Running
My parents lovingly forbade me from running on any form of concrete in case I fell and hurt myself. Grass was fine, concrete a no-no.

Such was the fear instilled in me by the parentals that the day I got myself caught in a barbed wire fence and ripped my arm to shreds I slowly paced the whole mile or so home.

Got home, got yelled at for being stupid, passed out and then got driven to the hospital by my mother who had no driving license and a whopping FOUR lessons under her belt.

They also banned me from playing with my friend Nick who listened to a lot of Ice-T and thought he was a ninja. I can understand that one.
(PCheese, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 17:56, Reply)

TV related for me
I was banned from watching Grange Hill as it was 'full of yob kids' and i was banned from watching red dwarf as it 'made me aggressive'.
If i was ever arguing with my sister my mum would shout, "YOU'VE BEEN WATCHING RED DWARF AGAIN HAVN'T YOU?!?!111"
( Victor Meldrew, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 17:43, Reply)

Nothin'
Gah! I've got nothin' on this one!

Sorry - random posts are starting early clearly
(james_tiger_woods is going to start his killing spree on the, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 17:40, Reply)

Rainbow
Seriously... as a kid if everyone at the end of Rainbow said 'goodbye' (i.e. inc. Rod, Jane and Freddy) then the TV would have to be switched off.
If just Geoffrey, George, Zippy and Bungle said 'goodbye' then I could watch the next program.

Harsh.... but ultimately fair.... or not.
(lord nose, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 17:32, Reply)

My Family
My mother decided that she had to walk me to the bus stop when I started secondry school, hence much piss tackage for that.
( theniwokeup has been awake since, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 17:31, Reply)

My parents were pretty laid back.
Never grounded, never sent to my room without dinner, never smacked (well, once, but it was very half-hearted and just made me laugh). But I was banned from something. Just the once.

I was banned from doing homework for my Science teacher, Mrs Murphy. You see, she had seen fit to give me detention for not doing the set homework the previous week.

There was a flaw in Mrs Murphy's argument, however, as I had produced the work in question, and she had marked it. When I pointed this out to her, and that she was actually holding my completed work in her hand at the time, I was backed up by half the class (which surprised me as I wasn't a popular kid). So Mrs Murphy gave me a detention. No big deal. I just sat there and wasted the time staring into space.

Naturally the parental units got involved and complained, asking for an apology which she never gave. So the next best course of action? Why, they banned me from doing any more homework for her! Hurrah!

I fear I may have never given my parents the respect they deserve.
(Captain Skippy pooed in a bag and left it on your doorstep, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 17:23, Reply)

My parents banned me from watching Twin Peaks because it was "not suitable"
so I had to watch it on the b&w set in my bedroom...ironically now I have all the episodes on DVD my mum wants to borrow them
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 17:13, Reply)

Not my parents...
... who have among other things babysat for Ozzy Osbourne while he and the rest of the band got twunted off their faces. No, mine are pretty chilled out. Mrs. Spoon on the other hand...

Parents used to be strict Catholics - as in Mother was a Nun and Father was a trainee priest (obviously something went wrong somewhere for there to be a daughter but anyway). As she was growing up there were numerous acts of parental lunacy but this one wins.

They were ridiculously over-paranoid about drugs - even the slightest mention and they'd flip out, so one day when the mother of the story is in my missus bedroom and finds a wrapped up foil thing she goes fucking apeshit - but not in front of my missus. No, she has to be sure first, so off she goes to best mates house to consult with other parents... no-one can identify the former contents of the mysterious foil, but it smells kind of sweet...

wobbly lines
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

one week later, having had no luck with parents, the mother of our story heads over to see the doctor, foil wrap in hand. The doctor has a look, takes scraping from the edge of this stuff to try and figure out what it is, has a sniff - same slightly sweet smell, a little bit like strawberries. He's getting on a bit though and doesn't really know what the kids are into these days. Best to open the whole thing up and see if there's a better sample anywhere. As the doctor opens up this tinfoil flower, a rather familiar looking word appears:


Petit Filous.

It was a strawberry yoghurt pot lid.
( Sonic James Doom forgetting the date since... umm..., Thu 8 Mar 2007, 17:08, Reply)

Not quite sure who to call...
When I was about 8 or 9, myself, my younger brother and my parents all sat down to watch Ghostbusters on TV. Things were starting to hot up - they'd set up the business, busted slimer, and that big statue/dog thing had terrorised a party. Then the news comes on halfway through the film, as it sometimes does (a practice I wasn't familiar with at that age).

As the day's headlines start to fill the screen, my parents somehow manage to convince my brother and I that the film is over, they caught all the ghosts, and everyone lived happily ever after.

It wasn't until a few days later they finally confessed that they'd heard the second half of the film was much scarier than the first, and so packed us off to bed. The injustice! If they knew this before, why did they let us watch the first half if we were never going to be allowed to see the rest?

