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Original poster

What made your parents paranoid when you were growing up?

139 replies

BeCraftyFatball · 19/04/2026 11:11

For myself -Danger when leaving the street

OP posts:
HappyHunting101 · 19/04/2026 11:47

My DM thought if I went on a school residential I wouldn't make it back alive. There had been a couple of horror stories in the news throughout her time as a parent to be fair.

BashfulClam · 19/04/2026 11:47

Getting pregnant! Well my brother got his girlfriend of two months up the duff and apparently that was all totally fine. I was told I’d be out the door and my mum said ‘I’ll break you back if you turn up pregnant!’

HelpMeGetThrough · 19/04/2026 11:39

As far as my mother was concerned, everything! “What will people think, what will the neighbours think?”.

Always judging others as well. She’s a complete snob, even at 83.

tsmainsqueeze · 19/04/2026 11:38

Nothing at all i think .
I'm not sure if that's a good thing , looking back i was given a tremendous amount of freedom from quite a young age, at about 8/9 i walked a fair distance to the next village where i then caught a bus into the next small town for a wander around then back home.
It was a different era but i am surprised i was allowed to do the things i did.
I was a lot more cautious with my own children.
My mom is an only one and once told me that her parents cautiousness and worry over her made her be less so with us.

thesnailandthewhale · 19/04/2026 11:33

Electricity pylons
Driving it’s the interior light on
using the landline before 6pm

Amiacoolorwarmcolour · 19/04/2026 11:33

That I shouldn’t go into a pub alone as ‘ women don’t do that.’
I was a very young child when I was told this.
That I must never, ever leave the house with so much as damp hair. This would lead to me catching a very serious cold and becoming extremely ill.

Ineedanewsofa · 19/04/2026 11:32

DM - other people’s opinions of our behaviour
DF - glue sniffing (he’d obviously watched that film we had to watch at school)
DM & DF equally - teenage pregnancy, to the extent I was 31, married and pregnant and still nervous to tell my folks 😂

merryhouse · 19/04/2026 11:29

on a lighter note, every time we had fish it became a family joke to say "mind the bones!"

merryhouse · 19/04/2026 11:28

Oh, and boyfriends.

When I did the maths and realised that
of my parents' 4+5 siblings, 4+1 got married due to a pregnancy
all 5 of those marriages ended in divorce (more or less acrimoniously)

...their attitude to their daughters' love lives made a bit more sense 😁

Weirdconditionaltense · 19/04/2026 11:23

Candles possibly...my mum wouldn't let us have candles in the house unless under Uber strict supervision..I think it's because she nursed a lot of burns victims so there is a reason behind it.

merryhouse · 19/04/2026 11:23

The ferris wheel.

I think there must have been a high-profile accident or something, because my dad refused to have anything to do with these gentle relaxing rides but was quite happy to let us go on the ones that whizzed round and round and up and down...

somuchbetterthanbefore · 19/04/2026 11:23

This reply has been withdrawn

This message has been withdrawn at the poster's request

AreThereSomewhereIslands · 19/04/2026 11:21

Railway lines, in the case of my dad. He frequently sat me down and recited:

Piggy on the railway picking up stones.
Along came a train and broke Piggy's bones.
Oh," said Piggy, "That's not fair!"
"Oh," said the engine driver, "I don't care!"

...I was FOUR YEARS OLD. We lived nowhere near a railway line and I wasn't even allowed out of the front door by myself! Focusing on this one dire danger made no sense at all.

Potooooooooes · 19/04/2026 11:16

Not paranoid about danger but paranoid about what other people might think. This was quite tiresome: no eating in the street, do not draw attention to yourself, downplay achievements (boasting being the Deadly Sin, or Vainglory) don't show off your knowledge, play card games to lose, on and on.