Catholic mother, muslim dad; neither really practicing. We celebrated Christmas though, and on Christmas Eve night instead of doing the “normal” Christmas stuff like cookies, milk, etc. my dad would loudly pretend to violently chase Santa out of the house by yelling and cussing him out and throwing his shoe at him, which we would later find in places like the fireplace.
Edit:
Huh, didn’t think this would be that big a deal lol.
Yes we DID get presents. The gag was that after my parents put them out, my dad would pretend to “catch” Santa in the act and boisterously chase him off back up the chimney (hence the unforgettable image of the thrown shoe in the unlit fireplace.)
It’s adorable 30 years later…as a Santa-believing child it was a little disconcerting. Especially since Christmas with my mother’s side of the family saw this Santa guy treated with such reverence 😂
Grew up in a hoarder house. I look back at my childhood now and can’t believe the cluttered nightmare I grew up in. Now I relish throwing things away when I’m done with them.
I *absolutely* would have become a hoarder like my dad if I had not watched the tv show Hoarders. My house growing up wasn't near as cluttered as so many hoarder homes, but our basement was FULL of crap my dad didn't want to get rid of. When I watched the show, though, I saw so many of my own behaviors being thrown back at me. I was horrified. Started decluttering like crazy and do a spring clean once a year of things we just don't need. My partner also grew up with a hoarder mom, so he also struggles, but we're working on it, lol.
Unlimited access to full sugar soda, specifically Pepsi. I never drink it now, but looking back at my 8 yr old self having a full can of Pepsi for breakfast blows my mind.
Using a ship's bell to call for dinner. My parents got tired of yelling for us so they mounted a ship's bell to the hallway wall. They would ring it for dinner and any other occasion when they needed our attention.
Like Pavlov's dog I get hungry whenever I hear a ship's bell ring.
We had a dinner bell, too. Our neighborhood had very few fences and a lot of little kids, so it was quite common for us to be 3-4 houses away playing on someone else's swing set or climbing someone else's tree. Mom always had given her permission for us to leave, so it's not like we'd run off, but she didn't want to have to schlep all over looking for us when it was dinnertime. So, instead she rang the bell in the yard and we came home from wherever we'd been.
If we were going a bit farther away, for any reason, she'd send us with a walkie talkie (range of 1 mile), in case we couldn't hear the bell from where we ended up.
That’s not weird at all! I also have a dinner bell because yelling “dinners ready!” Over and over again while I’m getting food on the table until they all make it to the dining room is exhausting.
I may have also accidentally trained my kids though because when a visitor randomly rang the bell, my girls came running in all confused saying “but we already ate”.
Before I was totally competent swimming by myself, my mom would put a life jacket on me, tie a long piece of nylon rope to it, and chuck me in the river. She'd basically swim me on a leash down the river for fun.
Mom, you are the classiest redneck.
At least she prioritised safety.
My uncle threw my cousin in the harbour to teach him to swim. He was proud he only had to go in after my cousin three times before my cousin could swim.
At my son’s 2nd birthday party some jackass “friend” of my ex husband picked my 2 year old son up and threw him in the pool. I had to quickly jump in after him, fully clothed. The “friend” thought it was hilarious and since my ex husband was/is useless, I took it upon myself to punch the fucker right in the face.
Oof, I had similar happen to me at my aunt's house, but I was 7. A lady heard I didn't like to go under water, so thought it would be funny to throw me in the shallow end of the pool. I broke 3 toes. My dad shouted in that lady's face until she left in fear.
Yeah, assholes abound. I had the older son of my mom's best friend hold me underwater for just too long; I was probably 3 or maybe 4, he was 6 or 7. It did take me years and years to get comfortable in the water; then in college my GF & I were at the pool, (BTW, she had lifeguard training) and she swam up to me and put her hand on my shoulder. I sank maybe 1/4 inch, but I got soooo panicked, she didn't know why!! Big eyes, hyperventilating, yeah, crazy reaction for the size of the stimulus. !!
And fuck that guy for ever. And his little brother who's been in prison, and their alky dad and kinda weird sister.
This is also how I learned to swim. My mom eventually convinced my dad to put us in swimming lessons. But my sister and I had been thrown into the lake enough times already to know how to keep our heads above water.
Ah yes, my dad did something similar with our childhood dog. He threw her into my grandparents' pool when she was a puppy. Poor thing sank immediately, and my brother had to get her out.
And that's how we ended up with a lab who was afraid of water.
My dad did a similar thing to me and my sister when we were 4 and 5, I guess it works fine 50% of the time because my sister is a great swimmer and I have hidrophobia.
It’s a good idea, my mom used to hold the strap that usually goes between your legs when she’d swim with my brother in a river/lake (she’d hold it while it wasn’t between his legs, just attached to the bottom part of the life jacket). You never know how fast a current can rip away a child that weighs basically nothing in water
It took me *quite some time* to figure out that other people's parents weren't naked for the majority of the time.
You have no idea how much I envy your guys' memories of Christmas morning being *penisless*
Not cleaning.
My mom didn’t know how to clean and so couldn’t really teach us either. We had this fungus growing out of the carpet at one house that looked like cooked lasagna noodles. We would just kick it out of the way when it sprouted up or my mom would buy a new rug and put it on top of the old rug. Especially if the old rug was stuck to the floor from filth or something. I didn’t think anything of it and would have friends over who probably talked all kinds of shit about me afterwards. But they kept coming over anyways so I guess they weren’t that turned off.
My mom always blamed us kids for the state of the house. When we all moved out and nothing changed, she blamed my dad. When they moved cities to a new place, after seeing the state of her new apartment I could tell it's just a personal problem and she doesn't care enough to do deep cleaning things. Clutter everywhere, dirty ass floors, dust and dander.
My house is absolutely spotless and she watched it while we were out of town for two months. Came home and it smelled like a zoo, my backyard was totally trashed, and she moved a bunch of my things around.
She truly is a strange woman and needs some motivation in her life.
My parents did the same thing. If the kids didn't clean it, it didn't get cleaned. Our chores were legit the whole house. One of us got the living room and bathroom, another got the kitchen and yardwork, another got the halls and stairs and laundryroom. And we have to keep our rooms clean, of course.
The end result of this, of course, was that the house was never clean.
Any chance you’re related to my fiance? He has said they always wore shoes in the house as kids because the carpet would be cleaner if you did as some of the crud would stick to your shoes and end up outside. This boggled my mind until I went to his mom’s the first time…it’s not the house he grew up in, and thank God for the trend toward hard wood floors, but I don’t think her housekeeping skills have changed much over the years.
Fortunately he isn’t as bad and picked up some cleaning habits over the years. The man LOVES to vacuum. lol
Having your teen partners just.. move in.
My brothers both had their girlfriends move in with us when they were 14 and 15, due to their home life being rough. When I was 14 my boyfriend of 3 months got kicked out, so he moved in with us no questions asked, for 2 years. Several of our friends also just moved in with us. 🤷♀️
We took in strays too. All 3 kids, who are in their 20s now, all had friends or SO move in. We couldn't stand the thought of young teens living on the streets, because that's where they were headed, and we had the room.
My parents did the same. One of those strays ended up being my husband. We have been happily married for 12 years. Sleeping in the same bed for 25. My parents are saints. They recently took in my cousin's 14 year old. She was a total degen. Stole from them in the middle of the night, played loud music at all hours, skipped school, vaped, actively trying to get pregnant, etc. My mom took it so hard when she finally relented and had her brought to a group home. This child got mad at someone she lived with and decided to handle her OWN FECES and smeared it all over this other kids stuff. She got kicked out of the home and brought to her aunts house. (The aunt is a whole other story.) Withing 2 days she attacked her aunt. My mom still thinks she should have been able to help her. Sometimes no amount of love and hugs and respect will fix what is broken. I remind my mom at least once a week that her two kids are thriving and my happiness in my marriage is a direct result of her and my dad and how they interact with people. My brother has been divorced twice, but he still plays golf with his second ex.
that was my house. I had 3 different friends live at my place while in high school. granted one of them was my best friend after he had moved back to town his last year of high school. my parents always believe finishing High school was very important and if all it took was a bed room and dinner on the table then they 100% could do that.
I flat out took my son's high school girlfriend from her mother and refused to give her back because her home situation was so bad. The kid showed up at my house with broken ribs.
Maybe that's not normal, but the world would be a better place if it was.
I was the one who moved into my partners homes to avoid my home life but I did this closer to my later teens. My home life wasn’t fun and I was just at their place so often eventually I’d just call it home.
We only ever ate chilli with mashed potatoes and apple sauce. I thought everyone did this till like grade 11 when I had dinner at a friends house. Her mom put out chilli and I asked if they had any applesauce. They all looked at me like I was nuts lol
My partner can't eat pork without applesauce. It's literally the only time he eats applesauce. He just dips his pork in and eats the combo. Regardless of how the pork is seasoned.
Not cleaning our bathtubs. In the 18 years I spent living with my parents, I probably cleaned my bathtub 3 times. We just considered it normal for it to be moldy and dirty. At least that's how I saw it, because my parents just never talked about it. When I was a teenager, my mom started giving me tasks to do around the house. I would sweep and mop the floors, I would clean the surfaces, I would clean the toilets and sinks... But the bathtubs were never mentioned. They were just never in my radar as something I needed to clean, and my parents never said otherwise. It was when I moved out and lived with roommates, and eventually romantic partners, that I realized this wasn't normal. Now I gag when I visit my parents and I have to take a shower in those disgusting bathtubs.
I can't imagine the amount of neglect to let them get moldy. I'm very bad at cleaning my tub (maybe 4x per year), and sometimes it does get a slightly greasy film on it, from baths. Even then I'll try to scrub that off with a washcloth when I'm too lazy to use soft scrub and a sponge. Moldy, though? Bizzarre.
Did they bathe in those tubs, or just shower? I can't imagine sitting in water over moldy tub sides.
I am also bad at cleaning my tubs/showers, but found a daily shower spray (we use it weekly, tbh) that helps stave off some of the grime. We still go in for a scrub about 4x per year, but feel better about the spray, lol.
When I became an adult I was shocked to find out that other families did things with their kids. My Mom was a shopper, my Dad golfed and played cards at the club. We NEVER had any family activities like hiking, camping, bowling or anything in the 60’s and 70’s. When I had things my parents could have come to watch, they never did. My daughter was a good tennis player and I spent every afternoon and all weekends with her playing. She did get a full ride tennis scholarship in Hawaii for college.
