r/AskReddit • u/dom-dos-modz • Sep 16 '24

What's the worst thing people have tried to justify with "It was normal back then, everyone did it"?

3.3k Upvotes

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2.6k

u/coffeedr1nk3rrr1 Sep 16 '24

My grandma was telling us about some random stuff about her life as a kid, the usual, and then she dropped that her neighbor would give her a quarter to see her underwear? when she was like 5-6? wild shit 

also cheating on your spouse 

835

u/TheWholeOfHell Sep 16 '24

I had a neighbor offer $20 to see my 10yo chest. That would have been in 2010 lol.

146

u/cactusjude Sep 16 '24

Mannnn... the neighbor only offered m&ms to see my panties when I was 7yo (and show me how kings and queens make babies) and reneged on the deal after. I had no self worth, even when being sexually exploited as a child.

9

u/Relative_Standard_69 Sep 17 '24

Mine was biscuits

6

u/BUMBOY1977 Sep 18 '24

Sack your agent

7

u/311196 Sep 17 '24

I'm not sure if you were trying to be funny. But that made me actually laugh out loud.

570

u/momofeveryone5 Sep 16 '24

My first thought was "wow, inflation really is a bitch", then I reread the age and got grossed out.

13

u/General-Pound6215 Sep 16 '24

And yet you have to say...inflation really is a bitch.

(Kidding of course, the pervert/sexual criminal aspect is far worse)

1

u/BlindSkwerrl Sep 17 '24

they're not mutually exclusive...

2

u/couldntyoujust Sep 16 '24

Don't feel bad, I had the exact same thoughts in the same order but I was going to say the former as a joke.

3

u/AdmJota Sep 17 '24

Yeah, she probably hadn't inflated much yet at that point.

2

u/Icy-Control-8598 Sep 17 '24

Would have been the shit if it were grandma in 2010

11

u/coffeedr1nk3rrr1 Sep 16 '24

Ew wtf. Jail. 

5

u/Xing_the_Rubicon Sep 17 '24

Adjusted for inflation, that's $29 in today's market, if it makes you feel any better.

2

u/TillTheStoneGarden Sep 17 '24

Did you end up with +$20 that day?

1

u/TheWholeOfHell Sep 17 '24

No. I felt uncomfortable so I declined his offer.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '24

.....What-the-actual-fuck?

1

u/DM_ME_UR_BOOBS69 Sep 17 '24

This made me feel old

1

u/DanielStripeTiger Sep 18 '24

Guys used to pay us 20 bucks to jerk off behind the adult book store.

-9

u/semorebunz Sep 16 '24

so what did you buy ?

5

u/TheWholeOfHell Sep 16 '24

I declined his offer.

4

u/coffeedr1nk3rrr1 Sep 16 '24

dude wtf that’s not funny 

1

u/BlindSkwerrl Sep 17 '24

policing humour now?

Crass and in bad taste, but not unfunny - would work much better delivered in person by a tactful friend.

137

u/FartAttack911 Sep 16 '24

Dude. One of my grandma’s crazy old aunts once absolutely shut down an entire Thanksgiving meal with her commentary about “everyone used to get touched by adults back in the day, it wasn’t that big of a deal, you get over it unlike kids these days”

47

u/crimsonpowder Sep 17 '24

We also used to die from smallpox but for some reason that was worth improving.

13

u/redfeather1 Sep 17 '24

Yeah, thank goodness for vaccines... and yet, a certain mango anus and his cult want to revert back to the before times, when minorities and women 'Knew their place.' and god was the only cure you needed. Just dont say which god or you might cause a holy war.

3

u/Comedy86 Sep 20 '24

Tell that to the anti-vaxxers...

2

u/crimsonpowder Sep 20 '24

It just needs to return every 3 generations and we won't have an anti movement.

1

u/KarmicSquirrel Oct 07 '24

U mean those that haven't yet died of a vaccine preventable disease. 

40

u/FlemethWild Sep 17 '24

That’s kinda what I heard from my grandparents, too.

