Rules you had in your childhood that now seem bizarre?

[Tattted]

As a child/teen living with my parents we were actively discouraged from showering/bathing everyday. It was really frowned upon and seen as unnecessary and probably a bit extravagant. I know probably as a young child I didn’t need to but as I got older and even after I turned 18 and was still living at home they would have been a bit annoyed about it if I wanted to shower everyday . I should say where we live has no water charges so it wasn’t about that. Now as an adult and a mother myself it seems so strange. I realise it’s probably because my parents both came from large families that had very little money and, back then, no hot running water. Even know my parents bath weekly but sink wash every day.

Only prostitutes wear purple or black and white together
Bathing with a period will send you into a coma
ITV is only for people in council houses....

My grandma said that about elbows. Families with a lot of children were common and there wasn't a lot of space around the table.

[quote TwoLeftSocksWithHoles]@WiddlinDiddlin

Parents were born in 41 and 43...but fairly old when they had us (80/81)

Gosh that is really old, I can't image starting a family when you're in your eighties. That's quite impressive - in a number of ways![/quote]
Thats the year they had us... not how old they were! That would be guiness book of records stuff!

If you ran around /exercised/ jumped or even moved faster than a slow walk straight after eating you would instantly 'be sick'
My Mum still tries, to this day, to enforce this rule on my DC - one day I reminded her, that never in my living memory, have either myself or my DB been sick after 'running around too much' nor have my DC - she laughed.

[quote catwomando]@AutomaticMoon "red shoes means no knickers " [/quote]
😂 Oh dear! I used to have a pair of bright red boots, how unbecoming of me 🤭

@Ameanstreakamilewide I’m from Eastern Europe and we have the same superstition about knife dropping! If it’s a spoon, it’s a woman coming. Right palm itches, you’re coming into money. Left hand, you’re losing money.

We did, & still do, the pillowcase for "stocking" presents from Father Christmas.

@Nc123

Practically everything was “common”. I hate this attitude.

I wasn’t allowed to speak with the local accent and my speech was relentlessly picked over and corrected till I sounded sufficiently middle class, then I went to school where my speech was relentlessly picked over for not sounding like everyone else, so I was horribly bullied.

No high heels. Nothing that showed cleavage or midriff though very short skirts were considered acceptable.

No being upstairs with a boy until I left home at 18.

An absolute ban on any nights out, dates etc till my sixteenth birthday. Then it was completely fine and I could do whatever I wanted outside the house. Only because they’d been so ludicrously strict I had no idea how to manage myself as an adult and did silly, risky things more or less constantly for years.

My parents had a similar attitude to 'boys' and where I was allowed to go/how long I could stay out even until my very late teens. I remember the same Summer that I went to University they insisted on speaking to friends' parents to check if I said I was staying with them, banned me from going on a weekend away with a mixed sex group of friends and would randomly drop in on some pretext (usually supposedly forgotten items) to check I was where I said I would be. As you can imagine we had lots of arguments and their attitude was that whilst I was still living with them people would blame/judge them for anything that happened to me (their main fear was pregnancy) but once I left home everyone would know that they weren't resposible.

My Dad would unplug TV every night. Religious about it. Fire risk he would say. Nothing else just the telly.
Oh and waiting 3 whole hours at the beach after eating before going swimming. And not really swimming even just a paddle and a splash about. On pain of death.
Another one - this was Mum - eating an apple quarter to clean your teeth. I think this was probably just easier than supervising toothbrushing for 3 young children at bedtime

Not allowed black mascara, only clear
Not allowed any other makeup except a dot of concealer on spots - after much begging!
Not allowed to shave my legs - only dye the hair blonde (wth!) which definitely made it invisible
Not allowed to dye my head hair at all.
Not allowed to pluck eyebrows - despite the monobrow (I'm very dark-haired, everywhere!)
Not allowed to get ears pierced
Not allowed anklets

Had to eat everything on my plate
Had to ask to get down from the table
No snacks in between meals at all.
No ice creams from ice cream van etc.
Had to call parents Mummy and Daddy until mid teens at least.
Not allowed to sit in front seat of car.
Not allowed a tv in bedroom until I was 16.

In fact, all of these rules prevailed until the age of 16 at least.
My younger DB was allowed to do exactly as he pleased, of course.

Practically everything was “common”. I hate this attitude. I wasn’t allowed to speak with the local accent and my speech was relentlessly picked over and corrected till I sounded sufficiently middle class.

The funny thing about this is that there's nothing that shouts 'We're not middle class but want to be' more than banging on about things being 'common'!

Some of these are crazy but others are downright heartbreaking

I was born in 1972. My mum had been widowed young and brought me up alone. She couldn't really cope, didn't put rules or boundaries in place and she thought of me as her companion from a young age.

I regularly had time off school, my attendance was probably around 60%. She just didn't care that went every day or couldn't be bothered to get up.

I watched a LOT of telly and nothing was banned. Saturday morning TV every week (I had a TV in my bedroom) and I pretty much watched what I liked (including the notorious Bouquet of Barbed Wire mentioned upthread).

My mum wasn't too bothered about healthy eating. She generally made a home cooked meal every night but I had chocolate every day, cakes, huge brownies from the Waitrose bakery.

But I don't think this lack of rules made me happy at all. I remember talking to friends and they said they 'weren't allowed' to do such and such. I don't think there was anything I wasn't allowed to do and I started to wonder why. Even at 8 or 9 I wondered if their parents cared more than mine. Just goes to show that children feel safe with boundaries.

I’d forgotten the endless Sticky Backed Plastic requests.

We had to try to replicate the effect with roll ends of wallpaper or recycled wrapping paper, and flour-and-water-paste.

