22 Parents Who Enforced Household Rules That Were Either Super Strict, Extremely Bizarre, Or Downright Scary — Like, Practically Out-Of-A-Horror-Movie Scary
Recently, over on the Ask Reddit subreddit, u/SalMinellaOnYouTube posed the question, "What’s the most ridiculous rule you’ve heard someone have for their house/family/children?" The comments were filled to the brim with odd parenting decisions and super strict — or just weirdly specific — rules that people have witnessed. Here are some of the best (or worst, actually) responses:
1."I knew a guy who, in his 20s, still had a bedtime enforced. He had to be in bed by 8 p.m., and if he was sleeping over at a friend's house — in this case at my house during my 21st birthday party — he had to phone his dad at 8 p.m. to say he was going to bed (he didn't go to bed, though, at least)."
2."My ex father-in-law had a rule that once he sat down for a meal, only his wife and grown children could get him anything he needed from the kitchen. He would not stand up."
3."I have a friend whose dad had one paper towel specifically used for eating bagels. You couldn't reheat or eat your bagel on anything other than the bagel towel. No plates or bowls were allowed to be used for bagels. You had to wait until the bagel paper towel was free to make and eat your bagel."
4."When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time at my best friend’s house. Her mom wouldn’t let us drink more than one glass of water in the afternoon because she thought it would dilute the nutrients in our bodies. Instead, she would give us a 7 Up if we were thirsty. I ended up secretly drinking water out of the bathroom faucet every time I used the bathroom when I was thirsty at her house."
5."When I was younger, a friend said that we weren't allowed to watch SpongeBob. I found out later on that, allegedly, this was because the holes in SpongeBob induced lustful thoughts."
6."Some kids I knew had to call farts 'fluffs.'"
7."My friend’s grandfather wouldn’t let us drink the leftover cereal milk by bringing the bowl to our mouths. We had to finish it off with spoons. It took forever."
8."My friend’s parents ran a ‘tab’ for him and his brother. Over the years, they added up how much they spent on food, clothes, sports, etc. and told the two boys they'd have to eventually pay them back. I remember once we got yelled at for eating his dad’s snacks, and he added it to the tab. When they graduated, the parents ‘cleared the tab’ for their graduation gift, so basically, they got nothing other than a reminder of how much they cost."
9."My wife once had a friend over for a sleepover when she was little. Apparently, the friend had seen beer in the fridge and called her mum crying because of it. They were not allowed to look at, talk about, think about, or especially drink beer. It scared her so much that she called her mum to come get her."
10."I was 14 years old at a group sleepover. If any of us were on our periods, we had to give the dad the used sanitary products so he could burn them in the fire. Our showers were also timed, and the water would be shut off if we went over the allotted five minutes."
11."There was a kid in my neighborhood growing up that was not allowed to chew gum. He soaked a piece of leather in sugar water and chomped on that. His parents were some strange religious zealots. They would scream about the devil if you knocked on their door on Halloween night."
12."I was in a friend's kitchen — we were both 8 — I sneezed, then turned and took a paper towel from the roll, cleared my nose, and walked toward the cabinet under the sink to throw the wad into the trash bin. My friend burst out, 'WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!' I said, 'What? Throwing away the trash.' He continued, 'ARE YOU CRAZY?! SNOT PAPER DOESN'T GO IN THE KITCHEN TRASH! JESUS, WHAT IF MOM FOUND OUT?!' I'd already thrown it away, but he fished it out of the bin and flushed it down the toilet in under 10 seconds."
13."My stepmom had a totally bonkers rule about feet. She was irrationally afraid of plantar warts and, according to her, anyone she didn't know intimately had plantar warts. As a family, we had a beach house that was basically a small bungalow and only had one restroom with one stall shower. Nobody — no friends or relatives — could use that shower after the beach because they would get their plantar wart all over the floor and then she'd take a shower and get plantar warts. We also had a swimming pool, and she would make new people, including children, WEAR SOCKS IN THE SWIMMING POOL."
14."A friend's parents had a pool table. His mom decided to play with us one day, and gave us the house rules. She said, 'When it's someone's turn to shoot, I tell them. If someone gets ahead of me, they lose their turn. Everyone plays very hard, and in the end, I win.'"
15."A friend’s mom read that processed food was bad, so she wouldn’t let my friend use the food processor they got for Christmas. (I swear I’m not making that up.) Also, having once heard 'using the microwave' described as 'nuking the food,' no one was allowed into the kitchen while the microwave was running. You had to set the timer, hit start, and then run to the living room until it beeped."
16."My great uncle only allowed one bowl, one plate, one spoon, one fork, one knife, one cup, and one light bulb in his house. He was married with three kids. He ate first, then the wife, and then the kids by age. When he went to another room, the light bulb followed. He also bought everyone's clothes himself. I still feel bad for my cousins having to live through that. Oh, and guests were forced to get their own water from the well if they were thirsty — this was in the late '90s."
17."My friend had a 9 p.m. bedtime that was thoroughly enforced by her mom's creepy boyfriend. I stayed over once, not knowing about this. We had to be in bed, lights out by 9 'or else!' He sat outside the bedroom to make sure we didn't even talk to each other. I wasn't used to going to bed so early at 16 years old, so after about 45 minutes, I got up to pee. He interrogated me on what I was doing and told me I had three minutes to be back in bed 'or else!'"
"I never slept over again, but once she came to my house, and this dude drove by at 9:05 p.m. and saw my bedroom light was on. (Yes, he made her point out my bedroom window so he could check.) Then, he called my house and demanded my mom tell him why we weren't in bed. She lied and told him we were sleeping in the basement and she was cleaning my room. Then, she told him to leave pronto or she'd be calling the police on him for scoping out her kid's bedroom window."
18."When I was a kid, my best friend's mom wouldn't let us walk anywhere in the house except for on designated paths. Supposedly, she didn't want us messing up the vacuum trails left on the carpet after you vacuum. Basically, she wanted her house to always look like it had just been vacuumed. But the carpet looked even worse than it would have looked had she just let us walk everywhere since there were very visible trails leading to each room and to the couch and kitchen."
19."In my friend's mom's head, somehow the old wives tale of 'wait 30 minutes after you eat before going swimming' got conflated into 'wait 30 minutes after you eat before bathing or showering.' My friend was a fully formed adult before realizing that showering after eating wasn't a risk to her health."
20."When I was a kid, my friend had a sitting room with a couch and a love seat that nobody was ever allowed to sit on. You had to walk through it to get to the rest of the house, and it led to the kitchen and then the living room. If you sat on the furniture in the sitting room, my friend's mom would throw a fit. I always felt like it was such a waste, to have such a nice room and never use it. It would have been a perfect study room or reading room."
"My in-laws had the same room. The first time my husband sat on the couch (which had been there for the entirety of his memory) was when they were selling the furniture before moving. The even funnier part is that my in-laws built an extension onto their house so they'd have a 'TV room' instead of just using the formal sitting room that was never used by humans."
21."I babysat a family where the mom insisted on all food being chopped up as if it were being given to toddlers. Her kids were 6, 8, and 11 and were all fully capable of biting, chewing, and cutting up their own food for the most part. Once she found out that her husband and the kids weren't following the rule when she wasn't there, she put cameras in the kitchen to watch whenever someone was eating. Soon after the cameras went up, her and and her husband got a divorce over her behavior, and they all moved away. I wonder how the kids are these days."
22.And finally, "My sister-in-law forbade her two kids from covering their mouths when they coughed or sneezed, because she didn't want their hands or clothes to get dirty. The rest of us got sick a lot when we hung out with them."
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