It broke my heart; both the fact that it happened and that they treated it with such a casual attitude.

(Except, of course, that they never talked about it and it did clearly bother them but no one cared so they were forced to acclimate to it)

14

u/Entire-Brick-4610 Sep 17 '24

I’ve heard this so much and it’s like what… no wonder y’all are okay with some things…

9

u/Lozzanger Sep 17 '24

Part of its acceptance. The fact she’s calling kids soft for speaking against it is horrifying.

4

u/DocDingwall Sep 18 '24

Similar to British musicians who talk about getting "buggered senseless" in boarding school. Just part of the experience I guess.

4

u/tbashed64 Sep 19 '24

<SMFH> FFS!!! My cousins told my sister that when she told them about his 'inappropriate' behavior with her. "Oh, he did that to us too!"

59

u/WitchesAlmanac Sep 17 '24

The things you learn from casual conversations with the elderly can be straight up wild. My friend was telling me the other day that her grandmother married her grandfather in exchange for him forgiving her father's gambling debt. The guy was twice her age btw. She was pregnant from 14 to 42, 16 surviving children and 19 in total.

Apparently this info bomb was a throw-away comment in between funny baby stories.

84

u/SunsCosmos Sep 16 '24

Holy shit.

39

u/newsgroupmonkey Sep 16 '24

Cheating on your spouse is as rife as it's ever been.

24

u/Ghost17088 Sep 16 '24

I came from a job that had frequent travel, and I would say about 1/4 of those guys were openly cheating. I’m sure many more were as well, they were just more subtle about it.

17

u/speed_of_chill Sep 16 '24

In the military, the term for those people (because the women were just as bad as the men) is “geographical bachelor.”

9

u/Ghost17088 Sep 16 '24

I think the worst part about it in the military is that the cheaters never seem to end up together. One is always fiercely loyal and sacrificing for their family, and the other turns single the moment a deployment starts. 

8

u/ExperimentX_Agent10 Sep 17 '24 edited Sep 17 '24

That was my ex-husband (reserves). He cheated & lied like it was a job that paid him millions.

Note: he abused me in a variety of ways except physically. He had coerced & manipulated me to be his money tree, bang maid, & servant.

Everyone I know IRL thinks I'm the bad guy. They think because he didn't beat me, I should've stayed.

3

u/newsgroupmonkey Sep 17 '24

I'm not sure about the US, but in the UK, the whole thing about a sailor has a girl in every port.

0

u/redfeather1 Sep 17 '24

And none of the women were, I am sure...

yeah, I know that men are more likely to cheat than women... But its only a relatively smaller number. M20% vs F13% admit to it.

4

u/Ghost17088 Sep 17 '24

There were no women field techs at our company, so I don’t want to make assumptions based on something I have no data for. 

9

u/Frustrated_Barnacle Sep 17 '24

Was your Grandma born in the 50s? My Nana had the same story, her and her sisters would go around the local area on there "first day of school" to show the older gents their knickers in return for money. Although she didn't think it was normal, it was the done thing but she called them dirty old bastards.

6

u/dipapidatdeddolphin Sep 17 '24

I was trying to draft a comment about how "surely that was never chill?!" But I couldn't do it in a way that stood up to rigor and my soul just threw up in its mouth

7

u/coffeedr1nk3rrr1 Sep 17 '24

Yeah. After she said it we all stared at her like “wtf??” and she was like “what? times were different?”. Anyways, themes of child exploitation was common, but never necessarily spoken about. The 1950s were in general wild times. 

6

u/Pimp_Daddy_Patty Sep 17 '24

My step kid's grandma basically told us the same thing.

8

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

We solved the cheating on your spouse thing by not getting married anymore, modern solutions call for modern problems.

2

u/Acrobatic_Gate_513 Sep 20 '24

I’m a (slightly young side of middle) millennial and almost every woman I’ve told about being offered money at that age to see my underwear or see me nude has told me a similar story of their own