Why did my mom let me get sunburned all the time as a kid?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. For the record, I'm not holding a grudge against my mom. I'm honestly just confused as to why she didn't do anything to prevent those sunburns. I get sunscreen was different back then and the culture was different, but even if sunscreen wasn't a thing now, I have a hard time believing I'd just let my super pale daughter go out and get lobster red 4-5x a summer and not take some kind of action, like being militant about hat wearing or changing our schedule, or forcing her to wear zinc or pants. Something. It's wild to me that I got probably 20+ really bad sunburns in my childhood and we didn't do anything about them.

I think I'm also surprised because I don't remember ever treating any of those sunburns. I don't remember being encouraged to drink more water or doing any kind of topical treatment. Now I know to always have hydrocortisone on hand and to give an anti-inflammatory pain reliever and push extra water when anyone in our family has had too much sun. But I learned this as an adult. Did people truly not know back then? Hydrocortisone is cheap and OTC. Drinking water is practically free. Those burns could have been a lot less painful if we'd treated them, but I remember just having sleepless nights in pain while I waited for the burned skin to peel off and I'd finally get relief.

It's just wild to me. I'm not sitting around stewing about my mom, I'm just kind of shocked at how different it was and how there were some fairly easy things we could have done to protect my skin or recover from burns faster and we just didn't do them. I'm glad my DD is getting better sun protection and after-sun care than I did!

Drinking water cures a sunburn? I don’t think this is common knowledge, even if true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you don’t have a dad?

This was kind of my thought too. Blame the mom always.

OP here and actually I didn't have a present dad. But also, in my family, DH doesn't do the sunscreen because he's Italian and tans easily and doesn't know how to do it (if he applies it, he misses spots or puts it on top thin). But my mom was fair and knew how to do it.

Someone has to teach your dad how to apply sunscreen. It’s his responsibility to learn and protect you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you don’t have a dad?

This was kind of my thought too. Blame the mom always.

OP here and actually I didn't have a present dad. But also, in my family, DH doesn't do the sunscreen because he's Italian and tans easily and doesn't know how to do it (if he applies it, he misses spots or puts it on top thin). But my mom was fair and knew how to do it.

This is bizarre. You blame your mom because you claim she knew how to prevent sunburn in kids in an era when most people didn’t know how, and didn’t think of it as a goal, and the technology wasn’t there to make it easy.

But your husband shouldn’t be blamed because he is Italian?

You misunderstand. My mom clearly knew how to prevent sunburns because she didn't get burned constantly and she has the same skin. I don't know if she was wearing sunscreen or covering up more or what. I do remember she almost always wore a hat. So it's not like she just didn't know how to prevent burns, she just wasn't doing any of that for me for some reason.

And I didn't say my DH wasn't responsible for my kids getting sunburns, I just said I'm better at applying sunscreen than he is so I do usually. Most families divide certain tasks based on who does it better. In our family, I'm particular about sunscreen application and know how to do it to make sure we don't miss a spot and get good coverage. I'm sure my DH could learn it, but since I already know how to do it and I'm picky about it, I do it. He always washes the dishes because he's picky about that and has "a system." Y'all are reading too much into this.

Does your DH never get your kid ready for camp in the morning, or take your kids to the pool, or parent in other ways?

Dishes can wait until you get home. Kid sunscreen can't, so this is absolutely bizarre.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was born in 1974 and my siblings and I are all pale and my mom absolutely made us protect our skin.

We played outside a lot, BUT she had us be inside between 11am and 2pm. Those were the only hours we were allowed to watch TV. We also ate lunch during those hours.

We went to the pool everyday but not till 430pm.

We always wore sunscreen at the beach and pool.

At the beach, we would slather on sunblock, go out for a 30 minute swim in the morning. Then we'd stay inside till 3pm. When we would slather on sunblock and go out for another swim around 330 or 4, for maybe an hour.

We were hats and sunglasses and t-shirts in the water.

Dermatologists complement me on my skin.

But not your spelling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. For the record, I'm not holding a grudge against my mom. I'm honestly just confused as to why she didn't do anything to prevent those sunburns. I get sunscreen was different back then and the culture was different, but even if sunscreen wasn't a thing now, I have a hard time believing I'd just let my super pale daughter go out and get lobster red 4-5x a summer and not take some kind of action, like being militant about hat wearing or changing our schedule, or forcing her to wear zinc or pants. Something. It's wild to me that I got probably 20+ really bad sunburns in my childhood and we didn't do anything about them.

