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26 Parents’ Rules People Didn’t Realize Were Unhinged Until They Grew Up
Article created by: Viktorija Ošikaitė
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.
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#1
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.
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#2
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.”
#3
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.
#4
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.
#5
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.
#6
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.
#7
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.
#8
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.
#9
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.
#10
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.”
#11
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.
#12
Couldn’t wear watches because ‘time is a social construct’. Yes, we were late to everything.
#14
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.
#15
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….
#16
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.
#17
We kids weren't allowed to laugh, because "if someone's laughing, someone's about to get hurt" like ????
#18
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.
#19
Nobody was allowed to go to the toilet at night, we all had buckets (with lids) in our bedroom...
#20
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.
#21
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.
#22
There were certain rooms we could not walk in because it messed up the vacuum lime pattern.
#23
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.
#25
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.
#26
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.
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