When you're a kid, most of the time, adults make no sense. Parents always seem to devise arbitrary reasons to stifle fun under the guise of "safety and concern." Of course the best reason I most often recall is... "because I said so!" That one in particular always seemed a little fishy to me. But if we knew what was good for us, we acquiesced. However, in hindsight, every so often, parents have some weird motivations.
Redditor u/Korn_makes_me_horny wanted everyone to tell us about the times in childhood parents made some "questionable" decisions by asking.... What's the weirdest rule your parents made you follow as a kid?Menu Choices
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Chocolate PopTarts are dessert and therefore can only be eaten on Saturdays. Fruit PopTarts are obviously nutritious and are to be eaten during the week. (There was no healthy option instead of PopTarts.)
Be Home
If someone asked me to hang out with them, I had to go (unless it was after curfew or someone my parents didn't like). As an adult I understand that my parents wanted me to be social and wanted me out of the house, but how it felt as a kid was that I needed to give other people what they wanted, my time was not my own, and my feelings always came second to others. Not a great lesson to give your kid.
In & Out
My friend's Filipino mum would only let us play his Sega Megadrive for 15 minutes before literally kicking us out the house and locking the door so we had to play outside. After 2 hours outside she would give us another 15min on the Megadrive.
I once pooped myself in his driveway because she wouldn't open the door.
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Them 90's Shows....
Grew up in the 90's and 00's my mother would not let us watch king of the hill specifically. when I was about 15 I asked my dad why and he said "besides the fact that it is not funny, I have no idea."
Same! Any 'adult' cartoons of the 90s and 2000s (Simpsons, Futurama, Family Guy, King of the Hill, Beavis and Butthead - pretty much every vaguely edgy cartoon of the era) was banned for me growing up because my mom hated them. Made me feel really left out when I was young. It still makes me feel left out, because I never ultimately got into any of them so other people think there's something wrong with me.
Wardrobe Malfunctions
My parents were very chill for the most part but they (particularly my dad but sometimes my mom too) would get on a high horse about the most random issues.
One of them was hats. My parents HATED us wearing hats. Any hats. It was the craziest thing. We really were only allowed to wear them like dress-up clothes and sometimes not even then. Even if it went with our outfit, you couldn't have it on in the house for thirty minutes without hearing one of them snap, "Take that hat off your head!" Going out in public with a hat on was forbidden, unless it was actually snowing. Sometimes, for Christmas and such, relatives would give us hats that they thought we would like, but we were never actually allowed to wear them anywhere.
One other exception was when we did Little League, of course, a ball cap was part of your uniform. My dad would freak out on us if he caught us with it turned backwards or to the side, because "That is disrespectful to the game of baseball! It is not the way that hat is meant to be worn!" It was the 90s, backward ball caps everywhere, so at the time we felt it was especially lame that we couldn't. When I went to summer camp, I packed a baseball cap and wore it backward the entire time because they finally weren't there to stop me, haha.
Wordplay
Not really the weirdest but the only one I remember: we were allowed to say the word 'a**' but not 'a**hole' because that would make it too inappropriate/descriptive. Still funny to this day.
Another one is where my dad buys new things and doesn't allow anyone to use them. "Why are you taking your new umbrella out? It'll get wet!" or "Don't wear your new shoes, they'll get dirty!" These are all things he has said before, lol.
TV or Not to TV
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We were not allowed to watch Harry Potter, but we were allowed to watch Wizards of Waverly Place.
Meh?
I wasn't allowed to say, "I don't care" when I was a kid. My parents viewed that as leading to a callous attitude about the suffering of others.
Of course, the emotional burden of having to care about everything has left me jaded.
"Do you want peas or carrots for dinner?"
"I don't care"
Gets smacked!!
The Greens
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I was not allowed to mix my salad dressing in with my salad. I had to just hope it coated the leaves while I was eating it.
in the pocket....
I was not allowed to put my hands in my pockets (unless I was getting something out of them). "Only lazy people put their hands in their pockets..."
JTT Forever
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My mom wouldn't let me put posters on my wall because she said it would start a fire. Ya know, because my JTT posters might spontaneously combust.
The 90's
I wasn't allowed to watch the show Martin because it was full of dirty jokes and bad black stereotypes.
I could watch In Living Color, however.
My parents let me watch in living color with them when I was around 4 years old. Homey D. Clown and the Head Detective defined me.
Free Dogs
Every morning when I woke up we had to eat a hotdog because my dad worked at the hotdog factory and he got unlimited free hotdogs so basically every meal for my entire childhood was hotdogs.
Superstition
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For several years, everyone had to wear a hat while watching the Steelers game, because my mom decided it was good luck.
"Crude"
Watching The Simpsons, ever. I was 10 when it premiered; now, in my 40s, I'm still not allowed to watch it in their house while visiting. The main reason I was always given was "It's so crude!" "Crude" meaning the fact that Smithers is gay and Marge thought of cheating on Homer in one episode in 1990.
Clip Clip Here.... Clip Clip There....
Flush my nail clipping (as opposed to just throw then in the trash can).
Just gonna put it out there that some people, particularly more witchy peeps, are super careful to discard their hair and nail clippings in such a way that it cannot be collected by another person and used against them in like a spell or such.
