To ask what the strangest thing is that you've seen in a family home/life...

[purpleworms]

...that to them was completely normal?

I have just seen someone asked this on an AMA on their Instagram. Their reply was walking around fully naked in front of parents/siblings/any family members.

While this is obviously okay for some, if it happened in a home I was visiting I'd be but that's just because it's not the norm in my family.

I'm racking my brains but I don't think I've ever noticed anything! But people have such different ways/customs within their home lives and routines. We all regard our own as normal without ever really knowing if what's normal to us is strange to others!

At first I thought it was a joke, but he had an actual wicked stepmother. He wasn't allowed to speak in her presence or interact with the rest of the family. He ate in his room and his father would come into his room once a day to say hi. He couldn't speak to the baby brother.
I was so shocked at his miserable life that I told a teacher from his school, but the teacher already knew.

That's awful! That poor child.

My gran used to shake her head when learning that various neighbours with large families had yet another baby. And she would say things like - that man of hers needs to just leave her alone. Enough is enough.

I remember my mother commented just this when Cherie Blair announced she was pregnant with their youngest child following a miscarriage. She also muttered similar remarks when I told her I was having DC2, aged 35. I think in her mind sex is something revolting that must be undergone when only strictly necessary, certainly not over the age of 30 or for fun, that's disgusting. She's i n her mid 60s btw, not from the 1850s!

"she would say things like - that man of hers needs to just leave her alone. Enough is enough."

If you read The Gathering, your gran's words would make perfect sense.

My MiL used to clear plates away as other people were still eating, so if you were a slow eater (which I am compared to them) you would be left chomping away awkwardly by yourself with no other plates on the table.

Mr Schaden does this. It drives me crackers and I just can't get through to him how bloody bad mannered it is!

she would allow her children, age 3 and 5 to strip from waist down and openly masturbate no matter who was in the house. The children did this constantly

While masturbation is normal for almost all children, constant, or obsessive masturbation is a sign of disturbance (it's a way of self-comforting) - hardly surprising if she was so keen on physical punishment for minor misdemeanours.

It can also be a result of sexual abuse - an age-inappropriate obsession with sexual gratification. If she openly allowed this sort of behaviour (encouraged it by the sound of your post), I think sexual abuse was very likely.

Just remembered when I was about 20 a work colleague invited me to her house for a meal. Her mother had cooked the meal but when we all day at the table to eat her mum satunder the table with a dust pan and brush, ready to catch any crumbs. Her DM was extremely houseproud and they thought nothing of this. After dinner her DM came up to the table and ate whilst we spent about an hour cleaning the kitchen thoroughly; dishes washed, dried and put away, cooke r and microwave cleaned inside and then the kitchen hoovered. The DM kept going on about how women nowadays were so lazy and didn't keep on top of housework!

The DM kept going on about how women nowadays were so lazy and didn't keep on top of housework!

Guilty as charged!

I don't live in the UK now but always thought that the only place for a washing machine was in the kitchen. Where I live it's normal for it to be in the bathroom but I never liked that idea. Until we bought a house that didn't have space for it in the kitchen but the bathroom was perfectly kitted out to house the washer. It's the best thing! The bathroom is upstairs. The laundry baskets are upstairs. The balconies are upstairs. The wardrobes & chests of drawers are upstairs. Makes perfect sense to me now

RLABC, I once viewed a house where the washing machine was right there against the wall in the front hall near the stairs (?).

I wonder how they worked out the plumbing for that @Lady?

We went to see a house that had two teddy bears facing each other on every single step of the stairs, all along each side of every room and then huge ones in chairs in the bedrooms. When referencing it DH and I always call it the Nightmare House

I come from a vicar's family, in the East end if London in the 60s. We were really poor...But when I met and went to see my future She family, who were rich...private education, two homes, etc.. they had TWO rolls of toilet paper, one sort and the other, the old ITZAL hard, greaseproof paper type.
No one used it.. why??? This was in 1991

Junkmail I have cockroaches in my bedroom, too! In my defence, my gecko (who eats the roaches) is also in the bedroom.

I grew up in a family pretty relaxed about nudity too! I never really thought about it til I left home.

My parents are obsessed with light ‘spoiling’ stuff tbf they do have some very old family heirlooms like a 400 year old chest but that’s in full sunlight in the hall so it’s possible someone once told them that they should keep it away from direct sunlight. But for some reason that’s ignored and the very ordinary oak table has a layer of foam insulated stuff and two table cloths on it. The living room curtains are ermine shut so that the (again very ordinary) sofa won’t fade in the sunlight.

DYAC! The curtains are permanently shut! My parents do not have curtains made of ermine.

Our NDN was telling me recently that he still has the plastic wrapping on his 5-year old kitchen units so that any grease from cooking will not ruin them.

He also has all of his curtains and blinds shut all of the time.

Another neighbour has Christmas baubles hanging from the spokes of bicycle wheels in her window (all year round, not as a Christmas decoration). They do actually look nice but it is unusual.

My uncle and aunt collected antiques, and, well, anything. When my cousin took her family to stay there once her son remembers sleeping on a 5 foot high pile of newspapers.

In the bedroom there was a small aisle through to the bed and none of the stuff in the wardrobes had been worn in years as they had furniture in front of them. Actually, same in most rooms.

Bertiebots we only brushed our teeth at night time too when I was a kid

Hoping to perk this thread up again with a new comment! Loved reading through it

A family of 5 kids lived along our street.

The father was a controlling bastard. I was terrified of him- god knows how the kids who lived there under his roof felt.
I went over to play with my mate, the father and mother were eating a steak sitting at the table. Kids were told to get themselves food. Each one had a single unbuttered slice of white bread and TWENTY currants- no more, or the father would hit them. That was their main meal.

And another time the dad told the kids to get off the drive- but not very loudly, then reversed over his son. It was only 'to teach him a lesson'. Son then had to be rushed to hospital and was very ill for about a month.

All the kids left home asap. I recently got back in touch with my mate- she seems to have turned out OK, luckily. But all of kids are estranged from one another.

not seen it but the guy who has his robot love doll read stories to his kids at bed time (it has a family mode apparently).

I used to nanny for a couple who washed the skins of the fruit in the fruit bowl with soap and their —fat— cat had its own marble tiled bathroom and did all its toileting in the toilet. Very odd, but very nice.

An ex of mine from my early 20's used to walk into his parents home, fling himself down on their sofa and click his fingers in the air and demand "TEA MA!" whilst staring at the TV which was constantly on. Every time we went there without fail for 3 years. Poor woman was totally outnumbered with 3 sons and her DH.

The only other one I remember is an old work colleague who excitedly showed me her "genius" storage solution for bed sheets. She literally put them all on the bed at once, then stripped them off to wash! I was a bit as I assume you have to then rotate them - swap the most recent to the bottom? She said she did the same for the duvet covers, but only in winter