The rules we follow growing up are often rooted in culture and circumstance, but that doesn't mean they always make sense for the world we live in.
Or at least they didn't as kids. Let's revisit and see if things make more sense as grown ups, shall we?
Reddit user WannabeWeeb asked:
What dumb rules did you parents have growing up?
And I'm not out here saying parents need to do better. As a parent, I totally get the idea of being a semi-functional mess... I'm just saying maybe let's talk some stuff out before we start enforcing things as rules?
Like, we see where you were GOOOOOOIIIIIIING there were just some failures of logic on the way there.
Experience
forbidden downton abbey GIFGiphy"I wasn't allowed to drive at night, or in the rain/snow, because I had no experience driving in those conditions."
"So until I got experience driving at night or in rain/snow, I was forbidden to do it. But I could never gain that experience because I was forbidden to do it."
"Logic was not always a parental strength." - fangfacekitty
Video Game Rules
Video Game GIF by sambmotionGiphy"Couldn't own a Call Of Duty game because I was shooting people. Halo was great because I was killing aliens." - Perriaction
"My mom actually had similar feelings. Resident Evil, while she didn't like it, was fine because it was obvious fiction. Military shooters were far worse because it's a realistic scenario of killing people, along with glorifying the military." - Hiro-Of-Shadows
No Food For You
Swedish Chef Cooking GIFGiphy"Never eat in any house except your own." - WiseOpinion47
"Glad I am not the only one that had to deal with this. My friends were always baffled when I would leave just because their mom started cooking."
"Dad's excuse was that my older brother supposedly would beg for food at his friends house when he didn't want to eat my mom's cooking. (He also pretended to be poor to con my aunt into buying him a designer coat so it's plausible)"
"Mom said she didn't care, but she was a health food nut and critical of what the other neighborhood mom's fed their kids." - ProfessionalBee137
Evil
Mermaid Man And Barnacle Boy Superhero GIF by SpongeBob SquarePantsGiphy"I had a friend whos parents were really religious, but only in certain ways."
"One of those ways was not using the certain words such as evil. We would go to his house and play Resident Evil, but every evil word had to be covered up. So we would often play 'Resident 4.' "
"They had a very large dvd collection of movies also, that all had words sharpied out and censored, but everyone was still allowed to watch the movies so it made no sense." - streetmitch
Twice A Week
eddie vedder clapping GIF by Pearl JamGiphy"In high school I wasn't allowed to wear 'shirts with words on them' more than twice a week."
"I liked to wear graphic tees and merch I bought at concerts. Mother viewed her kids as an extension of her rather than as individuals, so she tended to control us as much as she could as a means of improving her image."
"Letting me dress the way I wanted to dress twice a week was her version of a compromise." - raisethesong
Dealbreakers
The Goldbergs No GIF by ABC NetworkGiphy"My parents have a habit of making deals with me, and when I do my part, they completely change it to suit them."
"I was allowed to save up for a console a couple years ago by doing jobs, chores, etc. I was told that once I had the money, I would be allowed to buy it. Fast forward to a year and a bit later, I have the money for a Black Friday offer."
"I ask my mum if I can buy it, and she tells me no. 'You need to wait a few months to prove yourself.' Like wtf does that mean, I have to be 'worthy' of it?"
"I still managed to convince them, but I still wasn't allowed to play on it for another 2 months."
"Another example, I wanted to buy a lightsaber replica off Amazon with my own money. I was told if I saved up, my parents would buy a second one so I could play with a friend. I had the money, and I got my saber."
"But because my grades slipped a tiny bit, my parents took the lightsaber that I SAVE UP FOR off me and refused to buy me another. To this day I still don't have the second one because it sold out. So much for a deal. (And no, there was no mention of grades staying the same, etc)." - GodofMemes_Dank
The Fun Quota
Schitts Creek Comedy GIF by CBCGiphy"My parents had a fun quota. I couldn't have multiple fun days for a given week."
"A fun day was something like a friend coming over for a while or me getting to hang out with them." - spacexpurrp
"Disrespect"
You Will Not Cry Full Metal Jacket GIFGiphy"The main one was that dad didn't tolerate 'disrespect,' which sounds fine until you realize that 'disrespect' was just whatever set him off that time."
