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Growing up in my family, I used to think it was normal that ...

Amor I grew up the same way with family dinners minus the music. It was normal to do math with mixed vegetables and talk. I carry that tradition at home with my husband unless it is playoff season. The tv stays on.

It was normal to know your and your friends phone time/visiting hours of the house so it wasn't likely the phone would ring during dinner. It was normal to climb into our parent's bed after dinner and watch People's Court and Three's Company while dissecting the plot and my dad pretending to call Judge Wapner.

It was normal to have blood relatives in the family who were adopted by other family members.
It was normal to live in different places.

It was normal to think if I don't behave it is possible that my dad will give me the belt.
 
i thought it was normal to pick through people's trash and know what day trash day was for various neighborhoods.

i thought most parent's let their kids drive their car. but my friends were all pretty shocked when i said my dad let me drive since i was around 8.

i thought most people spent their weekends going to open houses and picking out bedrooms, even if they had no intention of moving.
 
Cyc said:
OK, you gotta explain this. I'm intrigued (and possibly a little disgusted) ;)
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I think MDAO may have meant that growing up, his Peanut Butter was simply Peanut butter, without the jam/jelly? I've tried peanut butter and jam (LOVE IT) but have never bought it pre-mixed. :)
 
Not really - well, not in my household/friends households. It's definitely not a staple snack like it seems to be in the USA :) They do actually sell one kind at the supermarket, i think - peanut butter and goober grape? It's a swirled mixture. I'd rather have 2 separate jars and make my own! I do love it, though, so sweet/salty!
 
Ok, sorry for needed clarification but is PB&J not a staple kid snack/lunch period or just the 'pre-mixed' PB&J? I find the 'pre-mixed' jars gross as hell... they only introduced such 5 yrs. ago or so.
 
AmorRoark said:
Is PB&J not normal in AUS?
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vegemite, obv.

Cyc said:
As for the thread, I don't think I had any preconceptions growing up. I was lost in my own little world. It didn't occur to me to question anyone else's. Of course, that changed when I got older.
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Agreed. I've really been racking my head to contribute as well, but have come up empty. Anyway, definitely a good thread. :)
 
I was about 20 before I realised that the jelly in PB&J was what we here would call Jam. Could never understand why the BabySitters Club would put jelly (jell-o) on their sandwiches. I'd definitely say it's not a common snack for kids in Aus- vegemite like Max said or peanut butter on its own, or the humble ham sandwich would be more common.

Growing up in my family I thought it was normal that you would visit your grandma for afternoon tea with all your aunts/uncles/cousins every Sunday afternoon.

I also thought it normal to have an extreme love/hate relationship with your siblings. My older brothers regularly used to tease me until I cried, and our fights often became violent, but we got along like magic for most of the time. It was another thing I only realised isn't standard when one of my brothers met his now wife, and I learnt she and her brother had always got along, even as kids, even through adolescence.

On the trend of family eating, I also thought it was normal for the family to sit down every night to a home cooked dinner at 6pm, with water to drink and no interruptions/distractions. Take-away was had maybe 4-5 times a year (apart from lent when we'd get fish and chips on Friday nights). I also thought it was normal to have "Treats" on a Saturday night - one small bowl of chips and one of those little rolls of LifeSavers lollies - no other junk food throughout the rest of the week.
 
Growing up in my family, I used to think it was normal that...


...you considered your only sibling to be your most hated, most dangerous enemy and vice versa.

...Moms always had better jobs than Dads.

...everybody mixed together various shit they found in the kitchen and then offered it to someone else in the house as "Here, I made this for you" a la` George's Marvelous Medicine

...if Dad asks you to grab him a beer, don't do it. It's a trap that he laid out for you just to have Mom see you running from the fridge with a beer in your hand while feigning ignorance about telling you to bring him one.

