Parents make the rules and kids bend or break them from time to time. However, for these people, their childhoods were filled with so many ridiculous rules it caused them trauma well into their adult lives.
If They Weren’t Gonna Put Their Clothes Away, This Mom Was Gonna Show Them How It’s Done
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“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.”
No Drinks Allowed
“My best friend growing up was not allowed to ask where they were going on car rides or really any questions at all. Her parents didn’t like being asked questions so you had to avoid it at all costs.
You also weren’t allowed to drink with your meals. It was strange because we always get drinks with our food in my family. It’s hard for me to eat without drinking cause my mouth and throats get dry and hurt and I would basically be choking but you couldn’t get a drink of water until after you were finished eating. If you said you were done to get something to drink and then wanted more food they would sa,y ‘Now you had your drink now you can’t eat anymore.’ It was very odd I really don’t understand it. I avoided meals there as much as possible.”
Everything Must Burn
“My father was very very strict. I wasn’t allowed to have alone time with my mother. He beat the crap out of me constantly. But the oddest thing that still bugs me to this day is that he would burn all my things as punishment. And I get it, seeing my toys and valuables burning sucked, and I probably learned some lessons. But he not only burned toys, he would burn EVERYTHING. Every year or so for school we would go to Meijer and buy me new school clothes and shoes. He would also burn those, like sometimes days after he bought them. At 8 years old I remember thinking you now have to buy me more clothes. But that wasn’t the point I suppose. He once took me to the palace of Auburn Hills in Detroit to see the Globetrotters one year and during the night he bought me a Globetrotters basketball and jersey. We had a fun night. The very next day, I had left something on the floor in my room and his punishment, among other things, was to burn the basketball and jersey he bought for like 150 dollars less than 24 hours earlier. It just never made sense to me. My friends would joke about it all throughout middle and high school.”
She Lived Under His Thumb For Years Until One Day…
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“I’m a 30 now and was raised old school Christian from SoCal with a mix in of some crazy ex-Marine and Navy upbringing. I was the eldest, and my father was not by blood, but my younger brother was their love child and 7 years younger than me. He was the GOLDEN child who could do no wrong {even after losing a full LAX scholarship to a college for selling illegal substances, was never discussed or reprimanded, just do not ever mention it, kind of the same family rule about my stepdad who stays in jails and suffers from years of substance abuse).
I essentially was treated like a trouble making teen out of their own fear/past experiences I suppose.
Rules:
No bedroom door allowed.
Forced eating plan, because I was chunky, even though I was heavily active in soccer and dance, color guard.
Courtship through church, chaperoned approved dating.
No diaries or notes, read aloud at dinner if found.
Rooms stripped search weekly for who knows what.
Depression and ADHD/ADD was ‘made up’ and needed to pray for healing and grace from God, because obviously, it was a human/Earthly flaw for doing something bad.
When at school I was not to join recess but study or go the library, and someone has to sign a paper created by my parents to have initialed each day. I also had to do weekly grade reports from teachers.
No sleepovers away or at my home.
My stepdad also had our phones tapped, as he knew about any and all conversation since he would ask me about it later.
Once home from school I was to report to the neighbor, call parents, and then be allowed in my home to start chores and homework. If I was late more than 5 minutes I would get belted, and the school would be called to ask why.
Punished if younger brother did something or made up stories.
When I was able to drive, everything went downhill. I became my younger brothers chauffer and my mileage was recorded.
One hot day of the summer going into senior year of high school, I invited some lady friends over to swim. Apparently, they had hired neighbor watch our house, and the neighbor called my parents and told them that there were at least two boys in my home. That was a LIE, one of my lady friends had a pixie haircut and the other swam with her oversized t-shirt on. All of sudden this woman is walking into our home with a key in hand and after her scaring the crap out of us, said she was worried I was alone with boys in the house and didn’t think it was appropriate!! We are all LADIES!
