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Reply With QuoteMy parents did exactly the same with me, my sister and brother. Every Sunday, sitting in the car with a bottle of coke and some crisps, for hours...counting cars. It was great fun.Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov
Moved from the "Madeleine" thread - DavidJames
As I said, I do not condemn the parents out of hand.
You might be driving in your car and some effwit comes careering around the corner, swipes you off the road and your passenger dies. "You just don't think it's going to happen to you" is a reasonable response. There is a risk associated in being anywhere near half-ton lumps of metal travelling at 40 mph, and if you thought it would happen to you you'd never leave your house.
But this is different, surely; in this situation it behooves a good parent to take a little more care to close off the most unpleasant possibilities - lock the door, hire a babysitter, whatever. If the little girl was abducted, then the parents' actions made it possible for that to happen. A babysitter could easily have abducted one of the children, but that would be much less the parents' fault, wouldn't it?
My ex-wife told me that when she and her brother were children their parents would take them out in the car and then leave them in the car park while they went into the pub for several hours. She found it difficult to accept it when I said that that was frankly appalling, because for her it didn't seem unusual. Nothing like that ever happened in my family so had a different perspective. As it happens, I think her perspective was coloured whilst mine was more objective.
Last edited by David Bailey; 12th-September-2007 at 02:36 PM.
My parents did exactly the same with me, my sister and brother. Every Sunday, sitting in the car with a bottle of coke and some crisps, for hours...counting cars. It was great fun.
We are probably the last generation that will remember when that sort of thing was considered acceptable.My parents did exactly the same with me, my sister and brother. Every Sunday, sitting in the car with a bottle of coke and some crisps, for hours...counting cars. It was great fun.
At the age of 6/7+, I would go out to play before 9am and my mum would come looking for me at lunchtime, then out again after lunch and she'd come looking for me at tea-time. This continued until I had a watch and could bring myself home.
Missing for as much as 5 hours, without parents having to worry about it. They didn't even worry if they couldn't find you straight away, they'd be p1ssed off with you and call all of your friends parents to find out where went without telling them.
That being the case helps to explain our different perspectives...
You make a very good point.
I used to play away from home from breakfast to lunch and then again from lunch to tea time, in the holidays. I can't quite remember how old I was when I first started doing that but it can't have been much more than 7. But this wasn't because my mother was doing anything selfish, she was in the house, washing, cleaning ironing - no washing machine (I remember when we got our first one) no vacuum cleaner (ditto).
(I would go off with friends, down town (thieving from Woolworths, occasionally) across the wheat fields, to the spinney (hide and seek in the trees) and the town spinney - with a small playground outside, swings and see-saw and stuff) or off to - can't remember what we called it, footpath from the town to a nearby village with land owned by RSPB on one side and the river on the other (once found a worse-for-wear copy of Fiesta under a bush) - football and cricket on the little piece of land in front of our house - anything and anywhere. Never once had even a close shave with an adult whose intentions were anything other than leathering us for some transgression we had committed. I wonder if kids living in my home town today have that much fun?)
I feel that I want to reject the comparison between
~ leaving kids in the car while you go boozing for three hours ~ and
~ letting the kids go play wherever they want for three hours while you are indoors ~
but I'm not sure if that would be justified.
Last edited by Barry Shnikov; 11th-September-2007 at 05:09 PM.
Not really. I don't like playing the 'I've got kids' card, but you don't know how you will act until you have your own.
As you said before, looking after kids now and then is different to having them 24/7.
...or parents who have a very loose attachment to their children and don't let them interfere in their career, social life, running schedule or any other part of their life for a single second. Even after one of their children has been abducted, they seem to have no hesitation in dumping the other two in a foreign nursery while they jet around the World. I find it totally bizarre.
Yes I was 34 before they said I was allowed in
Same here, our dad use to take me and brother to the first supermarket in town on a friday night, we were nine and eight then as my mum had had twins recently, and after he take us to the pub and have our pop and crisps in the car, we throught it was a great treat then.
I am totally shocked that any forumites experienced this.
I'm coming to the conclusion that my mum was odd; she'd stay at home making sure I was supervised and also saving money so that I could have piano/swiming/ballet lessons.
Nothing wrong with that.
All I can say is some of my absolute best childhood memories were ones where me, my brother and sister were left alone at home.
Most Fridays my mum and dad went out in the evening and we would stay in. We got to stay up late and watch all the things we were not supposed to such as Hammer House of Horrors, we got to go on the late icecream run...you know the one where he toots rather than does the chime. We were always up to no good, but none of us died or burnt the house down. I loved those times.
Mine are of camping out with my friends in the 'den' we had made from pallets, straw and plastic sacks in the field next to their house. We'd each been given a tin of beans with sausages, with a loaf of bread between us to have for our 'breakfast', heated on the fire we lit. Despite the eldest of us being 14and the youngest 8, I doubt any parent would let their kids play with fire nowadays!
I used to see those kids with their crisps and coke. How I envied them. Their parents had a car, they had money for extras like crisps, they even had new clothes, not clothes from the jumble sale - and they probably had more than one pair of shoes.
Me? I used to get myself up in the morning, help myself to cornflakes, go out and play with my friends, possibly pop home during the day to look for something to eat in the kitchen, but sometimes find things to eat in the woods, nearby orchards, friends houses, etc. Sometimes we'd have sandwiches when I got home from school, sometimes not. I can still remember my total envy, and a little surprise, when I went around to a friends house after school and his mum had made him a hot meal. His mum told me there was plenty and asked if I'd like some - I lied and said I'd be eating when I got home and didn't want to ruin my appetite: I think I was 9 or possibly 10. I met up with this guy through friends reunited recently and he said he always remembered how happy I was - and that was totally true. I had complete freedom to go anywhere and try anything - I used to see other boys parents as strict because they had to be home at certain times. I suppose I was just lucky not to have got into any trouble.
My children have been completely cosseted and I am aware of where they are at almost all times - although my oldest daughter is at Uni and my label for her whereabouts is "Oxford". I'm wondering when I'm going to be able to relax that need to know.
Perhaps the moderators might redirect these 'my childhood was better than yours' posts to a new thread..?
When I was a child, my parents left me alone all the time. They forced me to work in the mines, fed me gruel and beat me with a large stick daily...
...those were the happiest days of my life. That approach to parenting was the best thing for children and far better than this namby-pamby child centred approach we hear about these days!
Done
..bah - we were lucky if we got gruel. Did your stick have a nail in it ? bet it didntWhen I was a child, my parents left me alone all the time. They forced me to work in the mines, fed me gruel and beat me with a large stick daily...
...those were the happiest days of my life. That approach to parenting was the best thing for children and far better than this namby-pamby child centred approach we hear about these days!
When I was a child, my parents left me alone all the time. They forced me to work in the mines, fed me gruel and beat me with a large stick daily...
...those were the happiest days of my life. That approach to parenting was the best thing for children and far better than this namby-pamby child centred approach we hear about these days!Folks, you're forgetting your [ ACCENT="Yorkshire" ] [ /ACCENT ] tags here...bah - we were lucky if we got gruel. Did your stick have a nail in it ? bet it didnt
And beware the Lou's revenge!
I was sent up the chimneys at 10 and it never did me any harm!When I was a child, my parents left me alone all the time. They forced me to work in the mines, fed me gruel and beat me with a large stick daily...
...those were the happiest days of my life. That approach to parenting was the best thing for children and far better than this namby-pamby child centred approach we hear about these days!
No it didn't. My parents were told time and time again to stop spoiling me but did they listen?..bah - we were lucky if we got gruel. Did your stick have a nail in it ? bet it didnt
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