Weird household rules you had growing up.

[habibihabibi]

A number of odd rules but most memorable:
My mother did not allow us to sit ot lie on beds unless in our pj's ready to sleep.
Not allowed in bedrooms during the day unless poorly.
If we had friends over we had to play in the garden/playroom.
We were not permitted downstairs in pjs ever.
Straight from bath to bed and immediately washed and dressed on waking.

Hit me with your strange rules

Nowadays we’re told to keep our doors closed because in the event of a house fire. And depending how your dwelling was heated, perhaps by wood stove, or single heater, it may have seemed practical to leave the doors open to help keep the bedroom(s) warm. How times have changed.

Not allowed any toys advertised on TV.

Not allowed to use the word 'protestant', it was difficult to discuss my homework when my history lessons were on the Tudors.

Not allowed to leave the house if we had 'guests'.

I believe I had a strict up bringing compared to how some families live today
I live a more relaxed lifestyle now

No food or drink allowed upstairs ever

No helping yourself to food ever. Food was eaten together as a family at set times. No snacks in-between meals

No opening the lounge door or going into the lounge without an adult being present
This was adult territory

Adults choose all the TV programmes & had control of the one TV

Bedrooms were for sleeping at night or reading in bed before sleep
No lay ins or use of bedroom during day time ever

No wearing of night clothes during the day

No friends allowed in the house unless for a birthday party
No sleepovers

" And depending how your dwelling was heated, perhaps by wood stove, or single heater, it may have seemed practical to leave the doors open to help keep the bedroom(s) warm."

Yes, but I think in many of the examples above it was more of a control thing.

Oh. Neither of my children ever laid around all day in their pyjamas so it never occurred to me to forbid it. But now it's been mentioned, it would have irritated me a LOT.

I can relate to a lot of these rules and a lot of them were absolutely about control. My mum's DP was responsible for many of them but my mum was eager to gain his approval so was more than happy to enforce them.

We had:

• no more than 2 squares of paper per wipe. (This would be enforced by listening outside the door for the rattle of the loo roll holder).

• no sitting in the living room. You were expected to either stay in your bedroom or go outside.

• no complaining about the cold. If you did you were sent outside with no coat so that you could "see what real cold feels like.

• no dirty cups to be left in the sink. If you were in bed when a cup was discovered, you would be woken up in the middle of the night and made to come down to wash it.

• no taking part in school no-uniform days. You would still taking the money in (to show that it wasn't because we were too poor) but still wear uniform.

• no talking at the table. Only adults were allowed to talk.

• eat everything on your plate, even if you were full. Anything not eaten would be brought out again for the next meal until it was all gone.

There were many more but it would take a while to list them all. We also weren't allowed to close bedroom doors but that was more to do with my mum's DP's pervy ways than heating.

Needless to say, I have very little to do with my mum these days.

Lots of common ground
I'm pretty sure my mother chose my school on the fact it had the most Victorian uniform imaginable with horrible ankle length skirts.
I looked Amish compared to girls today, ( though that school still has long skirts)
No jeans - considered too American
No make up or nail varnish - tarty
No gymnastics ,tap or modern dance classes - common
No ear piercing( on bar with prostitution)
No going to Catholic boys balls

No bikinis
No hair colouring
No flip flops
No gum

Another one is the bath water was always reused . It was a common saying leave the bath water for me .
It was only when I moved in with dh and I said shall I save the bath water for you and he said no that's weird.

Weren’t allowed to have a glass of water and leave some on the side for later. Had to drink what you could and pour the rest away while being watched. Ridiculous. My kid has a sports bottle that I fill with juice and when it finishes she gets more, no need to down what she can and wait a decent amount of time before asking for more.

I wasn’t allowed to watch Grange Hill either! 😂

No Grange Hill or Eastenders (my mother was terrified I'd get a Sarf Laandan accent!)

Some of these are really quite sad.
I was rationed on crisps and chocolate biscuits, for good reason!

@Flippertybob Jesus Christ, that's horrendous.

