Our parents are a product of how they were raised. That means there’s a good chance that they may pass on the teachings and principles they got from their folks, for better or worse. 

For some people, it’s unfortunately the latter. In a recent Reddit thread, they shared the weirdest, most absurd rules their parents ever imposed. Responses ranged from TV shows they couldn’t watch to questionable rituals that made absolutely no sense. The worst part is that they never realized the ridiculousness until they grew older. 

Scroll through the list and see if you have any similar experiences.

#1

Okay, so growing up, my parents had this super strict rule that we couldn’t wear socks in the house after 6 PM. Like… what?? 😂 They said it was because your feet need to breathe in the evening. I didn’t question it. Just barefoot all night like it was some kind of family ritual. I remember once I had friends over and one of them got scolded for having socks on at 7:30. I was like, Oh nooo, you broke the sacred foot law. 😅

Image credits: 1108susiep

#2

No pooping in the house.

Not mine, but a classmate’s dad had this rule and he was SERIOUS about it. So any sleepovers there was a zero tolerance rule about s******g in his house. We had to hold it or go on a group exodus to the nearest store to poop together.

What’s strange is this was in the Bay Area where everyone was on city sewer and septic wasn’t a thing. Also his house was massive (6 beds, 5 baths) so it wasn’t an issue of availability.

To this day I have no idea why he didn’t want kids s******g in his house.

Image credits: ohlookahipster

#3

We weren’t allowed to read The Berenstain Bears because the dad bear was portrayed as a doofus and it wasn’t acceptable to have parental figures portrayed negatively.

Image credits: PM_ME_LEFT_BOOB_ONLY

#4

Don’t sleep with the fan on, you will die.

Apparently there was an urban legend in Korea that someone died in their sleep and it was because of the fan. 

ETA: You guys saying the s*****e thing, I’ve never heard that before. What I did hear was that in the 70s, I heard this all as a child, and in Korean (English is my first language) so forgive me if I get any details wrong the media put it out that it would k**l you. The idea was that you wouldn’t be able to breathe and that it would k**l you. I don’t see how s*****e would have parents avoid having fans on in bedrooms. Also, if you feared someone was s******l , would you go, hey I’m taking the fan out so you can’t hurt yourself? That doesn’t sound logical (I know the fan thing is illogical it you know what I mean. but hey I was born in the us, so what the f**k do I know lol.

Image credits: Lower_Group_1171

#5

We weren’t allowed to watch anything that involved witchcraft or magic. We’d watch the Little Mermaid, and my mom would fast forward through the part where Ariel sells her soul and gives up her voice. Lion King? The scene where Rafiki summons Mufasa’s spirit. Snow White? When the crone makes the poisoned apple. I couldn’t watch or read Harry Potter until I was well into my teens and that was only after a serious conversation with my parents explaining how none of it was real and to read it with a “discerning eye” to avoid…tarnishing my soul? I don’t know. Anyways, I’m super into fantasy books and tv shows now so it kind of had the opposite effect intended.

Image credits: lylalexie

#6

We weren’t allowed to have any lights on after 9 pm. like, no lamps, no tv, nothing. thought it was normal until I realized most people just… live in their houses at night.

Image credits: Impressive_Cod5502

#7

Once a month I had to pee in a bag, my mom claimed it was so she could test it to make sure I was healthy, but I learned later in life she was a long time d**g user and used it to pass d**g tests.

Image credits: cpufreak101

#8

If you go to the kitchen to cook something for yourself, you have to offer to cook for everyone in the family too. Can’t be simple food either, has to be a balanced meal.

I would fast until someone else caved and cooked.

This made me grow up HATING cooking so much. Still makes me irrationally angry.

Image credits: FermentedEel

#9

In my teen years, I had to wear clothes many sizes larger than what I actually was to hide my figure. Like, pants were size 8-12 and shirts size large.

When I moved away from home and gained independence, I realized I was a size 4 in pants and a size small in tops, and it wasn’t “s**tty” or “revealing” to wear clothes that fit properly.