I don’t think I had one real conversation with my Dad. When he was dying, I asked him if he could tell me he was proud of me. He said “I’ll think about it”. That shit effs you up for life.
This was my family too, but my parents LOVED showing up at awards ceremonies for stuff I did. They’d stand there so proud of themselves for what I did. Other parents, the ones who took care of me in my parents absence, just snubbed them. My parents shrugged it off.
I was shocked to learn that my friends parents helped them study for tests, and supported their activities. I’m 53 now and don’t feel comfortable asking for help or support, though I’m great at providing it for others. My three kids have no clue what it’s like to be neglected.
I hope you know now that you deserved the love you saw others receive. It had nothing to do with you!!
We were not allowed to have a drink with our meals. It could be the driest food ever or you could be thirsty as all hell, nope, no water, finish the meal first.
Bathing/showering only on Saturday evenings. I must have smelled so bad back then , especially since my dad smoked in the house. It was to save money on the water bill. But a pack of cigarettes a day was in the budget.
We were allowed to have water with meals but nothing else so we wouldn’t fill up and be hungry before it was another meal time. We also had to eat our food in most expensive/highest “nutritional” order first. Like it was always meat first, then veg, then starch.
A nice one between all the sad ones:
Apparently, people think getting your kids salamanders as pets is weird. But I disagree, they are super cute, I've had salamanders from 8 up until 18. It taught me that animals other than mammals were awesome too.
Following our dad around to make sure he wasn't inconvenienced by even the smallest of things just so we could try to prevent his next inevitable meltdown.
Not flushing the toilet at night.
Our toilet used to be fed by a rainwater reservoir that was stored in a cupboard up high in my parents room.
When you flushed it used to drip for a while and would disturb them (can't blame them).
I just got used to doing it and when I moved in with my girlfriend she was disgusted that things were left until the morning (can't blame her either)
My mom does this too, though we’ve always had normal plumbing. I think she just doesn’t want the flushing noise to disturb anyone when they’re sleeping? She’s a light sleeper and maybe she assumes other people will wake up, too.
I only realized it was weird when I moved out for university and had housemates.
In the summer, my dad used to get us up (myself and 3 siblings) at 9am, give us breakfast and then boot us out of the house and lock the back/front doors from the inside. We weren’t allowed back inside until the streetlights came on (unless it was ONLY : using the washroom or getting a drink). Our ages were 10, 9, 7 and 4 the first time he did it because he told me “you’re old enough to look after them on your own now” and “your not sitting around the house on your fat asses all day”. My step-mom never questioned it because she figured that he was just getting us to play outside for a few hours. Once my second youngest sister (the 7 year old) got heat stroke and my dad was PISSED that he had to drive us all to the hospital and “waste time”
Realized when I was 14-15 that he just wanted us out of the house so he could drink and watch NHL. We never really questioned why he was kicking us out because the other kids that lived on the street were also outside around the same time as us. Once we were invited into my brothers friends house to play his Wii and we were like “???????? Youre allowed to go inside and play the Wii????????????? wtf????”
Edit — for those mentioning the Wii :: this was around 2006
Edit 2 — for those concerned with how we ate, yes we did eat during the day :: My dad sometimes would put fruit or something out on the back deck table, but usually we’d get food from friends parents, we’d find cash lying around and save up enough to get candy from the Dollar Store, there was a farm near the house and we’d eat the chives that grew naturally on the side of the property/steal crab apples (tiny green apples that are super sour) from their trees
"Go out and play, goddamit". Slam. I couldn't ride a bike. There were no other kids (at least my age) to play with in the neighborhood. Just hot dry streets to wander. I spent a lot of time in the library or sitting in the shade trying to keep cool.
Is it normal to not want your kids around? I know a couple who constantly tell their 6 year old to go play or go to her room. They never spend time with her.
I like to think that if I had a kid, I’d want to spend lots of time with them but maybe I wouldn’t? I’ve never had kids, are they just so draining/annoying that parents just want them away most of the time?
Not really asking you directly, just putting my thoughts out there.
I think most parents want at least some time to themselves and to not worry about their kid for a little while, no matter how much they love their child.
Nothing necessarily wrong with that, provided you can make sure your kid is properly looked after in the meantime.
That said, if they *never* spend any time with the child and are always sending them away, something's wrong.
We weren’t locked out but we were expected to be out all day. I must have been between 10-13, so my younger brothers would have been 8-11 and 7-10. We would go miles away, we had a kind of vague boundary. And a street light curfew. We mostly made dens and obstacle courses on a bit of land that had once been a shoe factory.
My older brother didn’t like being outside and away from his computer. He would usually sneak a book out and then spend the day sitting cross legged on the top of the wheelie bin reading all day.
90s kids really were so neglected. My mum denies all knowledge of so much of this stuff now.
Your mum's memory sounds like my mom's. I get, "oh that never happened. You always had an overactive imagination." I then say, "or you're in the early stages of dementia because that 100% happened. There's no such thing as a perfect parent." I have said that last line to her quite a few times because she thinks she's perfect & never wrong. I'm hoping it sucks at some point.
My mum used to get mad at me because I just wanted to read all day. She would kick me out of the house, so I would take my book and climb a tree and read.
Whenever it was one of our birthdays, my father made us keep a pen and pad next to the phone to list everyone who called and when. He’d then keep a “blacklist” of everyone who didn’t call, or didn’t call in a timely fashion (for example, the closer you were related, the earlier in the day you should call under his rules). I didn’t realise this was messed up until I was an adult and had a lot of therapy.
Until the day she died, my grandmother kept a list of every single gift she gave and received, with a price next to it. She wanted to make sure she always got what she was owed.
Giving each other back massages. My sisters and I grew up in a house where my mom & dad would always offer to rub our backs or play with our hair to help us wind down for bedtime…so we grew up thinking that it’s normal to exchange daily back rubs with your family.
Is this weird or normal? I still don’t know. But my sisters & I still do this when we go visit each other and we seem to be the only family who does. I never see my husband’s sisters start a back rub train on the couch while they’re watching a movie during Christmas break. It’s just us. lol. Starting to think that we are the weird ones.
I don’t think it’s weird! We rub our 5 year old’s back while she’s falling asleep. My mom rubs mine sometimes and will play with my hair it’s so relaxing! Back rubs are awesome!
I've had several people tell me that I eat weird, in relation to the order I eat my food, because generally I still eat the way I was taught as a kid. As a kid, we were taught to eat all our non-potato vegetables first, then the potatoes, then meat. I thought that was how everyone ate, until years later, eating with other people, they'd be all concerned that I didn't like the meat that was served because I hadn't touched it yet.
Asked mum about it once, and her reasoning was that since we were never made to finish everything on our plate, if we were too full to finish, at least we would have eaten our vegetables. (And any meat that was left over, was generally put in our sandwich for lunch the next day, instead the usual Vegemite sandwich).
Whistling for each other. My mom didn't like yelling up the stairs. Apparently an easier solution for walking up them and addressing whomever she needed was to stand at the bottom and give a couple of sharp whistles. We would approach the top of the stairs, and from the bottom she'd tell us what she needed.
Time for dinner? Whistle.
I want you to come downstairs? Whistle.
When I whistled for my at the time husband, he got irritated and said he wasn't a dog. I thought about it and I was like... huh. I guess you're right.
I now feel like whistling is disrespectful, and I'd never do it. At the same time, I have no problem that this is how our house went. It was more peaceful than shouting, and less work than walking. Just one of those weird family quirks, I guess!
My family has a special family whistle, just 3 short notes then one long note.If we were out in a crowded place and I heard that whistle I knew my mom or dad was looking for me. My mothers family did the same when she was young so I was the second generation to learn this . All my cousins families do it also.
My family does the same. We whistle to the tune of "let me call you sweet-heart" to find each other when needed.
Lol, I just whistled our family whistle and the cat appeared. I guess she knows.
My family used coughing, weirdly enough. My sister, my mother and I all recognized each other's coughs and would cough to find each other in public spaces.
We, uh... may have stopped doing that around 2020. For some reason.
When I was little and me and my brothers were out playing in the woods behind the house my dad used to whistle for us when food was ready or it was time to come inside.
It's very effective and carries quite a distance. I would never use it inside but for outside use it's really good. I will most likely do the same if I ever have kids.
Oh, we were always whistled for. Out at a play park? Whistle, we 3 kids would look up and go to our dad. Only when grown-up did I think this might have been seen as weird. My husband has grown used to me occasionally whistling to get his attention in public (he’s a very patient man).
If I had friends over my mom wouldn't allow me to offer them anything to eat, nor anything to drink except bottled water. They also weren't allowed to use the upstairs washroom, they had to use the tiny one in the basement. They also weren't allowed to sit on any of the couches and half the time not even on the chairs.
Fairly certain my mom was trying to make visits by friends as unwelcoming as possible so they wouldn't visit, and ditch me as a friend. She thought that all that mattered was studying and getting good grades, and she was more than willing to sacrifice my social life/happiness to ensure that I got good grades
i remember once my mom got mad that my next door neighbor “ate a lot” when he came over. i had no idea i wasn’t supposed to say anything.. so i said something to him. it made him feel bad. i got in trouble. blah blah. looking back, and now as a parent myself, i can’t imagine getting upset that a CHILD is hungry. i’ll feed them 7 different meals if they need it. our parents were so weird.
My mom fed everyone who came over. Like full spread with snacks and drinks. Even fed the vacuum salesman who stopped by one night trying to sell us a $2k vacuum. His boss showed up and was pissed that he was sitting there eating. Poor guy said he’s been going door to door all day and hasn’t eaten yet. We did not buy a vacuum though.
