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Genealogy/memories

What our parents did that wouldn't be seen now

(162 Posts)
Glammy Sat 19-Jul-14 09:00:41

I just picked up a thread on Mumsnet about being left in the pub garden with pop and crisps, and driving without seat belts, parents smoking in the house ect. I was astonished as this sounded like 1950s or 60s childhood not 70 s or 80s. My children were born late 70s and were walked to school, no smoking in the house, car seats as toddlers and seat belts after. Must admit babies were in a carrycot with straps over! What were the big differences from your childhood to the childhood of your children.

MiceElf Tue 19-Aug-14 19:46:54

What a bizarre post from Rosesarered. I've just read the last five threads in politics and totally failed to find any 'whining' or 'socialist posturing'.

Perhaps I'm just a little slow on the uptake, but I'd really welcome some enlightenment on this one.

Eloethan Tue 19-Aug-14 19:02:49

rosesarered I don't know what "whining" or "socialist posturing" you are referring to, but I think the tone of your post is unnecessarily combative.

Are you saying that those who have comfortable lives should not bother themselves about those who do not?

TriciaF Tue 19-Aug-14 17:49:47

Rosesarered - very true.
I was a 1930s baby, and during WW2, when the Dads were away and Mums working we did as we liked, had a wonderful time, adventures, trespassed etc.
I tried to bring up my children with the same taste for adventure, and they carry this on, to a lesser extent, with their own children. There are more insidious and destructive influences around now.
On a completely different aspect - dental care.
Many people in my youth couldn't afford dental care. Had all their teeth removed and were fitted with false teeth at an early age.

rosesarered Tue 19-Aug-14 17:17:39

I'll tell you one thing our parents didn't do back then [as opposed to what they did do] and that's whine on endlessly about their terrible lives, eating beans on toast every day and warming their hands over a candle. That's how all the socialist posturing over on the politics thread is starting to sound.I really wonder how many Gnetters live awful lives themselves. Not many.
Our parents leaving us alone as children, as opposed to all the mollycoddling done now, perhaps made better people, capable of independent thought and action.There are far too many grown up babies around now, wanting Mum and Dad to live their lives for them.

feetlebaum Tue 19-Aug-14 09:16:17

Curry powder - the words remind me how I hated 'curry' - until I tasted curries made properly! Curried eggs... (shudder)...

MrsPickle Tue 05-Aug-14 19:37:19

Dripping with butter, Galen, and home made strawberry jam.
Suddenly , I'm 55 years younger....
And I must try that curry.

Galen Tue 05-Aug-14 19:31:27

Still do the piklets, which I make, and toast with a toasting fork

Galen Tue 05-Aug-14 19:30:15

It's Sharwoods curry poder. Still available

MargaretX Tue 05-Aug-14 19:27:37

Mrs Pickle I know that curry. I still do it and like it. When my girls were small they used to call it Green Dinner. You chop and fry about 3 large cooking apples with 2 onions. Then you sprinkle as much curry as you like over this and later add fine minced beef and a handful of raisins. Put it in the oven to heat through and leave it for a couple of hours just warm.
Serve with rice.
Its not the most advanced curry but I learnt it at a cookery course in the 60s.

Lovely pikelets and the long toasting fork!

MrsPickle Tue 05-Aug-14 19:16:52

Not saying that this wouldn't be done now, but may be rare
My parents

I. Ate tripe and onions once a week
2. Went out foraging and we dined royally on jugged hare, rabbit and pheasant
3. Made curry using either a blue or pink tinned curry powder, with apples and dried fruit (still can't replicate it)
4. Didn't own a fridge
5. Toasted pikelets in front of an open fire
6. Had a car with a running board.

Happy days.

sparkygran Tue 05-Aug-14 19:05:24

My memories of childhood in the fifties and if I`m honest probably before as I`m a 40s baby was me trying to sneak out the back door and hare off to the farm next door for a treacherous day on the farm climbing into haylofts and running amok among pigs and cows (falling into that little trench in the byres which was full of cow clap!) and just as I was closing the door carefully my mother`s voice shouting at me to take my little brother with me. Argggggggggggggggggg. Little did she know when we kids met up on the farm we told the little ones we were going to play cops & robbers or cowboys and indians and they had to close their eyes and count to 100 before trying to find us and of course you all know I`m sure they never did! Does that make me a bad sister - probably.