"So you'd walk into the room, he'd storm over yelling about 'disrespect,' and tell you to drop and give him 30, while he kicked and stepped on you until you were done. Then he'd ask you if you knew what you did wrong. Of course the answer was no, but if you said that you were 'playing dumb' so, you'd do more pushups, he'd kick you some more, and then he'd ask again."
"If you kept doing that, maybe he'd tell you what he was angry about at some point, but who knows? It wasn't worth it. He probably just didn't like your resting facial expression, or he had a bad day and decided you looked too happy, or something equally inane." - Aperture_T
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Male Family Members
chelsea peretti ew GIF by Brooklyn Nine-NineGiphy"No dresses, skirts, tank tops, sometimes even t-shirts if the sleeves weren't long enough, around any male family members."
"Shorts too, and pants that were too tight around the crotch area. Oh also only thick tights were allowed. Like you should not be able to even make out my skin tone through it if I stretched it out completely."
"... if you think my family members (including my brother and father) are going to look at your 10-year-old kid like that maybe it's they are the problem and not your daughter problem 😀" - ijustwanttobeloved2
Dad
Fathers Day Dad GIFGiphy"OH… my family had such weird family rules, here are a few:"
"That we couldn't leave the table without drinking a glass of milk first. No idea why."
"We had to complement our family one time a day"
"and if we ever lied my parents would force me to eat a piece of moldy bread. That last one was (maybe?) abuse. I've cut my dad out of my life."
"My dad was the one that made all the rules. He had a lot of control on my mom and she was too brainwashed by Him to notice." - Odd-Blackberry8216
Who Are You Hiding From?
arrested development hiding GIFGiphy"No strangers or friends are allowed to enter the main home."
"It doesn't matter if it's your best friend of forever. To hang out with friends or guests they have another place that's 6 miles away."
"It has a small garden. You can have a bbq, hang out, and play there. Everything from the post office is delivered there. But we don't sleep there."
"We can, but we don't use it as a home. No outsiders are allowed at the place we use as home." - MJohnVan
"Rebellion"
lion king disney GIFGiphy"My parents had this gigantic chest that hid the TV in the top part and had three drawers for movies in the bottom part."
"I was only allowed to watch the movies in the bottom 2 drawers. They were parental approved. They were filtered for subject matter, language, and even year they were made; 1939-1964. Those were the earliest and latest releases that I could watch."
"My parents were super religious and put me a very strict religious community of Southern Baptist - Christianity."
"If you listened non-classical music, you were marked as a bad person. Tattoos were part of devil worship, gays had no souls. If a girl showed her ankles it was risqué. There were families who couldn't watch The Lion King because they sang about 'The Circle of Life' and that was just too scandalous."
"Other kids who grew up 'rebelled' by having sex, drinking/doing drugs, and got tattoos. My rebellion was to watch every movie I could get my hands on."
"So, naturally, when I was 18 and went to college, somebody gave me their Netflix password. I started watching the Walking Dead. I had never seen effects or a story like that. It gave me nightmares for years." - Qu33nM4ry
Bad Luck
sad black and white GIFGiphy"Don't cut nails at night. Don't pet the cat when there's thunder."
"Don't rest your chin on your hand. Don't use piggy banks. Don't bite your nails..."
"It's a long list and the reason for all of it is because doing it is 'bad luck.' " - LowAd8109
The Filibuster
going off alex jones GIFGiphy"You're not allowed to leave the room while the parents are talking to you."
"I know that sounds like basic human decency, but you have to consider my father would keep ranting on and on about things, practically trapping everyone in the room with him as he did."
"If, during dinner or something, I asked to leave my parents would even spend literally half an hour lecturing me about how inappropriate it was to ask to leave at that moment, thus trapping me for 30 minutes after I had already indicated that I wanted to leave."
"I'm autistic and sensory overload is a real problem for me, so if I'm trying to leave and find a place where I can calm down and recover, trapping me by yelling what a bad person I am is not going to make it any better." - TheChosenSnail
Hopefully we've gotten some useful what NOT to do tips from these Reddit users and their confessions. Parenting is hard, but it's doable in a loving, logical, and non-abusive way.