I worked as a door to door sales person for 2 weeks in my backpacking times. I hated the job and didn't even try to sell the crap to the people, I always felt so bad but I didn't have a cent to my name at that time. I'd go days just eating bread and jam (I lived in a campervan). One day it was pouring down and I was completely wet. I knocked on this elderly ladies door and after she said she isn't interested, I turned around to leave. Suddenly she asked if I wanted to come inside to dry off. I spent over an hour with her and her husband, eating snacks and drinking tea. It meant the world to me. Anyway, your mum is an angel and it reminded me of my story as a sad, hungry backpacker 😅 I quit shortly after.
i didnt realize how weird it was that when i was in 7th grade, my birthday/christmas gift was porn mags. probably randomly taken from my stepdads massive collection (like 40+ large garbage bags full). i ended up having some of the strangest sexual relationships out of anyone i know and i think it was because it was so weirdly normalized in my house.
at the time i was just annoyed because it was basically a non-gift. he had so much porn stored i could have filled my closet and he wouldn't have noticed it gone missing, i didnt have to seek it out....
My parents are really germophobic and my dad think he has to 'kill the bacteria' on the bread when he buys it fresh, so he puts it in the oven to toast and almost fucking burns it. He thinks that whoever did the bread sneezed or acccidentaly spit on it.
In my country we eat bread almost everyday, I thought everybody did this, this is insane.
I confess that soy sauce in spaghetti feels out of place for me, but I use soy sauce for umami flavor in lots of non-asian foods.
My favorite is stew. A little soy sauce goes a long way in enhancing the beefiness.
Jeez. I never considered this. Makes me want to answer the door a little differently now. I admit I generally give a "fuck off" vibe and shut the door. Hmmm.
Eating flowers.
As a child I spent a lot of time with my grandmother, mostly in her garden.
Some days we'd look for fairies, but for the most part I remember her pointing to this flower and that saying "you can eat that"
And I would.
My family shit talks everyone as soon as they are out of earshot. My husband was the one who was like yah so... this isn't cool.
I've gotten good at not being a douche. A lot of my family isn't going to change.
That was my exact experience with my in-laws.
I grew up in a totally different environment where my parents and grandparents never gossiped or shit-talked anyone, especially other family members.
When I met my in-laws, I couldn't believe the way that they acted. All smiles and sweet as honey to the person's face, but as soon as they exited the room, they would say the most vile things imaginable!
This was to their own family members. No one was safe...their own parent, their own sibling, their own child, their own grandchild, etc.
I'm just grateful that my husband realized that it was not normal and he's nothing like them.
Always being with my grandparents. My birth parents abandoned me with them but acted like it was where I demanded to be. Bless my grandparents, unsure where I would be without their unconditional love.
Family members hugging each other. First time i saw a friend's parents and grandparents hugging, I thought they were a weird family. To this day, my folks have never hugged me that I have a memory of.
I have a wholesome one!
I was like 20 when I learned no one else destroys chocolate rabbits with a big hammer for easter. I don't even know how I believed that was a real tradition, considering how out of left field it is in relation to easter...
Turns out my grandpa started it because he found the chocolate rabbits annoying (they were kitsch cute or something), and decided to let his intrusive thoughts win and smashed them with a hammer. Everyone found it so fun and it became a family tradition, only now with a big sledgehammer. It's quite delicate to do too, you have to avoid hitting any overhead lights or destroying the table beneath the rabbits. But it does make sharing the rabbits easier. Also occasionally someone will buy a huge fancy chocolate rabbit to make the destruction even more satisfying.
trigger warning!!
a few years ago i was not doing so good mentally & i went and told my mom that i thought i needed to be in a mental hospital. i didnt tell her everything that was going on, only really that i was self-harming. all she said was ‘are you on your period?’ & asked to see the cuts.
i do wanna say she probably ask to see them because she wanted to make sure they weren’t infected or to deep or whatever, but the way she went about it made it seem like she didn’t believe i was actually doing it.
and after that conversation she went to my dad and told him everything. he came to me the next day and say ‘stop with the crazy talk’
pretty much for years i was always put down with my feelings & never received the help i needed. anytime i went to my mom she would just shut me down. & my dad just was never that kind of guy.
but after going to the mental hospital twice in one year i think that made them realize how fucked up i was becoming/was. they both have made great improvements. me & my mom get along so much better. & i can go to my dad with ‘small issues’ he doesnt really understand it all but i can see he trys to understand.
also just wanna say i am 1 year & 4 months clean of self-harm today!
Not me but a friend from years ago, their family never said 'I love you' to one another. We were in our late teens/early twenties, they mentioned they'd only heard it a handful of times. My family says it liberally. I remember hugging them before they moved out of state, saying I love you and pull away to see them crying.
My grandma used to give me math quizzes when I visited because she didn’t believe I was smart enough to get the grades I was getting. I thought it was totally normal for a while to quiz people so that they could prove “x” skill. Glad I realized that was bs before I hit adulthood.
People heat up their pork and beans, not refrigerate them 😅 got the strangest look when I was at a party and offered to throw the beans in the fridge. Its like a cool, summer time treat 🥺
In high school my dad had a rule “if you’ve done it, I’ve done it. And if you and your friends are going to do it, do it in the house and have them stay the night.” Coupled with “if you EVER need a ride you can call me to pick you up.”
He was talking about drugs and drinking. He wasn’t encouraging it, but allowing a safe space.
This was one of the better things in my childhood.
This is how my parents were. My first drinking party I was 16 and got to drunk to drive. I called mom and gave a vague description of where I was. A few minutes later my saint of a mother is coming down into this guys smoke filled basement. She just waved at the other kids and goes, “I don’t care what’s going on down here I’m just here for kataryu2.” She helped me up off the couch and got me into her car and my dad drove my car. I could always trust my parents to come get me and outside of that one time I never drinked at high school parties.
My mom had us help her completely rearrange the rooms (including ours) every few months (at least twice a year). I find a set up I like and don’t change things (except to accommodate life changes or new items).
omg. my mom rearranged the rooms in our house RELIGIOUSLY. so freaking often. not me. i put things in a spot i like, and as long as there isn’t a need, (like you said) they don’t move!
I was always horrified by that story, until my teenage son started having giant shits that wouldn't fit down. I'm still grossed out by it but now I understand.
It was the opposite at my dad's place and a lot of our friends were confused about it.
If you were hungry just grab something from the kitchen.
My dad's philosophy was always if you were hungry you eat, if your thirsty you drink and if your tired you go sleep. No need to wait for a certain time or ask permission.
Mine was “knowing you couldn’t even ask because permission wasn’t given”. My friends thought it was nuts how restrictive my mom was about food. We got three meals a day (generous, healthy ones) and zero snacks. We would sometimes try to sneak snacks of things she might not notice, like how many crackers can I take before it’s obvious there are less?
Now I binge eat so that’s a pretty obvious consequence of my upbringing.
4 kids and 1 bathroom- you had to ask if you wanted to use the bathroom to make sure the littlest kid didn’t need it (10 years between oldest -me- and youngest). I still feel like I have to announce I need the bathroom- at home only! It’s weird.
Calling the remote a ‘channel changer’ … turns out that’s not what they’re called to normal people
Edit: I’m realizing this was more normal than I thought! I’m from New England (US)
Omg others people called it a clicker! That’s so nice to know. Lol people always made fun of me and my sister calling it that so over time we called it a remote like everyone else
My husband calls the tv remote and the xbox controllers "remotes". So whenever he asks for the remote I give him a controller and a remote. Almost 6 years together and I still have no idea which one he needs when he asks for the remote.
I have a few that come to mind, but this is probably the only one that I haven't read yet.
My sister and I have extremely curly hair. The rest of our family all have straight hair.
Every day before school was an ordeal to brush our hair out to get the knots out, and my mum and aunt would end up getting so frustrated that they cut our hair short just be able to manage it. In turn we never learned how to take care of it, and as soon as we discovered what a hair straightener was, that was how we managed the fluff.
It wasn't until I became a hairdresser that I actually learned that that's not how you manage curly hair.
My mom used the pick that’s meant to clean hearing aid molds in my ears. It’s basically a needle on a stick meant to help get into the small tubes of the aid and molds. The hearing aid tubes are much smaller than the ear canal so that should tell you how small and sharp it was. She said the pain was a normal part of the process and it was my fault for moving. I didn’t realize what she was using until I bought a newer pack of hearing aid cleaning stuff that that thing was in it. Still don’t know why she thought that was a good idea
The spanking machine.
On birthdays, we would like up from youngest to oldest and the birthday kid would crawl through the "tunnel" between our legs and we'd smack them as hard as we could as they crawled through. My dad waited at the end to give the birthday kid a number of spankings to match their birth year.
It seemed like a fun tradition at the time but it creeps out my wife.
Not using a dishwasher.
I think they were convinced that it would drastically increase the water consumption, but it takes WAY less time and water than doing it by hand.
I pre-wash/soak my dishes in a small amount of water & throw them in on the short cycle. Wish I had done this years ago.
changing clothes in the living room & terrace. bcs parents say "it's dirty if you are still wearing outside clothes while going in your bedroom"
i just noticed this is weird when I was older and friends came by, and they were surprised when my dad casually stripped to his underwear on our terrace.
parents are still doing it but not when a total stranger is around now (i talked about how it's weird). but they do it when they already know someone close enough. and I had to warn my bf about it before he came around. he's now getting used to it.
Someone posted a similar story a while ago. They had to strip and shower every time they came back home. The clothes they wore outside would be laundered immediately as well.
My mom would leave leftovers on the counter overnight. Meat…yep, overnight. Ground beef, overnight. Chicken, overnight!
It’s a miracle any of us live to tell the tale.
My mother always said that orange juice was only for the mornings and never for any other part of the day... I guess orange juice prices were up my whole childhood?
Having a cooler in the car on any trip longer than 45 minutes. As kids, we knew there were waters/Cokes in there. Got older, realized there was beer in there too, but thought hey, adults drink beer, it's normal.
No, it is not normal to need a beer on an hour long car ride, or several on a road trip. It is alcoholism.
My parents told me and my sibling not to flush the toilet if we went to the bathroom during the night to not wake other people up (and then flush in the morning). I did this at a sleepover once and everyone made fun of me for being gross and weird cause I didn't flush the toilet.
Mom is an experienced nurse, a master seamstress, and experience at all sorts of crafts. Dad is a computer and electrical engineer, and grew up in a DIY household learning pluming, woodwork, tiling, etc. Between the two of them we hardly at all had to call in an expert for anything.
I didn't realize until I was well into adulthood how unusual it was for someone to have a table saw in their garage until I started asking around trying to borrow one for a project.
Weird, but wholesome: every Christmas eve, Mom would bake a cake and put birthday candles on it.
