sorry.
i'm not allowed to post. my mom won't let me. i'm 34.
( bierbelly, Sun 11 Mar 2007, 20:21, Reply)

Nothing major...
I think my Dad was/is terrified I'd get heavily into Politics. I was not allowed to watch "Citizen Smith" as a kid (my nan grassed me up once when I tried to sneak a look. The Witch), and when "The Young Ones" was on, watching it was fine, but if I called anyone a "Fascist" (as Rik Mayall did) he'd get very upset and say "One day you will say that to a commie and he'll bop you on the nose". He also had a thing about me not joining political social groups "to use the pool tables" (I dont much like it anyway). I dont get where this political worry came from - Im not aware of anyone in our family coming a cropper or anything. Odd.
Other than that my folks are cool. I could watch ITV (is that a good thing ?), my love of Heavy metal was never repressed (beyond the occasional comment about "Cant they sing about something nice for once"), my passion for military stuff was encouraged...odd.
(kitescreech still here, Sun 11 Mar 2007, 20:21, Reply)

Not very Strict
I think the toughest my mother ever got with me was either when she told me she'd only buy me one bottle of smifnoff for my 16th birthday or when later that month she insisted I go to the doctors to be put on birth control.

I miss you mummy :-)
(kitnel it's probaby infectious, Sun 11 Mar 2007, 20:16, Reply)

Will Smith? Pah
My Mum Wouldnt let me watch Men In Black when i was 14!!!!!!!
(EvelcyclopS, Sun 11 Mar 2007, 20:07, Reply)

Card shock
My Dad was convinced that the Joker in a deck of cards was in some way evil, and he would burn them. Until that otherwise uneventful Xmas when, demonstrating his belief, he inadvertently set fire to his beard.
(Borusa's Weetabix, Sun 11 Mar 2007, 20:05, Reply)

Violence on TV
My friend wasn't allowed to watch Gladiators on a saturday night because it was 'too violent'. No wonder he turned out to be a twat.

Edit: Just read timewasterboy's post about Gladiators below, this is nothing to do with him!
(valdonia, Sun 11 Mar 2007, 20:01, Reply)

Not as bad as some but...
When I was a kid my parents were a bit weird. I've later discovered this had a lot to do with my father as when he died my mother became a lot more sociable, but nonetheless, it was a bit of a shit time for me when i was a kid. I don't blame my father, looking at his parents it's a wonder he turned out as well as he did...
So, onto my parents strictness...
Obviously being the older brother, my sister got away with everything. Whenever she screeched, I was punished regardless of if she'd actually caused the issue or was at fault.
I used to be allowed out to ride my bike, but had to be back within x number of minutes, and initially was only allowed round the block, without crossing any roads. This eventually grew to a couple of blocks and a couple of hours, but was never trusted with my own key till I was older! I always had to have a safety helmet on too...
Food was pretty much rationed, no snacks between meals, and dinner was a 7pm sharp every weekend. Bedtimes were early I remember, can't remember the specifics, but being a night owl and book worm i used to sit up reading, and my father would look up from the hall below and see if my light was shining under the door, forcing me to read below the covers with torches, which has fucked my vision up i reckon!
Oh, god, the list just goes on and on, but it's mainly the whole not encouraging me to be friends with others, "not bothering other people" i think was the way they put it... which led to me being bullied and having fairly poor self-esteem.
I was also smacked regularly until I got big enough to smack back, at which point I eyeballed my dad and said "you're not going to smack me, cos i'll smack you back". An empass was reached, and he found another way to punish me. No food that weekend... Luckily my mum sneaked me meals hehe!
I also wasn't allowed to go down to the cellar on my own or use the tools, though I was allowed my own soldering iron and to build my own burglar alarm. I wasn't allowed a lock on my door either, and they used to lock me in my room if i'd been bad! This was usually after the spanking. Of course, taking the lock apart and removing the springs meant that i could push the bolt back using a flat cut key that I kept handy, or just turning the key on the outside with a pair of needle nosed pliers got me out when i needed to. Used to confuse the hell out of them when I was supposed to be locked in and came wandering past them a few minutes later...
( Alex Save a Tree, Eat a Beaver!, Sun 11 Mar 2007, 19:04, Reply)

Neighbours From Hell
Shortly after moving house my parents started getting very friendly with the neighbours. No surprise there really, they were roughly the same age and the neighbours also had two sons. These two sons were a couple of years older than me and my brother so we never really hung out with them, but we'd heard from the other neighbourhood kids that their mum was strict to the point of being bizarre. The one that always stuck in my mind was that they made their own food when they got in from school but it could only ever be sandwiches. The reason for this? Their mother 'didn't want to be met by smells as she came in the front door'!

