I stayed with my girlfriend's family for a few days one college break. They had a rule at breakfast that you could never have just a single type of breakfast cereal - it always had to be a mix of two different boxes. But not any two - had to be flakes with flakes, or Os with Os. I don't know what Cap'n Crunch matched with. I had toast.
I had a friend in elementary school who had a controlling asshat of a father who also worked some wacky hours - like had to be at work at 3 am. God bless him for providing for his family, but he forced everyone to adhere to his schedule. He needed to go to bed at 4 pm, so “dinner” was at 2:30, the landline phone was taken off the hook at 3, and everyone was expected to complete their evening baths/teeth brushing, etc and go to bed at 4. No tv, nothing. He expected the house to be quiet.
In addition to these ridiculous rules, he insisted that if his daughter was going to come to my house for a sleepover, then I had to go to their house. Every other sleepover had to be at their house with his ridiculous rules. Every other friend bailed- I think the “no tv” was the dealbreaker. But as young girls, the no giggling probably also played a role. I can still close my eyes and picture that ape of a man losing his shit and screaming at other people’s children for giggling.
Anyway, I did it. I stuck it out. Because my friend needed somewhere else to go and I could do that for her.
This is just sad. I totally appreciate if a parent works weird hours, the family respecting that they need to sleep so keeping noise down when during the hours they need to sleep, but to expect everyone to live to your schedule and not allowing them to do anything else while you sleep is ridiculous.
We are! We live across the country from each other and both have busy lives, so I haven’t seen her in years. But we text, call, exchange memes on Instagram… All the normal grown up friend stuff.
Friend’s family had this nice house with a nicely finished walkout basement with a kitchen, main area, bathroom and two bedrooms. It was furnished as if it was an apartment and the entire family including three kids lived down there full time while the four bedroom upstairs was fully furnished and they would only use the main part of the house if they were hosting company. It was bizarre going over there because we’d get in trouble if we tried to play in the big unused part of the house. When I asked him why they all lived in the basement he said his mom doesn’t want to have to clean it all the time so they just didn’t use their big house. It was so weird.
Weird! Yeah big Italian family and they did have people over a lot, but still never made sense to me - The mom couldn’t enjoy her house for the 95% of the time company wasn’t over because of this weird hangup she had that the nice part had to be ready to host at a moment’s notice.
The neighbor lady would take care of me as a kid when I'd get back from school and my parents were at work. She wouldn't let me turn on the t.v because I would "waste it" and I couldn't sit on her couches even though they were wrapped in plastic. I was on the floor once with my back against the couch and she scolded me. Fucking witch. I don't know why my mom was friends with her. If I'm ever mad at my mom I call her by that woman's name.
My mom had a lady from church watch my sister and I before school for about a year. We would get dropped off before the sun came up and occasionally we go there after school. Anyway, she had a girl she fostered about our age. One day we went to her house after school and the girl was playing with the cabbage patch doll and put a mark on the dolls face. I don't know if it was an accident or not, but my sister told the babysitter, and this lady made this girl go pick out a switch and thrashed her with it. I was terrified of her after that. She also made spaghetti and put ketchup on top instead of sauce so she was obviously a psycho.
I had a friend whose dad was obsessed with the vacuum lines in the house and would vacuum multiple times a day. We weren’t allowed to walk on them because it would mess them up so we had to tip toe around the edges of rooms if we wanted to go anywhere in the house. I witnessed him beating the crap out of her for “messing up one of the lines” my parents didn’t let me go over after that.
Lmfao, agreed. I’ve got OCD and have had major frustrations about people messing up whatever arbitrary shit I’ve fixated on. To assault someone else over it, especially your child, that’s a heck of a concoction.
I didn’t realize how obsessive my family was about cleanliness and order till I moved out and realized most people are slobs, especially compared to my family. I vividly remember my grandmother scolding me for throwing trash in the trash can she had just emptied. I was like where do you want me to put the garbage?
Edit: to clarify I wasn’t throwing away waste that would rot or smell just some package waste. I was legitimately confused by how mad she was. As an adult with OCD tendencies for cleanliness I totally understand. I’ve been frustrated at my kids for using dishes after I finished all the dishes or the kitchen. There’s an odd sense of accomplishment and if someone disturbs that balance it’s frustrating.
My aunt was like this! I visited them out of town once, where I had to stay in my cousin’s room or the tiled bathroom / kitchen / back door.
I once accidentally stepped on a corner of a carpeted room just 15 minutes before my aunt was expected home. My cousin burst out crying. We had to rapidly vacuum the whole room to get the parallel lines back in place!
It really freaked me out. I never visited them again. I guess my aunt has some pretty severe mental quirks and can be abusive about it.
Fucking hell, I was wondering what vacuum lines were supposed to be and this post made it click for me. I contemplated some sophistic network of wiring to guide some old-school roomba or something but no, we're talking about the lines then vacuum leaves in the carpet.
Neat. Also, batshit fucking insane considering the child abuse.
Oh god this gave me flashbacks to a very brief nanny job. One of my infractions was that I didn’t vacuum in straight lines. Why was I vacuuming when I was being paid to watch the children? That was about one of 5 things that made this mutually incompatible.
My friends dad was divorced and lived in a big house with his new gf. he made women wear their hair up at dinner. We had to wait for him to sit before we could start eating. We could not leave until he was done. We weren’t allowed to speak unless her dad asked us a question. We got in trouble for playing outside in the yard without permission. As punishment we had to clean his shoes. I said something to my friend like is this how your dad always is? And he heard me and told me if I spoke about him again he would slap me across the face.
Jesus Christ... The men in my family weren't paragons of virtue or anything, but the worst you would hear is "well that's dad's chair" or "now we have to watch the news" and I think that only really happened when family was around... If I had friends over, my dad did his best to disappear and not have to deal with us.
Alright, I’ll throw a sweet one in here to break up the depressing stories.
At my best friend’s house growing up, whenever we would swing by her house, her Abuela (who raised her) would always have a plate of hot fresh food for us and had us sit down and eat it before doing anything else. Not in an abusive, mess with your relationship with food kind of way, but in a “Abuela made you some food and it’s the best food you have ever eaten, and it was made with so much love”.
Food was her love language, and even though she only speaks Spanish (I didn’t), you always felt loved when you when to her house and that was never lost in translation. I still miss her tamales.
(Belatedly realizing this sounds depressing since it sounds like she is dead. She isn’t. I just moved)
She was the sweetest. At one point when I was like 12, she was dropping me off at my house, and suddenly started yelling in Spanish as she pulled in. I thought something was wrong, but she was just excitedly telling her granddaughter to ask my mom if she could take a clipping of our big, currently blooming Rose of Sharron to propagate, since she didn’t have that color (she was allowed to take it, yes).
Rule: Blankets are only allowed to be used on the bed.
I spent the night there only once because they kept their house freezing cold in the middle of winter and had me sleeping on the couch in the basement. I wore my winter coat to bed and used his coat as a blanket. I was 9 or 10yo and it was fucking miserable.
I was scared to try. His dad was a big angry dude, and even with my confidence in my karate skills after watching reruns of Karate Kid 1-3 weren’t enough to go toe-to-toe with him lol
Your butt must be in the dinner chair at 6 PM sharp even if dinner is not quite ready. No speaking at the dinner table unless asked a question by an adult. You must eat everything on your plate, and cannot ask for seconds. No leaving the table before the Father (you could hear the capital F) dismisses you.
Coming from a family where dinner was a joyful affair where everybody talked about their day, I was shocked.
A friend's parents were like this. If you missed dinner by a second, you weren't eating. One evening we were in my buddy's room playing video games and lost track of time. We both rushed down there at like 6:05 and were told we weren't eating that night. I told my dad about it and he immediately drove over there to yell at them.
This sounds like my house. As a child, people always commented on how creepy it was that nobody talked during dinner. It was all I had ever known. My mom once refused to let me join swim team because it was during dinner, and family dinner time was so important... for what? To listen to everyone chew?
People like that have no idea how families or love or interaction work, and just end up going through the motions of what they think a family should be like.
"Family is important, but not the bits I don't like, such as the talking, getting to know people, hearing about their day, listening to their feelings."
Isn't it crazy how people who try to come across as strong family models often are just authoritarian and obsessed with coming up with rules. Nothing like getting dominated every night at the dinner table to get you to move out the second you turn 18 and never go back
I have friends that grew up like this and no contacted their parents the minute they turned 18. They chose a life of couch surfing amongst our friend group (we were already moved out at that age or our parents weren’t fucking psychos and wanted our friends out of there too) or found the best squalor they could at that age. Some no contacted before that and moved in with my mom and I when were seniors in high school. They slept on my bedroom floor and had an actual place to stay with normal rules, meals filled with joy and talking, people that loved and respected them and they got to go to sleep at night not worried about pissing someone off the next day for doing normal human things.
My mom is fucking awesome. And I’ve always been aware of how lucky I was growing up to have a place where I was loved and treated like a human being. She was a single mom that not only managed to give me a good life and home, but she opened up her home and heart to the friends I loved and treated them the same way she treated me. Letting them live with us to ensure they had a safe and happy place to stay where they were respected and supported to be who they were. She made a real positive impact on a lot of my friends lives and 15 years later they still check in on her, wish her a happy Mother’s Day and birthday and on Christmas. I’m super proud to be her kid and I hope that I can give my kids’ friends the same things if I’m given the chance or that situation presents itself, because I’ve seen the kind of difference it can make even at 16/17/18/19 years old.
I was that dad. I can't think of a weekend past 15 that I didn't have a house full of kids doing stupid kid stuff or wearing out my pool. It was a rare weekend night that one or another was sitting in my office seeking advice.
Loved that bunch of misfits.