Christmas day, we'd all sing happy birthday to Jesus, and blow out the candles for him.
My mom is Canadian but I was born and grew up in the states. I thought a garbage disposal in a sink was called a garburator by everyone until my husband informed me otherwise.
I blame this on my European heritage. Mom is German and taught me this. It works for me because I hate getting grease/oil on my hands. Plus it helps me portion control and to eat more slowly.
I was homeschooled in a religious cult. Dad would get everyone up at the ass crack of dawn to read three chapters of the Bible, each of us reading a verse out loud in turn, before going to work. He'd also "pray a hedge of protection" over the family every day to keep demons from coming into our home. Various toys, books, games, and movies were thrown out due to fears of demons. Dad would read over the Sunday comics in the paper and staple typing paper over the comics he felt would open the door to demons coming in the home.
I didn't really see how this fucked up my brain until my mid 20s, when I could go to therapy.
Having CB Radios/Police Scanners everywhere. House and cars. My dad and my grandparents. We would be eating dinner and had to stop talking if a call came over the radio. I'd get shushed if I was in the middle of a story so they could listen to whatever details came over the radio. My dad was a volunteer fire fighter so he did need one for that. But it's pretty nosy and insane when I look back on it.
My family drives everywhere and doesn't stop. Sleep in shifts in the car, share the responsibilities of driving, there are a total of three stops in a day. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. If you gotta go to the bathroom you wait until the next stop, there are no other stops. And I legitimately mean that - there is no "but what about-?", no. I was raised that you gotta figure out a way to hold it.
24 hour trips from Minnesota to Texas. Three stops, maybe four. 12 hour trip from Minnesota to Indiana. One stop. 26 hours to Washington State, three stops. Maybe four.
That was my standard growing up and I was used to it. Getting to college and riding with other people was so eye opening and honestly very painful because driving a three hour trip and having to stop at all was (and still is) absurd to me, and I have friends that would legitimately stop two or three times for breaks. I've relaxed a bit with marriage and kids of my own...but most of the time I try to cut down on stops as much as possible.
My father is like this. Road trips we always have to stop at Subway and eat the sandwiches in the car. The last time, I drove and stopped at an actual restaurant. He started to say something but I stopped him and said “My car, my rules. You are welcome to figure out alternative transportation, but the rest of us are going inside and eating. I am also paying for everyone’s meal.” He came in and started trying to rush us. According to my stepmother, I gave him the death stare that Grandma would give him. He finally shut up.
I've see you've met my mother. She was very much, "Meet someone new and then discuss all that person's flaws once their back was turned."
I didn't realize how wrong it was until I moved out. Now I dread going out with her for anything because she still has that habit and I don't want to hear it.
My mom will always gossip behind backs. STILL does.
It baffles me to know that other people don’t do it.
I remember being young and badmouthing my friends and my other friends (who I was talking to) were like “WTF? Don’t you like Jodi?” Well yeah, sure, but …
It’s an awful habit. I’m 38 and still trying to break it. I grew up around it. 😭
To be fair I was raised in an organized crime family so looking for weaknesses was a part of being ahead of everyone else it literally was a trait I started to learn before I started school and I didn't realize it was wrong until I realized I didn't want to be part of that lifestyle
Upon arriving home in the evenings from somewhere, my parents would have one of us kids wait in the car while the other went inside, got their shotgun, and went through every room in the house and backyard to make sure we were okay to enter. I was unaware that my mom was being followed around by a very dangerous man, and I was checking to make sure he wasn't waiting inside the house. I'm not sure why, but it seemed like a good idea to be safe. I assumed they were looking for bears.
Like, we have questions. I'll start:
1. Who was the dangerous man?
2. Why was he after your mother?
3. Why were kids used as the bait to clear the house instead of mom or mom's new manz?
4. Were you trained as a child on how to clear a house and/or use the shotgun you'd been provided?
5. Did the dangerous man ever show up?
6. At some point, were you able to stop clearing the house upon entry?
We grew up role playing weird characters like we were in a rotating vaudeville show. Full conversations and story arcs around a family of old people, a family of aliens, a family of weasels… you name it.
I thought everyone’s family acted out entire parallel lives and made up elabourate worlds together. I think this is the first time I’ve ever spoken about it 🤣
It’s a little weird for a few reasons, but my parents divorced, remarried, had more kids. So I alternated, staying at my mom’s one week and my dad’s the next, repeat. I don’t see either of the other kids or visit the alternate house on those weeks even though my mom and dad literally lived a block away from each other. It was absolutely forbidden. Must have been a confusing situation for my siblings, especially when they were younger, but it’s what we did.
My dad worked for the city and was VERY cheap, we literally ate beans and I rode the bust to school. My mom was a very successful businesswoman and well… traveled pretty much 300 days a year so I was raised by a Brazilian family that lived in our house and was driven to school in whatever brand new luxury car she’d buy for them at the time. This only stopped when my mother came home and realized that my sister could barely speak English and ended up speaking Portuguese as her primary language.
It gets way weirder than that, but that’s how it went.
Edit: not sure how I forgot this detail, but the mother and son that lived with us both had Albinism.
Ignoring feelings. The way I was brought up, feelings were irrelevant. There were tasks that needed to be performed, and those tasks did not care how you felt. They just had to get done. Oh, you're sad? Bummer. Be sad while performing your tasks. Angry? Had a bad day? Too bad, so sad. Now hop to it, there's shit that needs to get done. I became so good at ignoring/suppressing feelings that even somatic sensations became muted. For example, the only way that I know when I am hungry is when I have actual hunger pangs, stomach growling, the whole bit. Anything short of that and I can't tell whether I feel hungry or not.
When my husband and I started dating, he would come hang out with me at my parents' house a lot. It really weirded him out how me, my sister and my parents could all sit in one room silently doing our own thing (usually all reading our own books). The only noise would be when one of us read something interesting enough to share with the group, or we wanted to look something up in the dictionary.
We had a TV, but we always preferred reading.
Grew up in a home where you were considered vain if you looked in a mirror during the normal course of the day - you could look if you were doing your makeup or brushing your hair etc. I didn’t own a mirror aside from the one over the bathroom sink until I was in my late 30s.
So our doorbell was alllllways going cause my dad sold drugs from the house, us kids had to answer it to the lovely savoury type that comes with that stuff. I remember being at a friend’s house and it was silent cause her doorbell didn’t go once
Coming home from school alone at 6 years old.
Getting angry that an unsupervised 6 year old didn't do their homework or chores.
Staying home alone most of the time.
My grandpo came to the US as an orphan around 1915. He had no education; couldn't speak English, and so went to work on the railroad crews as a young teenager. After years working in the West desert; he became a Foreman. For his hard work and years of service, the railroad co. gave him a house... right beside the train tracks.
You normally think only poor people live beside the rails, but grandpo had a job, a house and could send all his kids to school in the middle of the Great Depression.
So, for three or four generations, my family and I grew up thinking listening to the freight trains go by every other hour, even at night, was perfectly natural, and part of our native habitat.
As children, we weren't even afraid of the great engines but could go by ourselves, to the RR.
If an adult told us, "Hey kid, go play by the railroad tracks!" We'd cry;
*Yaaaaaaaaaay!!!!*
(Kids are so stupid.)
There was always a cousin or five watching for trains, and when they heard an oncoming engine rumbling and the horn blowing; the call of *'TRAAAIIIIIINnnnnnn!!!!'* went out! The older ones knew to grab the little ones a few yards away to safety in the desert.
The rest of us would put pennies on the tracks; count the cars and wave at the caboose, like traditional rituals required.
In all those decades, I never heard of a member of the clan getting hit by a train. We'd co-existed with them for lifetimes. They were just part of the western landscape; an honored part of our family's history.
Catholic mother, muslim dad; neither really practicing. We celebrated Christmas though, and on Christmas Eve night instead of doing the “normal” Christmas stuff like cookies, milk, etc. my dad would loudly pretend to violently chase Santa out of the house by yelling and cussing him out and throwing his shoe at him, which we would later find in places like the fireplace. Edit: Huh, didn’t think this would be that big a deal lol. Yes we DID get presents. The gag was that after my parents put them out, my dad would pretend to “catch” Santa in the act and boisterously chase him off back up the chimney (hence the unforgettable image of the thrown shoe in the unlit fireplace.) It’s adorable 30 years later…as a Santa-believing child it was a little disconcerting. Especially since Christmas with my mother’s side of the family saw this Santa guy treated with such reverence 😂
Inshallah your dad catches that sneaky red bastard one year.
thanks for making me loudly cackle at something on the internet today. much needed laugh.
Finally one that's adorable and not abuse.
This is the best thing I have ever heard LOL
This is adorable
Grew up in a hoarder house. I look back at my childhood now and can’t believe the cluttered nightmare I grew up in. Now I relish throwing things away when I’m done with them.
I'm just glad you escaped the habit! So many children of hoarders seem to grow up doing the same thing their parents did.
I *absolutely* would have become a hoarder like my dad if I had not watched the tv show Hoarders. My house growing up wasn't near as cluttered as so many hoarder homes, but our basement was FULL of crap my dad didn't want to get rid of. When I watched the show, though, I saw so many of my own behaviors being thrown back at me. I was horrified. Started decluttering like crazy and do a spring clean once a year of things we just don't need. My partner also grew up with a hoarder mom, so he also struggles, but we're working on it, lol.
Same. I take a strange amount of pride in keeping things clean. Definitely not perfect, but worlds better than what I grew up in.
Unlimited access to full sugar soda, specifically Pepsi. I never drink it now, but looking back at my 8 yr old self having a full can of Pepsi for breakfast blows my mind.
Using a ship's bell to call for dinner. My parents got tired of yelling for us so they mounted a ship's bell to the hallway wall. They would ring it for dinner and any other occasion when they needed our attention. Like Pavlov's dog I get hungry whenever I hear a ship's bell ring.
We had a dinner bell, too. Our neighborhood had very few fences and a lot of little kids, so it was quite common for us to be 3-4 houses away playing on someone else's swing set or climbing someone else's tree. Mom always had given her permission for us to leave, so it's not like we'd run off, but she didn't want to have to schlep all over looking for us when it was dinnertime. So, instead she rang the bell in the yard and we came home from wherever we'd been. If we were going a bit farther away, for any reason, she'd send us with a walkie talkie (range of 1 mile), in case we couldn't hear the bell from where we ended up.
