You are here

Funny or sad examples of how our parents parented

Doorsy's picture

I was reading the Emergency room visit blog and thinking back about our emergency this weekend when dd dropped her glass and sd slipped in the mess (almost instantly she fell. The glass had broke and she instantly slipped) and fell on the glass slicing her leg open. I took one look and threw a towel at her and rushed her to urgent care. Urgent care has a copay of $35 while our ER copay is $250. I called dh and bm both telling them she slipped and cut her leg open and I was taking her to urgent care. DH was doing a favor for my dad so sd 14 was with me. Both dh and bm went to the ER to meet us. When they got to urgent care both asked me why I didn't take her to the ER. I told them co-pays and at the ER everyone is having an emergency while urgent care is not. They took sd straight back and stitched her up. We were out within an hour. They were both like wow, that was crazy fast we should use urgent care from now on.

Later on my dad called to check on sd and asked me why I didn't just slap some duct tape on her leg. That brought back memories of how dad avoided all medical care for us as kids. Cut yourself open? Duct tape it till it heals and use lots of peroxide. Sick? Lay under 20 blankets while drinking chicken noodle soup till you sweat the fever out.

What did your parents do that you look back on now? Not just medical. My dad taught us to swim by explaining what to do and then tossing us in the pool.

Comments

WalkOnBy's picture

the only rooms in our house that are carpeted are the bedrooms, but that will be changing in a few months. I don't want the outside dirt, germs, bird crap, whatever walking into my house, regardless of the surface.

I always take my shoes off when I enter someone's home.

Monchichi's picture

I came home from boarding school on a Friday afternoon with severe stomach pain. I was vomiting and couldn't eat. My parents decided I had food poisoning and left it. I cried and vomited the whole night. Saturday morning my mom gave some disgusting milky gastro medicine and went to work.

By 10am I was screaming I was in so much pain and dry heaving. My father decided I wasn't faking and it wasn't foo poisoning so he took a Sunday drive (think slower than a snail) to the local GP to check me out. The local GP told my father I needed to get to a hospital immediately. My appendix was going to rupture.

The doctor and my father drove like raving lunatics on the pavement. I was rushed on to a trolley and was undressed in the lift and taken to theatre. As I was cut open and my appendix was being removed I am told it burst. I was kept in hospital for 2 weeks. Good times.

Doorsy's picture

My dad went to the dr because his side hurt and the pain wouldn't go away. He hadn't been to the dr in over 20 years so the dr sent him to the hospital for a scan. After the scan he left and went to dinner. He was eating when the dr called him to see where he was and told him to get to the ER he had an appendicitis. He came in with his to go box and the ER dr felt that he had the wrong scan, no way was he eating dinner from a to go box with an appendicitis. They redid the scan and then had to wait till morning since he just ate to remove it. It bust when they opened him and he spent 1 1/2 weeks in the hospital. He hasn't been to the dr since.

secret's picture

Fever - Onions in socks to draw the sickness out. Nothing but broth for days - to starve the fever. (mom snuck me crackers.)

Nail through the foot... iodine.

Broken finger - popsicle stick and gun tape.

Needed stitches - "get my kit"

Feeling nauseous - ipecac (learned pretty quick to keep my nauseous feelings to myself)

ESMOD's picture

We lived on base a lot and my mom told us to not get hurt or sick on the weekend because that's when they had the beginner doctors with the rusty needles on staff at the base clinic.

Acratopotes's picture

FEll from the roof top... broke your leg,

First parent, spank you before taking you to the clinic - small town now hospital lol.... why the spanking cause they told us 100 times not to get onto the roof if we fall off and get hurt they will spank us....

thus our injuries was minimum to nothing, cause we got warned before hand, if you do this or that, you can get hurt and ..... if we catch you doing this again you will be spank...

do you think we ever told my parents if we got hurt, oh hell no... the small pallet is still lodge in my brothers arm where I shot him.... we where playing cowboys and crooks lol...

hereiam's picture

I used to make fun of my dad for being such a proponent of Vitamin C. Vitamin C for everything!

After coming across some research about it after DH had a heart attack, turns out, it really can do wonders in the correct doses.

Acratopotes's picture

now I remember.. My big fat greek wedding - the Dad with the windowlene... he believed it fixed everything lol..

Salems Lot's picture

Cut my knee to the bone.....band aids and peroxide...I now have a nasty jagged wide scar.

Ear infections....Peroxide....I now have hearing loss.

