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.

[GentleOtter]

Being put on a bus alone aged 8 to visit Granny who lived 120 miles away. It was good for my independence.

A whisky toddy for colds.

Getting 'leathered' with a belt for being bad.

Forbidden going to a dance unchaperoned.Aged 16. (it was our school dance)

Getting to cycle alone to go fishing 10 miles away aged 9.

Left in the car was normal. We played with the other 'abandondees'. You were given a bag of crisps and bottle of lemonade to keep you occupied.

[happywomble]

THUMBWITCH - I don't have a problem with having drunk milk fresh (unpastuerised) as a child. Although as it was a jersey cow it was very creamy.

My parents lived the good life (growing vege, having small holding with animals, Dad built the house as well) before it was fashionable. We lived in the sticks and I enjoyed it all at primary age. At secondary age I found it lonely living 2 miles from a village and 13 miles from school with slightly eccentric parents and no TV. Was rather embarassing when my father turned up in a muddy car with traces of straw inside to pick me up from my smart gals school!

So I suppose I have gone for the opposite lifestyle. Living within walking distance of town, modern house, mod cons, no pets yet... Would love to grow vege if we had a bigger garden but could not imagine keeping a cow as I saw the stresses my parents went through looking after animals bringing up children and doing professional jobs as well.

[FairyCCTaleEnding]

Love this thread. It's making me so nostalgic.

Can't help thinking my DCs wouldn't moan so much about long car journeys if they had a sleeping bag/duvet camp in the boot of the car - I used to look forward to it!

And glad to hear I wasn't the only one fobbed off with a bottle of coke and a packet of crisps while parents got absolutely LASHED in the pub. Every bloody Sunday. Even if it was tipping down with rain - we just sat in the car, bored out of our minds.

But parents didn't worry too much about us being bored, did they? So different from now, where we beat ourselves up if we haven't come up with constructive activities for our kids. Maybe we were forced to be more imaginative, and come up with our own entertainment?

[SlartyBartFast]

we listened to top 40 in the car, and studiously wrote it down

woulndt the battery go flat nowadays?

[ridingjoker]

we stayed on a farm.

we used to ride around on anything that moves. cows/calves/pigs/sheep

all was far game for a ride to see who could hang on the longest.

also used to do the bonfire and watch it to make sure it was ok from 4 yo

remember burning my sister between the eyes during this. she still has the scar to prove it.

driving high powered quad racing my sister from about 6yo. went over drainage bump and crushed my windpipe on handle bars.

driving tractors from 10yo.(this is still done these days i suppose)

[happywomble]

Oh yes and we used to play in a barn full of hay bales with no parent in sight.

[ridingjoker]

never mind playing with them. we had to unload them. roll them off lorry if the big ones. if the smaller square ones you threw them at a sibling from back of lorry.

the big ones were a bugger if they got momentum up and heading your way. easily squashed.

[ridingjoker]

putting your hand in a calves mouth(full of teeth) and allowing them to suck it while you put it in bucket of milk to train them to"drink"

[fillybuster]

Brilliant thread

For starters:

Leaving 6 year old to navigate way home across London from school every day (incl crossing the Finchley Road, taking 2 buses and walking a mile to the house) and giving them a key so they could let themselves in.

Loading 12 children into 2 cars for a birthday outing.

Proper spanking

Lying down to sleep across the back seat with my sister for long journeys

Solids from 12 weeks

Dressing us in really square clothes (I just wouldn't have the heart to do this to my dcs after suffering the consequences until I was 16!)

[fillybuster]

Oh yes, and going out (properly 'out') on holiday every night, leaving me and my sister in our hotel room!

[katz]

all of the same but the one which i will not be allowing is mixed sleepovers! 90% of my friends were male and from the age of 14 i had mixed sleep overs.

[MmeLindt]

This one is from my friend, but so fabulous.

His parents had a house built in the 70s with a gallery above the living room, where the dining table was situated. They used to jump off the gallery and land on the huge leather couch that was situated underneath.

The drop was the normal room height, so well over 6ft.

