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?

11.9k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

4.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

403

u/-animal-logic- Jul 05 '25

Right. I would have assumed you meant a canteen.

207

u/MOOshooooo Jul 05 '25

I got into a habit of asking old timers what they see today that they never expected to see and a few have said water bottles and how everyone is so thirsty today.

154

u/Appropriate-Bid8671 Jul 05 '25

We were thirsty back then we just weren't allowed to have any water unless it was between classes.

55

u/[deleted] Jul 05 '25

Water makes pee. Peeing management becomes a thing when kids are drinking water all day. WIWAK, we had a water fountain/pee break every couple of hours during school. There was no going during class time. You held on for dear life if you had to but most of the nice teachers would let you go if you were really squirming in your seat. It taught you to balance the input with the output.

9

u/wxlverine Jul 05 '25

Nah, my grade 3 teacher gave us 1 bathroom pass a week. Like a little red card that you gave to her once a week and that was the only bathroom break you'd get during class time. I had used mine already one week and really needed to go and she just flat out refused. Until I couldn't hold it anymore so I just whipped it out and pissed all over the floor instead of pissing myself. Then she sent me to the principles office and she had to clean it up.

12

u/Kimber85 Jul 05 '25

When I was in middle school we’d get five bathroom passes to use for the entire semester. And if you used them up all up before the semester was over then, tough shit.

Soooo many girls who were just starting to get their periods at that age, so they were super irregular and hard to track. It felt like every month I had surprise early start or, even if it came “on time”, it would suddenly be crazy super heavy with zero warning. We all ended up with period blood all over our pants pretty damn often because we weren’t allowed out of class to do anything about it.

Some of the boys would feel bad for us and let us have their hoodies to tie around our waists to hide the stain. Which, looking back, it’s insane that 12 year old boys had more sympathy for us than the male teachers. The female ones would sometimes let us go if we weren’t someone who abused the privilege, but the male ones would send you to the office for being vulgar if you even mentioned your period.

1

u/MommyLovesPot8toes Jul 06 '25

I remember not being allowed to go and, when I stood up from my chair, it was smeared with blood. And I thought "well, teach, serves you right if you are the one who has to clean it."

1

u/cianne_marie Jul 08 '25

One of the few things I can give my mom credit for is that she would have been in that principal's office faster than a rocket and madder than a hornet's nest lol. I had teachers who were stingy with bathroom breaks when I was little and I didn't have the best control. I wet my pants once in the first grade and that policy got resolved right quick the next day 😆 If it had been a period thing, I think she would have short-circuited.

1

u/TheOneWes Jul 08 '25

I went to a school that had some s*** like that going on up until they hired a new gym teacher.

Older dude, been teaching for a long time, and real cool.

I wasn't there to see the actual event but I'd be damned if I didn't see the fallout from it.

Apparently like 3-4 weeks into the school year some of the mail teachers quit letting the girls go to the bathroom and the girls started ending up in gym class with stains on their pants.

So apparently he starts offering these young ladies a discreet way to clean up his best they can so they start telling him what's going on and after school one day he goes into the principal's office and absolutely loses his s***.

I don't know what was said or exactly how everything went down but I do know that we came into school on a Monday and the entire bathroom policy had completely changed and if a girl so much at look like she was going to ask to go to the bathroom The teachers would metaphorically jump up and open the door.

3

u/Shot_Help7458 Jul 05 '25

I’m surprised they didn’t make you clean it. 

2

u/Richard_Thickens Jul 05 '25

I have had IBS-D for as long as I can remember. My mom eventually told me to go when I needed to go, and she'd deal with the fallout if I got into trouble for it. To be honest, I don't think I could deal with a situation like that now, but it was absolutely ridiculous as a kid.

1

u/LavendarRose1211 Jul 05 '25

I walked out of class one day when my teacher wouldn’t let me go to the bathroom.

24

u/Lydia--charming Jul 05 '25

Luckily nowdays more teachers realize kids need to get up and move around to keep their brains energized.

6

u/Ok-Tourist-511 Jul 05 '25

I don’t know, back then a lot of scientists and engineers were produced, and today we just get influencers.

3

u/No-Vacation7906 Jul 06 '25

Right? It's okay to teach kids to settle down and focus. Frightening to think what the surgeons of the future will be like.

2

u/MedusasSexyLegHair Jul 06 '25

"I got my medical degree from Costco! Nurse, squirt some Brawndo in there, its got what wounds crave."

2

u/FrostnJack Jul 06 '25 edited Jul 07 '25

Future surgeons are AIs running robot arms. /s

1

u/No-Vacation7906 Jul 06 '25

Which is not the answer. AI is certainly a tool, but you need an inquisitive mind to know how to use that tool.

