been too succesful!

Leaving us to be babysat by the housegirl (apologies for sounding so colonial, but it was a long time ago!), her sister and her bil. Between them they spoke little and no English. Housegirl would plait my hair beautifully and her sis would sit us on her lap and cuddle us. She had truly enormous norks, which I remember with great fondness. Must ask db if he remembers those experiences!

We were allowed to play on the beach unsupervised (I was 9-10) as long as we didn't go out of our depth and returned by 6 pm. Once I didn't and was in huge trouble. I protested that my watch had long since rusted and broken, but mum was un-moved, counter-arguing that it got dark at 6pm every night of the year. Good point!

Sending me on a 45 min ferry journey on my own, across the lagoon, to go to a friend's 9th birthday party, where we saw 'Jaws'. Imagine my trepidation at the return journey! In the event there were no sharks, but a drunken man poured lager on me. Luckily for me, a neighbour's house girl spotted me, berated the bloke, and I spent the rest of the journey on her lap.

I think a lot of our freedoms were due to where we lived at the time, but am still slightly that we were allowed to play on our own on the ocean side of the island. Then again, maybe we weren't and we just did it anyway!