When my parents got home, my stepdad wasted no time in throwing my personal belongings out the front door. He had already assumed I fooled around with said boy, the boy that was NEVER there! My mom starts screaming at me in front of everyone – my lady friends, my neighbor, because of the scene there are lots of neighbors around now – calling me worthless and no longer pure in her eyes or the Lord and how I was just trash and who would ever want me. I will never forget my mom saying that to me while beating me with anything in her reach, vases, frames, throwing dishes…
I was 16 and left home. I had to quickly learn, picked up two jobs under the table, one at a shoe store at the mall and the other at a tanning salon, and tried my best to finish high school without alarming anyone or allowing anyone to know what was going on. I didn’t want to trouble anyone. My bosses soon learned of my living situations wearing similar clothes repeatedly, and likely smelling funky, so after some time and trust, they would allow me to sleep and bathe in their stores so at least I was safe. Forever grateful for those people, not sure what would have happened if not.
Our entire family didn’t know of my stepdad’s multi-decade substance abuse problem until just recently. I tried many times to resolve things, and it was always me trying, so once my first child was born and stepdad relapsed, we permanently cut ties. Cutting off the only family dynamic, no matter how distorted or dysfunctional it may have been, was the hardest thing I have ever had to do, but it has been the MOST rewarding and SATISFACTORY thing I have ever felt. Words never hurt my parents, but my silence has made it’s biggest statement of my boundaries.
I still am finding my way to healing, from all the chaos/abuse, and cry often because I miss my mom and brother. I only ever wanted to protect them, and yet the Demon wins. Now I focus hard on being the present mother I only ever wished, prayed and hoped for, even still, for my own children.”
This Mom Had Big Standards For Her Mr. Coffee Pot
“This one was the most ridiculous – I wasn’t allowed to leave the coffee pot out. My mother had a really nice espresso machine that I could never master the art of using, so we had an ancient Mr. Coffee machine that I would use. My mother would get super irritated if I left the machine on the counter after I was done using it. My best friends can remember plenty of times my mother would do that whisper yell trick, ‘What is that coffee pot doing out?’ Once she was actually so pissed about the coffee pot being left out she grounded me for a week. The kicker to the whole thing was once I moved out, I came home to visit and there’s my mom’s nice espresso machine and a brand new Mr. Coffee on the kitchen counter. I turned to my mother, ‘What is that doing on the counter?’ My mom: ‘Oh your dad bought a new Mr. Coffee and it’s not nearly as ugly the old one.’ Her whole reason for getting ticked off for years was because the old one was UGLY.”
No Touching!
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“When I was in 5th grade I wrote some stuff in my diary about pleasing myself, and like a month later, my mom went through all my stuff. She would randomly go in 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.
Messed up.”
Their Favorite Hobby Earned Them A Childhood Full Of Pain
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“I was interested in learning about Wicca because I was young and in high school – early 2000’s, when Harry Potter was still happening and all that stuff. My mom and stepdad found out by reading an email I sent to my cousin. It was the summer and they freaked out. Took everything. I couldn’t read, I couldn’t listen to music, I couldn’t watch TV or movies with the family, I couldn’t hang out with friends, couldn’t talk to my cousin anymore, basically anything that might bring me pleasure was taken. They made me do chores all day, would go on family outings without me, etc. Soon I became a shell of a person – I turned myself off.
They hated it. They weren’t getting a rise out of me anymore, anything they said to me I wouldn’t react to. Since their narcissism relied on a victim, I wasn’t a source anymore. So they extended my grounding even further. They could have told me to go pick up dog crap in the backyard with my teeth and I wouldn’t have flinched.
My stepdad’s family (just as terrible) would come over and belittle me as well. I was told to ‘smile.’ So I’d humor them and flash an empty smile for a second and return to my blank expression I had to find solace in.
All this to ‘save me from going to the underworld.’ The only thing that saved me that summer was my visitation with my dad. My mom and stepdad tried to paint him in a bad light like he was the abusive one. Even as a kid I knew my dad didn’t make me feel as bad and empty as they did.
Years later, I ended up working at a job with a girl I used to play with in the neighborhood. I always wondered why she stopped showing up at my house. Apparently, one day when I wasn’t home, she came to the door and asked to play. One of my parents opened the door and told her I didn’t want to play with her anymore.