I think I'm also surprised because I don't remember ever treating any of those sunburns. I don't remember being encouraged to drink more water or doing any kind of topical treatment. Now I know to always have hydrocortisone on hand and to give an anti-inflammatory pain reliever and push extra water when anyone in our family has had too much sun. But I learned this as an adult. Did people truly not know back then? Hydrocortisone is cheap and OTC. Drinking water is practically free. Those burns could have been a lot less painful if we'd treated them, but I remember just having sleepless nights in pain while I waited for the burned skin to peel off and I'd finally get relief.

It's just wild to me. I'm not sitting around stewing about my mom, I'm just kind of shocked at how different it was and how there were some fairly easy things we could have done to protect my skin or recover from burns faster and we just didn't do them. I'm glad my DD is getting better sun protection and after-sun care than I did!

Drinking water doesn’t “treat” a burn. I’ve literally never used hydrocortisone or an anti-inflammatory on a sunburn. They’re not some magical treatment. Once you’re burned, you’re burned.

It's important to drink water after a bad sunburn because otherwise you will dehydrate faster. It's not about treating the burn, it's about taking care of your body as it recovers from the burn. This is true of all burns, just like you need to hydrate more when you have a fever. You will feel better.

Hydrocortisone will promote healing and reduce itchiness, which is good because the burn will heal faster if you don't touch and irritate it. Taking ibuprofen can reduce pain and swelling at the burn site, which also aids healing. Also after a painful sunburn, the combo of hydrocortisone and ibuprofen can make you comfortable enough to sleep well, and just like with staying hydrated, good sleep aids healing helping your body function well overall.

I would do all of this for myself or my kid, it's a solid home treatment course for a severe sunburn.

If you’re the OP, you seem like a way over thinker. Of course you drink some water after you’ve been in the sun all day. Pop a Tylenol with a glass of water. This list of needing good sleep to “heal your body” is over the top. It’s why we have all these non-resilient fragile snowflake children these days. That will 100% be your child’s complaint about you.

[Anonymous]

My grandmother came from a culture and an era that prized paler skin. My mother was told by her *doctor* as a teen to make sure she got plenty of sun to avoid teenage acne. My grandmother made me wear sunhats and my mother had two run-ins with skin cancer.

Your mother did her best. Yes she let you get painful sunburns but obviously she wasn’t tracking your mythic hydrocortisone treatments or she would have done them.

[Anonymous]

Ever heard of Aloe vera to heal the sunburn? Hydrocortisone is so weird to pretend that it's common knowledge.

Your mom was a single mom. Give her a break.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ever heard of Aloe vera to heal the sunburn? Hydrocortisone is so weird to pretend that it's common knowledge.

Your mom was a single mom. Give her a break.

Hydrocortisone to treat sunburn is not "weird." It's pretty standard. Of course people have also heard if aloe.

[Anonymous]

I have suffered many sunburns and never heard of using hydrocortisone . . .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have suffered many sunburns and never heard of using hydrocortisone . . .

Well maybe you learned something today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. For the record, I'm not holding a grudge against my mom. I'm honestly just confused as to why she didn't do anything to prevent those sunburns. I get sunscreen was different back then and the culture was different, but even if sunscreen wasn't a thing now, I have a hard time believing I'd just let my super pale daughter go out and get lobster red 4-5x a summer and not take some kind of action, like being militant about hat wearing or changing our schedule, or forcing her to wear zinc or pants. Something. It's wild to me that I got probably 20+ really bad sunburns in my childhood and we didn't do anything about them.

I think I'm also surprised because I don't remember ever treating any of those sunburns. I don't remember being encouraged to drink more water or doing any kind of topical treatment. Now I know to always have hydrocortisone on hand and to give an anti-inflammatory pain reliever and push extra water when anyone in our family has had too much sun. But I learned this as an adult. Did people truly not know back then? Hydrocortisone is cheap and OTC. Drinking water is practically free. Those burns could have been a lot less painful if we'd treated them, but I remember just having sleepless nights in pain while I waited for the burned skin to peel off and I'd finally get relief.

It's just wild to me. I'm not sitting around stewing about my mom, I'm just kind of shocked at how different it was and how there were some fairly easy things we could have done to protect my skin or recover from burns faster and we just didn't do them. I'm glad my DD is getting better sun protection and after-sun care than I did!