Image credits: obigimli2022

#10

We had to take our shoes off before getting into our dad’s car. He’d even brush our shoes and feet off of any dirt that might’ve been accumulated. He didn’t want to get the inside of his car dirty. We couldn’t put our shoes back on until we were out of the car.

One night he was driving home and saw this man in a wheelchair pushing himself backwards along the side of the road. It was raining so dad decided to offer him a ride (this was the late 80’s early 90’s). He helped the man into the car, got him situated and drove him to his destination. Dad noticed his passenger seat was pretty wet.. much wetter than it should have been considering it wasn’t raining that **hard**. Turns out the man had peed his pants and it soaked into the seat.

That rule went out the window that night lmao.

Image credits: vixiecat

#11

We had to stand in the doorway of our bedrooms waiting for ‘inspection’ before we were allowed out of our rooms on Saturdays. Even if you had to go to the bathroom right across the hall, you had to stand (with your legs crossed) until mom thought your room was clean and tidy enough. I hated when my one brother got inspected first as he always had something to pick up and put away and it would take forever. You couldn’t just push things under the bed or closet as these would be inspected too. It made me compulsively neat and organized but it took me a long time to stop having to do it all before Saturday.

Image credits: Suitable-Dot5576

#12

I (female) was no allowed to cut my hair. Like at all. This was my father’s rule. When I was about 13 I told my grandma I had the money and asked if she would take me to great clips. She did. Imagine my dad’s surprise when I walked in with a very short pixie cut! He didn’t speak to me for over a month. 🙃 Now I have 2 beautiful little girls myself. My 7 year old is obsessed with KPop demon hunters and asked if she could dye her hair purple… guess who is rocking purple hair!? My beautiful girl!

Image credits: Klynnbay

#13

Under no circumstance could i lay down after eating. supposedly my great grandpa died from choking on a peach pit. which like dude why are you eating the pit and how is that even connected????

Image credits: kjojo03

#14

My sister and I had cats growing up. Our cats were absolutely not allowed in our rooms.

UNLESS…we asked and were given permission. getting to sleep with our doors open so the kitties could come in and jump up with us was treated like a rare treat, like a special occasion.

Now at 31, i still get a little feeling of “ooooo!” when I’m at someone’s house and they just…have their bedroom open and their pet’s chilling on their bed.

Image credits: kbyyru

#15

You have to drink two glasses of milk if you want another drink other than water (juice). Three if you want cordial. I HATE milk now.

Image credits: Eg-Egg-N-Eggy

#16

I had a mate (UK – 1980s) who wasn’t allowed to come back to his house for any reason during the day, even to go to the toilet. If he did he’d be forced to stay inside for the entire day.

So if we were hanging out and he needed the toilet, he’d have to go in some bushes and wipe his a**e on a Dock leaf. Ffs!

Image credits: Majestic-Pen-8800

#17

Nobody was allowed to go to the toilet at night, we all had buckets (with lids) in our bedroom…

Image credits: kampernoeleke

#18

We could only chew gum on Saturdays.

Image credits: c1524064

#19

No Harry Potter books on the property because it “invited evil spirits on the ground”… I’m surprised I made it through childhood alive with that mother, you wouldn’t believe how many demons are out there guys!!

Image credits: CaramelAcceptable353

#20

My Mom’s had a rule that my sister and I couldn’t fly on the same plane together. We always had to fly offset where my dad would fly with me and her with my sister etc. One of the biggest arguments we had was when we were in our early twenty’s and went on a trip together – on the same plane obviously.

No rules about riding in the same car or anything like that even though that’s way more dangerous.

Image credits: ewo32

#21

Couldn’t wear watches because ‘time is a social construct’. Yes, we were late to everything.

