I remember growing up in Sardinia where summers are brutally hot, and children were forbidden from leaving the house between 12 noon and 4/5 pm because of the extreme heat. To reinforce the message we were told that at these hours the "mother of the sun" was out and would kidnap children who were outside on their own.
Has people in other hot countries experienced something similar ?
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I haven’t had such stories like “mother of the sun” told, but I do remember both my parents and plenty of tour guides warning everyone to try to stay out of the sun as much as possible around noon-early afternoon when on summer holidays down south
No, not at all. More like “go outside and enjoy the sun while it lasts.” It’s climate-related, obviously.
I wouldn’t say warned but strongly encouraged not go play outside or something like that during those hours.
lol. They didn’t even think to give us water. You just went to drink from the faucet in the toilet when you were almost dead.
I’m from the place where there have already been two hailstorms in July the size of a tennis ball, fair to say that, even with the heat waves we’ve never had those problems but it’s true that during heat waves no sane person leaves the house if they don’t need to
I remember my parents telling me about the dangers of ultraviolet radiation at midday. They didn’t make up any scary stories.
Back in the 80s the hottest hours of the day were typically around 25 degrees, so we were actually encouraged to go out “to get some sun and fresh air”. On the handful of extremely hot days per year, where the temperature would reach or even surpass 30 degrees, we were encouraged to wear a cap and stay in the shade, if possible.
Nowadays 30 degrees is normal in summer and even 40 is not unheard of. Still, many people prefer to go outside because indoors it can be unbearable (air conditioning is uncommon in Austria).
This story reminded me of [Poludnitsa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Midday). She is in the myths of some Slavic peoples, although not among Ukrainians.
I’m obviously not from “other hot countries”, but I’ll just chime in and say no. The hottest hours during summer are usually 15-25 degrees, so if anything, we’re encouraged to go out whenever the weather is sunny and nice (“go get some vitamin D!”), because it doesn’t happen that often.
That said, a few days of the year can get to around 30 degrees, with a UV of 5-7, and in those cases, the media goes crazy with warnings of using sunscreen and not staying in the sun for too long. Using sunscreen isn’t a regular habit for most people here, so I guess we need the reminder.
Oh hell no. The very opposite.
As a child, I was conditioned to treat the sun like a precious resource that must never go to waste, to the point that I feel shame and restlessness if it’s sunny out and I’m inside. The midday sun was seen as particularly wonderful since it was so high in the sky, and kids were forced to go out into it every day for recess. Can’t let the sun go to waste! I believe this mindset is quite common in Scandinavia in general.
In recent years, the health authorities have started to campaign for staying in the shade between 12-15, but it’s an uphill battle.
I was definitely warned against it, both in Trentino (up in the Alps the sun can be surprisingly mean) and in Puglia, where of course it’s very hot at midday.
In the Philippines they have lovely screens
To protect you from the glare
In the Malay States there are hats like plates
Which the Britishers won’t wear
At twelve noon the natives swoon
And no further work is done
But mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.
That’s wonderful that children are protected from the sun on a societal level.
I still feel a little embittered that I got sunburned a few times as a kid. I grew up in England and spent Summers in Ireland in our home by a beach. Zero sun protection.
I’ve worn spf since I was a teenager and haven’t tanned or burned since but I dread to think of the damage that was caused to my skin. It looks good but there must be damage that will manifest when I’m a little older. I’m late thirties by the way, Irish father, middle eastern mother. My daughter has never had her skin burned. I protect her!
Yes, totally. I got home at 14:00 and wouldn’t leave the house until about 17:00 or sometimes 17:30, not only because of the heat, but because it’s the “siesta” hours and no one’s outside, so parents thought children were easier to kidnap. And no, we didn’t sleep during the siesta hours, it’s just the time in-between lunch (14:00-15:00) and going back to work for people on a split shift.
No. I didn’t even really know about heat stroke. I vividly remember one time being outside with friends playing and not drinking water much all day. At some point at dusk I saw all those colors in the sky and around me; purple, yellow, green, red. Being a kid and not feeling an immediate pain, I thought it was pretty cool at the time, lol. Unbeknownst to me, I was fried haha.
Hahaha, no, absolutely not. That was totally irrelevant in our climate. Also, heat, sun, uv, etc wasn’t really considered dangerous in any way then.
Going outside on those hours was ok, I was just told to take cover on the beach during those hours.
Quite the opposite. The heat is not extreme here, so we were told to enjoy the heat while it was here.
Yes, definitely. According to the number of people needing an ambulance during their vacation in Croatia (due to fainting/heat stroke), I can only assume that they were NOT taught the same.
I wish there were more signs warning about the immediate danger of the sun/heat – for both health reasons, and in order to keep the ER/ambulance resources available for emergencies that are not as easily preventable.
I was advised to apply sunscreen and drink plenty of water but back when I was a child some 20 years ago even the hottest summer days were 5-10C cooler. We didn’t have 38 degrees even in July, more like 31-32.
“Hot days” in my hometown in England were mid to high 20s when I was a kid (not the disgusting high 30s we sometimes get now). You’d get told to wear shorts, drink lots water/juice and maybe put a bid of sunscreen on your face and that was it.