[fillybuster]

I've just remembered being allowed to head off on moped with the local village kids to the shops in the next town during a holiday in Italy.

I was 9

And my parents were the really strict ones....

[AccidentalMum]

I haven't quite managed the organic vegan diet, exclusive BFing until 9 months (no other food!), all sleeping on extra futons together, no TV .... 1981 baby.

I wouldn't let mine spend all summer playing in a stream unsupervised. It ran behind the gardens and the entire street did the same, it was so much fun .

We also drank unpasterised milk .... I would do this.

[GentleOtter]

Anyone else get their mouth washed out with soap for saying 'pig'?

[notcitrus]

My parents always left me in the bookshop from age 2 1/2 while they did all the errands in the high street. They'd come back a couple hours later and buy me a book. Much better than being dragged round the bank and all.

Bottle until age 3 or so, but with brewers yeast and wheatgerm and stuff to 'build me up' from the time they took me home (2 months prem, 7 weeks in incubator).

Going to my 8th birthday party with my dozen friends, all of us in the back of the estate car. One posh friend's little brother had a car seat and we all laughed at him...

[Frasersmum123]

I got my mouth washed out with soap for saying 'bitch' when I was 9.

[ridingjoker]

i scratched my sister and my names into the drawers of an antique chest of drawers after an arguement over who's drawer was who.

i got a skelp on arse(naked arse), with a metal fish slice for every letter i did.

[happywomble]

notcitrus - aah you've reminded me we used to be left in the library reading Enid blyton books whilst mum shopped.

[AnnVan]

Leaving me and DB in the car to sleep while they were in bible study. Always hated that
Smacking with a stick/wooden spoon/coat hanger
there's more...

[troutpout]

Served me up the previous nights dinner for breakfast.
Leave us at home/in the car/anywhere while they went out for the day.
3 people in front seats (one sat with one leg either side of the gear stick) 4 in back
Smoked like chimney in the car with the windows closed (didn't want to get cold)
forced my brother to chain smoke half a pack of cigarettes because they caught him smoking oh and then 'because he thought he was a man now' made him drink a glass of whiskey too
Never let us in the house to play ...we used to be shouting through the letterbox ' mum!let us in' and she would be shouting back 'go away and play'
Used to go across the road to her friends at night for a gossip (my dad had died by then)..i used to wake up and go downstairs and she would be nowhere to be found!

[GetOrfMoiLand]

My gran raised me - she is a loon.

She used to go out to darts, skittles and bridge every week. Left at home alone watching Minder and The Young Ones from the age of 5.

She used to steal ducks from the local park to keep as pets (she kept them in the sitting room whilst they were ducklings). She also thieved plants from the park as well to put in her hanging baskets. She used to steal these in the dead of night and take me along as her accomplice.

Fly tipping at the dead of night as well. I remember carrying a double mattress with her and dumping it in the local allottment.

Chain smoking around me.

Let me drink vodka and tonic of an evening from the age of 12.

We travelled all over the world and she took enormous risks. Such as walking through the slums of Nairobi in search of cheap booze and fags (apparently 25p for a packet of African fags in the tourist shops was 'daylight robbery'. In 1986 fgs)

Very casual, throwaway albeit incredibly wicked and pernicious racism. She genuinely thought that black athletes ran so fast because they were used to running away from wildebeest etc. Didn't accept that Carl Lewis was American. Called black people jungle bunnies.

She was barely literate so I filled in all her job appications, benefit forms, credit card application and all correspondence from about 10 years old.

She made me write all her Christmas cards and she sent hundreds. I still don't ever send christmas cards to this day.

[auntyitaly]

My brother and I were on hol in Milan, and we went for lunch. We ordered politely, read the paper to each other, ate nicely and used napkins. Only at the (vast) dessert stage did it become odd to us my parents weren't there. We were 8 and 5. They had spent the first week of the hol alone, and had forgotten us the day after we arrived.

[Rhubarb]

Shag each other.

[lalalonglegs]

Hitting us with belts/clogs/slippers and, on one memorable occasion, an ironing board.