house rules

Bad Hostesses

"This is the strangest experience I’ve ever had at someone’s home. I worked with this young Cuban gal as a waitress while I was studying at University."

"She mentioned that her sister needed some help with Math in her Nursing program so I offered to go over and tutor."

"I knew it was a multi-generational house with parents, adult children, grandparents, great-grandparents and babies. When I arrived at the house, only the sister was home."

"She invited me in and started unloading the refrigerator of leftovers and asked if I would like to have some of this, some of that, etc."

"I was genuinely not hungry but she was super persistent and made us some food anyway. She offered me a drink, but I just wanted water. She made herself a Cuban coffee and insisted I have one too."

"Then my friend comes home, and looks at us studying. In front of me, I have snacks, water, and a coffee."

"She begins screaming at her sister in Spanish. I can barely make it out, but she’s mad that her sister didn’t offer me anything to drink or eat. I explained I wasn’t hungry and I had two drinks in front of me, but she was still mad at her sister."

"Their parents came home and they started yelling about the same thing and accusing their daughters of being bad hostesses! I felt bad, and I somehow allowed five drinks to served to me and so much food, I was stuffed for the rest of the day."

"The whole experience was a weird combination of feeling guilty or like I may have insulted them, but also feeling loved and appreciated."

"When my friend introduced me to her family, she introduced me as the woman that would carry all her trays at work while she was pregnant so she didn’t have to lift them. I can’t believe she had even remembered that. I hadn’t until she brought it up. They made me like an honored guest in their home."

- mydogdoesntcuddle

"I’m Cuban. Not offering food or drink to your guest is extremely rude and shameful. And we mean FOOD AND DRINK. Not little finger sandwiches and tea. This even extends to a maintenance person that comes by, or a mail carrier, etc. it’s like grandma culture on steroids."

"Additionally, our intrapersonal communication style is extremely loud and can seem aggressive to others, so they might not have actually been yelling at each other."

"My stepfather is a white American from NYC, and when he saw the way my mother and I spoke to each other when we first started living together he’d constantly be worried asking why we were fighting; we’d have to explain we weren’t fighting, just casually talking."

- Asleep_Sherbet_3013

A Lack of Reading Material

"I hung out with my college roommates' family around Christmas. There were NO books in the house, none. This was early aughts."

"She told me her parents didn't want challenging books in their house to make the kids feel stupid."

"Her parents were professors at our college in the EDUCATION department."

"She (my roommate) and her siblings were f**king stupid."

- angel_inthe_fire

"I have always had a ton of books in almost every room growing up. It came as a shock going to someone's home and NOT seeing a book anywhere."

- GeekyBookWorm87

Loving Families

"When I was a teen, I was genuinely shocked to see that other families actually loved each other and wanted to interact and say nice things to each other."

"I kept expecting it to turn dark, and when it didn’t, I had no idea what to do and felt completely ashamed and out of place."

- MTBeanerschnitzel

Far Too Strict

"As a kid, I visited some friends who had scary 'yes sir/no sir' fathers who were quick to use a belt on them."

"None of those guys turned out well as adults, I might add."

"The funny thing is, my dad was an Army platoon sergeant, yet he was a jovial and easy-going father."

- p38-lightning

Empty Plates Only

"My friend's parents would make them finish their meals, even if they said they were full."

"The meals looked huge to me, and my friend was overweight. It felt depressing."

"If I was full at home, I'd never be pressured to eat absolutely everything if I didn't want to."

- nightsofthesunkissed

An American Breakfast

"I'm a first-generation American (Asian). Due to TV cereal commercials while watching Saturday morning cartoons, I grew up believing that White people would simultaneously have a glass of milk and a glass of OJ in the morning (as part of this complete breakfast)."

"You can imagine my disappointment the day after sleepovers at friends' homes."

- cloudedarcher

"My mom (white) literally did this. I'm not sure if she got it from commercials or something else because she had a weird idea of nutrition on other stuff too, but literally every morning my breakfast included an eight-ounce glass of milk and a four-ounce glass of orange juice."

"The combination is actually terrible. OJ and milk don't mix well in your stomach and drinking them together always made me feel uncomfortable, but it was the kind of household where I got in trouble for not finishing the whole meal."

"A pretty common weekday morning breakfast was a bagel with cream cheese and jam on both halves, some sliced-up strawberries, milk, and OJ. It's way more food than I'd eat for breakfast on a typical day as an adult and I was often uncomfortably full from it as a kid."