Asthma....No inhalers for me. They contain steroids! I was told fresh air was all I needed, even though the pollen turned out to be one the triggers and I was always outside growing up.

Fell 8 feet into a metal support post in the basement when I slipped on the stairs. Flew back to the top of the stairs and slide down on my a$$. Whole house shook and the post rang loudly. Tried to stand up, but wobbled to the wall and slide down. Wasn't able to see or hear. I was laughing instead of crying..... I was kept awake for a few hours instead of being taken to the hospital to see what damage was done.

AND WE HAD UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE BACK THEN JUST AS WE DO NOW!

I have many stories.

moving_on_again's picture

My parents were so anti-doctor that half the time we didn't even tell them. Thankfully, neither of us ever broke any bones. I am sure there were tons of times we needed stitches but, like I said, we didn't even tell them because we knew they wouldn't take us. They were also very poor but too proud to put us on state insurance so they couldn't afford to anyway.

momjeans's picture

My mom was hardcore OCD clean freak.

We had a "shoes off" policy too. My friends and family automatically take off their shoes in my home, even though I don't enforce it as much as I used to. Mainly, because I grew tired of telling DH every freaking day to take his work shoes off. He surprises me and does it more than not, though.

Also, I get tired of telling my dim-witted, walking Petri dish inlaws to take off their nasty shoes. They look at me like I have a third eye or something.

My mom vacuumed - DAILY. Cleaned our bathrooms - DAILY. I grew-up with people telling me what a clean house I lived in. How our toilets were "SO clean that you could drink out of it." :O

Up until the day I moved out, I couldn't just shut my bedroom door with a mess inside. Knowing it was messy drove my mom NUTS. My mother literally wiped crumbs up on the counter behind me before I could finish making a sandwich.

ETA: I have similar tendencies, having been raised like this.

hereiam's picture

You just reminded me, with the vacuuming, that we had a "carpet rake" for our shag carpet (for after vacuuming). Oh my God, my cousins thought it was hysterical. They still mention it from time to time.

momjeans's picture

Oh heck. And you just reminded me that my grandmother had one of those rakes too.

I can still hear that horrific sound it made scraping along the shag carpet. **shudder**

justkeepstepping's picture

I lived in a rent house in my early 20s that had green shag carpet. It looked like I was growing grass in the living room floor.

notsurehowtodeal's picture

I remember the carpet rakes! I had one for the three-tone pink shag carpet in my bedroom. I tried to get away with just "raking" the carpet instead of vacuuming it, and my always knew and would make me actually use the vacuum.

JadeMom's picture

I never had annual well-checks. Only went to the doctor a handful of times growing up and only when it was deemed "serious" enough (really bad double ear infection...mono). I was homeschooled so while I do remember getting vaccinations at 6, I hadn't gotten any after that until I needed to get them to go to college.

Mom was weird about the doctor. Really weird. I didn't even know annual check ups were a thing.

Now that I'm grown up, it was hard to make the jump from "I feel like crap, I'll just wait it out" to "I feel like crap, I should see the doctor."

thinkthrice's picture

1. My mother invented water boarding. If we were getting unruly or tantrumatic (what they call Oppositional Defiance Disorder nowadays), she would escort us to the tub and blast cold water from the faucet into our faces. That set us straight QUICK!! Can't do that nowadays. . .it would be labeled "abuse."

2. My dad would literally knock our heads together if we fought. He grabbed us each by the back of the neck and rather forcefully knocked our heads together once. Didn't end the fighting permanently but it got our attention, Can't do that nowadays. . . it would be labeled "abuse."

3. If I got injured, say banged into a table edge or something, dad would rub the table and say "poor table."

4. Fever? Even up to 104, parents would put a cold damp facecloth (washcloth) on our forehead. No meds.

5. Cut open and need stitches? Cold, damp facecloth.

6. Get into a fight with the kid next door? You were immediately asked "What did YOU do to cause the fight" or "It takes TWO to tango" or "six to one, half a dozen to the other."

7. Didn't DARE bring home a bad grade. It was your JOB to get good grades in school and not cause trouble. Didn't DARE to embarrass the family name by getting into trouble or making bad grades. PERIOD!

8. Mom and Dad were 99.999999% a united front. Would never DARE to play one against the other!!!

Ahhh, Those were the good ol' days.

onwednesdayswewearpink's picture

Fevers were cured by stripping down to your underwear and standing on the back porch in 30 degree weather.