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I was just reminded of how my dad would take my friend and me in the car with our sleds to a long hill in winter. It was part of a golf course and in winter it was totally deserted. He'd drop us off and leave us there. We'd slide down the hill all afternoon and around supper time, he'd come and get us. No cell phones if either of us had gotten hurt, no one else around.
When I was a kid (60 years ago) we used to play "Cigarette Tag" on the front lawn. If you stooped down and called out a brand of cigarettes you couldn't be tagged out. One day, the kids that lived there's dad came out front and suggested we yell brands of beer instead of cigarettes. So here's these kids yelling "Schlitz!" "Budweiser!" "Strohs!" "Blatz!"
Could you just imagine what a Childrens' Services rep would do if they saw that today?
Well. . . My friend told me that when she was raised they only had one bathroom in the house so she said if she was in the shower, others would walk in and use the toilet. She remembers her dad doing that. !!!
I remember my mom leaving me in the car in the back seat while she went into a store and shopped. Scary. I was seven? Eight? I just remember it was night and I was locked in the car.
Well. . . My friend told me that when she was raised they only had one bathroom in the house so she said if she was in the shower, others would walk in and use the toilet. She remembers her dad doing that. !!!
I remember my mom leaving me in the car in the back seat while she went into a store and shopped. Scary. I was seven? Eight? I just remember it was night and I was locked in the car.
So? We did the same with the bathroom. My OH and i still do....no one gets to monopolize the bathroom for a shower when someone needs to go.
My neighbors were limited to 10 minute showers. The father would go down and turn off the water in the basement if they ran over. Regardless of where they were in the shower procedure, i.e. soaped up or not. There were 6 of them. Timing was crucial with just one bathroom.
Leaving kids in cars was common place back then, but now.....wow.
Btw, both my parents were tickled to buy a house WITH indoor plumbing in the mid 60s, since my father grew up with an outhouse and my mother was, i think, 14 when they got indoor bathroom!!! My great aunt ( born 1892) didnt have a modern indoor bathroom until 1975!!! She lived a loooong life too.
Speaking of my great aunt and grandmother...does anybody remember cooking with LARD ??(Animal fat?) Or churning raw cows milk ( UN pasteurized, UN homogenized) into butter? They did. And taught us how to, and oh. Oh it tasted sooooo good! Crisco was a close lard second, but not the same....now crisco is barely on the shelves.
Nowadays its non trans fat this and that.
My grandmother was 93 and my great aunt 96 when they passed away....so much for "bad food "!!!!
Today feeding your kid lard could get you into trouble, so could a farm selling raw milk, though thats slowly changing.
Thanks for this. I sent this link to a long-distance friend of the same age, and she responded by saying the was "surprised by all the bad behavior by the parents" and that she grew up in a "well educated/farming area" and so there were never "any such things going on." Kids in her school never bullied anyone, never smoked, never drank, there were no troublemakers who regularly got sent to the principal's office, every family lived a white picket fence life, etc. Salt of the earth, sterling moral character, the whole nine yards.
Her implication being, I guess, that only in "less educated" (and possibly less 'moral') parts of the USA did 1950s/60s parents send their kids out to buy cigarettes, or spank their kids, etc. Of course this is the same person who often expresses a holier-than-thou attitude and so I shouldn't be surprised, but still, the connection in her mind of common 1950s/50s behavior with educational level was something I hadn't heard from her before.
So thanks for pointing out that although some or most of our childhoods may have had some differences, it doesn't mean that our families or the areas we grew up were something that others should look down on as being "less than."
Hmm. Your friend must have had a Poly Anna existence!!!
My father worked for Fortune top 10 company, we were squarely upper middle class.
My mother was the only one who smoked though my aunt had cigarettes hidden under her car seat. My father didnt like smoking but mom did. Smoked for years until she could no longer hold a cigarette due to the disease.
We were NOT " the wrong side of the track " people.
The biggest thing was my father got carried away with the beatings. I dont know where that came from. As i said the elementary principal called him on it once, but it was THEN considered a ",family matter" so not much was done.
Well. . . My friend told me that when she was raised they only had one bathroom in the house so she said if she was in the shower, others would walk in and use the toilet. She remembers her dad doing that. !!!
I remember my mom leaving me in the car in the back seat while she went into a store and shopped. Scary. I was seven? Eight? I just remember it was night and I was locked in the car.
hahaha!! reminds me of when I first started shaving my legs, my three sisters would come in the bathroom and all watch me (I would sit on the edge of the tub). Thanks for reminding me of a funny memory.
[quote=LoriNJ;53509828]My dad took my sister and me to the bar on Saturdays, too. We would each get a "Shirley Temple" (Coke with a maraschino cherry) while he had "a quick one" (beer). We loved sitting on the bar stools! I guess people would be horrified at the idea of bringing a child into a bar nowadays.[/QUOTE
OMG sometimes I would be driving around with my father and we would stop at the Gatun Legion for ceviche (I grew up in the Canal Zone) - they had the BEST EVER ceviche anywhere. Anyhow, Daddy either didn't feel like driving home or he'd had too many - I honestly don't recall - and when we left, he got in the passenger seat and I was like, Dad!! He said get in and drive us home. I said Daddy I don't know how to drive (I think I was 13 or 14) and he said, you'll know how by the time we get home! and I guess I did.
A corollary to that was, when I actually took driving training a year or two later, and he would assist me, we would go to the France Field airstrip and he would let me floor it....we practiced all kinds of stuff, especially controlling the car in torrential downpours etc. I was NEVER afraid.
Parallel parking was another story entirely (although I am exceptional at parallel parking). If I didn't get it just right he would scream at me. I got fed up with it once and got out of the car and walked home (it was like 2 miles (we used to practice at the school) with him following me the entire way with the passenger window open yelling 'get in the g*d d*mn car.'
These are actually good memories for me! LOL My father was a character. Tug boat captain.
My dad took my sister and me to the bar on Saturdays, too. We would each get a "Shirley Temple" (Coke with a maraschino cherry) while he had "a quick one" (beer). We loved sitting on the bar stools! I guess people would be horrified at the idea of bringing a child into a bar nowadays.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nobodysbusiness
1) whisky and honey for cough
2) rattling around in the back of pick-up trucks, unrestrained
3) no water - ever - just powered milk, which I hated. don't know how I survived
4) walking to and from school (god forbid - kids would expire today - can't walk anywhere unsupervised)
5) turned loose from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. - no one had a clue where I was - "don't ask, don't tell" policy
6) accompanied my parents to bars many, many times - I would amuse myself playing the jukebox, begging for quarters for pin-ball and skee-ball games. they probably drove home past today's legal limits for alcohol
7) hit with a stick
8) allowed to smoke in house as a teen (and of course, car)
9) gambled as a child at Italian festivals (roulette, etc.)
10) basically ran wild
and thank god for ALL of that. I couldn't handle being a specimen constantly supervised in today's world.
Best cure EVER for the flu, which I still use today - my father's remedy - A toddy. Whiskey, lemon, honey, hot water (the 'original' Thera-Flu). Drink that bad boy while it's hot, bundle up in a blanket, go to sleep and sweat it out. Wake up cured.
Grandma thought Guiness was a cure for EVERYTHING. Just a shot glass though.
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