Pretty soon our parents were taking it in turns going to each other's house once a week for dinner. One night when I was about 13, my parents came home from one such dinner party and announced that they'd been talking about the rules of the house next door and thought they should introduce them here. I groaned, full of visions of living on sandwiches forever, but no, a different rule had caught their attention. The sons next door could only ever have one friend in at a time. Now this may not sound too bad and might make me seem a bit spoilt but at that age me and my mates always seemed to hang around in clumps of three. It wasn't as if I was filling their house every night or anything. From now on, however, every time we headed to my house I had to pick one friend and tell the other one to go home! It was horrible. Even worse was the fact that none of my friends believed that such a stupid rule could even exist and that I was just being an arse. In the space of about a month the rule was no longer necessary as I had no bloody friends left.

I fucking hated that woman from then on. I'm pretty sure she had a house rule about no one pissing through their letterbox while they were away on holiday. Didn't bloody stop me though. Bitch.
( Gleeballs is mostly made out of chocolate and hate., Sun 11 Mar 2007, 18:44, Reply)

My parents were ok.
They told me I wasn't allowed a car until I'd spent some time on a motorbike to make me more aware.

:)
(TheHorseWithSteelFrame Self-referencing comment in the third person, Sun 11 Mar 2007, 18:22, Reply)

Orange juice is my vice
From the age of 10 I was banned from drinking more than half a glass of orange juice a day. I have absolutely no idea what made mum do this, but I suspect it was some loopy diet fad. Cue many years of sneaking in cartons of JustJuice from the corner shop, and creeping into my sister's room at night to take forbidden sips of that gorgeous orange loveliness. Needless to say I drink gallons of the stuff now. Hmm, maybe it was all a ploy to stop me getting rickets...?
(bonjelafiend, Sun 11 Mar 2007, 18:09, Reply)

my mum
was a bit mad, religious, fire and brimstone type. used to beat me, lock me under the stairs to pray for my sins. when i went to my prom i went a bit crazy and somethings happened, then i went home and killed mum.
Oh, that was carrie
:( my parents were dull, i could do anything, even have sex with men
(ZZ, Sun 11 Mar 2007, 18:04, Reply)

Oh my God...
I thought my parents were bad for strictness and so on, but reading some people's stories I feel as if I've been raised in some kind of laid-back, organic hippie commune. Yeah my stories kind of suck now, but here we go...

Just to set the scene, I lived in a tiny, wee little village, that contained nothing but a few houses and farms etc. Not even a tiny shop. Very, very sleepy and quiet.
My mother decided that I was not allowed to stay alone in the house, even for a minute, until I was 14 or so, because "it was illegal and if anything happens to you while we are out, people will think I'm a bad mother and I'll have to go to prison because it is ILLEGAL!" so when my dad went over to his mother's house every day (like he still does...creepy, I know), which was just down the road, about 50 yards away, I would have to go with him if my mum was out. They both worked full time, and so every school holiday I would spend at my nan's house, within phone-hearing distance from my actual house and all the semi-amusing crap that it contained, and so I would be bored shitless in an old lady's house.
For pretty much the same reason, I was also not allowed to wait for the school bus directly outside my house alone, so my mum would stand with me (great, yeah cheers for that), waving at the other kids on the bus, until I was 16, and had obviously left school. I can't believe I'm laughing at this now btw, or that I put up with it then. Also, I'd have to go to my nan's house after getting off the school bus and spend about 3 hours there every day, until my dad came home from work at around half 5, and walked me the 50 yards back to our house. For fuck's sake, is there even time for me to be kidnapped/molested/shot in the 30 seconds or so it took to walk between the two houses?