Idk what your parents reasoning for flushing the nail clippings but just gonna leave this here lol. Oh as a side note, I'd flush those bad boys just to be totally rid of them VS maybe finding one that missed the trash receptacle just laying around randomly one day when I'm sittin' on the throne. floopyferret
Stay Awake
No sleeping over at a friend's house whatsoever because "little girls shouldn't be doing that", but my mom is a Jehovah's Witness so it wasn't that unexpected along with the no birthdays or holidays rule.
Girl Crush
I couldn't cut my hair above my shoulders… When my mom found out I was gay, she for bid me from going over to any females house except for the one girl I had a crush on. The girl I had a crush on was Mormon so she knew nothing would happen. She thought I was sleeping with all my female friends even though they were straight.
After 16
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For the boys, no parting your hair down the middle until you're 16. For the girls, no make up/eyebrow plucking/shaving until you're 16.
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Try not to follow the bad advice given here, because you don't want to get the results that these guys did.
U/Duckerton375 asked: What's the worst advice someone ever gave you, but you still followed?
The workplace can bring a cornucopia of terrible advice. Don’t follow these unless you want to get fired.
Bad jobs are usually not worth it.
Stick with a job no matter how bad it is. I stayed with a terrible job working retail, dealing with horrible customers and sexual harassment. I was told I wouldn't find anything better.
"No, no, you misunderstand. I said you wouldn't find anything better at making you feel like complete garbage."
This gets really creepy really fast.
frustrated workplace GIFGiphy"After you put in a job application, you need to call them at least once a day every day until they hire you."
Note: this did not get me hired. It got me called out by the HR person I was calling and forbidden to ever contact their facility again.
I work for a law firm that employees over 1500 people in the home office alone. Once I received a call from the building security saying, "Insert Name is here to speak with the owner." Well we are run by a committee so that's odd. Found out they just applied for a job and wanted to talk directly to the person that would potentially hire them. Told him the firm will contact them to schedule an interview. They refused to leave without "talking to the owner." Had security escort them out of the building.
This is absolutely not true.
"Sleep is for people who do not want success" great words from my uncle, it almost killed me.
Now I may be oversleeping.
Interpersonal relationships are also a big breeding ground for terrible advice. Don’t listen to any of these.
Heartbreaking.
My father always tought me and my brother that "having friends is bad and in the end they will never be there for you" so everytime I told my father about my friends he would get kinda mad and give me the advice to stop talking to them.
Now I am afraid of people and have several trust issues, thanks dad.
This won’t end well.
A Christmas Story GIF by filmeditorGiphyIn the fifth grade my teacher was talking about bullying, then she said "if anyone tries to bully you just agree with them." So the next time I got bullied I agreed with the bully and they bullied me more.
Dude one time I saw an anti bullying video that told the victims to just BE NICE TO THE BULLY. Like the bully was hurling insults and the victim was smiling and complimenting him. My first thought was about how much I hated the mere thought that this would work. My second thought was of how the people who came up with that method had clearly never been bullied.
Oof.
When I met my now wife at the age of 19, one of my coworkers said that it's very important to start at the bottom with presents and work your way up, she still has the socks I gave her on our first anniversary on the wall over our bed as a reminder...
I'm still trying to teach my boyfriend about good presents and bad presents. Biscuits from the supermarket = bad present. Cheap unbranded laptop battery from China as my only present = bad present (and only lasted 2 months). Anything off my 7-page wishlist = good present. It's literally a list of things I want to receive as presents.
Can tell you from experience that this is a bad idea.
Had a falling out with some friends. My husband recommended I reach out to an old friend who ghosted me suddenly in a manner that induced some pretty severe abandonment trauma. Went for it anyways because "it's been so long, surely they changed". Am now experiencing the same things as last time.
When you follow bad advice, it can lead to mistakes that you just can’t come back from.
Buying a house is tricky.
for sale dancing GIF by Lisa VertudachesGiphy"Buy a home now before the prices go up!" -my FIL in 2006.
We bought in 2007 and paid $259,500 for our 1,300 sq ft house (we really couldn't afford it and had an 80/20 so we had 8% interest for one loan and 6% on the other) and in 2008 it was worth $97,000 so refinancing wasn't even an option. We watched all of our neighbors walk away or get foreclosed on but we kept paying our bills and as of this very moment our house is worth $462,000. I'm so happy we stuck it out, we both worked our @sses off and the house will be paid off in 2 years.
It worked out for us, it's a horrible idea. Especially since 1300 sq ft houses are $460+k
My heartbreaks for future generations, I honestly don't know how people are going to afford housing in the future.
It’s there for a reason.
"Never apply for any government assistance."
Cue years of suffering trying to work full-time with a painful disability. Quit a particularly terrible job, and wanted to apply for food aid until I could find another gig; a friend with lots of DHS experience recommended I apply for Social Security "just to get in the system." Turns out my disability was bad enough to get accepted the first time, which I wasn't expecting. Really could've used that support, oh, the 30+ previous years of my life.
Credit is important to have.
I was told to not get a credit card until after college. I was super fortunate to have my college paid for so I had no loans, car paid in cash, no credit card or anything to start building credit. Found myself out in the world at 22 years old with a credit score of 0.
So while a lot of this bad advice came from trusted people, oftentimes they were too misinformed to give that advice in the first place. Don't trust the word of one person--do your research, and make decisions for yourself.
It'll be way better in the long run