I always wondered why she never hung out with me, or talked to me. I cried and apologized to her.
I could have had a great friendship with a lot of people but they just wanted to alienate and control me.
Unfortunately this is just the tip of the iceberg. I don’t talk to them anymore, but I still llive in the same city as them and I have a lot of social anxiety because of that. It’s so messed up that the biggest monsters in the world are the people closest to you.”
Every Cent Mattered To Him
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“I was the last of 7 kids of older parents who had to survive during the depression. Ten cents to them meant not losing the farm to taxes or having food for 10 days. While it was long past those days, they still made us kids earn a $1,000 each before we left high school. After high school, you left home. I put away $960, and my father wouldn’t give me the last $40 and made fun of me that I couldn’t reach the ‘family’ goal.
I never got to spend a single dime on anything I earned, and it affected me for a long, long time. I gave my money to someone else. I was so deprived of money as a kid, my mother was hesitant about giving me 5 cents for ice cream. The last time I asked was in the 3rd grade. Both my parents were just traumatized by the Great Depression. They never overcame their fear of not having the money or having any freedom to spend it. As far as I know, we children provided for everything my parents needed after we got jobs, so they kept all the money they earned. When my last parent passed away, the estate included $250,000 in cash and full ownership of a 100-acre farm. After getting about a 7th share, I upgraded to a better house, less debt, but it felt like nothing. There’s no reason to deprive your children, or yourself. Nourishment to the body is more than just fluids or food. I can recall the one moment my young daughter felt like she needed more money to be with her friends; I never felt more ashamed, and that never happened again.”
Rated T For A Terrible Time
“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.”
Her Parents Wanted To Keep An Eye On Her, Always
“My parents were slack, my best friends parents were so strict. She would escape to my house for freedom.
12th grade. Prom. Her parents allowed her to go to prom but said she wasn’t allowed to dance. We all went to prom, had fun dancing. Until she saw her parents standing at the back watching.
She then moved out for university. After her first year, she came home to work for the summer. She had been on her own for a year and supporting herself and her parents gave her a 9 pm curfew. She spent a lot of time at my house that summer. She was married by the next summer and didn’t have to deal with it.”
Food Was A Luxury To Their Mom
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“My mom was insanely controlling about food. Weird rules were in place like ‘one slice of lunch meat per sandwich.’ No one but her was allowed to cook. She’d make one giant batch of spaghetti or something and we’d have leftovers for days, so she only had to make dinner twice a week. She did not work or anything, just didn’t like cooking every day. Breakfast was cold cereal and you’d only be allowed a small bowl with just enough milk to moisten it. Occasionally she’d bake something she called Corn Toasties which was simply cornbread baked in a sheet pan. She’d cut them into squares and fill the freezer with them and we could have one of those for breakfast as an alternative.
Once when I was fourteen I bought a pack of hot dogs at the store, snuck them home, and lit the grill. I was almost done cooking them when she came out screaming about fire hazards and swatted the plate out of my hand. She had been making spaghetti, what an ungrateful little brat I was.
So then she orders a pizza for the rest of my family, wraps individual servings of spaghetti in freezer paper, and puts them away. She tells me that I will be eating nothing else until it’s all gone. Took about two months to choke it all down. Went without eating a lot of days. I was also grounded for over a year.
But I sure learned a lot about ‘consequences.'”
Religion Ruled Their Household
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“Was forced to drop out of school in the 5th grade because my grandmother believed that most people have no souls and were demon possessed. She said that the world was unsafe to roam freely because Satan was trying to corrupt God’s children. This lead to a very sheltered life and very silly things like having to pray over every individual item that entered the house. Food, toiletries, dish soap, you name it. I’d get woken up at 2 am to be screamed at for 3+ hours over something ‘God’ had told her that I did wrong.
So yeah, I guess the most unreasonable rule I grew up with was not being allowed to leave the house.”