When she found out that I was having sex with my boyfriend when I was 16, she was so angry (oh yeah...she has problems controlling her anger, i.e. she doesn't) that with her constant rage and guilt-trips, which lasted about a year, she managed to fall out with one of her close friends and her daughter, who is my best friend, just because I went to her house to escape the fury of the mothership and they got some of the fallout when she drove there to come drag me back home, also (according to my counsellor), she probably caused the obsessive neurotic disorder (cleaning and germs and crap) which I had for about two years. Thanks mum.
*sometime in the future*
"hello, is that the shady shitters fecal rest-home for the old and shitty? Yes, thats right, I'll deliver my aging mother to you on monday. She has a bit of a bad temper, so you might want to go ahead and crush up some some sedatives in her old people feeding mush. Thank you... bye!"
(Ryuken-Kai, Sun 11 Mar 2007, 17:57, Reply)

My Dear Mother
IS A SAINT
( The Baroness The Harlot Pimpernel, Sun 11 Mar 2007, 17:25, Reply)

Gladiators
My parents weren't all that strict, just classic liberal do-gooder parents. But they didn't like violence. Really didn't like violence. And whilst they found it easy enough to keep me and my bro from watching most of the naughty films that were on late, there was one consistent challenge to their authority.

Gladiators.

It was on too early, so we knew it was there. It was on every week, and every other bugger at school always watched it. It had a referee with a silly accent that made my dad laugh, so he figured we should probably be allowed to watch it.

Eventually, my mum cracked. Me and my brother settled down to see what all the excitement was about. It. Was. Brilliant. By the time the first adbreak came on we were both pretty hyped.

At that point my mum walked in to find me and my brother, both stood on the coffee table, both holding long circular cushions, and both beating the living shit out of each other with them in a great impression of our favourite Gladiators. We never did get to watch it again after that.
(timewasterboy now with added wastage, Sun 11 Mar 2007, 17:18, Reply)

Strict about the most rubbish things
My parents are fairly odd in the parenting stakes. They're really very liberal about most things, but completely neurotic about tiny irrelevant things.

For example, I was once snorting a line of coke off the kitchen table when my mum came in. She went absolutely mental...

Because I was snorting coke?

noooooo


Because I'd scratched the fucking kitchen table whilst cutting the lines out.

Another fine example was when I'd failed my first year at uni because I spent my entire loan on alcohol and didn't go to any lectures at all. Not only that, I kind of neglected to tell my parents until the end of the second year (the second first year...) that i'd failed again.

The moment came when i finally had to spill the beans. Apparently i turned an unpleasant shade of green and nervously stuttered out my admission. Fully expecting a 3 hour lecture/screaming/shouting/beating extravaganza, it was just 'OK, that was silly, but what are you going to do from here...etc'.

However, whenever I'd say that i'd be out for dinner, then my plans changed and actually i was going to be in, it'd be World War 3 with much screaming and gesticulating (regardless of whether the meal had started cooking or not).
( HoratioFellatio Taking the the out of psychotherapist, Sun 11 Mar 2007, 16:43, Reply)

not really my parents
although they went so mad when they saw this report that i got grounded and had my beloved beetle car keys taken away from me for a month. but some of the comments from my last school report are pretty amusing:

ENGLISH

"rswipe needs to learn very quickly indeed that talent is not enough, she also needs to do some work"

"it would be a tragedy if this pupil did not achieve what she is capable of. sadly this now appears inevitable"

HISTORY

"rswipe has let her oxford disappointment colour everything else. she now faces disappointment in her a-levels too"

"if she does not get the marks of which she is eminently capable, she only has herself to blame"

LATIN

"rswipe needs to learn that pretty english will NOT pass this exam for her. she has a total lack of knowledge and understanding of the subject which is entirely her own fault"

"her arrogant approach has propelled her to the verge of failure... and beyond"

COMMUNITY SERVICE (instead of games. i was lazy there too)

