Truth be told, I didn’t grow up with strict parents . Mine were pretty lax, so I was able to go out and stay out. But I can only imagine what things might have been in other households.
That’s why when I stumbled upon a Reddit thread that asked , “People who grew up with strict parents : what was their most unreasonable rule ?” I was super interested to find out what those rules were. Let’s find out together, eh?
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This Surprise Phone Call
“I was called at a friend’s house at 11 PM at night because I left 2 T-Shirts slung over the chair in my room vs. hanging them in my closet. I had to go back to my house and then I was grounded for a week. Upon getting home, my mother had gone through my entire room and tossed every item out of my dresser. She claimed they were messily put in the dresser. Fun stuff.”
Wow! That household sounds like fun to grow up in, huh?
This Strict Mom
“My mom was very strict about the ratings of movies and video games. One year for Christmas a relative gave me a copy of Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire for the Nintendo 64. It was a T (for teen) rated game and I wouldn’t be turning 13 for another 4 weeks. My mom had my dad drive me to Toys’R’Us to return the game.”
“We walked into the store and over to the games and he had me pick out an E (for everyone) rated game. We proceeded to check out and as we went to the car he handed me not only the new game but the game we were supposed to have returned to buy it as well and told me not to let her catch me playing it.”
Haha! Right on, dad!
This Tight Household
“Not my parents but I had a friend who got it pretty bad: ‘If you want to play for 1 hour, you have to also practice piano for 1 hour.’ These and other such rules were posted on his bedroom door.”
Wait a minute, they had these rules posted on the kid’s bedroom door? Yikes!
This Badass Move
“I got grounded from an end-of-year party at age 11 for getting a B on a paper, even though I still got all A’s. I was devastated. It was thrown by my best friend… and I had been looking forward to it all year. I had the perfect dress to wear because my aunt’s mother took me shopping and bought this cool dress that made me feel like Molly [expletive] Ringwald. I was never allowed to wear it before, and it had been in my closet since September! I was seriously having a Cinderella moment—although I honestly related more to Jane Eyre because I was adopted and a bookworm.”
“The day of the party I was bawling. I was a good kid. I tried to be perfect every waking moment… then I was grounded from my best friend’s party. The mom of my best friend knew how tough it was at home. I was screamed at, belittled, and hit all the time. This party was a beacon. Arlene, the BFF’s mom, barged into my house, and told me to get ready and get my stuff together to spend the night. My mom protested. Arlene said, ‘How about I call CPS about the 50 cats in your house?’ I went to the party, and Arlene taught me to be a badass.”
Yaas!
This Helicopter Mom
“I had a friend who wasn’t allowed to say the word ‘stupid,’ and tried to report me to the teacher when I said it. Teacher yelled at me and then told me it was okay in private and ‘not to say it around that one kid.’ Nice guy, though, just had a helicopter mom.”
“EDIT: Thanks for all the support. For anyone who thinks I’m [expletive] on the guy, let me remind you he was a very close friend. I eventually caught onto the concept of a helicopter mom thanks to this kid, so I just rolled with all the weird things his mom made him do. I also remember he would complain about the school lunch because it was too unhealthy.”
Oh, boy!
This Strict Granddad
“My mom’s curfew was 7 pm and her brothers was 12am. Her brother was about two years younger than her and my grandaddy’s logic was that ‘Girls get themselves into more trouble than boys.’ My poor mother only ever attended church functions for fun until she graduated from high school.”
Ah, I feel for this young woman.
This Sad Christmas
“I was not allowed to talk to boys. One Christmas Eve Day, I was doing last-minute shopping in downtown of our little town. I ran into two male friends from my German class and we talked for several minutes and wished each other a Merry Christmas. Oh, I was fifteen at the time. My older sister drove by and saw me, told my parents I was ‘hanging out with boys.’ When I walked into the house both my parents were waiting and the yelling began. Some Christmas Eve.”
Oh, come on!
This Irrational Stepmom
“My stepmom decided that I was using too much shampoo, she would get a little medicine cup before my shower and pour the designated amount into it. It wasn’t ever enough because I had hair down to my butt. I also wasn’t allowed to use conditioner. Screw her.”
That’s just silly, no?
This Odd Rule
“We could not listen to music with guitars in it. I will never forget the day my brother was listening to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and my father took the radio and threw it through the window. Spent my childhood listening to Richard Marx and Michael Bolton. Thanks, dad.”
My husband who’s a guitar player would have something to say about that, haha.
This ‘No Trends’ Household
“No trends, or ‘passing fads’. Pokemon, banned. Barbies, banned. Beanie babies, banned. Playstation/Gameboys? Banned. Anything particularly fashionable, or popular *regardless of actual merit* was met with derision and we’d be mocked for even suggesting interest. We were achingly frumpy kids with interests and cultural references (or lack thereof) that isolated us from our peers and they wondered why each of us was bullied.”
This here is why not everybody should be a parent.
This ‘No Lateness’ Rule
“For every minute I was late coming in from curfew, I got grounded a week. I once spent ten weeks grounded due to a sobriety checkpoint.”
This Neat Freak Mom
“We couldn’t go sledding during the winter – or any other season, obviously – because my mom was a neat freak and didn’t want snow slogged into the garage. So, no snow playing of any kind, really. Never built a snowman. Did go sledding when I was an adult. It’s pretty great.”
Talking about missing on childhood fun, huh?
This Organization System
“All of our clothes in our closet had to be arranged by color, descending in order by shade. So, for example, midnight blue at one end of the blue section, and tarheel blue at the other. There was a system in place for colors, too, so if the yellows were by the purples, for example, there’d be hell to pay.”
Okay, that’s just weird.
This Strict Internet Rule
“30 mins of internet time a day and 99% of the time, that was supervised–as in mom looking over my shoulder and commenting on conversations. We had WebTV (RIP) & when they weren’t home, they would literally lock the keyboard in a toolbox.”
Wowza!
This Old-Fashioned Dad
“My dad didn’t believe in periods. And when I cried that I needed feminine products gave me food stamps to buy them. I was humiliated.”
OMG, what? That is truly sad. This man was really misguided, no?
This Poor Excuse
“My sis and I could never have friends stay over because ‘the house is a mess.’ No amount of cleaning satisfied mom, because the real reason was she wanted to be able to fight with my dad at will.”
This doesn’t sound like a nice household to grow up in, right?
This Invasion of Privacy
“When I was in 5th grade I wrote some stuff in my diary about masturbating, and like a month later, my mom went through all my stuff. She would randomly go into my room, tear it apart, I’d always get in trouble for SOMETHING, and then I’d have to clean up the mess and be grounded for whatever amount she felt like that day. So anyway, she found that diary entry. She picks me up from school and won’t talk to me. I get home, my door was removed from my room, that diary entry was taped on the wall, and I was threatened with a belt if I didn’t answer all her invasive questions.”
That’s really messed up.
This Crazy Childhood
“My parents once grounded me for two years for getting a B on my report card. They took everything out of my room beside the bed, and I wasn’t allowed to do anything with friends. A year-and-a-half into it I asked if I could be un-grounded. At that point, they had actually forgotten what they grounded me for, but they refused because ‘I must have done something bad.’ They also refused to let me stay up past 8 pm. Even in high school.”
This one takes the cake, no?
Oh my goodness!
I can’t believe how strict some of these parents were towards their children. As long as the kids are moderately well-behaved, do pretty okay in school, and don’t get into all sorts of trouble, you should let them be kids.
At least, that’s what I say. Do you agree with me? Were you strict with your kids, or did you just let them be themselves?
