How did the war influence our parents and how they brough us up

The "not spend" bit definitely resonates with me. My father chanted the "waste not, want not" litany ad nauseam. We never ate out in any way at all - "why pay cafe prices when you can cook it yourself?" I marvel at my AC as they happily go off for Sunday lunch somewhere, or off to MacDonalds after school - not something that would ever have happened in my family. I do think that has rubbed off on me - I cannot bear to see anything wasted and frequently have to bite my tongue in order not to be a total pain to those around me.

I was also intrigued that I was surrounded by children of my age at school and not one had lost a parent in the war, and they mostly had a full complement of GPs.

They were the generation who could not spend; they saved everything because who knew what the next shortage would be. My parents recycled long before it was invented; nothing went to waste and very little went in the dustbin.
I think my mother enjoyed the war; she had a good job running the local food office, her own car and a good salary. She had me at the end of the war but kept her job until the food office, and the nurseries, were closed down and she was reluctantly transmogrified into a housewife.
She was determined that I would have a good education as a step to a career, and was a firm believer in women's equality, for which I am eternally grateful.
My father regarded the war as an interruption to his job, in retail, and never saw a shot fired in anger.
I don't think either of them lost anyone close to them as a result of the war, which must influence people's views.

Luckygirl I had to double check your post to see if I'd written it! Our family histories, and experiences, are strikingly similar. This bit "^My mother was in the land army, and TBH I think she rather enjoyed it and was bored and frustrated when she left. She certainly had a huge chip in her shoulder about women's role in the world - and this definitely influenced her poor relationship with my Dad. We children were caught in that crossfire.^" is uncannily similar.

My Mum was about 14 when the war started. To this day (88) she is still “make do and mend” and won’t throw a thing away. She is well off, but sometimes when I go to pick her up I am aghast at what she has on, old or repaired clothes, and at times I’ve even told her that if she dosnt go and change I’m not going out with her. She does have lovely clothes as her and Dad were ballroom dancers, so always well turned out and dressed up ! Her house is full of stuff she never uses, but it’s all saved “just in case” !!

To all intents and purposes, I didn't have a father until I was 5. He was away in the army in the UK from 1942 to 1945. My parentsmarried in 1942 but saw each other for leaves, occasional holidays where he was posted and odd weekends and managed to conceive two children, then in 1945 he was sent to India/Pakistan, first as part of the operation that defeated the Japanese and was still in the country for partition, returning in late 1947.

I am not sure that it affected their parenting in any way. The stress of living in south London during the blitz and during the V1 and V2 rocket operations ruined my mother's sleep for the rest of her life and made her more of a worrier than she already was, and she admitted that adjusting to married life, having lived apart for the first seven years, bringing up two children as a lone parent for 5 of them was not easy. But they got through it and were devoted to each other.

As others have said our parents generation were not a generation of overtly affectionate parents. But my abiding memory of my childhood is of feeling utterly secure, knowing my parents would always be there for me. No matter what I did, or how I offended their standards or morals, they would always stand by me and support me.

My father was in the Merchant Navy during the war and to he was loving and generous when on leave. Mum was lovely, she was one of those people who could turn her hand to anything, so clearly the war did not affect them. Some people are just not very nice, war or no war!!!

My mum was only 7 when war broke out but dad was prisoner of war in Burma under the Japanese .
He never spoke about it-they were told not to as it would upset their families--until just before he died.
He was a lovely kind man but now I know what he went through it breaks my heart.

My mum was born in 1920 and was in the London Fire Service in the Blitz. She came home one day to be told by her mother that she was evacuating so she had to find somewhere to live. She joined the army where they taught her to drive 3 ton lorries - she was a tiny 5foot 2 inches. Then she went to Northern Ireland driving ambulances. After that she went to Essex where she met my dad who was an officer in the army. They married so she had to leave the army and live with his parents. After the war my dad went back to uni to get a teaching diploma by which time they already had me. He got a job in London and we were desperately poor living in a small flat. Despite all that my mum and dad were very loving and caring. My dad died recently but my mum is still alive although she has forgotten all her amazing experiences which I find sad.

Luckygirl, I don't really know if the war had an effect on my mother - more so the family life she had.

She was, and still is, not affectionate towards me, my sister & brother. Brother has nothing much to do with her, but my sister and I have supported her throughout her life since my father died 40 years ago.