Image credits: BasisRemarkable4482

#22

When I was in high school, my dad would take my car keys if my grades slipped (in his definition, anything under a B+). Which in and of itself wasn’t too crazy…except that if I wanted them back before the next report cards came out, I could “earn” them back by *donating blood.*

I was never able to get him to explain the reasoning behind it. It was just like this weird blood sacrifice ritual to summon car keys back from the shadowlands or something.

Image credits: Proof-Mongoose4530

#23

I lived with a parental dress code in high school. White socks, black shoes, pants an inch too short (making the white socks more obvious), button down collared s***s, and crew cut – made me look more like a geek than the horn rim glasses did ‘66-70.

Image credits: ratherBwarm

#24

Couldn’t play with Legos, watch TV or use the computer right after lunch. I think my mom took the “no pool after eating” idea and thought it applied to everything.

Image credits: anon

#25

It’s not a rule, but it was a daily occurrence that I later realized was insane:

My dad used to buy us each at least one 2-liter bottle of Coca Cola **every day**, since I was about 13. We’d just stroll around drinking it all day. Bring it to the dinner table. Have it while doing homework, whatever. This went on until I was probably 20. It means I probably drank well over 2,500 2-liter bottles of Coke in my life.

It’s like we were trying to hydrate, but with dibeetus juice.

No, there weren’t any concerns for our health for some reason. Yes, we are both diabetic (he passed long ago). Yes, I do wish that was never normalized in my home.

In the last decade, I’ve probably drank less that 10 liters of Coke.

Image credits: phalangepatella

#26

I met a girl who said she wasn’t allowed to watch/read Harry Potter when she was little. I’m like, “Oh, is your family religious?” She says, “No. My dad just didn’t think it was realistic.” So then I’m like, “Ohhh are your parents really strict but intellectual? Like ‘science is the only thing we believe in here!’?” And she responds, “Well no. My parents weren’t big on science-y things like going to the doctor and or vaccines.”

So no Harry Potter but not for religious reasons. They don’t believe in God or science…so..what?

Image credits: meganam38

#27

I wasn’t allowed to wear black two days in a row because I might be perceived as “gothic.”

Image credits: chaoticgoodness789

#28

My dad didn’t allow us to listen to, sing, or even mention the existence of Achy Breaky Heart by Billy Ray Cyrus. This was a very strict rule and he’d get very stern if we brought it up. We learnt to be a little bit scared of the song and I still have a weird compulsion to avoid it. Turns out Dad was just f*****g with us, and made the rule because he thought it was funny.

Image credits: murgatroid1

#29

We weren’t allowed to scrape the butter knife of peanut butter, butter, mayo, jelly, things of this nature back into its container. They called it ‘the devil’s share’ and you had to just waste whatever was left on the knife because if you didn’t, the devil would be mad at you.

My family was f*****g weird about it and I never once saw the devil lick it clean, so I’m not sure why he’d make a fuss about it.

Image credits: DlVlDED_BY_ZERO

#30

My mom (rest in heaven, Mom) forbade us from sleeping with our hair wet… Bc we’d wake up blind.

My friend’s mom wouldn’t let him keep his pet turtle bc, according to her, turtles made you dumb.

Image credits: bala_means_bullet

#31

Don’t take a bath in a thunderstorm. You will get electrocuted.

#32

As a child, I wasn’t allowed to wear black. It was considered a “grownup” color.

I also could only wear white or beige underwear. No other colors bc they were “fast.”

Now my entire wardrobe is black and I have a huge collection of lace and trapdoor panties….

#33

We were never allowed to wash our hair directly with the shower head, it had to go into a bucket first and then we had to pour it on our head. My mom was convinced it would prevent hair-loss in the future and sadly it didn’t work.

#34

As an adult living in my parents’ house, I had to get permission from my mom to download an app on my phone…like for real she had parental controls on my phone that wouldn’t allow me to download any app without her code.

That is one of very many weird, controlling things she did into my adulthood. Then she cried and wondered why I wanted to move out and live by myself….

#35

I was forced to throw away a book about evolution and another one about mythological creatures because they “went against God”.

I have searched for both as an adult so I could own them in spite.

