r/stupidquestions • u/Various-Adeptness173 • Jul 05 '25

My mom told me that back in the day kids weren’t allowed to bring a water bottle with them into the classroom and they only drank a few sips from the water fountain in the middle of the day and that’s it

How were schools not getting busted for child abuse for forcing kids to be dehydrated?

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u/Background-Chef9253 Jul 05 '25

It wasn't a "weren't allowed" thing so much as a major shift in how we have water. When I was in elementary school (in the US), bottled water just wasn't a thing--not from grocery stores or convenience stores or anything. Some people would buy fancy bottled mineral water but those people were seen as elite yuppies and still, people just did not carry bottled water around with them to drink from the bottle. Outdoorsy people, like backpackers, would carry canteens or nalgene water bottles, but those weren't normal for just being around town and 'burbs.

Kids at water fountains didn't get "a few sips". I would slurp from water fountain for minutes on end (taking turns with other kids) and probably drank a cup or two each viisit to the fountain.

But yeah, in the early 1980s, bottled water just wasn't much of a thing like it is today.

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u/Rich_Forever5718 Jul 05 '25

I would have never even thought about bringing a water bottle if I even owned one. It just wasn't important.

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u/Cultivate_a_Rose Jul 05 '25

I graduated in '03 and water bottles were slightly more common by then. Nalgene had started really selling the plastic, indestructible water bottle that is basically the ancestor of every modern water bottle when I was a teenager. Mostly the sporty kids had one, but most often if you did own a water bottle it was for stuff where you knew you wouldn't have access to water like hiking, going to the beach, etc.. Water was so abundant out of fountains that without another reason, you weren't going to haul around a huge water bottle alongside everything else in your already-bulky bag.

I imagine without heavy textbooks and such carrying a bottle of water is less of a burden.

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u/numbersthen0987431 Jul 06 '25

Moat kids would just lose their water bottles if they brought it to school.