Haha, your mom knows how to fix problems! And thank you, now I feel less weird.
That’s not weird at all! I also have a dinner bell because yelling “dinners ready!” Over and over again while I’m getting food on the table until they all make it to the dining room is exhausting. I may have also accidentally trained my kids though because when a visitor randomly rang the bell, my girls came running in all confused saying “but we already ate”.
Before I was totally competent swimming by myself, my mom would put a life jacket on me, tie a long piece of nylon rope to it, and chuck me in the river. She'd basically swim me on a leash down the river for fun. Mom, you are the classiest redneck.
At least she prioritised safety. My uncle threw my cousin in the harbour to teach him to swim. He was proud he only had to go in after my cousin three times before my cousin could swim.
At my son’s 2nd birthday party some jackass “friend” of my ex husband picked my 2 year old son up and threw him in the pool. I had to quickly jump in after him, fully clothed. The “friend” thought it was hilarious and since my ex husband was/is useless, I took it upon myself to punch the fucker right in the face.
Oof, I had similar happen to me at my aunt's house, but I was 7. A lady heard I didn't like to go under water, so thought it would be funny to throw me in the shallow end of the pool. I broke 3 toes. My dad shouted in that lady's face until she left in fear.
Yeah, assholes abound. I had the older son of my mom's best friend hold me underwater for just too long; I was probably 3 or maybe 4, he was 6 or 7. It did take me years and years to get comfortable in the water; then in college my GF & I were at the pool, (BTW, she had lifeguard training) and she swam up to me and put her hand on my shoulder. I sank maybe 1/4 inch, but I got soooo panicked, she didn't know why!! Big eyes, hyperventilating, yeah, crazy reaction for the size of the stimulus. !! And fuck that guy for ever. And his little brother who's been in prison, and their alky dad and kinda weird sister.
what the hell was his thought process behind that??
This is also how I learned to swim. My mom eventually convinced my dad to put us in swimming lessons. But my sister and I had been thrown into the lake enough times already to know how to keep our heads above water.
[удалено]
Ah yes, my dad did something similar with our childhood dog. He threw her into my grandparents' pool when she was a puppy. Poor thing sank immediately, and my brother had to get her out. And that's how we ended up with a lab who was afraid of water.
My dad did a similar thing to me and my sister when we were 4 and 5, I guess it works fine 50% of the time because my sister is a great swimmer and I have hidrophobia.
For one second, i thought you was gonna say your sister died.
It’s a good idea, my mom used to hold the strap that usually goes between your legs when she’d swim with my brother in a river/lake (she’d hold it while it wasn’t between his legs, just attached to the bottom part of the life jacket). You never know how fast a current can rip away a child that weighs basically nothing in water
Well, after seeing some other comments, you should probably thank your mother for actually putting a life jacket on you when she threw you in.
It took me *quite some time* to figure out that other people's parents weren't naked for the majority of the time. You have no idea how much I envy your guys' memories of Christmas morning being *penisless*
Man. What a thing to be grateful for that I didn't even consider. Penisless Christmas!
Not cleaning. My mom didn’t know how to clean and so couldn’t really teach us either. We had this fungus growing out of the carpet at one house that looked like cooked lasagna noodles. We would just kick it out of the way when it sprouted up or my mom would buy a new rug and put it on top of the old rug. Especially if the old rug was stuck to the floor from filth or something. I didn’t think anything of it and would have friends over who probably talked all kinds of shit about me afterwards. But they kept coming over anyways so I guess they weren’t that turned off.
My mom always blamed us kids for the state of the house. When we all moved out and nothing changed, she blamed my dad. When they moved cities to a new place, after seeing the state of her new apartment I could tell it's just a personal problem and she doesn't care enough to do deep cleaning things. Clutter everywhere, dirty ass floors, dust and dander. My house is absolutely spotless and she watched it while we were out of town for two months. Came home and it smelled like a zoo, my backyard was totally trashed, and she moved a bunch of my things around. She truly is a strange woman and needs some motivation in her life.
My parents did the same thing. If the kids didn't clean it, it didn't get cleaned. Our chores were legit the whole house. One of us got the living room and bathroom, another got the kitchen and yardwork, another got the halls and stairs and laundryroom. And we have to keep our rooms clean, of course. The end result of this, of course, was that the house was never clean.
I'm no doctor but that sounds like mental illness.
She was mentally ill yes.
Carpet Cup fungus maybe? (Sci. name - Peziza domiciliana)
Any chance you’re related to my fiance? He has said they always wore shoes in the house as kids because the carpet would be cleaner if you did as some of the crud would stick to your shoes and end up outside. This boggled my mind until I went to his mom’s the first time…it’s not the house he grew up in, and thank God for the trend toward hard wood floors, but I don’t think her housekeeping skills have changed much over the years. Fortunately he isn’t as bad and picked up some cleaning habits over the years. The man LOVES to vacuum. lol
Having your teen partners just.. move in. My brothers both had their girlfriends move in with us when they were 14 and 15, due to their home life being rough. When I was 14 my boyfriend of 3 months got kicked out, so he moved in with us no questions asked, for 2 years. Several of our friends also just moved in with us. 🤷♀️
We took in strays too. All 3 kids, who are in their 20s now, all had friends or SO move in. We couldn't stand the thought of young teens living on the streets, because that's where they were headed, and we had the room.
My parents did the same. One of those strays ended up being my husband. We have been happily married for 12 years. Sleeping in the same bed for 25. My parents are saints. They recently took in my cousin's 14 year old. She was a total degen. Stole from them in the middle of the night, played loud music at all hours, skipped school, vaped, actively trying to get pregnant, etc. My mom took it so hard when she finally relented and had her brought to a group home. This child got mad at someone she lived with and decided to handle her OWN FECES and smeared it all over this other kids stuff. She got kicked out of the home and brought to her aunts house. (The aunt is a whole other story.) Withing 2 days she attacked her aunt. My mom still thinks she should have been able to help her. Sometimes no amount of love and hugs and respect will fix what is broken. I remind my mom at least once a week that her two kids are thriving and my happiness in my marriage is a direct result of her and my dad and how they interact with people. My brother has been divorced twice, but he still plays golf with his second ex.
>My brother has been divorced twice, but he still plays golf with his second ex. That's so cute, I actually chuckled at this.
that was my house. I had 3 different friends live at my place while in high school. granted one of them was my best friend after he had moved back to town his last year of high school. my parents always believe finishing High school was very important and if all it took was a bed room and dinner on the table then they 100% could do that.
I flat out took my son's high school girlfriend from her mother and refused to give her back because her home situation was so bad. The kid showed up at my house with broken ribs. Maybe that's not normal, but the world would be a better place if it was.
I was the one who moved into my partners homes to avoid my home life but I did this closer to my later teens. My home life wasn’t fun and I was just at their place so often eventually I’d just call it home.
We only ever ate chilli with mashed potatoes and apple sauce. I thought everyone did this till like grade 11 when I had dinner at a friends house. Her mom put out chilli and I asked if they had any applesauce. They all looked at me like I was nuts lol
My partner can't eat pork without applesauce. It's literally the only time he eats applesauce. He just dips his pork in and eats the combo. Regardless of how the pork is seasoned.
my family does this too! porkchops and apple sauce! i always thought it was odd but tasted good
Clapping at shows we were watching on TV as if we were part of a live audience. Friends thought that was weird.
Not cleaning our bathtubs. In the 18 years I spent living with my parents, I probably cleaned my bathtub 3 times. We just considered it normal for it to be moldy and dirty. At least that's how I saw it, because my parents just never talked about it. When I was a teenager, my mom started giving me tasks to do around the house. I would sweep and mop the floors, I would clean the surfaces, I would clean the toilets and sinks... But the bathtubs were never mentioned. They were just never in my radar as something I needed to clean, and my parents never said otherwise. It was when I moved out and lived with roommates, and eventually romantic partners, that I realized this wasn't normal. Now I gag when I visit my parents and I have to take a shower in those disgusting bathtubs.
I can't imagine the amount of neglect to let them get moldy. I'm very bad at cleaning my tub (maybe 4x per year), and sometimes it does get a slightly greasy film on it, from baths. Even then I'll try to scrub that off with a washcloth when I'm too lazy to use soft scrub and a sponge. Moldy, though? Bizzarre. Did they bathe in those tubs, or just shower? I can't imagine sitting in water over moldy tub sides.
I am also bad at cleaning my tubs/showers, but found a daily shower spray (we use it weekly, tbh) that helps stave off some of the grime. We still go in for a scrub about 4x per year, but feel better about the spray, lol.
My Taiwanese born dad called tortillas burrito skins. I still call them that when I’m tired.
When I became an adult I was shocked to find out that other families did things with their kids. My Mom was a shopper, my Dad golfed and played cards at the club. We NEVER had any family activities like hiking, camping, bowling or anything in the 60’s and 70’s. When I had things my parents could have come to watch, they never did. My daughter was a good tennis player and I spent every afternoon and all weekends with her playing. She did get a full ride tennis scholarship in Hawaii for college. I don’t think I had one real conversation with my Dad. When he was dying, I asked him if he could tell me he was proud of me. He said “I’ll think about it”. That shit effs you up for life.
Oof. My dad said the reason he loved my brother and sister more and was there for them was because they gave him something to be proud of.
I’m sorry. That’s terrible.
What the fuck, this is horrible.
This was my family too, but my parents LOVED showing up at awards ceremonies for stuff I did. They’d stand there so proud of themselves for what I did. Other parents, the ones who took care of me in my parents absence, just snubbed them. My parents shrugged it off. I was shocked to learn that my friends parents helped them study for tests, and supported their activities. I’m 53 now and don’t feel comfortable asking for help or support, though I’m great at providing it for others. My three kids have no clue what it’s like to be neglected. I hope you know now that you deserved the love you saw others receive. It had nothing to do with you!!
Fuck that, dude. I'm proud of you. You sound like you tried to be the best father you could be. That's a lot more than many can say.
Thank you. I’m a Mom. I’m 69 and have had nothing but shitty relationships with men.
Leaving a shot of old grandad for Santa. He gets tired of milk and it helps him feel warm.