#36

You were only allowed to take two slices of cucumber from the communal salad bowl at dinner,  no more. There was no cucumber scarcity or anything like that. Just that my mother insisted on making sure everyone had an exactly equal share. Just cucumber though, nothing else.

#37

We had to write out permission slips to put on the kitchen counter with details on what we would be doing if we wanted to go to a friends house. Had to have details of who would pick us up, how we would get home. Both parents had to sign it. Our parents had really conflicting work schedules and would barely see us sometimes or each other. So while it seem like such a weird thing, looking back it seemed pretty clever.

#38

I wasn’t allowed to say I was bored. This always struck me as normal because my dad just didn’t want me to be ungrateful and he wanted me to recognize my privilege. But speaking with my old roommates about it, they pointed out that it’s kinda weird and not-good to not be allowed to express normal, age-appropriate human emotions.

#39

Growing up, my mom (and sometimes my grandma) used to tell me not to gesticulate so much and pointed out how wrinkled my other grandma was. I was a total Jim Carrey-style clown, always making faces and exaggerating expressions. They’d warn me that if I kept it up, I’d get really wrinkled when I got old.

I was honestly tired of hearing it but never had a clever comeback, until one day, after a tea-time visit at my friend’s place. Her mom made the same comment, and I just said: “At least when I’m old, I’ll be able to say I was happy and enjoyed life”. I mentioned this to my mom and she said that was clever.

My friend passed away at 35 from osteosarcoma. In our last call, she told me: “Get those wrinkles for me.”

#40

I wasn’t allowed in my parents room for any reason. There were like 2 times we had a movie night in their room and it was super special because I felt like I was in the forbidden forest. Speaking of forbidden forest, my other parents (divorced family) didn’t allow Harry Potter because it was witchcraft.

#41

We had 20 mins to eat a meal and couldn’t talk during dinner.

#42

I wasn’t allowed to shower before my stepdad in the morning, even if it made me late to school, and my shower was only allowed to be 5 minutes or he would turn the light off and lock the door from the outside knowing I had a massive fear of the dark.

He also worked from home and not on a set schedule, and we had a decent hot water tank, but he would purposefully crank the heat up and let it run before he had a shower just so there wasn’t any hot water left.

#43

I wasn’t allowed to eat until my parents said I could and only what they allowed. I would go to sleep so hungry most days. When I couldn’t take it anymore I would go to the kitchen in the middle of the night and eat anything I could that they wouldn’t notice. Spoonful of peanut butter, regular butter, a slice of bread, a couple saltine crackers, etc.

#44

Growing up Fart was a bad word, we were only allowed to use the word Fluff. We would hear someone say the Fart word around when my brother and I were little and we’d look at each other and giggle because they used a bad word.

#45

I needed to have my hair tied at all times or I’d “shed too much”. I also had to tie it either in my room or in the bathroom. I had long hair as a child and my step mother was bats**t.

#46

My mom laughs about a girl she knew growing up who had a strict 10 pm curfew because “you’ll get pregnant if you stay out too late.” All through school this was the rule and her parents were adamant about it.

Fast forward a few years, mom’s like 21/22 and she runs into another old friend. They start talking and, guess what friend heard? Curfew girl is pregnant!

Mom’s response? “Huh, guess she stayed out after 10 o’clock.”

#47

They had a cast-iron bell they rang when it was time for us to come home. These were the days when kids were outside unsupervised for hours.

#48

Nobody was allowed to use the upstairs bathroom for seven years because once my mother plugged something into an outlet in there and it sparked. Had to either go into my parents bedroom or go downstairs to use the bathroom. You could go in there to open a window/look through the cabinets, but the shower, toilet and sink were off limits.

#49

There were certain rooms we could not walk in because it messed up the vacuum lime pattern.

#50

We kids weren’t allowed to laugh, because “if someone’s laughing, someone’s about to get hurt” like ????