"it's the old people i feel sorry for. her breathtakingly arrogant attitude has let the school down but more than that, it has let the vulnerable elderly down"

in my defence, they were all barking bloody mad and i am quite sure they wouldn't have missed my hour a week talking to them over lunch, or even noticed when i wasn't there.

anyway, happy result, AAAB thank you very much indeed, but that was probably only due to the month's grounding meaning i had nothing else to do but work...
( rachelswipe with a fork, Sun 11 Mar 2007, 15:39, Reply)

Not me
but a friend. He belonged to a strange religious group (aren't they all??!!) and his family didn't have a tv, which set him apart to begin with. Apparently his mum vetted his reading material as well, so Harry Potter etc was a no-no. Also I remember making a copy of a CD for him (Lord of the rings i think, which is mainly classical type stuff) and apparently that got confiscated as well. One particular memorable moment came in a history class in Year 9. I think we had been arguing about something, the end result being him calling me a Dildo. Geuss what, our old toad of a teacher overheard this, much shouting ensues. Still makes me laugh sometimes.

Length - 16'' and growing ;)
( theniwokeup has been awake since, Sun 11 Mar 2007, 15:18, Reply)

July 1981....
...and a 5 year old abefroman is tortured and humiliated by his usually loving and caring parents. How so? Well in that bastion of middle class, royalist England (a suburb of north Birmingham), a street party is being held in the cul-de-sac in which we reside to celebrate the marriage of big eared Charlie to the Princess of Hearts (England’s Rose and other Daily Mail esque titles for) Lady Di.

My mother decides it will be a splendid idea to put me in fancy dress as a TV set of all things. Hence little me walking around the street wearing a cardboard box with a picture of Charles and Di cut out of a magazine on the front and a couple of dials drawn on. It wasn’t even a good attempt at a TV as the sides of the box clearly read Walkers smokey bacon flavour crisps accompanied by a picture of a little pig.

It was hot uncomfortable and very embarrassing, I was roundly mocked by the other kids and who can blame them? The arm holes cut into my skin as did the neck hole, yet my folks insisted on me wearing it until hours later I finally whinged them into submission and I was with great relief freed from my corrugated cardboard bastille. Perhaps one day I will forgive them, but I think that’s unlikely.
( abefroman skating on the thin life of modern life on, Sun 11 Mar 2007, 14:53, Reply)

piston broke
and I´m sure your friend on his mission is no loony though...

I was involved in the church for my first twenty years (it´s ok, I´m getting better now) and I generally find the only people as warp-minded as those arm waving religious types are the arm waving anti-religious types who get so worked up about the religious people forcing faith on everyone they set out to force their non-faith on folks....

Maybe it´s just best we shrug our collective shoulders at those at both ends of the scale!
(ComplexStuff Was confused by life on, Sun 11 Mar 2007, 14:39, Reply)

Oh my...
I was once banned from going to Church on the grounds it would warp my mind. Oddly enough, it seems she (the mater) was doing me a favour, as I later figured out said church was in fact a place of mind-warping loonies. So much so a good friend of mine is on a mission to destroy them.
( jim_bob can herd cats., Sun 11 Mar 2007, 13:49, Reply)

Computers are a fad
Back in the distant past of the 80's my wise mother insisted that I do French instead of Computers at school. 'Computers are a fad she said' as i sat programming another text based adventure on my 1K zx81.
'You need a language to get into university' she cried.
Many years later I got my Higher French qualification butnothing formal in computing. I did not, however pursue university and went straight into working with computers, which as fads go, has rewarded me handsomely.
To this date the only time i have used my french qualification was the following important moment at Charles DeGaulle airport:
"une baguette s'il vous plait."

Also my mother now uses a computer every day at work and often asks for my help tidying up her Powerpoint files. At which point i take great enjoyment in reminding her of this fad that seems to have no sign of letting up.
( BadBadman saw an incorrect comma placement on, Sun 11 Mar 2007, 13:13, Reply)

I didn't swear as a kid, mainly because of my mother's threat to 'wash your mouth out with soap!' if I did.
She could be extremely violent at the drop of a hat. I was therefore very careful indeed, not only not to swear, but also to avoid any language even approaching swearing such as 'sodding' or 'blooming'.