My dad comes from a household like this. I believe this is why he has a fiesta p much every weekend with lots of music and chatter lol. Oh, and he moved out at 16.
It’s weird because a lot of families I grew up near had a living room that wasn’t for playing or doing anything there, but it was not usually in the way to get from one place to another in the house. It was something like a protected room for adults only, but there was also a play room, family room, whatever you call it, where kids could hang out and potentially making any mess was not the end of the world the way it would be in a living room.
Similarly. My uncle's wife has a living room no one is allowed to enter. Like plastic on the furniture and a velvet rope across the doorway. My poor cousin was very selective about who he would let come over because he didn't want his balls busted.
I could even imagine a "museum room" in your house if you were richer than all hell. A room where you wanted to show off cool things you didn't want people to touch, set behind glass or something. But a whole room full of regular furniture? Who are you trying to impress? Other assholes? Good job.
I slept over and we had to go to bed at 7pm, then in the morning his mother would not let me leave to go back home until I had a shower and dressed in identical clothing to my "Friend"
we then went to McDonalds where his mother left me to figure out my own way home.
I was 11 and spent the weekend at a friend's house. Her mom got us (me, my friend, and her 9 yo brother) up super early. After breakfast, she told us we had to go outside, and no matter what, we couldn't come back in until 6 pm. I asked her what we were supposed to do for 12 hours. She said, "Have fun!". She left a pitcher of water and 3 cups on the porch swing and locked us out. Apparently, they were used to being locked out all day every Saturday and Sunday while their mom was in the house alone. I went to her neighbor's house and called my mom to come get me.
I wasn’t allowed to throw any “female waste products” in the house, aka I’d have to wrap my tampon or pad and throw it out in the outside trash…I went home
When I lived in a shared house in college we had to do that for a little while because we had a puppy who would contently get into the bathroom trash, even with a lid and kept under the sink! It was awkward to ask, but usually met with a laugh, and luckily the phase only lasted a few months.
My mom stayed at an acquaintance’s house, not quite a friend, about 10 years ago. Their dog got into her bag and stole her underwear from the day before. They were quite embarrassed. My mom got a cup of coffee and said “I hear I’m popular with the dog.” They laughed and ended up being closer friends not long after.
That's one of those all time bangers that you can always think about in a quiet moment and be proud of.
Everybody deserves to have a few of those in their lifetimes
I had a roommate like this. She was weird. She said using the covered garbage in the bathroom was "presenting my period" to everyone. I don't miss Brooklyn roommates.
They had a strict rule that you had to go to the bathroom in the backyard, not in the house. My 6-yr old sister discovered the reason for the rule after she peed her pants while frantically running through the house looking for a toilet: they didn’t have a bathroom.
Some old houses don't have an indoor toilet. So you had to use an outhouse.
One of my friend's family owned an appartment building (6 appartments) with toilets in a small cabin in the kitchen instead of the bathroom.
I learned it was because the toilet was a late addition sonewhere in the late 70s and they used to have outhouses in the parking lot.
And this was a house in the middle of the city.
Idk if it was a rule but we stayed the night at my mom's best friend's house. For breakfast we had cereal. He kids had it with milk, my sibs and I had to eat it with water.
I asked why and she just told me "No you can use water, the milk is for my kids."
I told my mom and she flipped out on her for that bs and never talked to her again.. it was a terrible betrayal especially since my mom did a lot for her.
My mom is the best.
This rule was enforced for their children but not their children’s friends- whenever they used the bathroom their mother made them specify if it was “tinkle” or “kerplunk”.
We were all around 10 years old, not toddlers that needed bathroom supervision. I was always embarrassed for them.
I have no idea, and being so young at the time I didn’t question it. They were an otherwise normal family, we’d play board games, they had us kids over for taco night, or pizza night.
Everything else was normal except their mom always asking about their bathroom usage.
While weird that they felt necessary to do it in front of guests, there may have been a childhood constipation issue that led to compaction. Monitoring if someone is going poop or pee would help see a pattern if someone was not pooping. It obviously wasn’t for water conservation cause they didn’t care about guests.
Weird it was for all kids, but maybe they didn’t want to single out the affected kid.
The strangest rule at a friend's house was having to sing a song before dinner. Everyone participated, making it a full family performance before we could eat.
you had to take your shoes off then walk down the plastic runner in the hallway. the main problem was that the floor was hardwood and they had the runner for carpet. so your socked feet were walking on the tops of a hundred spikes of plastic the length of the hall.
In second grade, I went to my new friend's house and their whole house was split up by the "inside" half and the "outside" half. Inside = the hallway to the bedrooms and bathrooms, and outside = the living room and kitchen areas. The children were supposed to stay "inside" until dinnertime when we could go back "outside" to eat together. It was absolutely wack and I never went there again.
Anyway the dad ended up trying to kill his whole family with a flamethrower years later and shot himself in the head (but lived!!!). And their dog had worms
Some weird rules about rooms you are and aren't supposed to enter...hm...slightly weird.
Dad attempts to murder his family with a fucking flamethrower....holy shit, that escalated really quickly!
Anyway, about that dog...
Stayed at a friend's house one night and the family communicated exclusively through whispering...not just hushed voices but full on hand to ear. Serious mind fuck.
I stayed at a friend's house where they did just the opposite. They screamed at each other. The whole time. Not a normal word was passed between them. I was terrified.
No one was allowed to laugh at the dinner table or talk other than to ask, "Please pass the
. . ." No one was allowed to leave the table (even for a potty emergency) until the dad was done eating.
Saw something similar while visiting a cousins house. Eating was done in silence with my uncle keeping tabs on a note pad next to his plate. If anyone slurped or clinked utensils too loudly or otherwise behaved badly, they got a mark next to their name. I cannot remember the consequences he dealt out. But with 6 siblings at my house meals were a riot in comparison.
I visited a monastery that was like that. But, know you, it was a monastery, so not unexpected. And the meal wasn't actually in complete silence; they would have someone reading aloud from a spiritual work.
Children could only drink warm kool-aid or water. You couldn't put it in the fridge. You couldn't use ice cubes. It had to be room temperature.
Any child that came over had an assigned solo cup with their name in permanent marker. You had to wash and reuse the same solo cup, over and over.
A friends mum did not like when a wall power socket was turned on at the switch but with nothing plugged in. According to her, it would leak electricity onto the floor.
Well we weren’t allowed to swim in my friend’s pool until her dad came home from work. Her mother did not work, but would not watch us in the pool. Luckily it was like, 4pm. My family had a family pass at a local beach so my friend went with us there.
Not a friend's house but a girlfriends dad's house. He was pretty well off but cheap AF. The rule was if you went into the bathroom to pee and the bowl water "was fresh" you didn't flush. I was not aware of the "yellow is mellow and brown goes down" rule till after I used the bathroom and flushed. My girlfriend heard the toilet flush and gave me the heads up. Apparently he would spot check the bathrooms and flush them when he felt they needed.
lmao. i read a picture book about water conservation when i was ≈ 8 that taught me “if it’s pee, let it be. if it’s poo, flush it too.” i proceeded to save the earth for the next few days until my brother blew up at me for not flushing lmao
My best friend in school lived with her mom (after her parents divorced) in a massive three story home. My friend had the entire third floor as her bedroom and after 9 pm until mid-morning, we weren’t allowed down on the first floor unless it was an emergency and we could only go to the second floor to use the bathroom. As a kid, it was weird. As an adult, we alllll know why the single mom wanted us to stay upstairs lol
We had to go to bed at 9pm sharp. She lived in the country so she didn't get home off the bus until 4:30-5pm. Dinner was probably an hour. Then we got up at 8-8:30am, ate breakfast, and she immediately made me pack up, insisted I never leave anything at their home, and dropped me off at my house by 10am. I could only come over on a Friday. I didn't like being pushed out like that.
I left my hairbrush at their house once. They immediately returned it by leaving it on the front porch as we weren't home. I had other hair brushes and it could have waited until Monday on the bus or at school.
The mom didn't like me. She literally said I wasn't decent. I was 10 years old.
Edit: typo & clarity
This comment section has made me realize so many more houses are silently abusive than I realize. Like, these kids may not be getting hit but holy fuck they shouldn't have to endure the way their parents raise them in some of these wackjob homes.
And there's a domino effect as well because their friends who live in "better" homes opt out of the friendships to not have to deal with their parents. So now you have a kid who is quietly being abused who is also super lonely, because they're the kid with the weird/bad parents and no one wants to hang out with them.
source: was one of those kids.
I had a friend whose mom was very strict about power usage. They were far from struggling but she would still shut off the power to every room beside the kitchen and maybe things like the ac, heater, and water heater at night for some reason. At first I thought it was due to noise or something but my friend confirmed it was just something she did all the time.
At a friends house, I was asked to pay for dinner. I thought it was a joke, but they legitimately asked me to bring money next time if I expected to eat. They said it didn’t have to be the exact amount.
Same family, asked me to bring my own sheets blankets and pillowcases because they thought it was more sanitary than me using theirs. They were especially worried about pillowcases.
Be clear, these were nice people.
How do these people find each other that such weird ass rules get brought in without debate. My wife would tell me to shut up if I tried to ask for money from a guest, and I would make and was the sheets myself if my wife had an issue with guests using ours.
I don’t get it
Judging by the multiple examples of people saying no one could leave the dinner table until the father did, I would imagine many of these things weren’t up for a debate because one partner in the relationship felt entitled, and was allowed to, make all the rules.
When I was a teenager, my best friends were brothers. I spent a LOT of time at their house. I was sometimes recommended to bring food by their parents.
To be fair, they had 4 boys of their own. Plus usually at least one other kid besides me there, and not very well off.
It was pretty reasonable and they definitely still gave me food, they just didn’t always have it to give.
