Describe breakfast in your childhood residence during your schooldays

The teen daughter of a guy I dated about 10 years ago was astonished when I told her that my mother cooked breakfast for me just about every school day of my life from first grade (1954) through college graduation (1970). My mother was a SAHM and this girl’s mom had always worked outside the home and was usually gone by the time the kids got up. (Don’t know about the toddler days.)

That got me wondering… breakfast in your childhood home… what was it like? Was there breakfast? Who made it happen? What did you eat? Cold, hot? With parent(s), family, or on your own? Sit down, on the run, or served at school, etc., etc.? Please indicate what years these were, or at least what decade.

Note: Auntie ThelmaLou is into details. :woman_technologist:t4:

My mother made fried or scrambled eggs, sometimes scrambled with hot dog “coins,” or French toast. Occasionally I had cereal, usually with canned fruit, maybe a small can of fruit cocktail. In the winter I had hot cereal-- remember I Want My Maypo? She never made oatmeal, probably because she had hated it as a child. Now I love oatmeal!

I ate by myself (only child) but my mother would have been around the kitchen. My father was long gone to work (she made brekkies for him, too). Then I was off to catch the school bus. During college, I was off to catch the city bus.

I very much took this daily breakfast for granted, but looking back, I can see that this was quite a caring thing to do. Thank you, Mama!

There were a lot of kids in my family. The only thing I remember is making my own breakfast when I was ready to eat. It was cold cereal and I ate by myself. I guess if someone else was eating at the same time we would be at the table together, but it wasn’t a family thing.

I remember hot cereal — oatmeal, malt-o-meal, and cream of wheat. (Not for the same meal :wink: )
I don’t remember eggs in weekdays but it’s possible.

Brian

Cold cereal (usually generic corn flakes, shredded wheat, rice puffs…nothing sweet). Nothing else on weekdays, ever. My mom was a single, working mom of two girls, and we were out the door to daycare early every day. When we got older and saw ourselves off to school, it was still cold cereal. Now that I think about it, we were never really ‘cooked breakfast’ people, even on the weekends.

Cold cereal and milk on school days. Both my parents worked, somewhat unusual for the middle class in the 1960’s.

On Saturdays we kids made whatever we wanted and after Saturday Morning Chores watched cartoons.

On Sundays my Dad often served bagels and cream cheese and smoked salmon and we all read the Sunday papers.

I had a SAHM, and she packed lunches for us all every morning (when my youngest sis started 1st grade, that was 5 lunches.) But she didn’t make us breakfast. In fact, I don’t recall eating breakfasts back then, except on holiday mornings when my dad would cook for us all. I didn’t start eating breakfast regularly till I was on my own.

I know my mom always bought cereal, and there was always bread, eggs, and bacon. I just didn’t want any before school.

Lots of sugary cereals of all the big brand varieties. Cap’n Crunch was my all-time favorite.

My mom would make stuff like eggs and bacon on the weekends, but when I was a kid I hated eggs. I couldn’t stand the smell of them. I remember leaving the house and going outside to play one Sunday morning because I had to get away from the horrible smell of eggs and bacon. Torture! Weird thing is, though I love eggs and bacon now, smell and all, I can remember the smell from the point of view of a kid who hated the smell, if that makes any sense at all.

I was a latch key kid in the 80’s, raised by a single mom. This thread reminded me of getting ready for school and hearing her yell out “make some cheese toast!” (A slice of cheese on a piece of bread, thrown into the toaster oven). Most days, I just skipped breakfast.

(Later, when I moved in with my dad, breakfast was these mini chocolate chip muffins sold in a pouch. Even today, my 8 year old son’s breakfast is “little bites”, but he also drinks a carnation instant breakfast shake).

We had porridge (oats boiled in milk to death), soft boiled eggs and weak tea in the winter. Replaced by fried eggs and “buttered” toast with tea in the warmer months. (We only had margarine which we called butter) We didn’t have “lunch” until we got back from school (~2:30) so a hearty breakfast was needed.

Weekend (only one day at the time) was quite late and involved parathas or pooris with sweet AND savory accompaniments (coconut, almond or semolina halwa, chickpea or potato curry). Check out The Indian Bread Types You Need to Know | Naan, Roti and Beyond for what parathas and pooris are.

We had a pear and Gorgonzola galette for breakfast this morning, which five minutes ago seemed quite elaborate. But now that I have typed the previously paragraph it seems very poor.

Pakistan in the 1970s.

My daughter’s breakfast often includes fresh baked bread, a filled omelet and fresh cut fruit or berries. And now that she is a teen, some tea, previously milk or juice. Compared to her contemporaries, her breakfasts are spectacular!