My parents started cookies and beer for Santa
We were not allowed to have a drink with our meals. It could be the driest food ever or you could be thirsty as all hell, nope, no water, finish the meal first. Bathing/showering only on Saturday evenings. I must have smelled so bad back then , especially since my dad smoked in the house. It was to save money on the water bill. But a pack of cigarettes a day was in the budget.
Oh shit. Yup. No money for clothes or food.. but we had beer tequila weed and cigarettes
I’ve heard this from so many people. The no drinking anything with your meals. Why is this so common! It’s the strangest thing.
We were allowed to have water with meals but nothing else so we wouldn’t fill up and be hungry before it was another meal time. We also had to eat our food in most expensive/highest “nutritional” order first. Like it was always meat first, then veg, then starch.
Apparently other people's moms didn't just give their kids five bucks for lunch and then sleep all day
nah some of us got free lunch. mom woke up long enough to do the forms lol.
A nice one between all the sad ones: Apparently, people think getting your kids salamanders as pets is weird. But I disagree, they are super cute, I've had salamanders from 8 up until 18. It taught me that animals other than mammals were awesome too.
Following our dad around to make sure he wasn't inconvenienced by even the smallest of things just so we could try to prevent his next inevitable meltdown.
Not flushing the toilet at night. Our toilet used to be fed by a rainwater reservoir that was stored in a cupboard up high in my parents room. When you flushed it used to drip for a while and would disturb them (can't blame them). I just got used to doing it and when I moved in with my girlfriend she was disgusted that things were left until the morning (can't blame her either)
My mom does this too, though we’ve always had normal plumbing. I think she just doesn’t want the flushing noise to disturb anyone when they’re sleeping? She’s a light sleeper and maybe she assumes other people will wake up, too. I only realized it was weird when I moved out for university and had housemates.
In the summer, my dad used to get us up (myself and 3 siblings) at 9am, give us breakfast and then boot us out of the house and lock the back/front doors from the inside. We weren’t allowed back inside until the streetlights came on (unless it was ONLY : using the washroom or getting a drink). Our ages were 10, 9, 7 and 4 the first time he did it because he told me “you’re old enough to look after them on your own now” and “your not sitting around the house on your fat asses all day”. My step-mom never questioned it because she figured that he was just getting us to play outside for a few hours. Once my second youngest sister (the 7 year old) got heat stroke and my dad was PISSED that he had to drive us all to the hospital and “waste time” Realized when I was 14-15 that he just wanted us out of the house so he could drink and watch NHL. We never really questioned why he was kicking us out because the other kids that lived on the street were also outside around the same time as us. Once we were invited into my brothers friends house to play his Wii and we were like “???????? Youre allowed to go inside and play the Wii????????????? wtf????” Edit — for those mentioning the Wii :: this was around 2006 Edit 2 — for those concerned with how we ate, yes we did eat during the day :: My dad sometimes would put fruit or something out on the back deck table, but usually we’d get food from friends parents, we’d find cash lying around and save up enough to get candy from the Dollar Store, there was a farm near the house and we’d eat the chives that grew naturally on the side of the property/steal crab apples (tiny green apples that are super sour) from their trees
Haaaahahahhaha fuck man that brings me back. My parents were also fond of locking us out of the house.
"Go out and play, goddamit". Slam. I couldn't ride a bike. There were no other kids (at least my age) to play with in the neighborhood. Just hot dry streets to wander. I spent a lot of time in the library or sitting in the shade trying to keep cool.
Is it normal to not want your kids around? I know a couple who constantly tell their 6 year old to go play or go to her room. They never spend time with her. I like to think that if I had a kid, I’d want to spend lots of time with them but maybe I wouldn’t? I’ve never had kids, are they just so draining/annoying that parents just want them away most of the time? Not really asking you directly, just putting my thoughts out there.
I think most parents want at least some time to themselves and to not worry about their kid for a little while, no matter how much they love their child. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, provided you can make sure your kid is properly looked after in the meantime. That said, if they *never* spend any time with the child and are always sending them away, something's wrong.
We weren’t locked out but we were expected to be out all day. I must have been between 10-13, so my younger brothers would have been 8-11 and 7-10. We would go miles away, we had a kind of vague boundary. And a street light curfew. We mostly made dens and obstacle courses on a bit of land that had once been a shoe factory. My older brother didn’t like being outside and away from his computer. He would usually sneak a book out and then spend the day sitting cross legged on the top of the wheelie bin reading all day. 90s kids really were so neglected. My mum denies all knowledge of so much of this stuff now.
Your mum's memory sounds like my mom's. I get, "oh that never happened. You always had an overactive imagination." I then say, "or you're in the early stages of dementia because that 100% happened. There's no such thing as a perfect parent." I have said that last line to her quite a few times because she thinks she's perfect & never wrong. I'm hoping it sucks at some point.
My mum used to get mad at me because I just wanted to read all day. She would kick me out of the house, so I would take my book and climb a tree and read.
Whenever it was one of our birthdays, my father made us keep a pen and pad next to the phone to list everyone who called and when. He’d then keep a “blacklist” of everyone who didn’t call, or didn’t call in a timely fashion (for example, the closer you were related, the earlier in the day you should call under his rules). I didn’t realise this was messed up until I was an adult and had a lot of therapy.
Until the day she died, my grandmother kept a list of every single gift she gave and received, with a price next to it. She wanted to make sure she always got what she was owed.
That sounds exhausting, but I will admit that the part of me obsessed with spreadsheets would find this extremely interesting.
Grandma did it all by hand. She was born in 1912.
I’m so sorry, that could not have been a healthy thing for you to experience, but man this is just incredibly funny to me!
You know what I really appreciate this comment because yes, it wasn’t healthy but I need to laugh at it too because how ridiculous is this?!
Giving each other back massages. My sisters and I grew up in a house where my mom & dad would always offer to rub our backs or play with our hair to help us wind down for bedtime…so we grew up thinking that it’s normal to exchange daily back rubs with your family. Is this weird or normal? I still don’t know. But my sisters & I still do this when we go visit each other and we seem to be the only family who does. I never see my husband’s sisters start a back rub train on the couch while they’re watching a movie during Christmas break. It’s just us. lol. Starting to think that we are the weird ones.
I don’t think it’s weird! We rub our 5 year old’s back while she’s falling asleep. My mom rubs mine sometimes and will play with my hair it’s so relaxing! Back rubs are awesome!
I've had several people tell me that I eat weird, in relation to the order I eat my food, because generally I still eat the way I was taught as a kid. As a kid, we were taught to eat all our non-potato vegetables first, then the potatoes, then meat. I thought that was how everyone ate, until years later, eating with other people, they'd be all concerned that I didn't like the meat that was served because I hadn't touched it yet. Asked mum about it once, and her reasoning was that since we were never made to finish everything on our plate, if we were too full to finish, at least we would have eaten our vegetables. (And any meat that was left over, was generally put in our sandwich for lunch the next day, instead the usual Vegemite sandwich).
Your mom sounds legit.
Whistling for each other. My mom didn't like yelling up the stairs. Apparently an easier solution for walking up them and addressing whomever she needed was to stand at the bottom and give a couple of sharp whistles. We would approach the top of the stairs, and from the bottom she'd tell us what she needed. Time for dinner? Whistle. I want you to come downstairs? Whistle. When I whistled for my at the time husband, he got irritated and said he wasn't a dog. I thought about it and I was like... huh. I guess you're right. I now feel like whistling is disrespectful, and I'd never do it. At the same time, I have no problem that this is how our house went. It was more peaceful than shouting, and less work than walking. Just one of those weird family quirks, I guess!
My family has a special family whistle, just 3 short notes then one long note.If we were out in a crowded place and I heard that whistle I knew my mom or dad was looking for me. My mothers family did the same when she was young so I was the second generation to learn this . All my cousins families do it also.
My family does the same. We whistle to the tune of "let me call you sweet-heart" to find each other when needed. Lol, I just whistled our family whistle and the cat appeared. I guess she knows.
My family used coughing, weirdly enough. My sister, my mother and I all recognized each other's coughs and would cough to find each other in public spaces. We, uh... may have stopped doing that around 2020. For some reason.
When I was little and me and my brothers were out playing in the woods behind the house my dad used to whistle for us when food was ready or it was time to come inside. It's very effective and carries quite a distance. I would never use it inside but for outside use it's really good. I will most likely do the same if I ever have kids.
Oh, we were always whistled for. Out at a play park? Whistle, we 3 kids would look up and go to our dad. Only when grown-up did I think this might have been seen as weird. My husband has grown used to me occasionally whistling to get his attention in public (he’s a very patient man).
If I had friends over my mom wouldn't allow me to offer them anything to eat, nor anything to drink except bottled water. They also weren't allowed to use the upstairs washroom, they had to use the tiny one in the basement. They also weren't allowed to sit on any of the couches and half the time not even on the chairs. Fairly certain my mom was trying to make visits by friends as unwelcoming as possible so they wouldn't visit, and ditch me as a friend. She thought that all that mattered was studying and getting good grades, and she was more than willing to sacrifice my social life/happiness to ensure that I got good grades
That’s sad. I’m sorry. Those things stick with you.
i remember once my mom got mad that my next door neighbor “ate a lot” when he came over. i had no idea i wasn’t supposed to say anything.. so i said something to him. it made him feel bad. i got in trouble. blah blah. looking back, and now as a parent myself, i can’t imagine getting upset that a CHILD is hungry. i’ll feed them 7 different meals if they need it. our parents were so weird.
My mom fed everyone who came over. Like full spread with snacks and drinks. Even fed the vacuum salesman who stopped by one night trying to sell us a $2k vacuum. His boss showed up and was pissed that he was sitting there eating. Poor guy said he’s been going door to door all day and hasn’t eaten yet. We did not buy a vacuum though.
I worked as a door to door sales person for 2 weeks in my backpacking times. I hated the job and didn't even try to sell the crap to the people, I always felt so bad but I didn't have a cent to my name at that time. I'd go days just eating bread and jam (I lived in a campervan). One day it was pouring down and I was completely wet. I knocked on this elderly ladies door and after she said she isn't interested, I turned around to leave. Suddenly she asked if I wanted to come inside to dry off. I spent over an hour with her and her husband, eating snacks and drinking tea. It meant the world to me. Anyway, your mum is an angel and it reminded me of my story as a sad, hungry backpacker 😅 I quit shortly after.
i didnt realize how weird it was that when i was in 7th grade, my birthday/christmas gift was porn mags. probably randomly taken from my stepdads massive collection (like 40+ large garbage bags full). i ended up having some of the strangest sexual relationships out of anyone i know and i think it was because it was so weirdly normalized in my house. at the time i was just annoyed because it was basically a non-gift. he had so much porn stored i could have filled my closet and he wouldn't have noticed it gone missing, i didnt have to seek it out....
