What our parents did that wouldn't be seen now

J52 mine was called a mummy's car too!

I got the bus to school and back on my own at 8-9 I would get the key from next-door neighbour and let myself in when I got back. I'll never forget the day a car hit me on a zebra crossing whilst I was going to catch the bus. A policeman came to the house next day. I agreed that there had been a parked car obscuring the drivers view. There hadn't, but I thought I would be in trouble.
I didn't know anyone with a car until my half sister met the guy that later became her husband. I was about 12 then. My best friend and I would walk the mile to the beach on our own and spend the day swimming. We were 11-12 at the time.
I used to strap DD carry cot on the back seat using the seat belt. The thought horrifies me now. I had a 'proper' rear facing car seat by the time DS was born.

I used to go to school alone on the bus when I was six. Mum used to put me on it, 10 minute journey, then I'd walk to school at the other end. She was pregnant with my brother and had horrendous morning sickness so she used to throw up on the bus if she came with me. Interestingly I worked at the same school as a teacher and I know any Year 1 child coming to school on their own like that would have had social services involvement very quickly. but in the 1950s it just seemed normal.

I tried, as much as possible, to give my children the same kind of carefree, happy childhood that I had enjoyed. I did walk them to school as there were so many more cars around than when I used to walk to and from school and drivers manners also seemed to diminish with regard to pedestrians.

My GC are very lucky that they are able to enjoy exactly the same here.

Aged 14, my parent put me on the train in Lausanne to go and visit relatives in Milan... Mum asked a lady who 'looked quite nice' to keep an eye on me- about 5 hours on train and uncle picked me up in Milan...

As a teenager I hitch-hiked all over the place...

There were certainly no seatbelts in the back of our car in 1985 - I remember because we were involved in a motorway accident. DD1 and DS were OK thankfully, slid onto the floor, one minor injury, and DD2 slept through it all in her car seat.

We always travelled long distance overnight when the kids were little. By the time they began to bicker, we would make up a bed for the oldest on the back seat, anf for the youngest in the well between the seats- and they happily slept all the way whilst we took it in turn to drive through the night- by the time they woke up it was breakfast time, and we wer almost wherever we were going (usually my parents in Switzerland) (1970s)

Goodness, granjura, you've just reminded me about hitch-hiking - we used to do it a lot in the late 60s, early 70s - that's how my friend and I got to the Isle of Wight festival from Manchester!

I even hitched on my own occasionally, and only once had a 'hand on the knee' from one driver - how naive were we? I'd have been horrified at the thought of my DC doing it

Which year? I was at the Isle of Wight 1970- the last big one (hitch-hiked of course... not easy where there are 1000s all along the road back to London trying to do the same- got 1 lift all the way back to Roehampton )

I think it was the 1970 one - Jimi Hendrix in a pink jacket?

We were camping on the hill, but had to move down to the main encampment when it got too crowded, and my lovely hand-made (by me!) leather coat was stolen...the DJ who was playing all day and night was so fed up with the level of theft that he gave up in disgust!

Yep Jimi in a pink jacket- his last gig.

No tent for me- just a sleeping bag right in the middle about 20m back from the stage - perfect spot. Good job it didn't rain! no money either ;)

Those were the days, eh? Our tent was a two-man one - in the end about 12 were trying to sleep in it!

I was born in 1944 and so spent the greater part of my childhood in the 1950s.
Both my parents and most of the adults I knew the smoked in the house. I have a strong memory of my chain smoking grandmother cradling my newly born sister in one arm, while she puffed away on a cigarette held in her other hand. My sister is 56 now and healthy.
I was the oldest of five children and my mother often left me alone in the house to mind the others while she popped to the local shops.
In the summer school holidays we were sent out of the house in dry weather and only came back for meals, but were warned about not to speak to strangers.
We all, as babies slept outside in a pram and were also left in a pram outside shops.
My mother put a drop of whiskey in our last bottle feed of the day so we would sleep all night. We were weaned from about three months on rusks in milk, then mashed potato in gravy.My mother swore she had me potty trained just after my first birthday and I can remember her holding my younger siblings on a tiny potty from a few weeks old ''to catch what came''.
I was never a latch key child but my DH was. He started school at age 5 his mother got a job, and put the key round his neck on a bit of string so he could let himself into the house as his elder sister got home from school later.

I always put my DC in the garden to nap while they still fitted in the pram. We had a small willow tree and you could see them watching the leaves moving. In 2010, I suggested same to DD who was living with us at the time. She was dubious, but as DGS1 was a terrible sleeper, she was willing to try anything and it worked like a charm. Later when she took him back to Barbados, he used to go on the balcony in his pram with two fans trained on him. Worked there too! Hurrah for old style mothering Her friends were horrified though!