She used to repeat the soap threat every day, and looking back, I can see that she got pissed off because as I DIDN'T swear she was being denied the chance to enjoy inflicting this novel humiliation on me.

One day, when I was about 11, she snapped, accused me of being 'cheeky' and went for the soap. Grabbing me by the scruff of the neck, she smacked a big cake of green Fairy into my mouth, splitting my lip, and rubbed it along my teeth, leaving chunks of it embedded there.

It didn't teach me anything, except confirm that the old cow was probably psychotic, and I was out of there as soon as I could earn a living.

Kids, don't be fooled. Bizarre punishments are there to gratify some kinky need in the parent, not to correct the child.

But you do get to stick'em in a care home in the end. Choose wisely. Go for one that smells of wee.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Sun 11 Mar 2007, 13:00, Reply)

"if it's a cigarette, why have you shredded it"?
Mum had found a plastic bag containing strong smelling leaves in my jacket. I tried the old "herbal cigarettes to help me give up smoking" line but she was a child of the Sixties and wasn't fooled for a second.

I should have just put my hands up but I refused to admit what they were. I take after her in that we're both as stubborn as anything. So this game of brinkmanship could only have one ending.

I was sure she wouldn't grass up (ha!) her little baby to the police but I obviously didn't know her that well. It wasn't until she was actually talking to the copper behind the desk in the police station with the bag hidden in her hand that I cracked & admitted defeat.

I now realise that she would quite happily have handed me over & probably asked for me to be put in a cell, just for good measure
( four styx, Sun 11 Mar 2007, 12:15, Reply)

The wonders of parental control...
Some years ago, when a much younger me, I went out with a girl. I was 16, she was 19. I even painted her name on the scratchplate on my guitar (aaaah...)But. She had had a very strict upbringing, still lived with her parents, who were religious mentalists. Punishment psalmings, hitting with belts for minor "sins", all the usual catholic fun. Forced to kneel on stones in the garden for 3 hours, praying. Not allowed out at all sorts of times, and when she was a child, and was scared of the dark, confined to part of the house with all the windows covered and forced to go around by candlelight, even in the daytime. This made her tastes, erm, interesting, to say the least. As the 2nd girl to ever let me touch her on the mimsy, she was an eye-opener. Rough sex. ok. Dirty talk. Ok. Tying up and belting. Er, ok. Self harm and burning. Not too cool with, but hey. Forcing me to masturbate over family pictures of her slightly younger sister. Not too happy at all with. Weird roleplay, as in she is her mother, I am the one raping her, calling her a whore etc. No. Freaked me out, drew the line at, stopped seeing her over this sort of request and stranger ones. I mean, really. Few years later, I have a drummer friend who I discover went out with her for a bit not long after me. Got to talking and asked if she was still a bit, you know, 'lively' in the bedroom. Yes, and much worse. Violent stuff, extreme pain and humilitaion, enough to put him off after a couple of months. I heard years later she had got married and settled down, so fuck knows what the husband was like...Oh, well.
(jameslib, Sun 11 Mar 2007, 11:34, Reply)

Buns Of Steel!
Whenever my parents fought, which was often, my mother had a habit of taking out her anger on me and my brother for the merest of infractions. Once, at the tender age of five, my mother beat me so hard with a wooden spoon that on one particularly ferocious whack, the spoon broke and the end flew off and smashed one of her favourite ornaments to smithereens. Despite the pain I thought this 'divine justice' was so hilarious that I just couldn't stop laughing to the point where my mother gave up smacking me and slinked off in the huff.

Score!

Btw b3ta, I honestly thought I had a pretty nice and normal atypical 80's upbringing until this question. The astronomical psychotherapy bill will be in the post soon. Thanks.
( Gleeballs is mostly made out of chocolate and hate., Sun 11 Mar 2007, 10:33, Reply)

Hands That Do Mouth's Are As Soft As Your Face.....
My mother was a firm believer in making me and my brother drink Fairy Liquid if we ever swore (and as you can tell from the majority of my posts this clearly cunting worked in stopping me all the way through my adult cocking life). Not that uncommon in our day and age but Fuiru's post just reminded me that among the list of common swear words resulting in the lovely soapy cocktail was the word 'blast'! I'm not sure what's worse, being made to drink Fairy fucking Liquid for using such an innocent word or the fact that at some point during my formative years I actually faced up to the horrors of life with gritted teeth and the word blast. How frigging pretentious must I have been???