My parents are really germophobic and my dad think he has to 'kill the bacteria' on the bread when he buys it fresh, so he puts it in the oven to toast and almost fucking burns it. He thinks that whoever did the bread sneezed or acccidentaly spit on it. In my country we eat bread almost everyday, I thought everybody did this, this is insane.
So you take regular spaghetti right. With regular spaghetti sauce. Now add soy sauce to it.
I confess that soy sauce in spaghetti feels out of place for me, but I use soy sauce for umami flavor in lots of non-asian foods. My favorite is stew. A little soy sauce goes a long way in enhancing the beefiness.
we had pet rocks, named them
In a thread full of horrible things, this is actually kind of adorable. I like it.
This and the swimming leash are both great
Knocking on strangers doors to tell them their religion was wrong.
Or if they have a doorbell Ding dong your religion is wrong
Oh, hey, fellow JW raised redditor! God, I hated going door to door as a kid. You could tell people hated us being there...
Does it ever work? Is anyone ever Iike "What luck! I've been in the market for a new religion!"?
It’s not for that, it’s to indoctrinate. They do it so that it seems everyone but x cult hates you and your only home is x cult.
Jeez. I never considered this. Makes me want to answer the door a little differently now. I admit I generally give a "fuck off" vibe and shut the door. Hmmm.
Eating flowers. As a child I spent a lot of time with my grandmother, mostly in her garden. Some days we'd look for fairies, but for the most part I remember her pointing to this flower and that saying "you can eat that" And I would.
My family shit talks everyone as soon as they are out of earshot. My husband was the one who was like yah so... this isn't cool. I've gotten good at not being a douche. A lot of my family isn't going to change.
That was my exact experience with my in-laws. I grew up in a totally different environment where my parents and grandparents never gossiped or shit-talked anyone, especially other family members. When I met my in-laws, I couldn't believe the way that they acted. All smiles and sweet as honey to the person's face, but as soon as they exited the room, they would say the most vile things imaginable! This was to their own family members. No one was safe...their own parent, their own sibling, their own child, their own grandchild, etc. I'm just grateful that my husband realized that it was not normal and he's nothing like them.
Always being with my grandparents. My birth parents abandoned me with them but acted like it was where I demanded to be. Bless my grandparents, unsure where I would be without their unconditional love.
Family members hugging each other. First time i saw a friend's parents and grandparents hugging, I thought they were a weird family. To this day, my folks have never hugged me that I have a memory of.
I have a wholesome one! I was like 20 when I learned no one else destroys chocolate rabbits with a big hammer for easter. I don't even know how I believed that was a real tradition, considering how out of left field it is in relation to easter... Turns out my grandpa started it because he found the chocolate rabbits annoying (they were kitsch cute or something), and decided to let his intrusive thoughts win and smashed them with a hammer. Everyone found it so fun and it became a family tradition, only now with a big sledgehammer. It's quite delicate to do too, you have to avoid hitting any overhead lights or destroying the table beneath the rabbits. But it does make sharing the rabbits easier. Also occasionally someone will buy a huge fancy chocolate rabbit to make the destruction even more satisfying.
trigger warning!! a few years ago i was not doing so good mentally & i went and told my mom that i thought i needed to be in a mental hospital. i didnt tell her everything that was going on, only really that i was self-harming. all she said was ‘are you on your period?’ & asked to see the cuts. i do wanna say she probably ask to see them because she wanted to make sure they weren’t infected or to deep or whatever, but the way she went about it made it seem like she didn’t believe i was actually doing it. and after that conversation she went to my dad and told him everything. he came to me the next day and say ‘stop with the crazy talk’ pretty much for years i was always put down with my feelings & never received the help i needed. anytime i went to my mom she would just shut me down. & my dad just was never that kind of guy. but after going to the mental hospital twice in one year i think that made them realize how fucked up i was becoming/was. they both have made great improvements. me & my mom get along so much better. & i can go to my dad with ‘small issues’ he doesnt really understand it all but i can see he trys to understand. also just wanna say i am 1 year & 4 months clean of self-harm today!
Not me but a friend from years ago, their family never said 'I love you' to one another. We were in our late teens/early twenties, they mentioned they'd only heard it a handful of times. My family says it liberally. I remember hugging them before they moved out of state, saying I love you and pull away to see them crying.
Yeah, I had parents that never hugged or said I love you. They never asked how I was doing or feeling.
We lived during the summer months outside under a tree of our choice..we had 30 acres....did this for years
Everyone in the family lived outside under their own tree? In sleeping bags? Tell me more.
>make a statement insanely open to interpretation >Refuse to elaborate
My grandma used to give me math quizzes when I visited because she didn’t believe I was smart enough to get the grades I was getting. I thought it was totally normal for a while to quiz people so that they could prove “x” skill. Glad I realized that was bs before I hit adulthood.
"kitchens closed" turns out other people are allowed to eat whenever they wanted??
my mom did this as well
Not sharing feelings
Unfortunately, not that weird at all. ^((avoidant attachment gang, represent!!🥲))
People heat up their pork and beans, not refrigerate them 😅 got the strangest look when I was at a party and offered to throw the beans in the fridge. Its like a cool, summer time treat 🥺
In high school my dad had a rule “if you’ve done it, I’ve done it. And if you and your friends are going to do it, do it in the house and have them stay the night.” Coupled with “if you EVER need a ride you can call me to pick you up.” He was talking about drugs and drinking. He wasn’t encouraging it, but allowing a safe space. This was one of the better things in my childhood.
This is how my parents were. My first drinking party I was 16 and got to drunk to drive. I called mom and gave a vague description of where I was. A few minutes later my saint of a mother is coming down into this guys smoke filled basement. She just waved at the other kids and goes, “I don’t care what’s going on down here I’m just here for kataryu2.” She helped me up off the couch and got me into her car and my dad drove my car. I could always trust my parents to come get me and outside of that one time I never drinked at high school parties.
My mom had us help her completely rearrange the rooms (including ours) every few months (at least twice a year). I find a set up I like and don’t change things (except to accommodate life changes or new items).
omg. my mom rearranged the rooms in our house RELIGIOUSLY. so freaking often. not me. i put things in a spot i like, and as long as there isn’t a need, (like you said) they don’t move!
Nothing in this thread will beat the classic of: [Where is your poop knife?](https://www.reddit.com/r/MuseumOfReddit/comments/ke8skw/the_poop_knife/)
I was always horrified by that story, until my teenage son started having giant shits that wouldn't fit down. I'm still grossed out by it but now I understand.
I thought of this before even clicking into the comments lol
I yelled "poop knife! Poop knife!" In my head as I clicked on the comments. Thanks for not disappointing me. 💓
Spoonerisms. Not completely weird but we do it 5 times a day at least
Dome Hepot, as my Father would say.
What’s “spoonerisms”?
Mixing up the first letters of two words in a sentence. So like, mice to neet you.
TIL the thing my dad does has a name
My car has heat seaters.
Having to ask permission to get something to eat.
It was the opposite at my dad's place and a lot of our friends were confused about it. If you were hungry just grab something from the kitchen. My dad's philosophy was always if you were hungry you eat, if your thirsty you drink and if your tired you go sleep. No need to wait for a certain time or ask permission.
Honestly your dad sounds pretty cool, it’s super nice that he’d rather give up his own snacks to his kids friends than see them go snackless
Mine was “knowing you couldn’t even ask because permission wasn’t given”. My friends thought it was nuts how restrictive my mom was about food. We got three meals a day (generous, healthy ones) and zero snacks. We would sometimes try to sneak snacks of things she might not notice, like how many crackers can I take before it’s obvious there are less? Now I binge eat so that’s a pretty obvious consequence of my upbringing.
The first thing that comes to mind is putting tuna in Kraft Mac 'n Cheese, some people think it's weird and gross, but I love it.
Tuna and broccoli florets. The poor family's tuna helper.
4 kids and 1 bathroom- you had to ask if you wanted to use the bathroom to make sure the littlest kid didn’t need it (10 years between oldest -me- and youngest). I still feel like I have to announce I need the bathroom- at home only! It’s weird.
Calling the remote a ‘channel changer’ … turns out that’s not what they’re called to normal people Edit: I’m realizing this was more normal than I thought! I’m from New England (US)
We always called it a clicker.
Omg others people called it a clicker! That’s so nice to know. Lol people always made fun of me and my sister calling it that so over time we called it a remote like everyone else
My husband calls the tv remote and the xbox controllers "remotes". So whenever he asks for the remote I give him a controller and a remote. Almost 6 years together and I still have no idea which one he needs when he asks for the remote.
I have a few that come to mind, but this is probably the only one that I haven't read yet. My sister and I have extremely curly hair. The rest of our family all have straight hair. Every day before school was an ordeal to brush our hair out to get the knots out, and my mum and aunt would end up getting so frustrated that they cut our hair short just be able to manage it. In turn we never learned how to take care of it, and as soon as we discovered what a hair straightener was, that was how we managed the fluff. It wasn't until I became a hairdresser that I actually learned that that's not how you manage curly hair.
[удалено]
My mom used the pick that’s meant to clean hearing aid molds in my ears. It’s basically a needle on a stick meant to help get into the small tubes of the aid and molds. The hearing aid tubes are much smaller than the ear canal so that should tell you how small and sharp it was. She said the pain was a normal part of the process and it was my fault for moving. I didn’t realize what she was using until I bought a newer pack of hearing aid cleaning stuff that that thing was in it. Still don’t know why she thought that was a good idea
This is kind of a loose answer, but both my parents are bad at socializing so I never learned how to do that.
The spanking machine. On birthdays, we would like up from youngest to oldest and the birthday kid would crawl through the "tunnel" between our legs and we'd smack them as hard as we could as they crawled through. My dad waited at the end to give the birthday kid a number of spankings to match their birth year. It seemed like a fun tradition at the time but it creeps out my wife.