I also got it into my head years later that I wanted a Venus flytrap. For some reason that was forbidden, but I was allowed to line my window with an army of prickly cacti which were far more dangerous...
(TheRewAndHisLovelyVisor, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 17:06, Reply)

Spanking
My Parents were not really strict, they had some simple rules, and they were quite flexable. But they were very strict on discipline. There was one time I got the spanking of my life from my father. Word got around abuot a 9 yr old girl in my class in primary school said that had started her periods. I got a sticker and wrote "fuck me now" on it and put it on her back. I guess I got what i deserved. To this day my parents always say in conversation that the worst thing I ever did in school was bad grades.
( turb0t, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 17:04, Reply)

tv comedies
My dad disapproved of me watching Friends because it was "too shallow".

Frasier was alright though as it was "more intelligent".

Weirdo.
(happylittletulip helpless and delicious, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 17:02, Reply)

vodka
they went on holliday and left me in the house alone for the first time. I was soo chuffed, i had a few m8's round and we hit dads vodka. unfortunatly it was after a shot each (two for me) i realised the bottle was marked, infact every alcoholic bottle was marked.

after a bit of panicing we decided to fill it with water.

Job sorted so i put it back in the frezzer.

yep, u guessed it. dad finds a frozen bottle of vodka.

he got a cabanet with a lock after that :-(
(JLB8, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 17:01, Reply)

Now I am the strict parent.
And what sort of things do I forbid my children from doing?

-taking my car out and driving 120+ miles over the course of two days, and then denying that he ever went anywhere other than work and to see one friend.

-eating nachos, pizza, spaghetti, ice cream or other messy foods in the living room.

-going out at 2:00 am to hang out with friends up at the school.

-smoking anything in their bedrooms.

-drinking beer in their rooms and hiding the cans in their dresser drawers.

-playing my 1973 Guild D-25 and leaving it laying on the floor in a bedroom. Ditto on my Takamine 12-string.

-sending $80 worth of text messages on the cell phone. (That's after he had already sent the 1000/month we had on the plan.)

-talking on the cell phone at the dinner table, or taking calls when we're out to dinner.

Yes, they see me as a complete Nazi, a nutjob from the Dark Ages who wants to turn them into monks.

Don't I sound like a completely unreasonable bastard?
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 8 Mar 2007, 17:01, Reply)

My parents used to ban the weirdest stuff....
I was banned from playing my commodore 64 even though I had an NES (!?!?). As a child I was not allowed to listen to Queen as they were "Satanic". The same goes for the fantasy edition of Top Trumps and of course Dungeons & Dragons was right out.

We (me and my brothers) used to be allowed to watch spitting image on a sunday night but one day that was banned too, never found out why. Star Wars got banned one christmas, no idea why.

Oh and to this day I have been banned from bringing one particular friend of mine round to my house, the reason? My dad says, in his own words, "He's devious looking, always looks like he is scheming, shifty eyes....oh and a cunt" Sad thing is, I kinda agree with him.
( Bamboo Steamer, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 16:54, Reply)

My sister
forbade her kids from watching "Animaniacs" because it was too violent. (She teaches Special Ed, in case you wondered.)

Had she ever actually watched an episode or two, she would have seen that it was really one of the most brilliantly written cartoons ever, with incredible references to classical literature and movies- but she was going by what she saw of Slappy Squirrel.

The irony? She (and I) used to watch "Tom & Jerry" and the Roadrunner back in the days before they censored them for violence. I pointed this out to her and noted that neither of us had ever dropped an anvil on anyone or pushed them off a mile high cliff, so cartoon violence was hardly a threat to the kids' mental health- but as I am the younger sibling and am not a Certified Teaching Professional who works with Disturbed Children, my opinions counted for naught.

So I rolled up the Acme cannon I had just ordered through the mail and blew all her hair off and turned her black. You should have seen her spong eyes goggling at me...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 8 Mar 2007, 16:49, Reply)

not my parents as such but...............
my Nan once made me eat a teaspoon of Fairy Liquid for saying Shit, and was convinced that knoackered did not mearely mean tired, but in fact meant tired after having sex (your guess is as good as mine there)

I was not allowed Barbies or any of those toys that would cause me to want all the related toys, so no mutant ninja turtles, he man figures, Poochie (remeber that piece of crap?) or anything reatled to that, except for flower fairys, which were allowed becuase of the relationship between them and the poetry of C M Barker (who was some kind of early photoshop fraudster who got lots of people to believe in fairys at the bottom of her garden). I never minded really becuae i was never into toys that much, i really wanted a chemistry set and a microscope, which i get eventually, when i was 15.