It's odd that the amount of Fairy Liquid my parents got through didn't attract the attention of the authorites. I know for a fact that none of my sweary vocab was learnt from the playground, it was all gleaned from my parents massively loud and frequent arguments. In fact I honestly believed that 'fucking' wasn't a swearword but the phrase 'fucking divorce' was. I'm not sure if that makes me naive or a just a fucktard. It seems really weird looking back now and realising that I got to drink washing up liquid on a regular basis because my parents were embarrassed that I'd gotten the words from them and someone else might find out. It's like being punished twice for something that's not even really your fault. In fact I only discovered one swearword for myself and that was when I tried to call my brother a 'twit' (Fairy Liquid tastes horrific btw, so I was playing it safe) but mispronounced it in a genuine accident and as ths slaps rained down and I was dragged off to the kitchen to sample the delights that lived under the sink I remember grinning at the amazing power of the word 'twat' I'd just discovered.

Anyway, fast forward to getting drunk with a neighbour in a pub many years later and he pointed out that when I'd first moved onto their street as an innocent (I thought) little seven year old, apparently I was known as the cool cursing kid and everyone wanted to play with me because they got to hear new and interesting swear words! Kudos!

So, any parents reading this, that tough love, fear of god bullshit, doesn't fucking well work. Just thought I'd let you know. Cunts.
( Gleeballs is mostly made out of chocolate and hate., Sun 11 Mar 2007, 10:04, Reply)

my parents
wouldnt let me play Anal Cunt at my grandmothers funeral...

i mean seriously...
what the fuck?
(quibble, Sun 11 Mar 2007, 5:36, Reply)

mother
when my older brother was 10 he went shopping with mother and was treated with a wrestling magazine(back in the hogan and ultimate warrior days) she then discovered in the car park that there was 1 particular page that my bro was interested in. the page with a toppless woman on it. the magazine was ripped up and binned right infront of him whilst he cried like he'd just been shot.

when i was a similar age i was at a carboot sae with mother dearest when i convinced her to give me the money for a comic annual. the comic in question turned out to be viz. and when she asked what i'd bought and i showed her she was fine about it.

i think she knew that i wouldnt really understand most of it for at least another 4 years.
(suboftheday, Sun 11 Mar 2007, 2:08, Reply)

Internet Friend? You know where this is going...
A few years back when I was a small 16 year old, i'd regulary post on bands message boards. I had a rare B-Side from one of these bands, so posted, basically "Have rare B-Side. Add me on [email protected] if you want it, k thnx bai". Within minutes, a 14 year old girl added me onto msn asking for it. So I promptly did via the magic that is MSN file transfer.

Fast forward 3 years...im coming up 19, shes coming up 17, and I still chat to her and text her a lot, and generally got to know her really well.

Now, she lives in Edinburgh, and since I was going to a gig up there and staying overnight at my mates and going home the next day, we both decided "Why not meet up?". I later learned her parents were totally against this, but since it was pretty unavoidable since she was going to town anyway and I wasn't about to spend the entire day in my mates smelly halls of residence, we did it anyway.

Had fantastic time, lovely girl...but oh bugger, her parents found out. And thats when the strange strictness came into play...

-She was only allowed her mobile during school for "emergencies". Her mum would check her contacts every day and make sure my number wasn't in it.
-Banned from the internet, period.

After two weeks it settled down, and weirder limitations came into play....

-Her Mum would only let her on the net for an hour each weekend.
-Only allowed to text me once a day.
-Mum wanted my phone number and address.

This was 2 months ago and the restrictions are STILL in place. I often use my mind to thank her mother for making me feel like a peadophile.

And now I need to pee.
(LiquidRogue Powerful tiny fists..., Sun 11 Mar 2007, 2:08, Reply)