Messy but ok when lining card board boxes to make dolls houses. Not so great when covering yoghurt pots to make Thunderbirds.

When I was growing up you called your friend's parents Mr or Mrs [their surname] and never their first name. Actually I tell a lie my friends mum desperately wanted us to call her by her first name but she was the exception (I didn't though). I was always told it was impertinent by my parents.

Also, we weren't allowed to leave the table after a meal until permitted even as teenagers. I actually miss this one and have tried to impose it in my home but my DSD wasn't told about this so a precedent had been set before I appeared.

@justasking111
absolutelynotfabulous
For those not able to read Enid Blyton, what was the rationale? (I remember she was somewhat frowned upon for a while but could never understand why).

Too middle class with the lashings of ginger beer, daddy a scientist, mummy away so cook organised picnic food. Their names too middle class.

Well that's a reason I haven't heard before 😂

Ww weren't allowed to red them yet our father was a scientist and our names not dissimilar to those in some in Famous Five.

The reason given to us that the quality of writing was poor. The more widely held view was that the books were racist and sexist. Which is true, but they also had the magical ingredient of children being in their own world tearing through life unimpeded by grown ups.

@bendmeoverbackwards

Some of these are crazy but others are downright heartbreaking

I was born in 1972. My mum had been widowed young and brought me up alone. She couldn't really cope, didn't put rules or boundaries in place and she thought of me as her companion from a young age.

I regularly had time off school, my attendance was probably around 60%. She just didn't care that went every day or couldn't be bothered to get up.

I watched a LOT of telly and nothing was banned. Saturday morning TV every week (I had a TV in my bedroom) and I pretty much watched what I liked (including the notorious Bouquet of Barbed Wire mentioned upthread).

My mum wasn't too bothered about healthy eating. She generally made a home cooked meal every night but I had chocolate every day, cakes, huge brownies from the Waitrose bakery.

But I don't think this lack of rules made me happy at all. I remember talking to friends and they said they 'weren't allowed' to do such and such. I don't think there was anything I wasn't allowed to do and I started to wonder why. Even at 8 or 9 I wondered if their parents cared more than mine. Just goes to show that children feel safe with boundaries.

This is the post I relate to most. My mum got remarried when I was 6, had my stepbrother at 9 and didn't have the time or inclination to 'parent' me. I was a quiet, shy child and looking back was probably suffering from depression.

@timestheyarechanging

Oh, and we (my sister and I) we allowed to chose sweets from the six o clock shop on a Sunday. I ate mine so quickly and my sister didn't / 40 yrs on we still talk about this ! We used to get my mum nougat! And we were allowed to get Fizzy drink from Sainsbury's on a Friday eve when they did a good shop. Top Deck shandy for me!

We had ‘ Friday bars’ , could choose a bar from high up cupboard after school on Friday😁

@user1471554720

That sounds likely a very miserable upbringing. 💐 The thing about having to ask for fresh underwear is so cruel and demeaning 😞

Do you think your mother is/was unwell?

We didn't receive pocket money in the usual way. Once a month on a Friday evening, Dad would sit at his desk and write each of us a cheque for the month 😆

My mother thought that drs were gods. Subsequently we were told not to tell the gp what we thought was the problem. We were to give them symptoms only. It was their job to diagnose, not ours. To even hint at a diagnosis would cause great offence. Apparently.
When I became a hospital social worker and spent most of my career on ward rounds and chatting with drs, she had a touch of the vapours at the sheer impertinence of it.

We weren’t allowed to lie down on the sofa unless we were ill and when we went out to play we had to stay out, we weren’t allowed to come in and out as we pleased so it was either in or out.

My sisters and I had to make all the cups of tea for our parents (they usually had one an hour) and we had to stop whatever we doing to make it.
Once I was in my bedroom doing coursework for my GCSE's and walked past the kitchen and upstairs to tell me to make him a cup of tea. When I asked him if he could do it I got a real dressing down.

I'm 32 and still hate making cups of tea.

My sisters and I had to make all the cups of tea for our parents

I had to do this and they drank so much tea! The amount of times it wasn’t strong enough and had to redo it as well.
In my 30s now and I hate tea, the smell makes me gag.

I was born in the mid 50s and my parents were born in the 30s.

I was wrapped up in so many layers I must have been like a sausage - vest, liberty bodice , winceyette petticoat (hand sewn by mum) blouse, pinafore dress and cardigan - oh and a coat. Dad used to say "Ne're cast a clout till May be out" which he took to mean that I had to wear all this until June! Then someone told him it meant the May blossom, which only improved things a bit. Sometimes I was let off with the coat - and of course I took the cardi off at school, but it felt horribly confining. My brother didn't have to wear a liberty bodice or petticoat though.

They really really wanted me always to have short hair - which would be fine, except in the days before straighteners and blow drying my frizzy hair would stick out at the sides like Krusty the clown. I used to find it mortifying yet they used to declare it looked nice. I am now convinced it was to stop any interest shown to me by boys. (I went to a single sex school though.) Eventually they couldn't really drag me to the hairdresser so I just let it grow out.

Apart from that I was allowed to have baths and wash my hair when I liked, read what I liked (from the library) not a lot of clothes because I mostly wore uniform and didn't go out much but there was always plenty of uniform - clean shirt / underwear / socks every day and a couple of jumpers. Mum was quick to get me in a bra (age 10) because I developed early and she wasn't allowed one until she was 16! But they delayed me having makeup and stockings / tights as long as they could.

We were warm, well-fed and comfortable though - and loved, not like a lot of pp alas.

had to ask permission to listen to music. Seemed bizarre but i guess the music i liked was properly annoying (and i would play it over and over).