Unusual Rules Parents Enforced
Reddit user KOFFDAERTH recently asked, “What’s a rule your parents had that you now realize was totally bizarre?” Here are the strangest rules people remember growing up with:
- “I wasn’t allowed to bleach my hair, but I was allowed to color it darker if I wanted to. My IDENTICAL TWIN SISTER wasn’t allowed to color her hair darker, but was allowed to bleach it. I desperately wanted to be bottle blonde, and my twin wanted black hair; we got neither and stayed identically brunette.”
—Gossamercanis
- “No turning on the lights during thunderstorms. Apparently, the lightning would ‘see us.'”
—beatriceyue
3.
“I wasn’t allowed to wear clothing with ‘faces’ on them. No Mickey Mouse shirts, no kitty cat shirts, nothing. Either plain shirts with no graphics on them or it had to be of something not alive (like a soccer ball, a pumpkin, numbers or letters, etc.).”
—disneysprincess
- “I had to drink a huge glass of milk every morning as a kid, because my parents believed it would make me grow tall. But I was lactose intolerant, so it just ended up making me feel really nauseous and it wrecked my digestion. Yet, they still forced me and my little brother to drink it. Sometimes it would take us an hour to finish it, because of how miserable we felt… And we weren’t allowed to do anything unless we had finished the milk. I think one time my brother even puked all the milk out. To this day, my mom says I am not tall enough because I never drank milk, even though I was forced to drink it daily. Very revisionist memory…”
—whai_r_u_gae
5.
“We had one drink cup by the kitchen sink. Thirsty? Use that cup and put it back for other family members. We’d wash it in the dishwasher every two days or so.”
—Webdogger
- “My mom still does this: ‘Don’t step on the bathmat with wet feet.'”
—geminiloveca
7.
“My mom would say no to me having fun multiple times a week. Let’s say I went to Tiffany’s house on Friday. Then Chelsea invited me to her house on Saturday. Nope, can’t go because I went to Tiffany’s yesterday. Would all my homework and chores be done before I asked? Yes. Were there some sort of family plans or anything else I had to do? Nope. Just had to stay home because I had fun the day before, and I’m not allowed to have fun more than one day a week. Then my parents wondered why I started sneaking out as a teen.”
—Moretti123
- “The curtains had to be opened first thing in the morning so the neighbors wouldn’t think we slept in.”
—CautiousSherbert8618
9.
“I could go out at 7:00 p.m. and be out for five hours until midnight, but I couldn’t go out at 10:00 p.m. and only be out for two hours. Going out at 10:00 p.m. was too late. Yeah, something dangerous happens between our house and my destination at 10:00 p.m., but it’s much safer if I’m already galavanting all over town at 10:00 p.m.”
—TheLogicalParty
- “To this day, my mother has at least four chairs around the house that you’re not allowed to sit on. They are neither beautiful nor special in any way. They just exist and eat space. As I learned on my last visit, you can’t even put your jacket there.”
—Fitz911
11.
“My parents were really religious when I was growing up (strangely enough, they aren’t anymore), and my dad had a rule that we could only listen to Christian music. It was fine by me because I didn’t have an iPod or a CD player anyway. One day I was in the kitchen, though, and my dad started singing ‘I’m Like a Bird’ while cooking breakfast. I was like, ‘Um, daddy, that isn’t a Christian song,’ and he said, ‘Yeah, but it’s Nelly. Of course, you can listen to Nelly. She’s a classic!’ That story is so random, and it makes me laugh whenever I remember it.”
—anothercairn
- “We weren’t allowed to walk from the bathroom to our bedrooms after a shower in just a towel. Even if no one else was there besides family. And our houses were always small, so it may have only been one door over, but still no. My family was really modest, so I guess that’s where it came from. As an adult, I definitely am not and have no problem with nudity, but I still take my clothes into the bathroom to change out of habit.”
—YouGoToBox
13.
“When my sister had a friend over after school or something, and it was time for dinner, our mom would make her friend sit in the other room while we ate. She would never offer to let her friend join us or allow the TV on or anything. Just made the friend sit there and be quiet while we ate. Apparently, it was family time only.”
—LJonReddit
- “My dad always muted the TV during commercials, and that was the only time anyone could talk while we were watching any program, especially the news.”
—Mare_lightbringer87
15.
“We had to leave the room to fart. And ‘fart’ was a curse word. It was called gas. Which isn’t even a verb!”
—Monapomona
- “‘Don’t use the decorative towel rack. It’s for the company!’ There was one decorative towel with an embroidered cardinal on it. We had ONE bath towel rack, but a family of five had to use that one bathroom.”
—calypsodweller
17.
“I wasn’t allowed to watch anything that depicted a dysfunctional family in case I realized that was us, lmfao.”
—oleandur
- “We couldn’t have the same food twice in one day. ‘Can we have roast chicken for dinner?’ ‘You had a chicken sandwich for lunch!’ As if the world would end.”
—Superb_Plum_627
19.
“I wasn’t allowed to use the internet in any way, shape, or form before 1:00 p.m. on Sundays. I realized in my teenage years that this was because we had stopped going to church, but my parents didn’t want my friends to know (and by extension, my friends’ parents) that we weren’t in church on Sunday morning.”
—TheGeneral_Specific
- “My stepdad would get irrationally upset if I put a knife in the jelly. Butter knives for peanut butter, spoons for grape jelly.”
–airforceteacher
21.
“No TV channels other than PBS Kids. We had other channels, but we weren’t allowed to watch them. We also weren’t allowed to watch Disney movies.”
—DavidGilmourToes
- “Bring home the paper bag and/or plastic sandwich bags from school lunch to be used again the next day (plastic ones were washed and dried overnight).”
—UmDeTrois
23.
“My stepmother had a rule that unmarried people couldn’t share a bed in her house. My long-term girlfriend, with whom I shared a bed and an apartment, had to sleep in a separate room. One Christmas, her brother stayed over with his new girlfriend, and she tried it on him. He just said, ‘Ha, no, that’s not happening,’ and they went to the guest bedroom. Then I got married, and we visited my parents for Christmas. She tried to get us to sleep in separate rooms, and I stared at her for a moment before I said, ‘No, I’m going to sleep in the same bed as my wife, thank you very much.’ She was fuming as her brain tried to come up with some reason why this couldn’t happen. I could see her clenching her jaw before she finally gritted out, ‘Right. Yes. Of course.’ She looked like she swallowed a bug.”
—Polymath_Father
- “And: ‘I wasn’t allowed to invite a friend over to our house for a second time until they invited me over to their house. My mom kept track of how many times I invited friends over and demanded they reciprocate before I could invite them again. It was truly bizarre.'”
—Sad-Maize-6625
Did your parents have any strange rules you were required to follow while growing up? Tell us in the comments or share anonymously using this form.