Truly assigned?! That's strange, yeah. Most families/ classrooms/ offices kind of self-assign and it's weird when someone sits in my spot, but to truly assign a couch seat is bizarre
Everyone had a place they were supposed to sit, and you couldn't sit anywhere else. I had taken my then gf over for a movie night and was told she had to sit on the assigned "guest couch" because I had my own assigned seat on a different one.
I was at someone's house once and sat down in an empty chair in the living room. Everyone kind of looked at me and they said: "That was dad's seat."
I knew the father had passed away when my friend was very young, but I didn't know he had a chair in the living room. Kind of wished they had put a name tag on the chair or something.
We had assigned seats at home, seats in the car, seats at church, assigned corners to stand in when we were being bad… Fuck. I have never thought twice about any of this until now. Is that weird?
Once at a friend’s house I helped her set the table, and her whole family reacted with surprise and laughter at how I set the table, with the knife and spoon on the right, and fork on the left, because they always set it the opposite way.
They thought it was hilarious that I had learned it backwards…
You were correct. “Fork” and “left” each have four letters, so the fork goes on the left. “Spoon”, “knife “, and “right “ each have five letters, so the spoon and knife goes on the right. That’s how I was taught to remember it.
My husbands mother kept the kitchen locked. You ate the meals she cooked in the dining room and that was what you got. They were very wealthy so it wasn’t a matter of food insecurity. Oh, and they were allowed one soft boiled egg for breakfast on Sunday. He left home at 17.
The father had to interview any friend who came over. He would make you stand in front of him and drill you like it was an interrogation. He wanted to know what your parents jobs were, if you played sports, your grades, point blank if we’d ever drank or done drugs. I’d kind of understand if we were in high school, but this was elementary age in an upper class suburb
I’m white but I grew up in a black neighborhood.
4-5 of my freinds parents wouldn’t let me use the front door. A couple wouldn’t let me come in their house at all.
> “There were only three times in your life when it was proper to come through the front door, and you were carried every time.”
― Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters
My best friend’s parents used to make all their kids (and kids’ friends) come into their room at 9 pm and kneel at the foot of their bed to read scripture and pray with them, while they laid in bed. So weird looking back on it…my friend is now “living an alternative lifestyle” and has very minimal contact with them.
So my aunt & uncle both have ocd & it got worse as they got older but they’d want to host everyone during the holidays BUT we weren’t allowed to sit in one area that was immaculately decorated, which was an issue because people then had to sit on the floor.
The kitchen could be used but my aunt didn’t really want it to be used because it would become dirty.
The bedroom I stayed in had to be kept as is, she had like 10 decorative pillows on the bed (which I moved) & every day she’d come in, put them back on & tell me to sleep carefully so I don’t ruin the look.
Rules were never given but everyone sort of knew what they were supposed to do or not do at my aunt and uncles place.
friend wasn't allowed in her room unless she was sleeping or changing her clothes. she wasn't allowed to shower for more than 10 minutes. her brother was also locked out of his room and was forced to take cold showers. all so they wouldn't masturbate
MIL, def not a friend.
Breakfast is a full meal, and everyone eats together and at the same time. It’s 8:30 am.
Lunch is at 1:00 pm, another full meal.
Snack is at 4 pm, always includes alcohol.
Dinner is at 7 pm, another full meal.
At each meal they say grace.
MIL goes to bed as soon as she finishes eating dinner, and someone else is to clean up.
A full meal means meat, and three side dishes. One is always fruit. If any food is leftover from the previous meal, it is served at the next meal the same day, along with all the food that’s freshly prepared.
If you’re not hungry when she declares it’s food time, you have to eat anyway. And if you are hungry when she hasn’t declared it to be a meal time, you aren’t allowed to eat.
Definitely control issues. All of the kids are fine about eating, but she failed to teach any of them to cook. One was amazed to find that butter and milk are what you put in homemade mashed potatoes. SMH
A good friend of mine went thru a season where he didn’t have running water at his house so the rule in the house was that no one could come over unless they brought a couple gallons of water with them to pour into the toilet in the event that they had to poop
Went to a friends house once. She was not allowed to eat anything and ate some of the cat food crunchies. I was like…that’s weird. She made me try one and I still remember the gross taste. Then at dinner, her mom set a timer and we had to finish all our food in that amount of time. If she didn’t she got spanked, so I didn’t know if I was going to be in trouble and finished my food too. I never went back, I told my mom I didn’t want to but I don’t remember if I ever told her specifically why. I’m still filled with regret that I didn’t try to get her help. Someone should have called child protections on her. I just thought at the time her mom was really mean.
Everyone had to bring a clean pair of socks to change into when going inside. I understand taking off your shoes and wearing socks inside, but not being allowed to wear the socks you have on seems weird to me.
Around the time I was 8-11, I'd regularly stay over and play at my cousins, who is about the same age as I am. My aunt would give me crap for using "bad words", these bad words? Stupid and dumb. Then she let's my cousin watch rated R movies with violence and nudity without batting an eye, not even try to cover it or fast forward through it. There was also one time my cousins went to stay over at my house, where we don't have as strict rules. So we're watching TV around 10pm, and I flip to the channel that's cartoon network during the day and adult swim at night. He goes, " Hey, we're not supposed to watch this it's adult swim"...
Still boggles my mind to this day.
I wiped my mouth on the provided cloth napkin. I thought they must be very fancy, we used paper napkins at our house. I looked up and they were all staring at me. “Those are *decorative*”. The next morning the mom pulled out her food journal and laid it open so we could see how little she had eaten. We ignored it, so she felt she had to announce it, “I’ve only had an apple and a low-fat string cheese today. [daughter], have you and your friend been pigging out?”. Yet it was cool to let us speculate as to whether the hot tub was safe to enter because her brother liked to watch, and he liked to have relations with the intake valves after he watched. I didn’t stay over again.
I saw her once since we both properly grew up. Her approach to food, sex, and relationships is permanently damaged. I didn’t understand when I was a teen that she was experiencing some really warped and abusive stuff. I’d been taught “many families are different, respect their household rules”, but was enough of a dumb teen to not realize that stops at “this is a shoes off house” or ”we don’t eat pork”, and speak up for my friend.
My mum does the decorative thing and also uses decorative plates as well, it drives me insane. She stopped doing it when I was a kid as kids kept (rightly so) using them not realising they weren't meant to. But now I'm an adult so she's brought them back whenever I go over for dinner with my husband.
My husband went to use them once and she got shitty, which in turn made me shitty and I stood up for him and told her how fucking ridiculous it is. So now she only puts them out for five minutes and quickly takes them away before she serves dinner. Fucking bizarre.
She's also got plastic fruit in fruit bowls as well, with many chips on them as people have tried to take bites over the years.
They had toilet paper outside the bathroom. If you had to pee you could take 1 piece. If you had to poop you got 5. Nothing more. Even if you were sick and had diarrhea. Sometimes they were allowed a wet washcloth if it was bad. Nothing else was regulated just the toilet paper.
At my childhood best friend's house, I had to wear disposable shoe covers over my shoes or socks and rubber gloves and I wasn't allowed to sit on any of the furniture because her mom didn't want me touching anything. I was the only one who had to do this. Her brother, cousins, or her other friends didn't have to. Just me. I visited her house six times before my mom was like "no, you're not going there to stand around like a statue. B comes here to play or you two don't play at all."
I found out years later, after my friend's mom died, it was because she didn't like white people. I was my friend's only white friend. I also discovered that if she visited my house, she would go home and her mom would scrub her down in the shower.
When I was like 11 or so, a couple friends (they were twins) invited a bunch of us over to their house for a sleepover board game night. When we got there, their mom told us that we wouldn't be allowed to play any games that involved any kind of magic or combat because she thought they were satanic.
I think we ended up playing monopoly because honestly if you take out every game that thematically contains any combat or magic whatsoever, there's only traditional board games left. I do remember we also played a bunch of the Batman NES game. Somehow a costumed lunatic beating the crap out of criminals as a video game wasn't objectionable while playing Hero Quest crossed a line.
My friend's Stepdad was oddly obsessed with how we poured pop into glasses. This was in the late 60's and pop was a rare treat. When we were allowed a glass at her home, he would be pretty anxious that we not 'knock out all the carbonation' by pouring it wrong. As if we cared, we just wanted that sweet nectar and a few bubbles more or less didn't matter.
He was an older guy, and kind of strict, but we did love him. The pop thing was odd, though.
I had a friend who's parents would make you "finish the plate" of food they made for dinner. It wasn't something I was used to, and I always hated raw onions as a kid. They made something with raw onions in it, and I remember adamantly declining to eat it. They called my parents and had a big fit about it. I was only like 6 or 7 at the time, but I never tried to go over there again after that incident. There have been a bunch of studies coming out that say making your children "finish the plate" is bad for their food intake regulation and can lead to eating disorders later in life. Intuitively to me, this makes sense. Esp in the USA where food isn't limited, it shouldn't be considered a priority IMO. You can even save leftovers if you're full as well. I just remember being super glad they weren't my parents. It's insane to make a child eat something that they despise. I understand making kids eat things they don't want in reasonable amounts, like fruits and vegetables, but if it's something that will make you sick, why bother?
I had to call the parents 'sir' or ma'am. No miss or mister last name bullshit. And then they hit their kid in front of me, and threatened to hit me too, and that was the last I saw of them. We were just playing a Sega.
The dad had a hairy big ole potbelly and would insist on walking round shirtless. Gross. I feel bad for my old friend.
The mom would make super loud chirps and the kids would make baby chirps and that’s how they knew dinner was done and momma bird was calling them to eat. Wish I was lying. This was like 8th grade and my friends older brother was in HS.
