Things your parents did with you that annoyed you soooo much (light hearted)

[bodenbiscuit]

That you make a conscious effort to do it differently with your own children.

Mine is that my mother was terrible at coordinating my clothes. She made me wear odd socks, clothes that didn't match and black school shoes with party dresses. And her response was always 'who's going to notice?'. This infuriated me because when your clothes don't match, YOU notice and of course other people notice. Disclaimer: my parents were well off - they could easily afford coordinating outfits.

So as a result my own children always have perfectly matching outfits and I go to great lengths to make sure their party shoes match their dresses.

What's yours?

Took us on holidays where we were only allowed to do what they wanted to do, with the exception of one afternoon when it was the kids' choice. So 6.5 days of trailing around old castles, bored out of our brains; one afternoon of building sandcastles, splashing in the water, playing games, etc. Family holidays should be for everyone.

They kept the TV underneath a table which had a tablecloth on it and I had to ask to watch it and even then was only allowed 2 or 4 (apart from Blue Peter).

Also when in bad times money-wise (relatively speaking) they kept me in private school even though it meant they struggled to put decent food on the table. That made me feel really guilty.

I had brown bread sandwiches with tuna for packed lunch most days. A treat was a hob nob ( not even a chocolate one ) I was so envious of other kids packed lunches . One year my mum paid for school dinners , it was amazing

Love a good tuna sandwich on granary now of course

God, loads!

Was always late picking me up from primary school, I used to stand crying alone waiting for her

Wore embarrassing 'old lady' style hats

Shouted and ranted at me for hours when I was naughty. Just when I thought she'd calmed down, she'd come into my room and start shouting again

Dressed me in 'beautifully cut' French children's clothes when I was about 10-13. Of course I wanted cheap trendy clothes

My dad always told me I was fat, shouldn't be eating that biscuit, how awful I looked in anything remotely figure hugging..

I tell ds and dd everyday that they are beautiful, pretty, how lovely they look.. (Obviously among thousands of other compliments of funny and clever and wonderful and strong and kind...)

My very dgm was houseproud and a good cook and baker so my not so DM didn't cook or clean, we lived in squalor , I remember sleeping in a urine soaked bed for days or weeks , she really was awful.
My dsis and I are both good cooks and keep our homes to a normal state of cleanliness.

I was never allowed to give up anything, which doesn't sound like that much of a hardship but I literally did all the things that you take up as a child until I was 18. Years and years of hated piano and dance lessons that I dreaded from the moment I'd finished one week until it came round the next. Ugh.

I still have no idea why - it's not like I was any good whatsoever so there was certainly no nurturing talent element to it. It would apparently be a huge shame on the family if you gave up something.

I will happily admit that I am very bitter about it.

Mine used to check my thank you letters. I didn't have a problem writing them (didn't enjoy it much but appreciated it was polite to do so, without restarting another MN favourite thread topic!). But she'd check how much I'd written and whether it was in my very besthandwriting. AAAGH!

The other thing was insisting that I had to dry the dishes. What's wrong with using the drainer?

the difference in the way my brothers were allowed to behave, and me. They could yell and run about, I had to 'stop that screeching' and not get my clothes dirty (1960s).

"If you start, you have to finish" regarding joining clubs or teams, if they were going to pay out, they were going to get their money's worth. It sounds like a good way to teach committment, but in reality it taught me not to ever start, and that you cant even quit when you ought to (a really bad marriage, or leaving a bad job.)

Conversely, NOT being allowed to signup for things I wanted to do. Everything I was most interested in either didnt suit the existing after school rounds (dictated by one brothers sports mania), were too far away, didnt suit my parents view of what I should be interested in. Or cost too much, though I was a teen before i really though to compare those fees to the money spent on fees for sports mad brothers ongoing sequence of different sports seasons.

The non-sports crazy brother shares resentment in this. Basically, we could try anything we wanted, so long as it was pretty much at the sports complex. But anything we did try, we couldnt decide we didnt like it. The brothes younger than sports mad brother were happy to follow him like ducklings. Older DB and I read and did our homework waiting.

Guess which sibling grew up to be an alcoholic druggie?

My parents were real atheists and anti royalists so dsis and I weren't allowed to join the brownies, which of course made me mad to do so I joined on my own but was surprised that we had to dance round a toadstool like fairies as well as pledge allegiance to the queen, I lasted 2 weeks!