I love my ma and pa, they rock!
(superkitty is neither super nor a kitty, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 16:42, Reply)

Yeah.
As a punishment for never doing any of my GCSE/A course courseworks, I was frequently and reasonably banned from using the computer - the computer I needed to use to do said work.

All makes sense to them, doesn't it? Bless their hearts.

Oh yeah, and apparently reading Judge Dredd before you hit 14 is a sure-fire way of turning yourself into a stone-cold, rampaging psychopath.
(MNNNNGGH, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 16:40, Reply)

I was 16.
My parents were going out of town for a week, and my brother-in-law agreed to stay with me while they were away- that is, show up around dinner time, have dinner with me and make sure all was fine, then go home. No problem, really-

-but before they left, my father made a point of counting how many beers were in the fridge.

Okay, I may have my stupid moments, but how fucking dumb would I have to be to steal beer from my parents' fridge? I mean, it would be rather obvious if they came back and the beer was gone, wouldn't it? Especially as at that point Dad was drinking Miller. It would be like going to the effort of stealing water from their toilet.

So I vented my annoyance to Larry that first night, and we came up with the perfect reply to this.

When my parents got home, there were all four bottles of his Millers in the fridge- and in a ring around them were eight Miller Quickies (the little 7 oz bottles), like ducklings around the mother duck.

Dad never said anything about stealing his beer again. I guess that he got the message that I could go get my own, thanks much...

Length? Perfect for a Quickie...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 8 Mar 2007, 16:35, Reply)

My Parents
Banned me from wearing trainers at primary school and insisted i wear those clarks type shoes. One time they bought me sandals and at home time the teacher used to go 'all those with blue eyes can leave first, all those with blonde hair can leave first' etc until one time she said all those with sandals can leave first. Naturally all the girls stood up, and then me with them. I got the piss ripped out of me for that.

Also when i buy new clothes i always lie about how much they cost me, i knock 20 quid off everything just incase my dad flips. I cant just stay out too when i go out clubbing if im stopping over at someones house or else my mum WILL wait up for me. Im 21.

I wasnt allowed across the road until i was 12. I also wasnt allowed any chocolate or sweets until i was 8. Te first time i had ice cream i asked my nan to put it in the microwave.

Not so bad as i look back but at the time it was one of those its so unfair... kevin and perry types.

People weren't allowed ITV? Bloody hell get a grip parents.
(PieEater, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 16:32, Reply)

TV
The TV I was banned from or allowed to watch was entirely dependent on what my mother actually liked, rather than what was suitable.
So:

Out:
Tizwaz
Minipops (fair enough)
Paul Daniels

In:
Grange Hill
Eastenders
The Equalizer
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 16:30, Reply)

My parents..
..came down on my like a ton of bricks

yours, Heather West
( Signify, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 16:23, Reply)

another one!
I think this QOTW is awaking all sorts of repressed memories in me...

Mother boxed my ears quite frequently for not tidying my room to her impossibly high standards. To be fair, I was a little slob.

She once washed my mouth out with soap for swearing. Again, to be fair, I have the foulest language known to anyone who's not in the navy. But swearing is big, and it is clever, so I'm not going to stop.

My parents, after I passed my 5th birthday, insisted I stopped calling them "mummy" and "daddy", because it was childish. Was I allowed to call them "mum" or "dad"? No, because apparently that was common, and "mother" and "father" were too formal (which might give their friends the impression that we weren't a loving and friendly family - which, in fact we are. Just eccentric). So I had to call them by their first names. Imagine a little girl saying "Mary and Joseph* will be picking me up from school soon" to her little schoolfriends, and Mary and Joseph turning out to be her parents. No wonder I was bullied as a child.



*names have been changed for reasons of anonymity.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 16:20, Reply)

A strict parent's view
I didn't let our kids - now 35, 33 and 24 btw - watch the A Team. This was not because I was a mardy git - I had much better ways of proving that. Nor was it because it was crap - which it was. It was because every week bullets were sprayed around willynilly and NOBODY was killed - not the right message in my book.
(The Jannie, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 16:08, Reply)

Jaws
Jaws: we never got to see it because somebody went to see it and their hair went white then fell out *overnight* apparently.

Hitch-hiking: finally got to the bottom of this one and my mum was nearly raped when hitch-hiking round France aged 17, had to pull a rather pathetic looking pen knife (an opinel remember them?)on two escaped prisoners who'd picked them up in a stolen car (clue - they tried to put the luggage in the back - the boot was in the front in this car)

No TV till 5, no colour TV till ?14?
TV doled out on a 'credit' system, large, rather weighty and dreadfully dull orange penguin paperbacks had to be read before TV was allowed. Memorable injustices included 'The Highland Clearances' by J.Prebble being worth a paultry 5hrs. The fucker is 336 pages long (thanks amazon) and I was only 12. It's a wonder I ever read a book for pleasure again.