dorsetpennt Wed 23-Jul-14 19:56:53

I went to 19 schools but have no memory of my mother taking me to any of them. She must have taken us there for the first day but after that we were on our own. I went to school in Hong Kong and what a journey that was. We lived on the mountain next to the Peak on HK Island, but the Forces school St. George was at the back of Kowloon on the mainland. A car would pick me up, or my father would drive me, to the Star Ferry. Over HK Harbour to Kowloon to catch a bus to our school. Actually it was a wonderful way to go to school. We got to know every liner, battleship and freight ship that came and went. A rather exotic train spotter.
We lived all over the world and had so much freedom compared to today's children. There weren't less paedophiles then just that nowadays they are more mobile and have more access to nasty material.
I went to the cinema on my own from an early age, went around to friends' houses to see if they could come out to play. When we lived in Ealing a group of us used to catch the 65 bus to Richmond. We'd literally spend the whole day in the park. Mum would give me a packet of sandwiches and a shilling for fares and a drink. I feel sorry for today's children. What with the increase in traffic and their parents' fears, they are prisoners of their own home.

rosequartz Tue 22-Jul-14 17:19:16

They wore corsets!

Thinking about that in this hot weather makes me feel faint!

granjura Tue 22-Jul-14 16:58:41

Not the case with me- but for many of my friends. Get a clout or two if coming home complaining that the teacher had punished them or been 'picking on them'!

Tegan Tue 22-Jul-14 12:07:07

I was embarrassed buying sanitary stuff almost up to the time when I didn't need it any more; and yet I was ok if I was buying it for someone else [as if the shop assistant knew who it was for confused].

feetlebaum Tue 22-Jul-14 11:49:07

I remember my mother being astonished to learn that I had no qualms about picking up a pack of Tampax for my fiancée/wife when shopping. (1960s)

KatyK Tue 22-Jul-14 10:57:36

My mum was from an Irish Catholic family. The thought of talking about sex or periods was a no no. When I started my periods she handed me a towel and said 'you need this'. That was it! When I was married and pregnant she could hardly look at me. I would say to her 'when the baby's born, we can take it to the park and stuff can't we?' Her reply was 'I must clean these windows' ! She had 7 children herself confused

Stansgran Tue 22-Jul-14 08:59:43

I was expecting my second child and my mother was visiting. She asked me to shut the door so DH and DD would not hear. I thought that at long last I would have the birds and bees conversation . She then handed me a five pound note and told me to buy a shopping trolley as I shouldn't be carrying heavy loads in my delicate state. I'm none the wiser.

annodomini Mon 21-Jul-14 23:12:43

Although my mum did tell me about menstruation, she didn't tell me about sex - until the night before my wedding when I was 29. Little did she know...

rosequartz Mon 21-Jul-14 22:45:31

MIL's mangle is in BIL's garden, all beautifully painted and looking lovely as a garden feature!

grandma60 Mon 21-Jul-14 18:01:25

Rosequartz I think my.Mum had a "washing machine" like the one you described but we called it a furnace. The mangle was a big wrought iron contraption.with wooden rollers. By the time I.was about 7.a launderette had opened down the road and it became my job.to take the washing there in a wheeled trolley.

rosequartz Mon 21-Jul-14 13:33:33

I was in charge of two younger girls to take to Brownies, so I must have been about 8 or 9 and they were 7. We had a long way to walk and there was a main road to cross, sometimes dark in the winter evenings. I think one of the Dads would cycle over to walk us home afterwards.
I still remember the horror of my friend dashing into the main road and me yelling stop; she was knocked over by a car, luckily only injured but in hospital for quite a while.

Eloethan Mon 21-Jul-14 10:46:46

I must have been about 6 when I used to walk home with a friend from my school, Oakington Manor, in Wembley. One day I was kept in after school because I'd been chattering too much in class. So my friend and her brother had gone. It was about a one and a half mile walk and when I got up to the busy main road, the lollypop lady had gone - I still remember how frightened I was crossing the road on my own. It seems incredible now that a 6 year old could be kept in at school without a parent being told and without checking how she was getting home.

POGS Mon 21-Jul-14 09:23:23

grandma 60. rose quartz. smile

Roseq

Ah, the mangle. Grandad had a fun take on life, although he kind of dismissed the 'yung uns'.

He used to say to nan or mum 'You on the Nellie my love'. It was a take on the old song When Nellie caught her t--s in the mangle, she began to shout'. grin

Have a good day.

Purpledaffodil Mon 21-Jul-14 08:36:25

Grandma60 I had a similar experience in 1977! Yet in 2010 when DD left hospital with GS1 they were not allowed to go unless the baby was in a car seat and the straps has been checked. However they were sent out at 7pm in January in a snow storm and GS1 had been in special care with breathing difficulties for the first few days of his life. Different priorities I suppose.confused