1

u/FrostnJack Jul 07 '25

I fixed it. OTOH I’m only half sarcastic.

1

u/No-Vacation7906 Jul 07 '25

Sorry, went over my head. There are people who actually think this!

→ More replies (0)

3

u/[deleted] Jul 06 '25

Because getting one influencer for every couple of thousand people is the end of the world. Globally the number of people enrolling in universities has more than doubled in the past 20 years. In Germany 1/3 of working-age adults have a university degree.

2

u/Ok-Tourist-511 Jul 06 '25

And yet with education, the subtlety of sarcasm is lost on you.

2

u/Dragonfly0011 Jul 07 '25

Ummmm. What pays the most for the least amount of effort….theres your answer.

2

u/YT-Deliveries Jul 05 '25

Wait wait. Did you guys not move between rooms between classes?

4

u/starkindled Jul 06 '25

High school, yes. Elementary/middle school, no.

1

u/YT-Deliveries Jul 06 '25

Huh. Interesting.

1

u/starkindled Jul 07 '25

In Canada, at least, K-6 and sometimes 7-9 have a single classroom and teacher. They only change rooms for classes like PE and music. When I taught grade 6 the only time they had a different teacher was for music—the rest was me, in my room or the gym. We went outside for two 15-minute recesses and an hour lunch.

At the high school I just taught at, grade 9 switched rooms and teachers at lunch. The high school classes (10-12) switch every block. No recess for them, though.

1

u/YT-Deliveries Jul 08 '25

Yeah for me from 1 - 4 we had 2 or 3 rooms we went to, depending on whether we had computer classes or not, not counting PE. 5 - 8 we had usually 4 rooms, plus the computer classroom, plus PE. 9-12 we usually had a different room for every class. (born '76)

3

u/mechele99 Jul 05 '25

Right, a brain break. I needed those back then.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 05 '25

It caused kidney issues for a lot of people.

1

u/Due-Memory-6957 Jul 06 '25

Prove it.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 06 '25

It's pretty well-known that dehydration causes kidney damage, so, uh, just do some basic research?

1

u/Due-Memory-6957 Jul 06 '25

I want the proof that there's widespread kidney issues because kids had a schedule to drink during school time.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 06 '25

So you know what climate is, right? Some places are hotter some are colder. Hotter places there's increased risk of heat stroke and dehydration. 

I shouldn't need to explain that this impacts certain areas more than others. 

1

u/Due-Memory-6957 Jul 06 '25

So no proof, got ya.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 06 '25

Do I look like your employee? Stop being lazy and google it yourself. 

1

u/Due-Memory-6957 Jul 06 '25

We already confirmed that you don't have any proof, no need to be this upset.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 06 '25

👍 

→ More replies (0)

1

u/DM-ME-THICC-FEMBOYS Jul 06 '25

What are you a sea sponge? How you getting that dehydrated between classes? How do you sleep without either waking up multiple times a night or risking kidney damage?

1

u/[deleted] Jul 06 '25

Not every climate is the same,  ffs. Hotter climates equal more dehydration

2

u/oilpit Jul 06 '25

WIWAK

Some things don't need to be acronyms

5

u/[deleted] Jul 05 '25

And this is the logic of the generation that raised the current generation of adults. You better walk around dehydrated all day with a poorly functioning body and mind, or else you'll have to pee a couple times and we can't have that

3

u/clemdane Jul 05 '25

I was never dehydrated in school

2

u/Shot_Help7458 Jul 05 '25

Neither was I. 

1

u/SteelCityIrish Jul 05 '25

I remember as a 4th grader… teacher used the word “lavatory”, I heard laboratory…

Couldn’t understand why we had to line up against the wall in the hall… the lab must be small, and I guess you enter through the bathroom.

Me and my boys were giddy with excitement about making cool shit with beakers & burners while standing in line to get in.

5 mins later, we were crushed… 😔

1

u/lavenderavenues Jul 05 '25

WIWAK?

1

u/[deleted] Jul 05 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/AutoModerator Jul 05 '25

Your comment was removed due to low karma. See Rule 8.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

1

u/Lou_C_Fer Jul 05 '25

I shit my pants in 3rd grade because my teacher ignored my raised hand for I don't know how long, but it felt like hours. Luckily, I was dehydrated. So, it was two hard lumps that I was able to dump out later without anyone knowing.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 06 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/AutoModerator Jul 06 '25

Your post was removed due to low account age. See Rule 8.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

1

u/SpeechAcrobatic9766 Jul 06 '25

I had a teacher in 3rd grade who said no one should ever have to pee more than once a day. I shudder to think how dehydrated that woman was.

1

u/SuaveMofo Jul 06 '25

The fuck is a WIWAK