Were these aspects of my childhood 'normal'?

[dootdoot]

I'll start by saying that I have an excellent relationship with my parents now. I love them very much, we're very close and I don't hold any of these things from my childhood against them but there's certain aspects of it that, as I get older, I don't think are normal. Also, my parents weren't flush with cash when I was a child but we had a 4 bedroom detached home and went on at least one foreign holiday a year, usually a U.K. based holiday as well.

Firstly, hygiene. My mum constantly told me off for using too much shampoo/conditioner. I remember this from early primary school and if she felt I'd used too much too quickly she wouldn't buy more until she next felt like it. I also wasn't allowed face wash once I started getting bad skin because it was too expensive. I was never taught to wash my face at night, never chased up about teeth brushing etc.

When I first started to wear bras my mum only bought me one because she felt that was all I needed and bras were expensive. I wore that bra 7 days a week, to school, to PE, to sports (no sports bras either) and it rarely got washed because I had to wear it.

I was expected to make my own packed lunch from about 8 onwards. I wasn't allowed to get school dinners because they were too expensive. If I didn't make it I didn't eat lunch which happened often.

I don't know how normal these things are or if I'm building them up in my head because i see other parents on here discuss the way they treat their children and it's very different? There are other examples of similar things but I don't want to overload this post. Basically I feel my mum was sometimes really tight about basic things that I don't feel should've been places to scrimp

Wow, @lalafafa, how did you feel when you saw the bank statements? That sounds tough.

I was a child of the 60s and experienced a lot of this. My children born in 80s had clean clothes bathtime and packed lunch every day.
They are now parents and all these rituals apply. I think it was a generation thing. It also seems that daughters were not taught as they should have been. Thank god basic instinct and love took over.

Possibly the making of your own sandwiches at eight is strange. Definitely only having one bra-these are as essential as knickers so you always need at least three, even when young. It might be a generational thing. My own mother used to get v upset with me for washing my hair all the time and refused to buy me conditioner as she thinks it is like putting grease on the hair! It was also considered a deep crime to put clothes in the wash after one wear, had three school shirts rather than five-used to get v annoyed by this, deodorant was not as good as it is now in the early ninety s. I was not neglected, or unclean, she just comes from a generation in which washing clothes and hair all the time was difficult and was to be avoided.

Yes I think this was a lot of the problems as they knew no better. All our clothes were washed by hand once a week no washing machine then either. By the time my kids came along we could wash clothes anytime.
Hot water on tap too
Am so glad to see my grandchildren treated the same way. Must have got something right.

@Crimeismymiddlename

Yes that’s the sort of thing my DM thought. She didn’t believe in deodorant either, which made me feel very self-conscious at school about being smelly.

She would never have allowed our teeth to be neglected, though, and we didn’t lack bras or sanitary pads.

Soap and water was your friend. They could not be doing with shampoo deodorant or conditioner.
Thankfully we have moved on. Brushing teeth was not considered either

I'm with @Robin233... Some of this stuff sounds positively dickensian. Maybe that's where the cliche of brits having bad teeth come from. My parents and I were basically refugees are they were skint when I was a baby but they ALWAYS made sure I was clean, I had good shoes, nutritious and plentiful food. The silver lining of this thread seems to be that at least the people commenting have in turn made conscious choices to be better parents to their own children.

"It was also considered a deep crime to put clothes in the wash after one wear,"

I agree tbh (except for underwear). Very wasteful and shouldn't be necessary if you wash and use anti-perspirant. We will have to go back to less frequent washing for the sake of the environment at some point.

"Maybe that's where the cliche of brits having bad teeth come from. "

No, that's in comparison with the US where cosmetic dentistry is more normal. Teeth in other European countries are more like ours.