What Did Your Parents Do Which Was Cultural Normal At The Time Yet Wrong These Days?

[bluefortress]

I was slapped in the face, around the head and I remember my dad getting me on the floor and sitting on me for 10 mins till I felt caustaphobic  and couldnt breath. He was half laughing. I would swear and shout at him but he wouldn't get off and would start tapping my mouth instead with his hand 
 

Depsite this my parents would generally be considered good and it was the 90's so it was within cultural norms. 

[barry1010]

My sisters earned a fair bit of pocket money from the age of 12 babysitting for strangers who put cards in the newsagents' windows and notice boards.

Unheard of today

[DDIL]

Most of my mothers discipline would be considered child abuse today.

She had no middle ground it was all or nothing.

[jourdain2]

Round here you still put a coin into a baby's hand the first time you see it.  What on earth is wrong with that?

We would come home to an empty house from Junior school when I was 9 and my sister 7 or 8 and our jobs were to get the fires going, cut the potatoes ready for chips and light the gas under the chip pan to melt the fat ready for use.  Once the dining-room fire was going well one of us would carry a half-full shovel of hot coals through to get the living-room fire going well.  All perfectly normal. No accidents happened. Then we would read or do a jigsaw until Mum got back from work about 15 mins. later.

I do think children are over-protected these days.

[barry1010]

Nothing wrong with putting a coin in a baby's hand - but many parents object to strangers touching their babies these days. 

[barry1010]

You had a similar childhood to me, jourdain. 

[rowanwitch]

Hit with a dog lead, went to school with mums hand print on my face,  given babycham at Christmas from around age six, wine and beer by 10, had to lay and light fires before school, ( around age 8 onwards) 

[barry1010]

I had to get the fire going with a gas poker on Saturdays.  Can't believe those things are still legal.

[bluefortress]

Is was the norm to hit kids, thats where the saying 'clip around the earhole' and 'good hiding' comes from. It was common among working class families where I lived anyway. 
 

Not a clue what you are on about sorry Douglas. Not everyone lived a sheltered life, lots of rough families. 

[bluefortress]

Rowanwitch - ditto with the babycham though I was a bit older than 6 

[dustypuss]

Sent to the off-licence for a packet of fag's or a bottle of sherry. 

[10ClarionSt]

That was regular, dustypuss. I did that lots of times for my dad. My teacher also used to send me to the corner shop near school to buy him 20 Sweet Afton. I was only 10 yrs old.

[jourdain2]

^^ When OH was young his teacher used to send him to the local bookies' with a note on his bets and the wager money.  

[Prudie]

I was an 'RAF officer's' brat. My parents would have been reported thses days. I was left alone in the evening with just the dogs from about 7 when they went to Mess dos. I also spent hours in cars or pub doorways with a coke and a packet of crisps while the family were in the pub. If it was a lunchtime country pub visit I'd walk alone in nearby woods etc even at the age of 7 or 8. My parents also drove when tipsy until about the mid 70s from memory. My mother smoked in the house and offered me cigarettes from the age of about 15.

[barry1010]

Could barely see the other side of the sitting room through the fug of cigarette and pipe smoke.

I used to buy mother's cigarettes from the corner shop from about 8.

Our parents may have parented very differently to today's parents but did they do any worse? 

[davebro3]

parenting/parented wasn't even a word!

[davebro3]

//he word “parenting” didn't appear in the U.S. until 1958, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, and became common only in the 1970s. //

[barry1010]

Was Spock the first to publish a childcare book? That was in 1946.

My mother had a book her mother had given to her, published around 1910 that was full of advice about medical and health matters, hygiene, marriage (ladies of a weak or hysterical disposition should not marry), pregnancy and childbirth. It advised new mothers be confined to bed for at least 10 days but didn't mention baby care.

[CrapatCryptics2]

I remember as a young lad being taken to my first and only football match, Oldham v Gillingham. After the match watching walking back to the station I said to him are`nt they supposed to score goals as it was 0 0, a ringing clip round the ear followed.

[barry1010]

You're lucky you didn't get the rattle round your head, CaC.  I miss those days. 

[Old_Geezer]

Kids don't even know they're born these days.