I had a SAHM as well. In addition to sugary cereals, she’d make pancakes (Bisquick) served with artificial syrup, Wheatena (which I cannot find anywhere) and eggs & toast. On occasions “eggy in the egg-cup” which is a 3-minute egg served in a holder standing up with part of the shell removed to allow dipping toast in the runny yolk. Bagels and lox on occasion. My dad liked canned corned-beef hash with an egg yolk on top, which I got to liking. Ugh, if we knew then what we know now about nutrition.

My breakfasts, made by my SAHM from my earliest memories ca. 1960 through the early '70s, usually consisted of eggs with bacon, sausage, or scrapple, and toast or grits. We also ate a lot of oatmeal and cream of wheat. Sometimes sausage-cheese grits would be the main item, always with an egg over-easy or sunny side up. This would be at the kitchen table on weekday mornings, but on a lot of Saturdays we were allowed to eat cold cereal (ugh, Quisp and Quake and Cap’n Crunch? I shudder at the memory!) in the living room while watching cartoons.

We always had eggs. We kept chickens, and my grandparents, who lived just beyond a small hill through the back of our property, sold eggs as a retirement supplement. So never a short supply. We also had a few ducks and geese, and my grandparents had some guinea hens, so Ma would give us an occasional ‘treat’ with other-than-chicken eggs. I liked the variations, but my little sister was never a fan.

That brings back memories! That’s how my Grandma liked her eggs. On the rare occasion I did eat eggs, it was a soft-boiled egg in the egg cup. You’d tap around the top of the shell with a spoon to crack and remove it, then dip thin strips of toast (my Grandma called them ‘toast soldiers’) into the yolk. I think I enjoyed the ritual of it enough that I could temporarily get over my dislike of eggs.

Yes, the tapping of the shell! Of the few things I kept from my parents after they died is a pair of those egg-cups that hold the egg upright.

My mom shifted from SAH to working mom when I was in the fourth grade, but our breakfasts didn’t change. On schooldays it was orange juice, cold cereal, and milk. Maybe eggs and toast on occasion. Hot cereal (oatmeal, Cream of Wheat, etc.) often in the winter.

Saturdays we got our own cold cereal because our parents were still sleeping.

Sunday we went to the bakery, where each of us could pick out one thing. We took those things home and had them for breakfast along with … well, it could have been anything — eggs and bacon, pancakes, waffles, cornmeal mush, and surely some I can’t remember right now.

Mom was a sahm too, as we got older she took odd jobs during the school day but mostly was home for us. She didn’t cater to us kids, we made our own breakfasts. Cereal, cinnamon toast or pbj. For the Young kids mom made brown bag lunches as we got older she handed out lunch money which I spent at the 7-11 for a icee, Cheetos and smarties. Weekends would see Pops in the kitchen with a towel over his shoulder frying eggs and scrapple.

My spouse otoh had a hot breakfast of scrambled eggs & sausage everyday prepared by Mom.

My mom was a SAHM. She liked to cook. She liked to vary the menu. Sometimes meat and eggs, sometimes pancakes, sometimes cereal.

Meat might be bacon, or ham, or sausage, depending on what was on sale that week.

Eggs could be scrambled or over easy. Sometimes omelets. None of us were really fond of boiled eggs, so we usually only had those at Easter. On Easter, the meal was biscuits, topped with sliced Easter eggs, topped with cream curry gravy.

If Mom saw a new recipe on TV, she would usually try it. That’s how I learned about fried mush (not bad, basically a pancake made of cornbread).

I was never one for eating breakfast although I do remember Sugar Pops and Sugar Crisp. The other kids generally had cold cereal, I think. On Snow Days or kids sick at home Mom made oatmeal or soft boiled eggs. When Instant Breakfast first came out Mom tried to get me to slug down a glass of that nasty stuff but gave up when I left it on the counter and ran for the school bus.

In my teen years my Grandmother came to live with us and on Sunday’s she always had a big breakfast with lots of people dropping in; potato pancakes, French toast, home made perogies, eggs, bacon, the whole shooting match – but I rarely ate.

I still rarely eat breakfast, really only when I’m traveling. I often have breakfast food, a bowl of cereal, oatmeal, eggs, etc., as a nighttime snack.

Cold cereal with milk on school days. I was a cereal aficionado, though never a fan of the worst of the candy-sweet kid’s cereals – my favorites were Life and Cheerios (both still favorites), Just Right with Fruit and Nut (sadly, now defunct), Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, Honey Nut Cheerios, Crispix, Chex, Grape Nuts, and probably a few others I’ve forgotten. Also a big glass of OJ or two each morning.

Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs w/milk Sunday thru Friday. Hot breakfast on Saturdays. 1965-76, then Mom found better things to do on Saturdays.

I either had cold cereal (I’m another fan of cheerios and Life), or instant oatmeal, or toast/english muffins with butter and jam, and some OJ. Always prepared by me after about the age of 7. This would have been late 70s through 80s.

On weekends either my dad would make pancakes or mon would make bacon and eggs.