“The Rule Was That You Must Always Perform To His High Standard”
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“My mom was super chill. Whatever I was going to do was fine. When I went to my dad’s place, totally different story. I am not diagnosed, but I’m pretty sure I am on the dyslexia spectrum somewhere. I’m 34 and still say right when I mean left. I am also a professional electrical engineer and still don’t have the multiplication tables memorized (pretty much proof, if you ask me). Anyway, in grade school, I was struggling with the tables in math class and my dad sat down and wrote out a bunch of multiplication problems in a notebook and had me sit at the table and work them out. When I started struggling, he became visibly and audibly agitated, which my brother and I knew was basically a death sentence. Anyway, after shouting, ‘What is 7 times 8?’ At me a handful of times, he backhanded my face so hard that it spiked off the table leaving imprints of Harley Davidson rings on my right face and spiral notebook lines on my left. For scale, I had personally witnessed my beast of a father bench press 400lbs.
Another time, he asked me to lay a shirt over a chair to avoid it wrinkling, then he closed fist blasted me in the back of the skull for doing it wrong. I could go on and on.
The rule was that you must always perform to his standard, which was impossibly high for a 9-year-old and unstated before you begin a task. Shortly after my 10th birthday he got pissed about custody and kicked my mom’s door in and shot her twice before killing himself. He didn’t care that I was watching or what would happen to me after he orphaned me.”
Even One Spot Would’ve Set Off Their Mom
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“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.
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 purple’s, for example, we’d be in huge trouble.
No shoes on in the house under any circumstances. Was super uncomfortable when my brother’s friend, who had prosethetic legs and always had shoes on, came over and didn’t take his shoes off. Mom got really mad and confronted him. My mom let it go the first time because he was only in the kitchen. Then, one day, she came home from work and we were downstairs playing College Slam on SNES and she asked him – not particularly nicely, if my 12 year-old self remembers correctly – why he thought he was so special that he didn’t have to take his shoes off in our house when everyone else did.
He responded by lifting up his jeans and showing his Jordans resting in a pair of fake legs and said, ‘I’m sorry, ma’am. If I take them off, I’ll have to take my legs off, too.’ My mom offered a half-hearted apology and went upstairs. She never commented on it again.
No Legos or puzzles allowed, as they make messes and look like disorder. I freaking love puzzles as an adult. One of my favorite hobbies.”
He Needed Absolute Silence Or Else…
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“Dad was a narcissist… Biggest rule in the house was not to make any noise around him. If he was home the whole house got quiet and tense. Even my mom used to eat her cereal in the bedroom because she’d get in trouble for chewing crunchy food. Now she’s long rid of him and married to a way better guy, but she still apologizes for eating crackers.”
One Day, She Decided She Couldn’t Live With These Insane Rules Anymore
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“I was not allowed to wear makeup or shave until 16.
My mom was controlling about food. Everything was kept track of.
I had to be in marching band in order to get my permit.
I had a job, but even if I worked second shift (which I did) and came home at 11, I would have to clear the plates from the table for the dinner that they ate.
If I asked to hang out with a friend in the presence of said friend, the answer was automatically no.
I was only allowed to do things if the friend or their parent was paying for it.
The straw that broke the camels back (and ultimately made me move out at 16) was that I had to live like a boarder. Showers cost five dollars, a load of laundry was $1.00 for washer, $1.00 for dryerm telephone time cost $.25 per minute.”
Constant Surveillance Drove This Son Over The Edge
“One was that I had to always give 24 hours notice if I wasn’t going to be home for dinner any night of the week. Because you know, dinner plans are never made the day of…this lasted until I moved out when I was 19.
I thought that would get better, but it actually became worse. My sister and I go to dinner at our parents’ every Sunday, and now they need 72 hours notice if we’re not going to be there.
Also had 10 pm curfew every day of the week until I moved out. Sleeping in was never a thing, 9 am wake-up call otherwise.