In the early/mid fifties, living in the back of nowhere in a small community in Scotland, I remember my mother sending off and receiving each week, freshly laundered sheets and towels as we did not have a washing machine.

Once a week we had a grocer come with horse and cart and my mother used to pick up the droppings from the horse for our garden.

I was a latch key kid from a very early age but my dad worked locally so came home when I did in early winter to light the gas mantle and also the coal fire. The dog and I were left until my parents finished work. My mother was a nurse so she worked shifts. None of that would happen now.

My mum was the opposite to me and my DiLs. A stay-at-home-mum, she cycled out for afternoon tea with friends, baked lovely cakes, even when rationing was in force, made all our clothes, apart from coats and blazers and, having, before her marriage, trained as a hairdresser, always cut our hair. She never learnt to drive. And she smoked - not heavily - until she was in her 50s when, after a bad dose of flu, she went right off it.

My mum was a modern woman before her time- she went to study in London and Hastings and then Munich, in the early 30s- always was the main breadwinner and drove a long time before my dad. She commuted to the main town, about 30 miles in all weathers, up and over the moutain in heavy snow and ice, etc, in her 2CV- leaving at 7am and returning about 18.30. So we got our own breakfast and got ourselves to school- and had lunch with dad at home- and then were latch-key kids- did our homework and then went out to play with friends in the woods or the park. Other kids thought we were so lucky- and all piled into our house when teenagers as we could have rock music on loud and talk about anything with mum.

Many friends have told me recently how much they admired her- as she was so different from their stay at home mums- and also was so vivacious and always so elegant in an understated classy way.

We were put out at the bottom of the garden in our prams in all weathers- even heavy frost- and slept like babes. I did the same with mine in the UK- but in good weather only- and attached Christmas baubbles and toys in the branches of the tree above- neighbours thought I was nuts- but they slept so well and obviously thrived on it.

Granjura you brought back memories. Isle of Wight festival with Bob Dylan 1969?
Hitched with My then boyfriend, now husband! My mother never knew I'd been there. She thought I was holidaying with school friends in Hampshire! X

I walked to school on my own from the age of five, there were three busy main roads to cross. From the age of seven I used to cross two main roads to reach a bus stop where I would travel into town and visit the cinema for Saturday morning shows.
My sister was born, at home, when I was ten and I did the shopping, washing and cooking. My father didn't take any time off work and he felt confident that I would manage the day to day things like carrying the kettle of boiled water upstairs to the midwife.
During the school holidays we spent all of the daylight hours outside, we went to the park which was nearby but again across a busy road. When we got bored with the park we went to play in the quarry which was about 500 yards from our house.
At fifteen I organised a walking holiday with four friends and we hitch hiked around the Yorkshire Dales staying in Youth hostels. I am amazed that my parents did not raise any objections.
My young life was probably pretty much the same as my parents, quite a lot of freedom the only difference being 1950s instead of the 1910s.
My DC had a little freedom but I always liked to know where they were, GC go nowhere because I won't let them out of my sight

Mine always went outside for a sleep in their prams except in rainy or foggy weather.

J52, no I came to London to work Easter 1970- so my first and only festival was Summer 70. Bob Dylan was there too of course, Joan Baez, Leonard Cohen- as well as all the rockers of the day. For me, a teenager from a small Swiss mountain village- it was sooo exciting.

When I hitchhiked back to London, having not eaten properly, or washed or slept much for 4 days- the couple who'd given me a lift all the way to Roehampton dropped me at a pub from where I rang future OH. He was working, but managed to get someone to cover so he could come and pick me up. By the time he arrived, I was asleep with my head on the pub table- he parked his sports car with open top in the car-park near that table, got out in his white coat, stethoscope round his neck- picked me up and put me in the car- whilst everyone there starred - they must have thought I was an escapee from a mental asylum or drug addict!!! He dropped me back to my digs, I had a shower then slept until 12 the next day... when I was supposed to be at work. My boss was very worried as he knew where I was- but was lovely when I turned up the next day and explained- bless him.

Let me tell you a story about my childhood. I think it will make your hair curl. When I was 9 (1940) my mother regularly sent me from Harpenden,where we were evacuated, to Tooting in London on my own to buy chicken meal and black-market food. The Blitz was still going on. It was - shall I say - a bit hairy.

Wow. That was incredibly selfish of her.

I thought I was being cautious and responsible when I wheeled my baby's pram into the back garden, catnet on, in the shade of the pear tree, for an hour's nap. My daughters and their friends would never dream of putting their babies out in the garden for a sleep, but I still don't understand why. Not that they have roomy prams to put them in!

....should have added. This is what our parents did with us.