Despite marrying again within three years of his death, she has a 'chip on her shoulder' citing all the things she missed out on and couldn't have because of the war, but has treated herself every year since.

I find her a very difficult person, who can find fault in everyone and everything when she sets her mind to it, which is most of the time.

I am now at an age where I simply cannot be bothered with this behaviour. She will not change.

Thank you for starting this thread. It is fascinating hearing all the different experiences.

My mum was in London during WW2 in a reserved occupation. She was bombed out on one occasion and machine gunned at a bus stop on another. I never realised how badly affected she was until Millennium night when all the fireworks went off and she said it was like the blitz, she was very shaky. She was an affectionate mum in her way but that generation don't seem to have cuddled and hugged as much as we did with the children. OH and I agree that our families had three or four well worn stories and that was it.

My Dad was born in 1901 and his father, my grandfather Archie, was a drunk who was violent towards my grandmother when he had had a drink. He had both my Dad, my Uncle and my Aunt terrified because of his temper and fists although he didn't hit them. My maternal grandfather also beat my maternal grandmother, again he never laid a finger on the children, just his wife. My Dad rarely lost his temper and, if he did, he just shouted. I can only remember Mum smacking me once. But they did argue constantly and a recurring theme of my childhood was being bundled into Mum's car and spending several weeks at Gran's house until Mum considered Dad had apologised enough. Mum had been engaged before she married Dad but her fiance had been killed in the war. She used to say if he was alive she would never have looked twice at my Dad (Mum and Dad were cousins and Dad married her a couple of years after he was divorced by his first wife). I think Mum married him because he was a Police Inspector with a good income, car, respect in the community and a lovely house in a 'posh' area. Unfortunately he chose to retire four years after they married (he was twenty years older than Mum) and their income dropped drastically after they moved to North Wales. If he had opted to continue working I am sure half the arguments would not have happened.

Inishowen that resonates with me too. I hated school and underachieved all through. I did shock my biology teachers however, when I attained the hightest mark ever known to them for A Level biology.
It was only because I loved the subject and was absorbed in it. Oh, and my drawing of the digestive system of the rabbit. It was a stroke of luck that it was a question choice. They would have had to give me full marks for that as I reckon it was perfect, complete and fully shaded to show 3-D effect. Art was another A-Level!

I know that my mother was affected by the war. My dad was in the navy and he and my mother adored one another. He was killed when I was a baby and I never knew him. My mother remained bitter about his death until the end of her life and I've been told that when she heard he'd died she wanted nothing to do with my brother and me. She was always cold and distant but duty bound and we were well fed and dressed. She made all of our clothes and scrimped and saved.
She had to go back to work when she was widowed and we were looked after by wonderful Muriel who loved us and cuddled us.
When she and her husband returned home after the war the sudden cessation of all of that affection I think affected me throughout my life.
I am demonstrative and quite different to my mother and my paternal uncles and aunts used to say how like my father my personality was. He was lovely, of course!

Strange this subject has come up. On Monday, I am going to talk to Y6 children where my daughter is Headteacher. I have done this before and the children can’t believe I’m so old! I was a child in the blitz in London, no brothers and sisters but we had another family sheltering with us and for us children it was fun. My parents were amazing. I know now that my mother was very nervous in the bombing but she didn’t show it. My father was too old for war service as he had been in the medical corps in 1914- 1918but he was a fire watcher where he worked. Once our school playground was machine gunned. Yet somehow my parents gave me a sense of self worth and a feeling that we must cope with each day as it comes and just get on with things. A useful lesson for all the ups and downs I’ve met in life!

We do forget just how hard both money wise and social attitudes life was for women. And ideas of what a parent should do with/for children were worlds away. (Did you see Back in Time the Factory - first episode they were shocked to get their pay packets and find that the experienced hands got less than the young trainee - they were women and he was a man - that's just the way it was).

On a slightly different track. I went to school in the fifties. Our headmaster was a Captain Brown. He only employed ex servicemen who had been in the war. Sadly a lot of these men were damaged and should never have been teachers. I was regularly caned for minor spelling mistakes. The teacher got a lot of glee from hurting us. I wish my parents had got me out of that school. At the time I thought all schools were like this. Years later i found that other people had had a nice experience at school.