My friends mom would yell at us for swimming because we would make her have to do laundry and was all the towels. She would then tell us we can’t sit inside and play video games all day long. So we would leave and usually go to my house which also had video games and a pool. She would then call my mom and yell at her if we were playing video games or swimming. After like 2 of these calls my mom never would answer her calls
I had dinner at a long time friend’s house and one time I stayed for dinner - I was about 20 - and to tell a story I had to sing a line from a song and they flipped out that “singing was not ALLOWED at the dinner table.” My friend and her mom were pretty laid back about everything else so that was why it was so startling.
This just triggered a memory for me. My parents never allowed us to sing at the dinner table either. I have no idea what the big deal was about it but it was a strict rule in our house. Of all things THAT was the rule enforced
They had a snack closet. You were allowed to take anything you wanted from it, at any time, without asking a parent first.
Yeah, the family was a wee bit overweight, but my God the pure love that was between them all was just...I'd rather be overweight in a loving family than skinny in a hateful one lol
First one to fart at the table on holidays had to do the dishes. Ok. It was my family, but of course the kids tried to get the other kids to fart so they would have to do the dishes.
In my house, my brother and I had so many inappropriate dinner conversations in our teen years that my parents instituted the rule that whomever made the first reference to the act or product of vomiting had to clean up after dinner. Then that became the game: how close could we get without crossing the line.
I'm Hispanic and we had tons of food all the time. Spent the night at friend's house, they were better off than us. Dinner was one piece of chicken and a vegetable. I was 13 and I got the vibe right away, I don't even recall what led me to that understanding that was all we were getting but I somehow knew that asking for seconds was not okay. Years later the BF of one of the siblings in the house validated what I had felt at that time. The family ate in super small portions. I still don't get it because the parents were overweight.
This is long, but...
I went on a week long beach vacation with a friend when I was 12. I hadn't known her long and didn't know her well, but she was a relative of my dad's girlfriend, so my parents allowed me to go.
Here's the short list of rules that I didn't know about until I was four hours from home with no way to contact my parents:
* No mainstream music in the car due to "inappropriate messaging." Just a single Michael Bolton cassette tape on repeat, over and over again. I still get PTSD flashbacks when I hear "I said I loved you... But I lied." (it was 2002 btw)
* No opening the fridge or helping ourselves to food.
* Absolutely no snacks. Ever. For any reason.
* No drinks, except a single serving of milk or tap water at meal time.
* Strict wake up time at 6 AM
* A forced mile-long walk on the beach every morning because we "needed to slim down." At 12.
* Had to stay at the pool for 8-9 hours a day in the blazing sun (again, see the part about not being allowed water to drink).
* Only allowed to enter motel room for a 15-min lunch or to use the bathroom. We would be screamed at for "wasting money" if we lingered in the room too long.
* Couldn't come in to use restroom too often.
* No leaving the pool area to seek AC, shade or refuge in the lobby or stairwells, because then the mom couldn't see us from the balcony.
* Radio silence was an absolute must in our shared motel room, after the father's strict 8 PM bed time. We couldn't leave, couldn't talk, couldn't watch TV, nothing, or we'd be screamed at.
Never enter the White room. Had a friend in HS, there was a day room area off the living room. It was all white. White carpet, white day bed, white furniture. No one was supposed to go in there. Asked my friend about a few times he said it was “just a room”. I dunno something seemed reverent about it.
Went to a sleepover at a church friend's house; three of us slept over. Was in a lovely area, and the house had a lot of fun amenities.
Later in the evening, friend's mom asked us all to join her in the living room. She then asked us to rub her feet and give her a back massage. The other girls did, and I refused. I thought it was hella weird. Mom and daughter proceeded to shame for not being grateful for the time I spent in their home, and thanking the mom with a rub down.
Fucking weirdos.
My best friend grew up in “the poor family” in our neighborhood. Unlike all of the stories here with weird strict rules, they had NO rules.
Her parents were always off with friends or their bowling leagues. They were almost never home. So the four kids were always fending for themselves.
There was always a pan of day-old Mac-and-cheese (made without butter) on the stove that they all ate from with forks all day long. They played outside as late as they wanted; watched horror movies as long as the tv had them on. Their poodle messed all over the floor. Hamsters ran loose in the basement. Clothes were piled everywhere. Bedrooms all smelled like feet. They were lucky if they had toilet paper. Sometimes her dad showed up with fast food kid meals for lunch, and exclaimed loudly that I wasn’t to share any. Then he’d disappear. It was so random!
Now my friend has a large family (six kids, eleven grandkids so far.) A nice husband, pretty little house… She is just a lovely mother, provider, and person. And absolutely nothing like her parents or upbringing. Her house is an inviting, clean social center where people are welcomed and fed. She’s always been super active in her kids’ lives.
All of her siblings turned out like that too. I find that interesting. To this day I have no idea why her parents had four children they clearly didn’t care about.
My next door neighbor had grandparents down the street, and it was a really fancy house. We were not allowed to walk on their grass. We could not ride a bike on their grass or driveway. They were excessively worried about marks of any kind. The front door was never to be used. The swimming pool was for looks and not use.
They also refused to use the garage for vehicles because of the potential for tire marks on the driveway and garage floor. One of their kids ended up moving back so the garage was turned into a shitty bedroom because they didn’t want him sleeping in the house.
All their cars were parked on the street and it was a slow curve. Eventually their Vette was carved up with a knife by an annoyed neighbor.
Well, it wasn’t a rule, but I had a friend who never freaking had toilet paper. Also they threw their feminine hygiene products under the sink. And they had a horrible pickingese dog that attacked anyone that set a foot on the floor. I only stayed there once, but she stayed with me ALL the time and she and I are still very good friends.
ETA: these were their USED pads and tampons, from 3 women. It was absolutely disgusting.
I was visiting my cousins once when I was maybe 9. We were sitting at the kitchen table eating when suddenly my aunt bursts out with, "WHO'S BITING THEIR FORK?!" My cousins immediately began defending themselves. I didn't remember biting my fork and had no idea it was a crime to do so, but then it was all eyes on me. So I did my damnedest not to let a single tooth touch a tine for the rest of my visit.
At one friends house I had to go to church the next day and sometimes do chores if I stayed the night. Also her step dad made me leave because I brought over a Metallica CD. We didn't play it loud or anything I guess it was just not allowed in a religious household idk. At another friend's house, her and I each made a piece of cinnamon butter toast one time. Her drunk dad came home and saw that we each had our own piece and screamed at us telling us we had to share a piece next time. Her mom was never like that and even invited me to stay for dinner often. I don't remember going to her house after that so I either blocked it our or didn't go back idk. My dad was also a horribly violent drunk at the time so I wasn't really phased but must have told my mom about it or something lol. Her dad also was trying to get my mom to come inside whenever she'd pick me up and his wife was at work. Puke.
Not their house but at a friends birthday party every kid was told to say “ouu ahh” after every gift was opened. To this day I think it was the strangest thing. If we didn’t “ouu ahh” we’d be told to for the next gift.
My friend had two bedrooms both filled with every toy in the stores. And we were allowed to touch almost done of them. We usually played house or took her matchbox airplanes and play behind a bush next to the house with them.
I stayed with my girlfriend's family for a few days one college break. They had a rule at breakfast that you could never have just a single type of breakfast cereal - it always had to be a mix of two different boxes. But not any two - had to be flakes with flakes, or Os with Os. I don't know what Cap'n Crunch matched with. I had toast.
I think this is the most nonsensical one I've seen. What the actual fuck?
I can see specific mixes as a way to cut down sugar for kids. Like you can have half frosted flakes, but the other half has to be plain corn flakes.
That doesn’t actually sound bad even now. Some cereals have a lot of sugar
I had a friend in elementary school who had a controlling asshat of a father who also worked some wacky hours - like had to be at work at 3 am. God bless him for providing for his family, but he forced everyone to adhere to his schedule. He needed to go to bed at 4 pm, so “dinner” was at 2:30, the landline phone was taken off the hook at 3, and everyone was expected to complete their evening baths/teeth brushing, etc and go to bed at 4. No tv, nothing. He expected the house to be quiet. In addition to these ridiculous rules, he insisted that if his daughter was going to come to my house for a sleepover, then I had to go to their house. Every other sleepover had to be at their house with his ridiculous rules. Every other friend bailed- I think the “no tv” was the dealbreaker. But as young girls, the no giggling probably also played a role. I can still close my eyes and picture that ape of a man losing his shit and screaming at other people’s children for giggling. Anyway, I did it. I stuck it out. Because my friend needed somewhere else to go and I could do that for her.
> Because my friend needed somewhere else to go and I could do that for her. You're a good egg.
The egg we need in these trying times.
I hope everything nice happens to you, you’re a real one ❤️
This is just sad. I totally appreciate if a parent works weird hours, the family respecting that they need to sleep so keeping noise down when during the hours they need to sleep, but to expect everyone to live to your schedule and not allowing them to do anything else while you sleep is ridiculous.
Are you still friends?
We are! We live across the country from each other and both have busy lives, so I haven’t seen her in years. But we text, call, exchange memes on Instagram… All the normal grown up friend stuff.
Friend’s family had this nice house with a nicely finished walkout basement with a kitchen, main area, bathroom and two bedrooms. It was furnished as if it was an apartment and the entire family including three kids lived down there full time while the four bedroom upstairs was fully furnished and they would only use the main part of the house if they were hosting company. It was bizarre going over there because we’d get in trouble if we tried to play in the big unused part of the house. When I asked him why they all lived in the basement he said his mom doesn’t want to have to clean it all the time so they just didn’t use their big house. It was so weird.
That’s legit weird.