#51

I thought it was illegal to turn the light on inside the car while it was moving. Turns out my dad didn’t like the glare it caused (which I understand), but you will not get pulled over and ticketed if the light is on when the car is moving😂 idk why, but as kids we loved turning on the car inside lights all the time, I guess? Lol.

#52

We had to collect all our hair, from our hair brushes and beds, or just hairs we would find laying around the house, and my mom would dispose of it.

We are Native (Nlaka’pamux maternal, Navajo paternal) and in our culture people can take your hair and put a curse on you.

#53

At my mom’s house, anything with teasing was not allowed. The 2 biggest offenders of that were Dennis the Menace and Dumbo.

At my dad’s house, the word Sucks was as bad as a swear and would get you sent to the stairs. Although he did own a copy of Dumbo that we could watch.

#54

Not being allowed to asky “why” about f*****g anything because asking why is what leads to arguments 🙄.

#55

No pierced ears before 16. Because at 16, I was grown enough to decide if I wanted pierced ears or not.

We could not say “holy cow” because cows aren’t holy (obviously not from Hindu background). So we said “perforated cow” as in a cow full of holes.

#56

My car had a curfew but I didn’t.
I could stay out all night doing whatever, but god forbid that $500 Celica was out past midnight!

#57

I wasn’t allowed to paint my toenails black because….Satan. Yup. They were dark blue for years because it was as close as I could get to black.

#58

One of my parents rules was that I could only ask for about three cigarettes a day. Dysfunctional family lol 🤗.

#59

Not really that insane, but we weren’t allowed to have toy guns.

This did mean that when my brother was climbing a tree he wasn’t supposed to be climbing, i shot him out of the tree with his own pellet gun, and he couldn’t tell Mom.

#60

I was raised by a single mom who honestly, I think was just too tired and busy to give me rules especially after raising my several years older sibling by herself too. Obviously not so much as a small child, but middle school and beyond, I could go where I wanted, when I wanted, with whom I wanted, for as long as I wanted, as long as I didn’t ask for money, and I let her know if I was going to be gone overnight (although that one was more of a suggested common courtesy and I didn’t get in trouble for not doing it every once and a while). But her hard-and-fast rule, was that I was not allowed to watch South Park. I could, and did quite literally watch whatever else I wanted, but South Park wasn’t allowed for some reason. It was my one rule, and I followed it because in my head it had to be important if she made it a rule. And to this day at nearly 40, I’ve never seen an episode of South Park.

#61

No cutting nails at night.

#62

Not only were we not allowed to swear, we were not allowed to use substitutions for swears, since the intent was the same. so golly, gosh, gee, shoot, darn, b-word, f***k, etc were all punishable by a spoonful of cayenne.

#63

I got kicked out once because I left suds in the drain after cleaning the entire house.

#64

No elbows on the table. But it was how it got enforced that was more insane than the actual rule. Elbows on the table got poked with a fork.

#65

Anytime I stayed over at a certain friend’s house, we couldn’t drink anything until we ate all of our food. All of it. Not even water. It was odd.

#66

I wasn’t allowed to watch anything that wasn’t Christian. So basically only Veggie Tales and Left Behind.

#67

Well, I wasn’t allowed to walk down the street to the convenience store – with a friend who happened to be a boy – after school because it made people think I was a “Street Walker” aka s*x worker. I was also s**t shamed at 3 for normal exploratory behavior with a friend, along with a lot of other stuff over the years. I’m almost 48 and still have personal issues regarding modesty and sexuality because of it, despite therapy. My mother is dead, and I’m not sad about it.

#68

We weren’t allowed to watch Code Lyoko or Pokemon because it had fighting in the shows yet Harry Potter and Spiderman were not only okay but heavily encouraged.

#69

Okay so I was raised going to concerts and bars as early as I can remember. I was born in 88 so there was always a “fog” of smoke inside the bars.

My late mom would take me to concerts and let me watch horror movies (saw all the 80’s and early 90’s horror movies before the age of 10).