I'm just shocked that we didn't have cell phones and couldn't look up stupid shit like this on the internet when I was a child! Why didn't my mom just google "how to protect my child's skin from the sun?" Or like, why didn't she just hop on Amazon and order me one of the 500 SPF 50+ sunscreens available throughout the world? I can't believe things were so different back then!!

Listen to yourself, OP, you sound so naive and stupid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you don’t have a dad?

This was kind of my thought too. Blame the mom always.

OP here and actually I didn't have a present dad. But also, in my family, DH doesn't do the sunscreen because he's Italian and tans easily and doesn't know how to do it (if he applies it, he misses spots or puts it on top thin). But my mom was fair and knew how to do it.

This is bizarre. You blame your mom because you claim she knew how to prevent sunburn in kids in an era when most people didn’t know how, and didn’t think of it as a goal, and the technology wasn’t there to make it easy.

But your husband shouldn’t be blamed because he is Italian?

You misunderstand. My mom clearly knew how to prevent sunburns because she didn't get burned constantly and she has the same skin. I don't know if she was wearing sunscreen or covering up more or what. I do remember she almost always wore a hat. So it's not like she just didn't know how to prevent burns, she just wasn't doing any of that for me for some reason.

And I didn't say my DH wasn't responsible for my kids getting sunburns, I just said I'm better at applying sunscreen than he is so I do usually. Most families divide certain tasks based on who does it better. In our family, I'm particular about sunscreen application and know how to do it to make sure we don't miss a spot and get good coverage. I'm sure my DH could learn it, but since I already know how to do it and I'm picky about it, I do it. He always washes the dishes because he's picky about that and has "a system." Y'all are reading too much into this.

Does your DH never get your kid ready for camp in the morning, or take your kids to the pool, or parent in other ways?

Dishes can wait until you get home. Kid sunscreen can't, so this is absolutely bizarre.

Also, “better at applying sunscreen” what?? It doesn’t take a special skill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. For the record, I'm not holding a grudge against my mom. I'm honestly just confused as to why she didn't do anything to prevent those sunburns. I get sunscreen was different back then and the culture was different, but even if sunscreen wasn't a thing now, I have a hard time believing I'd just let my super pale daughter go out and get lobster red 4-5x a summer and not take some kind of action, like being militant about hat wearing or changing our schedule, or forcing her to wear zinc or pants. Something. It's wild to me that I got probably 20+ really bad sunburns in my childhood and we didn't do anything about them.

I think I'm also surprised because I don't remember ever treating any of those sunburns. I don't remember being encouraged to drink more water or doing any kind of topical treatment. Now I know to always have hydrocortisone on hand and to give an anti-inflammatory pain reliever and push extra water when anyone in our family has had too much sun. But I learned this as an adult. Did people truly not know back then? Hydrocortisone is cheap and OTC. Drinking water is practically free. Those burns could have been a lot less painful if we'd treated them, but I remember just having sleepless nights in pain while I waited for the burned skin to peel off and I'd finally get relief.

It's just wild to me. I'm not sitting around stewing about my mom, I'm just kind of shocked at how different it was and how there were some fairly easy things we could have done to protect my skin or recover from burns faster and we just didn't do them. I'm glad my DD is getting better sun protection and after-sun care than I did!

I'm just shocked that we didn't have cell phones and couldn't look up stupid shit like this on the internet when I was a child! Why didn't my mom just google "how to protect my child's skin from the sun?" Or like, why didn't she just hop on Amazon and order me one of the 500 SPF 50+ sunscreens available throughout the world? I can't believe things were so different back then!!

Listen to yourself, OP, you sound so naive and stupid.

It's idiotic to let your child repeatedly get painful sunburns and never use common sense methods for preventing them.

[Anonymous]

If you were somewhat of a free range kid, she probably didn’t know when you’d be spending time outside or show up at someone’s pool or whatever. Camps didn’t have designated “reapply sunscreen time” like they do now.

I remember such a bad sunburn from a school “field day” once bc we were outside all day, and now the schools send a “it’s field day and will be sunny, send your kids with sunscreen on!” Email the day before.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you don’t have a dad?

This was kind of my thought too. Blame the mom always.

I didn’t think about this at all. That’s embarrassing.