..., on car rides, if you smacked yourself in the chest and said "OW!" with enough emphasis the car will get pulled over and your brother will get spanked (that was only like 4-8 years old... folks caught on quick to that one)

...children were allowed to stay up late on school nights just to watch Tales From the Crypt

...eating with elbows on the table is not bad manners unless you're at someone else's house

...Mom can swear. Dad can swear. Hell, you can swear, too, but don't EVER let Mom or Dad hear it

...you didn't see any of your extended family until about 6-7 years had passed since the last get-together or somebody was dying

...a pay-per-view WWF event was more important to you than your brother breaking his leg and getting med-evac'd to a hospital because it was such a nasty break. Seriously. I still hold that shit against him like a decade and a half later. It was the one where Owen Hart ended up dying on live tv and my brother's dumb ass caused me to miss it because he wasn't as nimble on a bmx-bike as he thought he was
 
animal_cookie said:
i thought most people spent their weekends going to open houses and picking out bedrooms, even if they had no intention of moving.
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Not quite the same, but my mom and I used to go to model houses on the weekends, and pick out what our rooms would be and how we would decorate everything. Whenever my little sister would come with us, her and I would always fight over who got the cooler/bigger room in the house we were viewing that day :)

Growing up in my family, I used to think it was normal that...

- both my parents worked, and my sister and I would go to daycare before and after school. It was only after we moved into a nicer neighborhood when I was about 10 that we had bus service that went to our new school, and my parents trusted me and my sister home alone. All the other kids in the neighborhood had ridden the bus their whole school-lives, and everyone had at least one parent home during the day.
 
^my sister and i used to fight over the bedrooms too!

*my family uses some bastardizations of hungarian words. i didn't realize they weren't real words until i was 10ish.
 
- You always said please and thank you.

- Yes/no m'aam/ Sir was always used to anyone older than you.

- You ate everything on your plate.
You had to be outside doing something during the day..

- two of all the holidays since my parents were divorced

- discipline/ spankings etc..

- Crawfish boils

- Huge familys

- If your parents were divorced they hated eachother

- Drinking, lots of it, which becomes acceptable at family gatherings at around age 13
 
I've thought of a few more since posting - this is a fantastic thread. :)

I thought it was normal:

- that my Mum woke us up each morning by singing random half-made-up songs and opening our curtains to let the light into our dark bedrooms.

- that my Mum gave my sister and I nonsense nicknames (mine were Shayna-Bayna-Boola-Bayna and Shayshaylafay)

- that often my immediate family would make each other laugh so much we would cry

- when we sat down for informal group 'family meetings' at my Nana's house where females in my extended family (on my Mothers' side) would drink tea, eat, and talk about anything and everything - these sessions often ended in tears and comforting and no-holds-barred conversations about marriages and topics just as serious and personal. I was very young when I first started getting involved, and I drank my tea in silence while I watched the other ladies sharing before I felt comfortable enough to start sharing about my own life

- that my Mum gave me novels to read from her own collection from a very very young age. I eventually read her entire collection of novels, including the Clan Of The Cave Bear series (which was so graphic for my age, haha!), Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Amy Tan etc when I was about 10 and moved on to the town library

- when my immediate family used made up words like 'dingawalla' for water, 'cuppacha' for a cup of tea, 'smitebees' for eyebrows (my sister and I coined that phrase, don't ask) and loads of others
 
I always thought kids had to work for their money or get loans from their parents which they'd pay back. When I met people whose parents would just give them money for nothing it blew my mind and made me jealous.
 
As a little kid, I thought it was totally normal to wake up in the morning to a big cup of coffee. LOL, and my parents wondered why I was hyperactive in school 8( Also one time when I was 8 or 9, I went over to a friend's house and was informed that his parents wouldn't allow us to watch the Simpsons :X I literally demanded that they call my parents to come get me and take me home -- who the hell wants to hang out with some fucking nerdo kid whose parents won't even let them watch the Simpsons?? Not I! :D
 
as a kid, I thought everyone's family listened to the Beach Boy's Christmas Album come the month of December ;)
 
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