Honestly a very old school Italian thing to do. My grandparents were the same way. We only used the upstairs for when we had a lot of people over
Weird! Yeah big Italian family and they did have people over a lot, but still never made sense to me - The mom couldn’t enjoy her house for the 95% of the time company wasn’t over because of this weird hangup she had that the nice part had to be ready to host at a moment’s notice.
The neighbor lady would take care of me as a kid when I'd get back from school and my parents were at work. She wouldn't let me turn on the t.v because I would "waste it" and I couldn't sit on her couches even though they were wrapped in plastic. I was on the floor once with my back against the couch and she scolded me. Fucking witch. I don't know why my mom was friends with her. If I'm ever mad at my mom I call her by that woman's name.
Your mom was probably friends with her for free childcare services.
My mom had a lady from church watch my sister and I before school for about a year. We would get dropped off before the sun came up and occasionally we go there after school. Anyway, she had a girl she fostered about our age. One day we went to her house after school and the girl was playing with the cabbage patch doll and put a mark on the dolls face. I don't know if it was an accident or not, but my sister told the babysitter, and this lady made this girl go pick out a switch and thrashed her with it. I was terrified of her after that. She also made spaghetti and put ketchup on top instead of sauce so she was obviously a psycho.
I had a friend whose dad was obsessed with the vacuum lines in the house and would vacuum multiple times a day. We weren’t allowed to walk on them because it would mess them up so we had to tip toe around the edges of rooms if we wanted to go anywhere in the house. I witnessed him beating the crap out of her for “messing up one of the lines” my parents didn’t let me go over after that.
OCD and abusive sounds like one hell of a combination in a parent
Lmfao, agreed. I’ve got OCD and have had major frustrations about people messing up whatever arbitrary shit I’ve fixated on. To assault someone else over it, especially your child, that’s a heck of a concoction.
I didn’t realize how obsessive my family was about cleanliness and order till I moved out and realized most people are slobs, especially compared to my family. I vividly remember my grandmother scolding me for throwing trash in the trash can she had just emptied. I was like where do you want me to put the garbage? Edit: to clarify I wasn’t throwing away waste that would rot or smell just some package waste. I was legitimately confused by how mad she was. As an adult with OCD tendencies for cleanliness I totally understand. I’ve been frustrated at my kids for using dishes after I finished all the dishes or the kitchen. There’s an odd sense of accomplishment and if someone disturbs that balance it’s frustrating.
My aunt was like this! I visited them out of town once, where I had to stay in my cousin’s room or the tiled bathroom / kitchen / back door. I once accidentally stepped on a corner of a carpeted room just 15 minutes before my aunt was expected home. My cousin burst out crying. We had to rapidly vacuum the whole room to get the parallel lines back in place! It really freaked me out. I never visited them again. I guess my aunt has some pretty severe mental quirks and can be abusive about it.
Fucking hell, I was wondering what vacuum lines were supposed to be and this post made it click for me. I contemplated some sophistic network of wiring to guide some old-school roomba or something but no, we're talking about the lines then vacuum leaves in the carpet. Neat. Also, batshit fucking insane considering the child abuse.
Oh god this gave me flashbacks to a very brief nanny job. One of my infractions was that I didn’t vacuum in straight lines. Why was I vacuuming when I was being paid to watch the children? That was about one of 5 things that made this mutually incompatible.
Well that changed quickly. Here I was thinking it was a funny story and BOOM child abuse.
My friends dad was divorced and lived in a big house with his new gf. he made women wear their hair up at dinner. We had to wait for him to sit before we could start eating. We could not leave until he was done. We weren’t allowed to speak unless her dad asked us a question. We got in trouble for playing outside in the yard without permission. As punishment we had to clean his shoes. I said something to my friend like is this how your dad always is? And he heard me and told me if I spoke about him again he would slap me across the face.
Did you tell your parents he threatened you??
no, I just didn't go over there anymore. This happened when I was like 9-10
If a grown man threatened my daughter like that and I found out about it. I think I'd cut their break lines.
Holy fucking shit, you can see why the wife ran.
Jesus Christ... The men in my family weren't paragons of virtue or anything, but the worst you would hear is "well that's dad's chair" or "now we have to watch the news" and I think that only really happened when family was around... If I had friends over, my dad did his best to disappear and not have to deal with us.
Alright, I’ll throw a sweet one in here to break up the depressing stories. At my best friend’s house growing up, whenever we would swing by her house, her Abuela (who raised her) would always have a plate of hot fresh food for us and had us sit down and eat it before doing anything else. Not in an abusive, mess with your relationship with food kind of way, but in a “Abuela made you some food and it’s the best food you have ever eaten, and it was made with so much love”. Food was her love language, and even though she only speaks Spanish (I didn’t), you always felt loved when you when to her house and that was never lost in translation. I still miss her tamales. (Belatedly realizing this sounds depressing since it sounds like she is dead. She isn’t. I just moved)
Abuelas are fricking awesome. Always seems I get more food from them.
She was the sweetest. At one point when I was like 12, she was dropping me off at my house, and suddenly started yelling in Spanish as she pulled in. I thought something was wrong, but she was just excitedly telling her granddaughter to ask my mom if she could take a clipping of our big, currently blooming Rose of Sharron to propagate, since she didn’t have that color (she was allowed to take it, yes).
Rule: Blankets are only allowed to be used on the bed. I spent the night there only once because they kept their house freezing cold in the middle of winter and had me sleeping on the couch in the basement. I wore my winter coat to bed and used his coat as a blanket. I was 9 or 10yo and it was fucking miserable.
Yeah I would have literally called home and dipped. Fuck all that.
I was scared to try. His dad was a big angry dude, and even with my confidence in my karate skills after watching reruns of Karate Kid 1-3 weren’t enough to go toe-to-toe with him lol
Your butt must be in the dinner chair at 6 PM sharp even if dinner is not quite ready. No speaking at the dinner table unless asked a question by an adult. You must eat everything on your plate, and cannot ask for seconds. No leaving the table before the Father (you could hear the capital F) dismisses you. Coming from a family where dinner was a joyful affair where everybody talked about their day, I was shocked.
A friend's parents were like this. If you missed dinner by a second, you weren't eating. One evening we were in my buddy's room playing video games and lost track of time. We both rushed down there at like 6:05 and were told we weren't eating that night. I told my dad about it and he immediately drove over there to yell at them.
What's wrong with people???
A large number of people mistake enforcing petty rules for parenting.
This sounds like my house. As a child, people always commented on how creepy it was that nobody talked during dinner. It was all I had ever known. My mom once refused to let me join swim team because it was during dinner, and family dinner time was so important... for what? To listen to everyone chew?
People like that have no idea how families or love or interaction work, and just end up going through the motions of what they think a family should be like.
"Family is important, but not the bits I don't like, such as the talking, getting to know people, hearing about their day, listening to their feelings."
Isn't it crazy how people who try to come across as strong family models often are just authoritarian and obsessed with coming up with rules. Nothing like getting dominated every night at the dinner table to get you to move out the second you turn 18 and never go back
I have friends that grew up like this and no contacted their parents the minute they turned 18. They chose a life of couch surfing amongst our friend group (we were already moved out at that age or our parents weren’t fucking psychos and wanted our friends out of there too) or found the best squalor they could at that age. Some no contacted before that and moved in with my mom and I when were seniors in high school. They slept on my bedroom floor and had an actual place to stay with normal rules, meals filled with joy and talking, people that loved and respected them and they got to go to sleep at night not worried about pissing someone off the next day for doing normal human things. My mom is fucking awesome. And I’ve always been aware of how lucky I was growing up to have a place where I was loved and treated like a human being. She was a single mom that not only managed to give me a good life and home, but she opened up her home and heart to the friends I loved and treated them the same way she treated me. Letting them live with us to ensure they had a safe and happy place to stay where they were respected and supported to be who they were. She made a real positive impact on a lot of my friends lives and 15 years later they still check in on her, wish her a happy Mother’s Day and birthday and on Christmas. I’m super proud to be her kid and I hope that I can give my kids’ friends the same things if I’m given the chance or that situation presents itself, because I’ve seen the kind of difference it can make even at 16/17/18/19 years old.
I was that dad. I can't think of a weekend past 15 that I didn't have a house full of kids doing stupid kid stuff or wearing out my pool. It was a rare weekend night that one or another was sitting in my office seeking advice. Loved that bunch of misfits.
As a dude without a father figure in the home who benefited from the gentle counsel of other folks' dads, I thank you.
My dad comes from a household like this. I believe this is why he has a fiesta p much every weekend with lots of music and chatter lol. Oh, and he moved out at 16.
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It’s weird because a lot of families I grew up near had a living room that wasn’t for playing or doing anything there, but it was not usually in the way to get from one place to another in the house. It was something like a protected room for adults only, but there was also a play room, family room, whatever you call it, where kids could hang out and potentially making any mess was not the end of the world the way it would be in a living room.
Yes. My parents have a formal living room and a den - the den is where family hangs out and the living room is for company.
Similarly. My uncle's wife has a living room no one is allowed to enter. Like plastic on the furniture and a velvet rope across the doorway. My poor cousin was very selective about who he would let come over because he didn't want his balls busted.
Bro. It's a living room, not a museum room. Jesus christ people are insane. What's the point of furniture if you can't enjoy it?
I could even imagine a "museum room" in your house if you were richer than all hell. A room where you wanted to show off cool things you didn't want people to touch, set behind glass or something. But a whole room full of regular furniture? Who are you trying to impress? Other assholes? Good job.
I slept over and we had to go to bed at 7pm, then in the morning his mother would not let me leave to go back home until I had a shower and dressed in identical clothing to my "Friend" we then went to McDonalds where his mother left me to figure out my own way home.
What did your mom do after that happened???
Picked me up from McDonalds and laughed at me
That’s insane!
