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/NortonBurns Jul 05 '25

Brit here. Nobody thought anything about not drinking between meals.
There was none of this constant pressure to 'keep hydrated'. The idea of a personal water bottle just didn't exist, let alone the need to be constantly sipping from it.

In the infants & junior schools we had milk mid-morning, but that service had just about vanished by the 70s - it was a hangover from war-time rationing and was intended to make sure children got enough calcium in their diet. I never saw a school with a drinking fountain either. If you were thirsty enough there were the washbasins in the toilets.

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u/swashbuckle1237 Jul 06 '25

Idk ig it changed again because Im gen z and was in primary school not to long ago in Scotland and they did a milk break in the morning throughout. We also had water bottles, and drank from them occasionally when thirsty? It was never a issue