In the hottest hours of the day, the thing to do was find a shop that sold TVs and bask in the air conditioning watching Mazinger Z.
Growing up in the UK I was almost forced to go out during these hours.
Now I spend time with my in-laws in Sicily they thought I was crazy for doing so. But also they force feed me food at lunch so I physically can’t go outside during this time
From south of France, there are no threats like the mother of the sun, but kids (and adults) are definitely conditionned to stay inside between 12 and 5 on hot days. We close the window and slats in the morning to open everything again at night when it gets cooler. Only tourists and crazy are out in the middle of the afternoon
Not really. Growing up in a part of Spain where summers can get brutally hot, our grandma used to say “if you’re stupid enough to go out with this sun, you deserve whatever happens to you”.
Spanish grandmas can be as brutal as our summers.
I’m not from a very “hot country”. Well… at least not in the eighties and nineties, because now we’re being warned about a possible upcoming heatwave, up to 40 degrees. But nope, there’s no global warming, it’s a communist and gay and green activist lie, haha. Anyway, I wasn’t exactly told to stay inside as a kid, just to keep in the shade or wear a sunhat when out around noon.
Other than that, as I already replied to someone else’s comment, we have a very similar mythical creature to yours. She’s called Południca and is basically, the personification of heat stroke, since according to legends, she was said to target field workers and either kill them or make them insane. She even appeared in the Witcher games under the names “Noonwraith” and “Midday Bride”.
I grew up in the south of France, where it can get very hot in summer. Like 35°C was not super rare. I remember my grandmother warning me about the heat, but no more than that. I would go out at any hour and just explore nature under the sun.
When I lived in Italy though, streets were usually pretty empty during the hottest hours of the day, apart from hordes of tourists. Locals were smart enough to just rest. The immense advantage is that shops would re-open quite late in the afternoon and close in the evening as a result. No need to run after work to buy something.
In NL, nope, I was out all day, often swimming. We also went camping for about 3-4 weeks usually in France. You can’t sit in a tent in the middle of the day, so we’d play in the forest or in the pool. But here I am in Spain with my kids inside since 15, they know there’s no one out to play with, but we’re going to the pool soon.
Yes, a little bit. We are a very pale people and most of us will burn easily. But is not in the culture to stay inside during hot days, if anything we flock to the beaches and get scorched in the sun for as lock as possible.
“Mad dogs and English men go out in the midday sun.” (Noel Coward)
I never understood what was wrong with going out all day in the summer till I nearly died 100 deaths on holiday in Barbados.
Now we’re getting hotter weather in the UK, I don’t go out between 12 and 6pm if it’s over 22C because I will get the most horrendous headaches.
I grew up by the ocean and the only special thing was if it was sunny we weren’t allowed to hang out on the beach from 11-15, something about reflections and increased risk of sunburns.
Thought it was just my mum being weird but other kids from the area had been told the same, except the cult kids, but they were never really at the beach anyways.
No. In the Netherlands it sometimes does get hot on single days, but days above 30 degrees are rare, and usually it’s between 22 and 27 degrees outside in summer.
Yes, but never while in Europe. Southern Mexico on the other hand, yes. A UV index of 15 plus is not something to take lightly.
In Denmark, mostly the opposite, go out and enjoy the sun.
I spent at least some time in Portugal every summer with family while growing up.
What I remember were my aunts (and also my mother) being obsessed with getting tanned, getting us to the beach, put the oils on us (not sun screen but oils so that we would tan more!!) and let us basically bake under the sun the entire day.
The goal was to get as dark as possible until the end of the summer.
To this day I pretty much hate to sunbathe and I’m pretty sure it’s due to that. Also one of my cousins had skin cancer when he was like 18 yo and obviously it might’ve happened anyway but it’s hard to just overcome the fact that when you were a child those that should’ve protected you basically made you do insane shit like this.
So, tldr, there wasn’t really anyone around warning us of the sun or the heat that I was constantly around (my father’s mom was pretty cautious but she wasn’t exactly allowed to tell my mom off, so…)
Lol no, we were just told to put suncream on and a hat. In fact, my mum grew up in India and she doesn’t seem to have been told this by her parents either.
In England I developed a habit of going for a walk outside during my mid-afternoon slump, as it gets dark at 4 in winter and that might be the only daylight I’d experience all day. I continue this habit here in LA even though it’s usually in the low to mid 30s around that time. I just tolerate being hot and sweaty.
We do have one of those myths in Paraguay (I know, not Europe but among the hottest countries on Earth). It’s a [Guarani myth](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasy_Jatere) about a child-sized, kinda goblin-like creature called Jasy Jatere.
It’s said that after noon, while adults sleep the siesta and it’s deserted outside, this little imp who dwells in the forests roams the streets of villages, towns and even cities searching for children who went outside against the orders and kidnaps them.
If you want to know more about this, the Wikipedia article I linked to is quite good but for one small detail: I don’t think this creature or his six cursed siblings are to be considered gods in guarani mythology. More like supernatural creatures akin to demons, maybe.