I was born in 1940. My father was in a reserved occupation (teaching), so he wasn’t in the army or anything. He did join the Home Guard. My mother was at home. We went to live with my grandparents in the country for a while.

My mother was very good at all the domestic things, so I never felt we missed anything, though I grew up with rationing. My home was very happy. My parents treated me and my brother in a civilised way, talked to us a lot and so on. It is only as I’ve grown older that i’ve realised how frugal our life was. It still affects me. I think everyone has far too much.

My grandad was in the territorial army and was away on manoeuvres when war was declared and, apart from a single leave period, he didn't come back until after the war's end. My nana was besotted with my wayward ten year old mum who was totally indulged for the next six years. Mum went to work in a factory aged fourteen and regularly used to go out dancing after work - often telling my nana that she hadn't been able to get home because of bombs in Manchester. By the time the war ended my mum was sixteen and had got used to having her own way and being spoiled. My grandad was a quiet soul and when he got back from the war he would do anything for a peaceful life. My mum often said she enjoyed the war years.

Frugality was the name of the game when I was small. Both parents instilled a sense of valuing what you have in us and if we wanted something you waited for Christmas of birthdays or saved your pocket money.

Mum taught in the local primary school during the war while Gran looked after my older brother who was born in 1940. Dad was in the RAF and often talked about wartime experiences but only in a jokey way. We never hear anything disturbing. He kept all that to himself.

They were loving parents and forces life in the fifties and sixties was quite glamorous so I think I was a lucky child.

My parents were both adults when war broke out. My dad joined up as soon as he could and stayed until the very end, he was 30 when he joined up so a fully formed adult. My mum was just 18 and hadn't met my dad when war was declared. My mum worked in a munitions factory during the war and worked throughout her life fitting jobs around bringing up 4 kids. My dad was a paratrooper. My parents talked to us quite freely about their wartime experiences. They were very loving parents who lived for their kids and always put us first in everything.

Dad went to Europe on D Day and stayed there until 1947 so apart from fighting the Germans had to cope with sorting out the concentration camps, he did show us some photos but said very little in detail it was obviously horrible. He was quite moody at home and spent quite a lot of time at the British Legion club with his army friends, a good provider but didn't spend a lot of time with us kids

Mum was an army nurse that's where they first met I think her experiences were every bit as bad, trying to patch up casualties 18 hours a day, then many didn't recover. She was quite strict being ex army you quickly learned to do as you were told, we had to go to Sunday School as well as church. As others have said make do and mend and make everything go as far as you could but in general we were much better off than a lot of children.

They both smoked heavily, I guess it was to relieve the stress if their experiences.

I don't know if it was the war per se which affected my mum but certainly the repercussions from both wars had an effect on her. Being born illegitimately after her mother's husband was killed in WW1 (her father turned out to be a married man and her mum wanted nothing to do with him when she found out) was a huge stigma back then and she obviously felt great shame growing up despite being very close to her mother and older siblings. This affected the rest of her life. She then lost her pilot fiancé in WW2 when she was 20 which again had a profound affect on her especially as she also lost her mum around the same time. She didn't have me until she was 33 (met my dad after the war) - I don't remember cuddles or much affection growing up as an only child but despite that I knew she loved me and we were very close in later years when they moved near us.

My dad was also in the Middle East, North Africa and at Dunkirk - he didn't talk about it much but in later years he did open up a bit especially to both my husband and younger son. He must have seen some awful things during those years but whether that influenced the rest of his life I don't know. He was a very gentle man and thought the world of my mum - they were married over 60 years. Sadly he had dementia at the end and forgot everything about his war years - maybe not a bad thing

My Dad went in to the Royal Marines in 1941 when he turned 18. He was a gentle soul and didn't want to go to fight. My Mother left school at 14 and worked in a shop, and then in a pie factory. They both came from strict Methodist families who went to Church three times one Sunday. As others have said, I don't think it was the war that influenced their parenting, more their upbringing.
I never tasted alcohol until I left home! Being Methodist, ours was a teetotal home.

I think my parents were more a product of Victorian values and strict religious observance than WW2. My father fought in WW1 but never talked about it much. Sadly he died when I was 16 so I didn't have the opportunity to talk to him as an adult. My mother was a strict disciplinarian and adhered to her religious beliefs and observances all her life. I think I was something of a disappointment in that area.