- SeaworthySwarth

Not So Messy

"I was raised by two women (my mother and my dad's wife) whose notion of cleanliness was such that rooms were sterile and it looked to me like the point was to make it look like no one lived in our house."

"By contrast, I was used to being called and feeling like I was a 'messy' person because none of those things are priorities to me."

"The first time I went into the house of someone who was truly messy... I'm talking leftover candles from a birthday party that happened two weeks ago still on the dining-room table messy, basement so full of junk the notion of separate rooms has been made abstract... it rearranged the way I looked at myself a little."

- BananasPineapples05

The Importance of Snack Time

"I remember going to a friend’s house after school we sat at the kitchen island and her mom gave us apple wedges with peanut butter and they talked about school."

"I was blown away that her mom just gave out snacks and was interested in her life, I thought it was probably a special occasion since I was there."

"Then I experienced snacks at other friends’ houses."

"I told my mom about the apple wedges and peanut butter once and she screamed at me and said if I wanted a perfect family, why don’t I go live with them? She worked full time and I cooked pasta for my brother and me most nights, there was nothing resembling snacks in the house. We just had meals and drank water."

"As an adult, I have a snacking problem."

- yokizururu

...Excuse Me?

"Back in high school, I visited a friend's house and had to use the bathroom."

"I asked her where the toilet paper was in the bathroom and she said, 'We don't really wipe our butts in this house.'"

- Silent-Bird-4474

Always Say 'I Love You'

"People not saying 'I love you' before leaving or hanging up the phone. I was always taught to say 'I love you' to family before hanging up the phone or saying goodbye."

"You never know when your last goodbye will be so let the last thing you say to a loved one be 'I love you.'"

"A tradition I continue to practice to this day. Yet I think I was the only one who did that in my friend group."

- Herpypony

"My family never said I love you growing up. I asked my mom about it not long ago, and she said her dad never told her, so she didn't know to say it to her kids."

"One of my sisters started saying it, and making us say it, when we were in our 20s. It felt so awkward and weird to say it, but I forced myself. Now, 20 years later, we always say it to each other, and it feels normal. I should ask my sister about why and how she got the idea to start saying it to us."

"It seems so odd to me now that my parents never said I love you to me or my sisters growing up. They showed us, but never said it."

- Zaltara_The_Red

Run Away!

"When my friend's Russian grandmother chased me with a shoe and yelled at me in Russian."

"I didn’t know why she was angry but all my friend would say is that it had something to do with where I put my shoes when I entered the house."

- ArmyRepresentative88

An Awe-Inspiring Breakfast

"I went to the neighbor's house for breakfast one morning before the bus. We were good friends. She's Hindu, and her family is as well."

"It was a culture shock to see and smell the amazing food we had that morning. It wasn't the normal pancakes, eggs, and bacon for Americans."

"I think it was potato latkas with some delicious green spread. God, I wanted to eat all of it, and her mom was so happy I loved it."

"Never before in my life had I had such a different breakfast for me. It was shock and awe I experienced."

- Apprehensive-Skill34

Different Cultures, Different Accessories

"I’m an international student in the USA. I lived with my grand uncle for six months, and one of the cultural shocks that surprised me was that he had carpeted floors in his bathrooms. And also the lack of bidets in America."

- cassiemoonnana

A Kid's Dream

"I went to a friend's house at maybe age nine and was floored that she didn't share a bedroom with her little sister. On top of this, she also had a double bed and a small TV in her room hooked up to a PlayStation 2."

- LittleMsBlue

The Love of the Family

"I learned that other people's parents smiled at them, were nice to them, and seemed to enjoy having them around."

"I rarely experienced any of that. I thought everyone's parents were angry all the time and didn't like them much."

- t_portch

"I had a friend over recently and she thought it was necessary to tell our teenage son how lucky he was to have parents who love him (this was after a few beers)."

"I was kinda taken aback by the comment, given the realization that some parents don't dote on their kids, including my friend. Apparently some don't..."

- MainInTheMT

"Same. I had a best friend who was from Croatia. Her parents loved her and her brother so much, and they definitely weren’t afraid to show it."

"Her dad would hug her every night when he got home. It was absolutely shocking to me."

"I also would intentionally go to her house after school because her mom would have a FEAST waiting for us."

- NuriMoons

You never know what you're going to find before visiting someone else's home, from different decorations and food, to different beliefs about how a family should treat each other.

In a way, it's heartwarming to know that these Redditors were exposed to these different lifestyles, perhaps especially those who didn't know that families could show each other love, so they might have higher standards for their relationships in the future.