Also I went to church I wasn't impressed. We didn't even have one telly; that pissed us off for years, because we didn't know what cowboy and Indian games were about. Of course the parents were pacifists as well.

I bought our dcs up to have choices about religion and other things and now ds is religious but is a Hindu, so he chose eventually.

Can you tell I was a child of the 50s. They never hit us though. Which most other parents and schools did, dcs were real 2nd class citizens then.

My dad was ridiculously cheerful in the morning, he would put the radio on and dance, and tease me. I found this incredibly annoying but looking back I admire his persistence in the face of a very pale, miserable teenager! I won't to that to my kids, but no doubt will commit some other sin.

Not my mum, but DP's mum and dad wouldn't let him watch Tiswas but tried to force him to watch I, Claudius at the age of eight.

Makes me laugh every time I think of it.

Yes perfectlybroken You can't win with dcs. Whatever you do .

When I was small and grumpy they'd tell me it was because I was tired which used to really wind me up!

When my DC were small and grumpy it was often because they were tired... I had a real lightbulb moment one day. I took great pleasure in pointing out to them that they were tired in order to continue the tradition and because I am evil.

muminhants1 Ah yes, drying the dishes! The only job that does itself if you leave it.

I wasn't allowed a Ken doll to go with my Barbie in case I pretended they were having sex!

My parents were generally ok. Every now and then though, they'd decide something or other was happening, and state that was that, no explanations.

One time they suddenly decreed that we (bro and i) were going to learn a martial art. Except we weren't allowed to tell anyone we were doing it in case it made them want to fight us. Cue years of secret judo lessons and very strange parentally-arranged fights between me and DB in the living room. Weird.

Aged about 12, they took us to the garden centre around Christmas time. On the way they said that DB and I were each going to buy a Christmas decoration for the tree. With our own paper round money. We bought the cheapest, nastiest ones we could and they are still on the tree now

When I was 9 they decided we needed toughening up and made us watch Silence of the Lambs. They were normally sensible so wtf possessed them I don't know. No one slept properly for weeks.

My mother wouldn't let me wear jeans. She thought they were unsuitable in some way. I didn't own a pair of jeans until I was 16 and my unwitting father took me shopping for clothes. Ha!

My kids live in jeans.

I wanted to shop in Etam and Tammy but everything was from M&S. Even as a teenager!

Family "get togethers" were always excruciating for me being Aspie (undiagnosed then) and painfully shy. My mum used to give me a G&T to get me out the door at 14 (the 70's).

I wanted to follow a very different vocation and my mother flatly refused. I needed her permission so, never did "do it". Am now 53 so too old!

Oooh good lord, where to start?

-No Tv that wasn't educational
-No crisps or chocolate apart from on special occasions
-No branded clothes
-No My Little Pony (DM didn't like them: luckily a rogue aunt bought me one for Christmas )

In retrospect the 'no junk food' thing has left me with a love of healthy food that's actually a really good thing, but I won't be as fanatical about any of the above as my parents were.

My dad used to wear jesus sandals with socks.

And they used to make me go for walks. For fun.

Terrible they were I tell you :-)

My mum said Mr Frostee was disgustingly unhygienic and wouldn't have one in the house.
Girls world = "for God's sake squizita it's a disembodied head. Revolting. Like something from silence of the lambs." Also vetoed.

Oh, and we were vegetarian. At a time when no-one else in the world* was vegetarian. Leading to me being a giant freak in the school lunch hall, esp owing to having a handful of pissing raisins rather than a Wagon Wheel like everyone else because of the aforementioned junk food ban.

I later went on to choose to be veggie for a further 7 years

*at least that's what it felt like

Shokolade your parents sound hilarious! Like they talked themselves into bizarre methods of raising some sort of undercover secret agents. Secret martial arts tournaments, toughening you up with Silence of the Lambs. I'm crying laughing

God. Where to start?

Irish Birthdays, as they were called in our house. The idea is YOU give the presents on your birthday. Try explaining this concept to an 8 year old.

Educational presents at Christmas. I wanted a Sindy wardrobe. I got a full set of Encyclopedia Brittanica.

No telly.

Short hair-cut and boys clothes (I was brought up by my Dad). I used to pretend I was ill so I didn't have to go to my friends' birthday parties.

My Dad's unfortunate habit of skinny dipping when on holiday - on crowded beaches. It's not the 60s any more Dad!

I could go on.