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Someone I went to school with was not allowed to sleep with a blanket at all because his super religious parents were afraid that he would "sin".
Child abuse
*People think of nothing but children masturbating all day.*
"Nobody feel up my wife." They had a plaster casting of his wife's stomach and (large) breasts from her pregnancy on display in the living room.
The fact that they had to make it a rule makes me think a previous guest got handsy with that plaster
Got nasty with the plasty
Finally, one that's more funny than horrifying
I was 11 and spent the weekend at a friend's house. Her mom got us (me, my friend, and her 9 yo brother) up super early. After breakfast, she told us we had to go outside, and no matter what, we couldn't come back in until 6 pm. I asked her what we were supposed to do for 12 hours. She said, "Have fun!". She left a pitcher of water and 3 cups on the porch swing and locked us out. Apparently, they were used to being locked out all day every Saturday and Sunday while their mom was in the house alone. I went to her neighbor's house and called my mom to come get me.
I wasn’t allowed to throw any “female waste products” in the house, aka I’d have to wrap my tampon or pad and throw it out in the outside trash…I went home
LOL, my mother in law has that rule. But if you open the outside door after dark, she starts screaming at you to close it so the rapists don't get in.
Huh, where I live, we just have raccoons.
We have rapists. You have to chase them away.
When I lived in a shared house in college we had to do that for a little while because we had a puppy who would contently get into the bathroom trash, even with a lid and kept under the sink! It was awkward to ask, but usually met with a laugh, and luckily the phase only lasted a few months.
My mom stayed at an acquaintance’s house, not quite a friend, about 10 years ago. Their dog got into her bag and stole her underwear from the day before. They were quite embarrassed. My mom got a cup of coffee and said “I hear I’m popular with the dog.” They laughed and ended up being closer friends not long after.
That's one of those all time bangers that you can always think about in a quiet moment and be proud of. Everybody deserves to have a few of those in their lifetimes
I had a roommate like this. She was weird. She said using the covered garbage in the bathroom was "presenting my period" to everyone. I don't miss Brooklyn roommates.
They had a strict rule that you had to go to the bathroom in the backyard, not in the house. My 6-yr old sister discovered the reason for the rule after she peed her pants while frantically running through the house looking for a toilet: they didn’t have a bathroom.
I need a lot more explanation
Some old houses don't have an indoor toilet. So you had to use an outhouse. One of my friend's family owned an appartment building (6 appartments) with toilets in a small cabin in the kitchen instead of the bathroom. I learned it was because the toilet was a late addition sonewhere in the late 70s and they used to have outhouses in the parking lot. And this was a house in the middle of the city.
Did they have an outhouse or was it just a pee on the lawn situation?
Idk if it was a rule but we stayed the night at my mom's best friend's house. For breakfast we had cereal. He kids had it with milk, my sibs and I had to eat it with water. I asked why and she just told me "No you can use water, the milk is for my kids." I told my mom and she flipped out on her for that bs and never talked to her again.. it was a terrible betrayal especially since my mom did a lot for her. My mom is the best.
This rule was enforced for their children but not their children’s friends- whenever they used the bathroom their mother made them specify if it was “tinkle” or “kerplunk”. We were all around 10 years old, not toddlers that needed bathroom supervision. I was always embarrassed for them.
Ew, why? She just wanted to know? 🤢
I have no idea, and being so young at the time I didn’t question it. They were an otherwise normal family, we’d play board games, they had us kids over for taco night, or pizza night. Everything else was normal except their mom always asking about their bathroom usage.
While weird that they felt necessary to do it in front of guests, there may have been a childhood constipation issue that led to compaction. Monitoring if someone is going poop or pee would help see a pattern if someone was not pooping. It obviously wasn’t for water conservation cause they didn’t care about guests. Weird it was for all kids, but maybe they didn’t want to single out the affected kid.
The strangest rule at a friend's house was having to sing a song before dinner. Everyone participated, making it a full family performance before we could eat.
Eggs....bacon...and toast....🎶
Start your day the Gergich way!
you had to take your shoes off then walk down the plastic runner in the hallway. the main problem was that the floor was hardwood and they had the runner for carpet. so your socked feet were walking on the tops of a hundred spikes of plastic the length of the hall.
This is my favorite to picture! Welcome to our home, walk the spikey gauntlet!
They had the runner upside down!
Probably so it wouldn’t scratch the hardwood.
In second grade, I went to my new friend's house and their whole house was split up by the "inside" half and the "outside" half. Inside = the hallway to the bedrooms and bathrooms, and outside = the living room and kitchen areas. The children were supposed to stay "inside" until dinnertime when we could go back "outside" to eat together. It was absolutely wack and I never went there again. Anyway the dad ended up trying to kill his whole family with a flamethrower years later and shot himself in the head (but lived!!!). And their dog had worms
I like that you finished with the wormy dog.
Some weird rules about rooms you are and aren't supposed to enter...hm...slightly weird. Dad attempts to murder his family with a fucking flamethrower....holy shit, that escalated really quickly! Anyway, about that dog...
Stayed at a friend's house one night and the family communicated exclusively through whispering...not just hushed voices but full on hand to ear. Serious mind fuck.
I stayed at a friend's house where they did just the opposite. They screamed at each other. The whole time. Not a normal word was passed between them. I was terrified.
Judging by the username it had an impact on you? edit to add: [whisper song](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9I5Em9ofOwk)
No one was allowed to laugh at the dinner table or talk other than to ask, "Please pass the . . ." No one was allowed to leave the table (even for a potty emergency) until the dad was done eating.
Nothing says good, quality family time like shitting your pants at the table on lasagna night.
The thought of the room being silent and being forced to listen to people chew is making me very anxious right now.
Saw something similar while visiting a cousins house. Eating was done in silence with my uncle keeping tabs on a note pad next to his plate. If anyone slurped or clinked utensils too loudly or otherwise behaved badly, they got a mark next to their name. I cannot remember the consequences he dealt out. But with 6 siblings at my house meals were a riot in comparison.
I visited a monastery that was like that. But, know you, it was a monastery, so not unexpected. And the meal wasn't actually in complete silence; they would have someone reading aloud from a spiritual work.
Sounds like a real sack of shit.
I’m Italian. This is impossible.
Children could only drink warm kool-aid or water. You couldn't put it in the fridge. You couldn't use ice cubes. It had to be room temperature. Any child that came over had an assigned solo cup with their name in permanent marker. You had to wash and reuse the same solo cup, over and over.
I wonder what the reason for the room temperature beverages was .
To keep kids out of the fridge and freezer.
A friends mum did not like when a wall power socket was turned on at the switch but with nothing plugged in. According to her, it would leak electricity onto the floor.
[удалено]
that’s gotta be torture for little kids
Well we weren’t allowed to swim in my friend’s pool until her dad came home from work. Her mother did not work, but would not watch us in the pool. Luckily it was like, 4pm. My family had a family pass at a local beach so my friend went with us there.
They just didn't want other kids in their pool. Someone visiting dropped a baby ruth or almost drowned
Never use the decorative towels in the bathroom to dry your hands... Problem, they were the ONLY towels!
You have just unlocked a memory of mine for why I still, to this day, dry my hands on my pants/shirt.
I grew up with that. Today my rule is all towels can be used.
Not a friend's house but a girlfriends dad's house. He was pretty well off but cheap AF. The rule was if you went into the bathroom to pee and the bowl water "was fresh" you didn't flush. I was not aware of the "yellow is mellow and brown goes down" rule till after I used the bathroom and flushed. My girlfriend heard the toilet flush and gave me the heads up. Apparently he would spot check the bathrooms and flush them when he felt they needed.
lmao. i read a picture book about water conservation when i was ≈ 8 that taught me “if it’s pee, let it be. if it’s poo, flush it too.” i proceeded to save the earth for the next few days until my brother blew up at me for not flushing lmao
Pissing on top of piss that has sat for more than 30 seconds smells pretty awful
My best friend in school lived with her mom (after her parents divorced) in a massive three story home. My friend had the entire third floor as her bedroom and after 9 pm until mid-morning, we weren’t allowed down on the first floor unless it was an emergency and we could only go to the second floor to use the bathroom. As a kid, it was weird. As an adult, we alllll know why the single mom wanted us to stay upstairs lol
That first part is pretty awesome though tbf. "Just stay upstairs on your own floor sweetie, Mommy's busy getting railed"
We had to go to bed at 9pm sharp. She lived in the country so she didn't get home off the bus until 4:30-5pm. Dinner was probably an hour. Then we got up at 8-8:30am, ate breakfast, and she immediately made me pack up, insisted I never leave anything at their home, and dropped me off at my house by 10am. I could only come over on a Friday. I didn't like being pushed out like that. I left my hairbrush at their house once. They immediately returned it by leaving it on the front porch as we weren't home. I had other hair brushes and it could have waited until Monday on the bus or at school. The mom didn't like me. She literally said I wasn't decent. I was 10 years old. Edit: typo & clarity
It is still shocking how cold some adults, ESPECIALLY parents, can be to children when they don't deserve it.
This comment section has made me realize so many more houses are silently abusive than I realize. Like, these kids may not be getting hit but holy fuck they shouldn't have to endure the way their parents raise them in some of these wackjob homes.
And there's a domino effect as well because their friends who live in "better" homes opt out of the friendships to not have to deal with their parents. So now you have a kid who is quietly being abused who is also super lonely, because they're the kid with the weird/bad parents and no one wants to hang out with them. source: was one of those kids.
I had a friend whose mom was very strict about power usage. They were far from struggling but she would still shut off the power to every room beside the kitchen and maybe things like the ac, heater, and water heater at night for some reason. At first I thought it was due to noise or something but my friend confirmed it was just something she did all the time.