But my late mom would never allow us to have friends sleep over. Or, or more specifically, I couldn’t have friends over. My brother and sister had friends over all the time, but I wasn’t allowed to.

Find that extremely strange.

#70

We often ate a fruit yoghurt pot for dessert. I always wanted to stir my pot before eating it but was prohibited from doing so. They said it was unnecessary.
To be fair, I totally realised this was insane and it used to make me cry.

#71

Not so much a rule but my mom kept our house freezing cold. I remember having to walk around in sweatshirts and sweatpants in summer and bundling up wrapping myself in a blanket with a heavy coat in winter.

I’ll never forget it was a few days before Christmas and hearing my mom sneak out of her bed to turn the AC on (it was low 50’s that night), and hearing it hum on in the middle of the night.

#72

I was never allowed outside without shoes. The only exception was pools.

My mom was struck by lightning twice as a kid and was terrified that if we didn’t wear shoes, we’d get struck or step on a nail (that happened too).

#73

I wasn’t allowed to watch Grange Hill, Byker Grove or Eastenders as the actors didn’t speak properly.

#74

My mother’s most insane rule was we could have ice cream but couldn’t get the sugar cones. Had to be the cake cups that tasted like nothing or a bowl. Never could figure why sugar was acceptable in the form of ice cream but not in a mildly sweetened cone.

She also only allowed us to drink 7up if we got sodas. Apparently sugar was okay if the soda was clear.

#75

Forcing me (36f) to bathe with my friends until I was ten and straight refused.(Mostly but not exclusively female)Started a whole argument. Next time she tried to make me shower with the neighbor I fought and fought. She gave up. Im in the u.s. it was like 1998 and we didn’t have any real reason why that was necessary.

#76

Not falling asleep on the couch of a bar in the middle of the night because that would reflect bad on my mother. Why would she be still in the bar if her children were so tired?

As if, being at the bar accompanied by two children in the middle of the night, on a school day, wasn’t that bad.

On top of that, don’t fall asleep at home when she was drunk and needed to tell her story, and help by picking her up from the floor. That’s just plain rude.

On top of that, don’t interrupt her sleeping all afternoon, or, on “better days” don’t complain you’re tired when she wants to go swimming/tanning and to the poolbar at 11 a.m. Why would you complain about doing something fun? Other children love to go to the pool! Ungrateful.

Also, don’t expect you can bring your nintendo DS and sit covered up in a towel watching the screen (sun made it hard to see) because you’re supposed to get a tan in summer, such a sabotage.

Don’t complain when she wants to the regular bar after the pool closes at 7 p.m, because, you had your fun at the pool and now she deserves her fun at the bar. We could play our nintendo ds there tho, it kept us quiet.

Repeat.

#77

My brother and I shared a car in high school and for whatever reason my mom (who never drove or even entered the car after we got our licenses) wouldn’t let me put an air freshener in it. She would literally look in the windows and if she saw an air freshener she would take it out. Made no sense to me then and still doesn’t.

#78

No flushing at night (unless it was poop) because I couldn’t wake dad.

Had to go up the stairs on my tippy toes because I couldn’t wake dad. Still go up stairs weirdly quiet to this day.

If dad was napping during the day, had to have the TV on low. If it got loud/woke him up, I would hear about it/be guilted.

Friends couldn’t ring the doorbell in case my dad was taking a nap.

Dogs couldn’t go outside when he was asleep because they might bark.

It wasn’t until I had a bad migraine in college and my roommates kept on living though I was trying to nap that I realized it wasn’t normal.

#79

Idk about insane but when I got a smartphone my foster parents had a software or something on it where they could remotely control our phones and could turn apps on and off from their phones; we had to turn them in at night and we weren’t allowed to have any search engines on it. They also did checks and would go through our phones to make sure we were behaving. When we wanted an app or a song we would have to get their approval and they’d put in a password to get it. Just stuff like that; I don’t think this is insane but just abnormal.

#80

I was not allowed any cable television, or basic of any kind. I was allowed 5 VHS tapes for ten years. Two of them were one movie.