Parents had sensors on our doors so they could tell if we left our rooms in the night. Cameras covering every inch of outside. We weren’t allowed to use the bathrooms after midnight. My stepmother came storming out of her room one night when I went to the bathroom at 2:30 am because, you know, sometimes you wake up and need to go and I was sick of peeing in a bottle because of their rule. She stormed out and confronted me and looked like she was about to hit me. I said ‘I freaking dare you’ as I was ready to hit her back.”
It’s Hard To Believe Their Parents Made Jokes At This Horrible Punishment
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“I was from a large family and discipline was very strict. If myself or one of my siblings broke one of the major rules, my parents would hold a ‘Truth Session’.
All the children would be brought to my dad’s study where the guilty party would be given an opportunity to confess. If nobody came forward, we would be hit in turn in order of ascending age. The eldest four were hit with a sewer rod while, in deference to their age, the youngest ones would get a whack of a bamboo stick.
A sewer rod is basically a four foot long flexible rubber rod, around an inch thick and with a metal cap. It would leave the most remarkable welts. Horrendous things really.
Anyway, this would continue until someone admitted their ‘guilt’. At that point, they would receive the blows that everyone else had received to that point.
So that was awful, I fully acknowledge that I’m under no illusions, however, that wasn’t the actual unreasonableness. No, the unreasonable part was that the person who ’caused’ the Truth Session didn’t always receive the accrued punishment owed for having their siblings beaten. Sometimes they could just be let go making their siblings HATE them for causing pain to them. There’d be no explanation. The study door would be opened and we’d all be told to leave. That meant you could be rewarded for holding out and avoiding the punishment you’d definitely get if you admitted it at the beginning.
My parents now tell fun stories about how when I was a child and I’d done something wrong, I’d always begin with, ‘Let me tell you my story.’ ‘Haha’ they chortle at my childish phrasing while I recall the terror that such an approach was meant to stave off.”
Everytime They Broke The Rules, There Was A Heavy Fine To Pay
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“I had to write essays on TV shows that I wanted to watch, in order to have them unblocked by the parental controls. I remember writing a riveting piece on the educational and cultural benefit of Disney’s That’s So Raven. Also, I wasn’t allowed to watch PG-13 movies, even after turning 13.
Wasn’t allowed to rest my head on my hand with my elbow on any table while there was also food on that table.
If my parents found out I was going too fast in my car (small town, so other parents would snitch on me pretty regularly for going 10 over) I had to pay my parents ‘speeding tickets.’ Also, they would make me pay for the whole family’s phone bill if I texted a boy. By the time I moved out at 17, I had given them well over a grand in punishment money earned at the Sonic Drive-In.”
Their Dad Hated This Instrument So…
“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.”
Being “Cool” Was Ultimately Banned In This Household
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“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 were bullied.”
There Was A Toll To Wash Your Hair In This House
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“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.”
It Was Like Living In Prison
“I had a ton. I think the most unreasonable was that we (my siblings and I) weren’t allowed to know where we were going during car rides. If we’d ask we were told ‘Business,’ and figure it out we were going to the store, etc. only after we arrived at our destination.
This lasted until I moved out.
Another was asking for permission to use the bathroom every time. This didn’t last as long.”
Hacking Became This Kid’s First True Skill
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“My parents were pretty slack on everything except one thing: No video games console ever, and no online games on the computer because that how you get viruses and make the computer run slow. So I was playing when they were sleeping, in a hidden file, in a file, in another file, in another file and I was changing the appearance of every file icon.”
This Snitching Sister Ruined Her Christmas Eve
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“I was not allowed to talk to boys. One Christmas Eve Day, I was doing last minute shopping in the 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 in the house both my parents were waiting and the yelling began. Some Christmas Eve.”
She Was Ashamed Of Her Body Because Of This Rule
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“I have too many to name growing up in an Asian household but the one that was the most embarrassing was I was not allowed to shave my legs or armpits and I hit puberty at an early age. So I had really hairy armpits and legs and was forced to wear shorts to gym class. I was so embarrassed about my legs that I would wear shorts with opaque pantyhose which just made the whole situation worse and I was the butt of many jokes in middle school. My mom has apologized thousands of times since, but it still brings back crappy memories.”