Still, man today, etc.
(Countryslicker, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 16:07, Reply)

Everybody loves good neighbours...
When I was a kid my Mum stopped us from watching certain soaps because they were bad for the brain...

We weren't allowed to watch Neighbours but we could watch Home & Away (just a cheap imitation in my opinion).

We couldn't watch Coronation Street but Brookside was ok (good taste their, I always did prefer Geordies!)
(Stavrosthelover, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 16:02, Reply)

Pronouns
when talking about our parents we were forbidden to use subjective pronouns. Always say mum or dad, never she or he.
T'was thought disrespectful or something and would land us a quick slap in the face.
To this day I wonder what would have happened had they not been so quick in punishing the use of these dirty pronouns. Hell, I think I'll spend the next two days talking to them using only pronouns and bring about the end of the world.
(Guillaume67 lacking a humourous sig since, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 15:58, Reply)

Silence is golden?
Not me, but a friend - her sister and her husband decided that they weren't going to speak in front of their child at all - as they wanted to encourage psychic powers. She was nearly taken into care but is now at school, somewhat bewildered I'll warrant.
(Countryslicker, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 15:52, Reply)

Worst that could happen?
I live in an estate when I'm not at uni, and as a boy up to the age of 11, I wasn't alowed to step foot outside the entrence, unless I asked my parents first. Fair enough really, I can see why they would want to know were I was, and there were loads of play mates in our posh little estate.

Thing is, once I saw a lighter in the midle of the road outside the estate, and my limited understanding of the world told em if a car ran it over, there would be a huge exploshion and some one may die. Acting fast I walked 10 meters from the estate, kicked the lighter down the drain and returned. When called in for tea, my Dad decides to emntion how he saw me leave the estate and how I should always tell them and I could have been hit by a car. My protests that I didn't go far fell on deaf ears. I suppose the worst part is he must have been watching me play otuside, waiting for me to slip up. Woulden't put it past him, he's always been pissed off I'm not an athleat, while my mother is miffed I'm not a scientist.

No approval for my choice to study psychology, always accusing me of being scruffy, jeans and a clean T shirt are apparently not enough effort for the pub, or even for my mates house. Dosen't matter that I'm the tidiest of the bunch most of the time, I have to live by my parent's standards or its an insult to my upbringing.

They arn't that bad really, I could do with out my mothers attacks on me for the odd binge drinking night. Its apparently much more dangerous then drinking 10 bottles of wine a week.
(Mong goose, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 15:50, Reply)

Local park
The rumour went round our school that there was a man who hid in the bushes at the local park, jump out, grab you, then cut your stomach open with a rusty kitchen knife. Being 6years old and shit-scared that this could actually happen, I told my Mum, who instead of realising the obvious stupidity of this rumour, decided it would be best if I never went to that park.

Suppose it worked out pretty well really.
(A Good Egg, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 15:45, Reply)

ill
Both of my parents had a long history of mental instability and Christian fundamentalism, and so their rules were predictably weird. They included:

1) Not watching "Knightrider" because Michael Knight was "obviously an instrument of Satan". The red light on Kitt was demonic and his voice was "other-worldy".
2) Not being allowed to ride a bike because "the manufacturers have designed them especilaly to squash your testicles and make a whole genertion of young boys infertile".
3) Making the sign of the cross each time BA Baracus said "I ain't getting on no plane, fool" in the A Team. This was a coded message to killers, apparently. I never asked which killers.
4) Walking only on the balls of my feet in the house because "bad energy travels through the heels and poisons the spine." You should have seen the whole family tip-toeing trhough the house like Scooby and Shaggy in a haunted castle.
5) No Scooby Doo. Dogs can't talk, ergo Scooby was "possessed".
6) I had to put on a northern Irish accent whenever I spoke to the neighbours. This was in order to "confuse them." Unfortunately, I couldn't do Belfast so I had a stab at Dublin: "Could I be borra'in yer lawnmower to be sure?"
7) I had to go to church every Sunday and be a loyal member of the Sunday Club. This meant pretending I liked Jesus when in fact I thought he looked like a poofta in a dress who was a bit too touchy-feely for my liking. (I was banned after I asked to play Herod in the nativity play.)
8) I was forbidden from having or even using a Space Hopper because "they are filled with the fart gas of Chinese people." I did once have an illicit try on one, but was overcome with fear.
9) Computer games would "burn your eyes out of your head and make your winkle shrivel to the size of a desiccated maggot", so I wasn't allowed to play Space Invaders.
10) Worst of all, I was forbidden from nakedness. Nakedness would encourage masturbation, so I wore the same pair of pants for 12 years. By the age of 12, they were so tight that I whistled through my arse when I sneezed.
(frankspencer, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 15:42, Reply)