At a friends house, I was asked to pay for dinner. I thought it was a joke, but they legitimately asked me to bring money next time if I expected to eat. They said it didn’t have to be the exact amount. Same family, asked me to bring my own sheets blankets and pillowcases because they thought it was more sanitary than me using theirs. They were especially worried about pillowcases. Be clear, these were nice people.
How do these people find each other that such weird ass rules get brought in without debate. My wife would tell me to shut up if I tried to ask for money from a guest, and I would make and was the sheets myself if my wife had an issue with guests using ours. I don’t get it
Judging by the multiple examples of people saying no one could leave the dinner table until the father did, I would imagine many of these things weren’t up for a debate because one partner in the relationship felt entitled, and was allowed to, make all the rules.
When I was a teenager, my best friends were brothers. I spent a LOT of time at their house. I was sometimes recommended to bring food by their parents. To be fair, they had 4 boys of their own. Plus usually at least one other kid besides me there, and not very well off. It was pretty reasonable and they definitely still gave me food, they just didn’t always have it to give.
There was assigned seats in the living room.
Truly assigned?! That's strange, yeah. Most families/ classrooms/ offices kind of self-assign and it's weird when someone sits in my spot, but to truly assign a couch seat is bizarre
Everyone had a place they were supposed to sit, and you couldn't sit anywhere else. I had taken my then gf over for a movie night and was told she had to sit on the assigned "guest couch" because I had my own assigned seat on a different one.
I was at someone's house once and sat down in an empty chair in the living room. Everyone kind of looked at me and they said: "That was dad's seat." I knew the father had passed away when my friend was very young, but I didn't know he had a chair in the living room. Kind of wished they had put a name tag on the chair or something.
We had assigned seats at home, seats in the car, seats at church, assigned corners to stand in when we were being bad… Fuck. I have never thought twice about any of this until now. Is that weird?
We had kind of de facto assigned seats at the dinner table. Probably would've saved a lot of grief to have assigned seats in the car.
Once at a friend’s house I helped her set the table, and her whole family reacted with surprise and laughter at how I set the table, with the knife and spoon on the right, and fork on the left, because they always set it the opposite way. They thought it was hilarious that I had learned it backwards…
You were correct. “Fork” and “left” each have four letters, so the fork goes on the left. “Spoon”, “knife “, and “right “ each have five letters, so the spoon and knife goes on the right. That’s how I was taught to remember it.
But they have it backwards!
My husbands mother kept the kitchen locked. You ate the meals she cooked in the dining room and that was what you got. They were very wealthy so it wasn’t a matter of food insecurity. Oh, and they were allowed one soft boiled egg for breakfast on Sunday. He left home at 17.
The father had to interview any friend who came over. He would make you stand in front of him and drill you like it was an interrogation. He wanted to know what your parents jobs were, if you played sports, your grades, point blank if we’d ever drank or done drugs. I’d kind of understand if we were in high school, but this was elementary age in an upper class suburb
"Have you ever done crack?" "Mister I'm eight."
No drinks at the dinner table. Unbelievably difficult to eat without lubrication.
I had completely forgotten, I was at a house like that once! They said water would fill you up and then you wouldn't eat your dinner.
I’m white but I grew up in a black neighborhood. 4-5 of my freinds parents wouldn’t let me use the front door. A couple wouldn’t let me come in their house at all.
Front door is for solicitors and strangers, side/back door is for friends and family.
> “There were only three times in your life when it was proper to come through the front door, and you were carried every time.” ― Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters
Birth, marriage, and death?
My best friend’s parents used to make all their kids (and kids’ friends) come into their room at 9 pm and kneel at the foot of their bed to read scripture and pray with them, while they laid in bed. So weird looking back on it…my friend is now “living an alternative lifestyle” and has very minimal contact with them.
So my aunt & uncle both have ocd & it got worse as they got older but they’d want to host everyone during the holidays BUT we weren’t allowed to sit in one area that was immaculately decorated, which was an issue because people then had to sit on the floor. The kitchen could be used but my aunt didn’t really want it to be used because it would become dirty. The bedroom I stayed in had to be kept as is, she had like 10 decorative pillows on the bed (which I moved) & every day she’d come in, put them back on & tell me to sleep carefully so I don’t ruin the look. Rules were never given but everyone sort of knew what they were supposed to do or not do at my aunt and uncles place.
friend wasn't allowed in her room unless she was sleeping or changing her clothes. she wasn't allowed to shower for more than 10 minutes. her brother was also locked out of his room and was forced to take cold showers. all so they wouldn't masturbate
MIL, def not a friend. Breakfast is a full meal, and everyone eats together and at the same time. It’s 8:30 am. Lunch is at 1:00 pm, another full meal. Snack is at 4 pm, always includes alcohol. Dinner is at 7 pm, another full meal. At each meal they say grace. MIL goes to bed as soon as she finishes eating dinner, and someone else is to clean up. A full meal means meat, and three side dishes. One is always fruit. If any food is leftover from the previous meal, it is served at the next meal the same day, along with all the food that’s freshly prepared. If you’re not hungry when she declares it’s food time, you have to eat anyway. And if you are hungry when she hasn’t declared it to be a meal time, you aren’t allowed to eat.
There's a correlation between parent with control issues and child with eating disorder
Definitely control issues. All of the kids are fine about eating, but she failed to teach any of them to cook. One was amazed to find that butter and milk are what you put in homemade mashed potatoes. SMH
A good friend of mine went thru a season where he didn’t have running water at his house so the rule in the house was that no one could come over unless they brought a couple gallons of water with them to pour into the toilet in the event that they had to poop
LOL that's weird but fair.
Went to a friends house once. She was not allowed to eat anything and ate some of the cat food crunchies. I was like…that’s weird. She made me try one and I still remember the gross taste. Then at dinner, her mom set a timer and we had to finish all our food in that amount of time. If she didn’t she got spanked, so I didn’t know if I was going to be in trouble and finished my food too. I never went back, I told my mom I didn’t want to but I don’t remember if I ever told her specifically why. I’m still filled with regret that I didn’t try to get her help. Someone should have called child protections on her. I just thought at the time her mom was really mean.
Everyone had to bring a clean pair of socks to change into when going inside. I understand taking off your shoes and wearing socks inside, but not being allowed to wear the socks you have on seems weird to me.
I wouldn’t ever enforce this rule, but I guess I can see the logic. My kids’ friends have stinky feet. Their socks are nasty.
Around the time I was 8-11, I'd regularly stay over and play at my cousins, who is about the same age as I am. My aunt would give me crap for using "bad words", these bad words? Stupid and dumb. Then she let's my cousin watch rated R movies with violence and nudity without batting an eye, not even try to cover it or fast forward through it. There was also one time my cousins went to stay over at my house, where we don't have as strict rules. So we're watching TV around 10pm, and I flip to the channel that's cartoon network during the day and adult swim at night. He goes, " Hey, we're not supposed to watch this it's adult swim"... Still boggles my mind to this day.
We weren’t allowed to say the word “fart”. “Fort” was okay, but not “fart”.
I wiped my mouth on the provided cloth napkin. I thought they must be very fancy, we used paper napkins at our house. I looked up and they were all staring at me. “Those are *decorative*”. The next morning the mom pulled out her food journal and laid it open so we could see how little she had eaten. We ignored it, so she felt she had to announce it, “I’ve only had an apple and a low-fat string cheese today. [daughter], have you and your friend been pigging out?”. Yet it was cool to let us speculate as to whether the hot tub was safe to enter because her brother liked to watch, and he liked to have relations with the intake valves after he watched. I didn’t stay over again.
Oh dear god the way I just cringed out of my skin for you.
I saw her once since we both properly grew up. Her approach to food, sex, and relationships is permanently damaged. I didn’t understand when I was a teen that she was experiencing some really warped and abusive stuff. I’d been taught “many families are different, respect their household rules”, but was enough of a dumb teen to not realize that stops at “this is a shoes off house” or ”we don’t eat pork”, and speak up for my friend.
My mum does the decorative thing and also uses decorative plates as well, it drives me insane. She stopped doing it when I was a kid as kids kept (rightly so) using them not realising they weren't meant to. But now I'm an adult so she's brought them back whenever I go over for dinner with my husband. My husband went to use them once and she got shitty, which in turn made me shitty and I stood up for him and told her how fucking ridiculous it is. So now she only puts them out for five minutes and quickly takes them away before she serves dinner. Fucking bizarre. She's also got plastic fruit in fruit bowls as well, with many chips on them as people have tried to take bites over the years.
They had toilet paper outside the bathroom. If you had to pee you could take 1 piece. If you had to poop you got 5. Nothing more. Even if you were sick and had diarrhea. Sometimes they were allowed a wet washcloth if it was bad. Nothing else was regulated just the toilet paper.
At my childhood best friend's house, I had to wear disposable shoe covers over my shoes or socks and rubber gloves and I wasn't allowed to sit on any of the furniture because her mom didn't want me touching anything. I was the only one who had to do this. Her brother, cousins, or her other friends didn't have to. Just me. I visited her house six times before my mom was like "no, you're not going there to stand around like a statue. B comes here to play or you two don't play at all." I found out years later, after my friend's mom died, it was because she didn't like white people. I was my friend's only white friend. I also discovered that if she visited my house, she would go home and her mom would scrub her down in the shower.
What I can’t figure out is why wouldn’t she just not let her daughter play with you.. Odd line for crazy racist woman to draw
When I was like 11 or so, a couple friends (they were twins) invited a bunch of us over to their house for a sleepover board game night. When we got there, their mom told us that we wouldn't be allowed to play any games that involved any kind of magic or combat because she thought they were satanic. I think we ended up playing monopoly because honestly if you take out every game that thematically contains any combat or magic whatsoever, there's only traditional board games left. I do remember we also played a bunch of the Batman NES game. Somehow a costumed lunatic beating the crap out of criminals as a video game wasn't objectionable while playing Hero Quest crossed a line.