#81

Nothing too dramatic but when I was a kid (before mobile phones) and I called home from a payphone or friends house, if my dad answered he would not engage in the call until I had said the “family password”. He would hang up if I said anything except the password when he asked for it.

It was quite funny now that I think back on it.

#82

Entire house had to be cleaned (dust, vacuum, scrub etc)by 5pm on Friday. If it wasn’t we weren’t allowed to do anything for the week except things we had previously committed to/people were relying on us. So like if I didn’t want to go to my soccer game, I couldn’t get away with not doing the cleaning bc my teammates relied on us.

#83

If I had a mango, I had to eat it in the bath.

#84

The whole thread here is pretty crazy. I was not allowed to watch rated r movies until I turn to 17. I managed to watch a few at friends houses, but my mom would be furious if she found out.

Now, the weird thing is I was only allowed to watch PG films at home with one of my parents or my grandmother. If I was alone or at another person’s house I was only allowed to watch movies that were rated G.

F*****g bananas.

#85

My dad would NOT let me and my siblings own a deck of cards. I think because he associated it with gambling? but every time I would win like a cute fun-sized one from Chuck E. Cheese, he would confiscate it and stow it with the other decks he took. I just wanted to play Go Fish, man. I still feel weird as a 30yo pulling out a deck of cards in front of him.

#86

My parents told me to not put their contact info in my phone under “mom” or “dad.” It had to be their first names so it wouldn’t be obvious who to contact if I was ever taken. I didn’t question it until I told a friend in my teens and their response was, “Wait so your parents don’t WANT to be contacted easily if you’re kidnapped?!”.

#87

My parents had this rule where you couldn’t eat cereal after 6pm because your body doesn’t digest grains properly at night. I didn’t question it just quietly accepted that Weet-Bix was a morning only thing. Years later I realised it was complete nonsense and probably just a tactic to keep us from raiding the pantry before bed.

Now I eat cereal at 11pm out of spite.

#88

“No one talks about what goes on inside the house outside the house.”

As you can probably guess, there were Reasons.

#89

My dad was trying to get us to change out of our PJs on days when we didn’t have school. I get he wanted us dressed and possibly to go outside. The thing is my dad came at us with the wrong attitude and we always pushed back. I even have a published poem about how he fought me to eat lasagna when I was 8 haha so he really made an impact on me anyway.

So to avoid a battle, he told us that if we stayed in our bedclothes too long, we would get skin cancer. We all quickly learned to change out of them after breakfast.

Dramatic and a bit much but it made me laugh when I was in my PJs all the time as an adult…in the hospital…with blood cancer.

#90

No touching/kissing until I wed. 🤨

Side note: Got married at 32…no I didn’t wait. 😂.

#91

“If you ask for something, and I say no, I might change my mind later. If you ask again or remind me of it, the answer will be no forever.”

What this did was make me terrified to ask clarifying questions or remind my mom (who has a legendarily terrible memory) about anything.

It took a long time to rewire my brain once I was a working adult and did, in fact, need to ask clarifying questions or remind someone about something. Mom still thinks she did nothing wrong with that rule. The axe forgets what the tree remembers.

#92

Couldn’t watch Married with Children even as a teen, but could watch South Park and rated R horror movies as young as 8 🤷🏻‍♀️.

#93

Couldn’t wear sandals unless I painted my toe nails.

#94

When the microwave wasn’t in use we had to keep a mug of water in it.

#95

We were not allowed to watch sitcoms as my dad hated the canned laughter. To this day, as a 54 year old I’ve seen very few of them, and I don’t feel I’ve missed much.

#96

Red is the color w**res wear.

#97

My mother barely ever let me have sugar. She would only let me drink skim milk and tap water. One day I walked to the store and bought some Gatorade with my own money and she flipped out. I was like 16 years old at the time.

#98

So… I will share the rule, and then why it’s weird.