I wasn’t allowed to use the computer. At 18, I was caught using the laptop so my mum and stepdad hid it. I didn’t have my own- it made college work quite difficult!

I was not allowed to touch a newspaper or magazine until my mum had read it. I didn’t realise this was odd until I took a magazine to school, my friend picked it up to flick through it, and everyone was amazed when I explained how rude she was

Although I was sometimes tolerated in the living room, it was forbidden for me to sit and watch TV with my mum after 9. Even at 18, as soon as 9 o’clock rolled around, I had to say good night and head up to my bedroom. That’s quite sad really, isn’t it?

@ScratchyMap that's really sad. At 18 me and mum were watching jackass on tv howling with laughter whilst I had a sneaky puff on her cigarette. Just makes me realise how good I had it.

No eating unless at the table.

I had this. Don’t think it’s a strange rule - very sensible to keep sticky messy small children and their food mess to the kitchen table! It was relaxed a bit when I was older.

No playing in school uniform ever

Again, sensible. Expensive kilt and shirt... why on earth wouldn’t you want your child to change into cheaper and easier to wash clothes as soon as you get home?

No helping yourself to food ever

Same, I had to ask but wasn’t ever denied food if I was hungry. Might have been denied a second kittcat or a snack just before dinner though!

I guess many of these which seem weird now were relatively common back in the day, as many of us experienced similar things.

I’m a child of the 60s. No eating or drinking in the street (terribly common) only BBC channels to be watched (mind you only 3 channels back then anyway)

Bedroom doors to be kept open. Though logically this was probably because pre central heating, the only source of heat was a coal fire in the living room so it made sense to try to spread the heat. When we were a little older we had electric pull cord heaters fitted in our bedrooms but use was strictly rationed due to cost.
Not allowed to play in schools uniform. Friends allowed for tea very rarely, and only in an organised way with invitation sent well in advance- no ad hoc play dates or friends dropping round which seems the norm now.

No snacking between meals. Again, this was perhaps partly because ‘snacky’ foods were far less prevalent than now. Meals had to be eaten at the table. No tv during meals.

Baths rationed and bath water shared. Hair wash once a week, no more.

Most of this seems very draconian now but I’m convinced a lot of it was normal as so many of us have related similar experiences

No boys staying over in your bedroom (probably wouldn't let me and DP share even now, as we're not married).

Have to go to Church on a Sunday. Only managed to break that rule in my 20s, and she really doesn't like it when I don't go and I'm staying at hers.

No swearing, smoking, drugs (told me she'd take me to the police if she found me with drugs).

@DNAwrangler my Nan insisted on getting dry before stepping on the bath mat! I still do this out of ingrained habit! 😂

I was never allowed to eat a whole Mars bar. Half a Mars bar was allowed as they were two rich for one person. Didn't have a whole one til I was married.

@userxx Oh that sounds wonderful! I’d have loved something like that. I didn’t realise my relationship with my mum was unusual until I was about 14. My friend had an argument with her boyfriend and told me she’d cried at home, so her mum gave her a cuddle and got her a blueberry muffin. I was astounded- that would never have happened in my house.

She’s never been cruel or unkind. I think she just didn’t really want children so we never bonded. The plus side is I had a lot of freedom because she didn’t mind what I did so long as I wasn’t in her way!

I grew up with zero rules. Could pretty much do anything. I actually hated it. Made me feel like no one gave a dam.

I've just had a chat with the dc (21 and 24) about whether I made rules when they were little. They have both said "we didn't have rules, we had expectations: be polite, say please and thank you, share, be agreeable, no ball games in the house". They also said expectations were good because there was nothing to break. I think they broke some mega boundaries. Smoking, drinking, not letting me know where they were, curfews, etc.

• No eating walnuts in the living room because the shells might ''cut the carpet''

You know it only occurred to me how odd this was when i told DH a few years ago. We laughed like drains. I'd spent a lot of adult life just accepting that one.

• No turning on a mobile phone while the car engine was running near it because it was bad for the car. Never properly explained ...