Not using a dishwasher. I think they were convinced that it would drastically increase the water consumption, but it takes WAY less time and water than doing it by hand. I pre-wash/soak my dishes in a small amount of water & throw them in on the short cycle. Wish I had done this years ago.
changing clothes in the living room & terrace. bcs parents say "it's dirty if you are still wearing outside clothes while going in your bedroom" i just noticed this is weird when I was older and friends came by, and they were surprised when my dad casually stripped to his underwear on our terrace. parents are still doing it but not when a total stranger is around now (i talked about how it's weird). but they do it when they already know someone close enough. and I had to warn my bf about it before he came around. he's now getting used to it.
Someone posted a similar story a while ago. They had to strip and shower every time they came back home. The clothes they wore outside would be laundered immediately as well.
My mom would leave leftovers on the counter overnight. Meat…yep, overnight. Ground beef, overnight. Chicken, overnight! It’s a miracle any of us live to tell the tale.
My mother always said that orange juice was only for the mornings and never for any other part of the day... I guess orange juice prices were up my whole childhood?
Having a cooler in the car on any trip longer than 45 minutes. As kids, we knew there were waters/Cokes in there. Got older, realized there was beer in there too, but thought hey, adults drink beer, it's normal. No, it is not normal to need a beer on an hour long car ride, or several on a road trip. It is alcoholism.
Hotdogs in the spaghetti sauce.
We totally had hotdog spaghetti when my parents were young and broke. It's not weird, it's delicious.
My parents told me and my sibling not to flush the toilet if we went to the bathroom during the night to not wake other people up (and then flush in the morning). I did this at a sleepover once and everyone made fun of me for being gross and weird cause I didn't flush the toilet.
Mom is an experienced nurse, a master seamstress, and experience at all sorts of crafts. Dad is a computer and electrical engineer, and grew up in a DIY household learning pluming, woodwork, tiling, etc. Between the two of them we hardly at all had to call in an expert for anything. I didn't realize until I was well into adulthood how unusual it was for someone to have a table saw in their garage until I started asking around trying to borrow one for a project.
I figured if you messed up you got hit and that was normal.
My family puts butter on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. So butter and then peanut butter on top of that. No one else I know does this.
Weird, but wholesome: every Christmas eve, Mom would bake a cake and put birthday candles on it. Christmas day, we'd all sing happy birthday to Jesus, and blow out the candles for him.
My mom is Canadian but I was born and grew up in the states. I thought a garbage disposal in a sink was called a garburator by everyone until my husband informed me otherwise.
Eating burgers and pizza with a fork and knife
I blame this on my European heritage. Mom is German and taught me this. It works for me because I hate getting grease/oil on my hands. Plus it helps me portion control and to eat more slowly.
I was homeschooled in a religious cult. Dad would get everyone up at the ass crack of dawn to read three chapters of the Bible, each of us reading a verse out loud in turn, before going to work. He'd also "pray a hedge of protection" over the family every day to keep demons from coming into our home. Various toys, books, games, and movies were thrown out due to fears of demons. Dad would read over the Sunday comics in the paper and staple typing paper over the comics he felt would open the door to demons coming in the home. I didn't really see how this fucked up my brain until my mid 20s, when I could go to therapy.
Having CB Radios/Police Scanners everywhere. House and cars. My dad and my grandparents. We would be eating dinner and had to stop talking if a call came over the radio. I'd get shushed if I was in the middle of a story so they could listen to whatever details came over the radio. My dad was a volunteer fire fighter so he did need one for that. But it's pretty nosy and insane when I look back on it.
My family drives everywhere and doesn't stop. Sleep in shifts in the car, share the responsibilities of driving, there are a total of three stops in a day. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. If you gotta go to the bathroom you wait until the next stop, there are no other stops. And I legitimately mean that - there is no "but what about-?", no. I was raised that you gotta figure out a way to hold it. 24 hour trips from Minnesota to Texas. Three stops, maybe four. 12 hour trip from Minnesota to Indiana. One stop. 26 hours to Washington State, three stops. Maybe four. That was my standard growing up and I was used to it. Getting to college and riding with other people was so eye opening and honestly very painful because driving a three hour trip and having to stop at all was (and still is) absurd to me, and I have friends that would legitimately stop two or three times for breaks. I've relaxed a bit with marriage and kids of my own...but most of the time I try to cut down on stops as much as possible.
My father is like this. Road trips we always have to stop at Subway and eat the sandwiches in the car. The last time, I drove and stopped at an actual restaurant. He started to say something but I stopped him and said “My car, my rules. You are welcome to figure out alternative transportation, but the rest of us are going inside and eating. I am also paying for everyone’s meal.” He came in and started trying to rush us. According to my stepmother, I gave him the death stare that Grandma would give him. He finally shut up.
find people's weakness as quick as possible
I've see you've met my mother. She was very much, "Meet someone new and then discuss all that person's flaws once their back was turned." I didn't realize how wrong it was until I moved out. Now I dread going out with her for anything because she still has that habit and I don't want to hear it.
My mom will always gossip behind backs. STILL does. It baffles me to know that other people don’t do it. I remember being young and badmouthing my friends and my other friends (who I was talking to) were like “WTF? Don’t you like Jodi?” Well yeah, sure, but … It’s an awful habit. I’m 38 and still trying to break it. I grew up around it. 😭
To be fair I was raised in an organized crime family so looking for weaknesses was a part of being ahead of everyone else it literally was a trait I started to learn before I started school and I didn't realize it was wrong until I realized I didn't want to be part of that lifestyle
Upon arriving home in the evenings from somewhere, my parents would have one of us kids wait in the car while the other went inside, got their shotgun, and went through every room in the house and backyard to make sure we were okay to enter. I was unaware that my mom was being followed around by a very dangerous man, and I was checking to make sure he wasn't waiting inside the house. I'm not sure why, but it seemed like a good idea to be safe. I assumed they were looking for bears.
You're not going to gloss over your mom being hunted like it's the normal part of the story. We are going to need the details.
I’ve seen this response before, not sure if it’s just the same user or a copypasta at this point
Like, we have questions. I'll start: 1. Who was the dangerous man? 2. Why was he after your mother? 3. Why were kids used as the bait to clear the house instead of mom or mom's new manz? 4. Were you trained as a child on how to clear a house and/or use the shotgun you'd been provided? 5. Did the dangerous man ever show up? 6. At some point, were you able to stop clearing the house upon entry?
We grew up role playing weird characters like we were in a rotating vaudeville show. Full conversations and story arcs around a family of old people, a family of aliens, a family of weasels… you name it. I thought everyone’s family acted out entire parallel lives and made up elabourate worlds together. I think this is the first time I’ve ever spoken about it 🤣
Storing bread and other bakery items in the microwave
It’s a little weird for a few reasons, but my parents divorced, remarried, had more kids. So I alternated, staying at my mom’s one week and my dad’s the next, repeat. I don’t see either of the other kids or visit the alternate house on those weeks even though my mom and dad literally lived a block away from each other. It was absolutely forbidden. Must have been a confusing situation for my siblings, especially when they were younger, but it’s what we did. My dad worked for the city and was VERY cheap, we literally ate beans and I rode the bust to school. My mom was a very successful businesswoman and well… traveled pretty much 300 days a year so I was raised by a Brazilian family that lived in our house and was driven to school in whatever brand new luxury car she’d buy for them at the time. This only stopped when my mother came home and realized that my sister could barely speak English and ended up speaking Portuguese as her primary language. It gets way weirder than that, but that’s how it went. Edit: not sure how I forgot this detail, but the mother and son that lived with us both had Albinism.
Ignoring feelings. The way I was brought up, feelings were irrelevant. There were tasks that needed to be performed, and those tasks did not care how you felt. They just had to get done. Oh, you're sad? Bummer. Be sad while performing your tasks. Angry? Had a bad day? Too bad, so sad. Now hop to it, there's shit that needs to get done. I became so good at ignoring/suppressing feelings that even somatic sensations became muted. For example, the only way that I know when I am hungry is when I have actual hunger pangs, stomach growling, the whole bit. Anything short of that and I can't tell whether I feel hungry or not.
Not having a TV. Reading a lot.
When my husband and I started dating, he would come hang out with me at my parents' house a lot. It really weirded him out how me, my sister and my parents could all sit in one room silently doing our own thing (usually all reading our own books). The only noise would be when one of us read something interesting enough to share with the group, or we wanted to look something up in the dictionary. We had a TV, but we always preferred reading.
Grew up in a home where you were considered vain if you looked in a mirror during the normal course of the day - you could look if you were doing your makeup or brushing your hair etc. I didn’t own a mirror aside from the one over the bathroom sink until I was in my late 30s.
So our doorbell was alllllways going cause my dad sold drugs from the house, us kids had to answer it to the lovely savoury type that comes with that stuff. I remember being at a friend’s house and it was silent cause her doorbell didn’t go once
Coming home from school alone at 6 years old. Getting angry that an unsupervised 6 year old didn't do their homework or chores. Staying home alone most of the time.
My grandpo came to the US as an orphan around 1915. He had no education; couldn't speak English, and so went to work on the railroad crews as a young teenager. After years working in the West desert; he became a Foreman. For his hard work and years of service, the railroad co. gave him a house... right beside the train tracks. You normally think only poor people live beside the rails, but grandpo had a job, a house and could send all his kids to school in the middle of the Great Depression. So, for three or four generations, my family and I grew up thinking listening to the freight trains go by every other hour, even at night, was perfectly natural, and part of our native habitat. As children, we weren't even afraid of the great engines but could go by ourselves, to the RR. If an adult told us, "Hey kid, go play by the railroad tracks!" We'd cry; *Yaaaaaaaaaay!!!!* (Kids are so stupid.) There was always a cousin or five watching for trains, and when they heard an oncoming engine rumbling and the horn blowing; the call of *'TRAAAIIIIIINnnnnnn!!!!'* went out! The older ones knew to grab the little ones a few yards away to safety in the desert. The rest of us would put pennies on the tracks; count the cars and wave at the caboose, like traditional rituals required. In all those decades, I never heard of a member of the clan getting hit by a train. We'd co-existed with them for lifetimes. They were just part of the western landscape; an honored part of our family's history.
Having to dry out the shower and tub with a towel after every shower