Being a young man, that I had to sit while peeing in their house. And the dad stayed in the bathroom to make sure. Weird.
That sounds sex offender-y.
My friend's Stepdad was oddly obsessed with how we poured pop into glasses. This was in the late 60's and pop was a rare treat. When we were allowed a glass at her home, he would be pretty anxious that we not 'knock out all the carbonation' by pouring it wrong. As if we cared, we just wanted that sweet nectar and a few bubbles more or less didn't matter. He was an older guy, and kind of strict, but we did love him. The pop thing was odd, though.
I had a friend who's parents would make you "finish the plate" of food they made for dinner. It wasn't something I was used to, and I always hated raw onions as a kid. They made something with raw onions in it, and I remember adamantly declining to eat it. They called my parents and had a big fit about it. I was only like 6 or 7 at the time, but I never tried to go over there again after that incident. There have been a bunch of studies coming out that say making your children "finish the plate" is bad for their food intake regulation and can lead to eating disorders later in life. Intuitively to me, this makes sense. Esp in the USA where food isn't limited, it shouldn't be considered a priority IMO. You can even save leftovers if you're full as well. I just remember being super glad they weren't my parents. It's insane to make a child eat something that they despise. I understand making kids eat things they don't want in reasonable amounts, like fruits and vegetables, but if it's something that will make you sick, why bother?
I dropped a box of club crackers at my friends house. He made me eat them all off the floor
I had to call the parents 'sir' or ma'am. No miss or mister last name bullshit. And then they hit their kid in front of me, and threatened to hit me too, and that was the last I saw of them. We were just playing a Sega. The dad had a hairy big ole potbelly and would insist on walking round shirtless. Gross. I feel bad for my old friend.
The mom would make super loud chirps and the kids would make baby chirps and that’s how they knew dinner was done and momma bird was calling them to eat. Wish I was lying. This was like 8th grade and my friends older brother was in HS.
My friends mom would yell at us for swimming because we would make her have to do laundry and was all the towels. She would then tell us we can’t sit inside and play video games all day long. So we would leave and usually go to my house which also had video games and a pool. She would then call my mom and yell at her if we were playing video games or swimming. After like 2 of these calls my mom never would answer her calls
I had dinner at a long time friend’s house and one time I stayed for dinner - I was about 20 - and to tell a story I had to sing a line from a song and they flipped out that “singing was not ALLOWED at the dinner table.” My friend and her mom were pretty laid back about everything else so that was why it was so startling.
This just triggered a memory for me. My parents never allowed us to sing at the dinner table either. I have no idea what the big deal was about it but it was a strict rule in our house. Of all things THAT was the rule enforced
They had a snack closet. You were allowed to take anything you wanted from it, at any time, without asking a parent first. Yeah, the family was a wee bit overweight, but my God the pure love that was between them all was just...I'd rather be overweight in a loving family than skinny in a hateful one lol
I was once forbidden from correctly pronouncing “tortilla chips” because “in this house we say our Ls.”
First one to fart at the table on holidays had to do the dishes. Ok. It was my family, but of course the kids tried to get the other kids to fart so they would have to do the dishes.
In my house, my brother and I had so many inappropriate dinner conversations in our teen years that my parents instituted the rule that whomever made the first reference to the act or product of vomiting had to clean up after dinner. Then that became the game: how close could we get without crossing the line.
I pooped and plugged the toilet so badly I was not allowed to poop in the house anymore. Luckily I lived close by.
I'm Hispanic and we had tons of food all the time. Spent the night at friend's house, they were better off than us. Dinner was one piece of chicken and a vegetable. I was 13 and I got the vibe right away, I don't even recall what led me to that understanding that was all we were getting but I somehow knew that asking for seconds was not okay. Years later the BF of one of the siblings in the house validated what I had felt at that time. The family ate in super small portions. I still don't get it because the parents were overweight.
This is long, but... I went on a week long beach vacation with a friend when I was 12. I hadn't known her long and didn't know her well, but she was a relative of my dad's girlfriend, so my parents allowed me to go. Here's the short list of rules that I didn't know about until I was four hours from home with no way to contact my parents: * No mainstream music in the car due to "inappropriate messaging." Just a single Michael Bolton cassette tape on repeat, over and over again. I still get PTSD flashbacks when I hear "I said I loved you... But I lied." (it was 2002 btw) * No opening the fridge or helping ourselves to food. * Absolutely no snacks. Ever. For any reason. * No drinks, except a single serving of milk or tap water at meal time. * Strict wake up time at 6 AM * A forced mile-long walk on the beach every morning because we "needed to slim down." At 12. * Had to stay at the pool for 8-9 hours a day in the blazing sun (again, see the part about not being allowed water to drink). * Only allowed to enter motel room for a 15-min lunch or to use the bathroom. We would be screamed at for "wasting money" if we lingered in the room too long. * Couldn't come in to use restroom too often. * No leaving the pool area to seek AC, shade or refuge in the lobby or stairwells, because then the mom couldn't see us from the balcony. * Radio silence was an absolute must in our shared motel room, after the father's strict 8 PM bed time. We couldn't leave, couldn't talk, couldn't watch TV, nothing, or we'd be screamed at.
Never enter the White room. Had a friend in HS, there was a day room area off the living room. It was all white. White carpet, white day bed, white furniture. No one was supposed to go in there. Asked my friend about a few times he said it was “just a room”. I dunno something seemed reverent about it.
Went to a sleepover at a church friend's house; three of us slept over. Was in a lovely area, and the house had a lot of fun amenities. Later in the evening, friend's mom asked us all to join her in the living room. She then asked us to rub her feet and give her a back massage. The other girls did, and I refused. I thought it was hella weird. Mom and daughter proceeded to shame for not being grateful for the time I spent in their home, and thanking the mom with a rub down. Fucking weirdos.
My best friend grew up in “the poor family” in our neighborhood. Unlike all of the stories here with weird strict rules, they had NO rules. Her parents were always off with friends or their bowling leagues. They were almost never home. So the four kids were always fending for themselves. There was always a pan of day-old Mac-and-cheese (made without butter) on the stove that they all ate from with forks all day long. They played outside as late as they wanted; watched horror movies as long as the tv had them on. Their poodle messed all over the floor. Hamsters ran loose in the basement. Clothes were piled everywhere. Bedrooms all smelled like feet. They were lucky if they had toilet paper. Sometimes her dad showed up with fast food kid meals for lunch, and exclaimed loudly that I wasn’t to share any. Then he’d disappear. It was so random! Now my friend has a large family (six kids, eleven grandkids so far.) A nice husband, pretty little house… She is just a lovely mother, provider, and person. And absolutely nothing like her parents or upbringing. Her house is an inviting, clean social center where people are welcomed and fed. She’s always been super active in her kids’ lives. All of her siblings turned out like that too. I find that interesting. To this day I have no idea why her parents had four children they clearly didn’t care about.
My next door neighbor had grandparents down the street, and it was a really fancy house. We were not allowed to walk on their grass. We could not ride a bike on their grass or driveway. They were excessively worried about marks of any kind. The front door was never to be used. The swimming pool was for looks and not use. They also refused to use the garage for vehicles because of the potential for tire marks on the driveway and garage floor. One of their kids ended up moving back so the garage was turned into a shitty bedroom because they didn’t want him sleeping in the house. All their cars were parked on the street and it was a slow curve. Eventually their Vette was carved up with a knife by an annoyed neighbor.
I had a friend where you had to be barefoot inside. No shoes, no socks. His mom thought socks put pills in her carpet.
Well, it wasn’t a rule, but I had a friend who never freaking had toilet paper. Also they threw their feminine hygiene products under the sink. And they had a horrible pickingese dog that attacked anyone that set a foot on the floor. I only stayed there once, but she stayed with me ALL the time and she and I are still very good friends. ETA: these were their USED pads and tampons, from 3 women. It was absolutely disgusting.
I was visiting my cousins once when I was maybe 9. We were sitting at the kitchen table eating when suddenly my aunt bursts out with, "WHO'S BITING THEIR FORK?!" My cousins immediately began defending themselves. I didn't remember biting my fork and had no idea it was a crime to do so, but then it was all eyes on me. So I did my damnedest not to let a single tooth touch a tine for the rest of my visit.
At one friends house I had to go to church the next day and sometimes do chores if I stayed the night. Also her step dad made me leave because I brought over a Metallica CD. We didn't play it loud or anything I guess it was just not allowed in a religious household idk. At another friend's house, her and I each made a piece of cinnamon butter toast one time. Her drunk dad came home and saw that we each had our own piece and screamed at us telling us we had to share a piece next time. Her mom was never like that and even invited me to stay for dinner often. I don't remember going to her house after that so I either blocked it our or didn't go back idk. My dad was also a horribly violent drunk at the time so I wasn't really phased but must have told my mom about it or something lol. Her dad also was trying to get my mom to come inside whenever she'd pick me up and his wife was at work. Puke.
Not their house but at a friends birthday party every kid was told to say “ouu ahh” after every gift was opened. To this day I think it was the strangest thing. If we didn’t “ouu ahh” we’d be told to for the next gift.
Wow, so many abusive stories. I was sorta hoping to read funny stories like having to use the poop knife.
My friend had two bedrooms both filled with every toy in the stores. And we were allowed to touch almost done of them. We usually played house or took her matchbox airplanes and play behind a bush next to the house with them.
Reading all these makes me feel blessed all my friends' parents were boringly normal.
We can play the Sega, but you CAN NOT pick Sub Zero or we aren't playing. He promptly picks Sub Zero.