I was allowed to watch… MOST movies (r-rated or not) if I had a reason to want to watch it, and it wasn’t something that was considered “realistic.” (Silence of the Lambs? No. Alien? Eh, it’s fine.) If it was historical, whether realistic (Glory) or supernatural (Sleepy Hollow) it was fine as long as the “Why” wasn’t ‘i heard it was good’ or an empty response like that. I also started reading Stephen King when I was 11, and that was fine.

BUT. My mom has the news on in the kitchen all the time. ALL the time. And we were always helping her when she needed it. Which means I have direct memories of the LA Riots newscast, the whole OJ thing, Jeffrey Dahmer being m******d in prison (which led to ‘mom what’s a serial k**ler’ being an actual question she gave a kid-gloves answer to when I was 7) and the Jon-Benet Ramsey m*rder. I will *neeeevvver* get the images in THAT newscast out of my head.

I think her logic was “the world is awful enough as it is and I want you to be aware of it, but you don’t need to see fictionalised versions of it.” 🤷‍♀️.

#99

No trick or treating.

#100

If you’re on time, you’re late.

#101

No ponytails for morning church service because they’re too casual. PM service and Wednesday nights were fine, though.

#102

You can’t go to 7-11 because only miscreants and hoodlums hang out there.

#103

No gravy in the bedroom. Living room, office, bathroom, or even on the roof was just fine; just don’t dare get caught with any in the bedrooms.

#104

If I wanted to play outside, I had to be back when the street lights came on. Reasonable, except in the middle of winter when the lights came on at 4:30 in the afternoon. I would get out of school, go home change do a little bit of homework, step outside and then practically have to step right back in.

Maybe not super insane but boy was it frustrating lol.

#105

Superstitions. No hats on the bed or anything black on the bed. Supposed to mean death.

#106

– No Teletubbies as an infant because they didn’t use full words
– No Simpsons
– Nothing with witches, wizards or magic in general (although Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie were OK!)
– No clothing or merch with a skull on it (I even had pyjamas returned to the store because there was a small skull on the tag)
– “Sucks” and “D**n” were treated as swear words

Having a religious mother sucks. 😂.

#107

When I was ages of O-11, if any sort of air conditioning, or ceiling fan blew close to me, I had to have a tea towel, or kerchief over my head to keep me from having a stiff neck, or earache. I rebelled and stopped that when I hit middle school.

#108

They said if we find money lying around, we can keep it. Maybe it was designed to keep us from leaving our money somewhere. But if your family ends up being thieves of each other’s money, it’s a really weird way to move out into the world… Especially with things like roommates.

#109

I wasn’t allowed to watch Keenan and Kel because it would “make me stupid”. I was, however, allowed to watch Ren and Stimpy.

#110

We weren’t allowed to say the word “lie” at my grandmother’s house when I was younger. If we wanted to accuse someone of lying, then we had to say that they were “fibbing” or “telling stories.” As us kids got older though they quietly stopped implementing this rule though for some reason.

#111

I was only allowed to watch spongebob if my mom was in another room because she thought it was annoying.

#112

Hard hat and steel-toed boots to mow the lawn. My grandfather’s rule, though mostly enforced for himself. He was a civil engineer and this was the rule on job-sites, so i like to think it is just what made him comfortable. And it’s not like steel-toes are a _bad_ idea with a lawn mower. The hard hat was a little excessive for a corded electric lawn mower in the 70s/80s but ¯ _(ツ)_/¯.

#113

Not mine, but a childhood friend in the “our parents were friends so we were forced to hang out” way had this specific rule in the house that he was, under no circumstances, ever allowed to so much as TOUCH the copy of Catan they had in the house until he was 18. his mom said it was too “mature” somehow. but also his like 8 year old younger sister could play as much catan as she wanted whenever!

#114

No watching shows that were funny unless she also thought they were funny. Fresh Prince? Nope. No way. Married with Children? The whole family was watching.

#115

No farting in the house other than the bathroom. “Go in the bathroom if you’re going to do that”.

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