Alison
Not me, but an ex-girlfriend. Despite being 21, she had to be in by 11pm. Most times we went out, I wound up having to do totally illegal speeds back from the cinema, putting their precious baby at risk, to make it back before curfew.

One night, we didn't make it. Her Dad had locked the door on the dot of 11 and chained it. Alison knocks. No answer. Knocks again. No answer.

So she put a brick throw her parents door so she could get in.

Oddly the curfew was lifted after that.
(Bonedwarf is the size of a lemon, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 5:31, Reply)

Summer of 1986
The World Cup was on, in Mexico to be exact. Me, my brother and me mates were all into collecting the Panini stickers. I had completed about 2 thirds of my sticker album, had plenty of swapsies and on this fateful day, had just aquired a "Garry Lineker"!

Oh joy, life couldn't get any better - and it didn't... i innocently walked in after school with my sticker album undermy arm, clutching my wad of swapsies when my foster mum (devout Catholic, secondary school teacher) spotted them and said something like "what have you got there?... they're a waste of money - now throw them away - all of them - NOW!"

Cunt-bitch!

She also did pretty much the same to my one and only "brand-name" toy - a He-Man figure (with punching arm motion)... the moment she saw it she took a dislike to it (she probably thought it'd turn me into a fist-fucking rapist). Anyway, one day i moaned about having to clean and polish my football boots and she instantly marched to my room and took it, saying she was going to throw it away - i never saw it again. To be honest i didn't even like He-Man really, but like i said, it was my only brand name toy (everything else was ethnic wooden carved puzzles n' shit)... AND it was given to me for my birthday by my real mum!

D'YOU HEAR THAT YOU FUCKIN SPAZZY GOD-FEARING CUNT LUMP! - MY REAL MUM!!!!

*runs away and cries under the duvet*
(A Hospital Carpark, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 3:49, Reply)

TV
My parents were fairly trusting folk. However, there were two TV shows I was explicitly forbidden to watch.

The Brady Bunch and Charlie's Angels.

Because, said my dad, "They're shit".
(Emily Bruce-Dickinson http://jovialfellow.blogspot.com/, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 2:43, Reply)

Like belms sortof
When we got our new shiney computer in 2003 and I found out we could get the internet for real, I set about exploring it. My friends then introduced me to MSN and I was excited.

However my Dad made it very clear that I was NOT ALLOWED to talk to anyone on it unless I knew it was my friends FOR SURE. Very clear.

So of course off I set to message everyone I could and got talking to a guy who thought I was trying to sell him pr0n.

Naturally we are now together in real life and have been for some time! Hooray!
( vix0r was not Matthew on, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 2:01, Reply)

Not parent but grandparent
I was raised by my Gran and she wouldn't let me learn to swim in case I drowned (irony) or go to friends houses or have any friends over to my house.
But the classic was not letting me go on school trips anywhere in case the IRA bombed killed me (what a small girl ever did to a Irish paramilitary group remains a mystery to this day...)

Oh and I'm still bitter that I was made to watch Swap Shop instead of 'that disgusting show' Tiswas...
(Boss Mew Covfefe does not bargain...it only covfefes., Fri 9 Mar 2007, 2:00, Reply)

Nettle
Us too. We were banned from saying 'wart neep neep warp', like Alice (?) in Popeye. However, I think that's just because it was annoying. For some reason, that sound makes me think of the Bunyip...
(Skittlemcfluff ......................, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 1:56, Reply)

T'internet
My parents are pretty easy going on almost everything, except seemingly the internet.

My Dad has warned me about looking up porn, as he "doesn't want the police involved". I was 18 at the time, I'm fairly sure he wasn't talking about me being involved in kiddie porn or any other questionable content, just looking at naked ladies.

My Mum got seriously worried when she learned that, at 16, I was talking to friends of friends, people I hadn't met yet, on MSN, with my picture showing.

Needless to say, this hasn't stopped me from abusing the interweb constantly, although I've never met a random MSN contact.
(LickOutTheJamsMotherfuckers!, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 1:37, Reply)

Mudguards
My dad went a bit mental whenever mudguards were mentioned on bikes.

For some bizarre reason that remains unexplained to this day, I was not allowed to ride a bicycle that did not have mudguards. It could have been hotter than the firey depths of hell, and still I wouldn't have been able to ride that fucker if it didn't have mudguards.

He would go apoplectic at the merest suggestion.

I had such a lovely childhood :(
( Pew Pew Pew! Lasers! wannabe Gong Farmer, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 1:32, Reply)

Banned Words
In my house we had banned words. Not the sweary ones, they weren't so much banned as unthinkable (this was a long time ago). You see my Mum had her troubles and was easily provoked to tears, shouting or random slappings. And one of the things that provoked her was our childish habit of incessantly repeating whatever words or phrases caught our fancy. The ones I remember, all from kids programmes: "Squidgy Bod" which we took to singing to the Robin Hood theme tune, "Beaker beaker", our take on the noise made by the munchkins in a Wizard of Oz cartoon and my personal favourite, Tex Tucker. Tex was a handsome puppet cowboy from Four Feather Falls. He was my first crush and for some reason, which I won't spell out for some reason, my three year old self found it tremendously exciting to use my parents bed as a trampoline and bounce up and down whilst chanting "Tex Tucker! Tex Tucker!" at the top of my voice.

Naturally the ban only made the words in question much funnier. Well into our teens my brother and I could and would drive our poor Mum frantic by squeaking "Beaker beaker" and treating her to bursts of the Squidgy Bod song. I was over that Tucker guy though.
(nettle, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 1:03, Reply)

more unneccessary worry than anything
i must have been about 16. it was a weekend and a mate of mine came over for a few beers(probably would have been about 3 each back then). so we ran out of beer at my house but my frind had some at his so we decide to make the arduous 45 minute trek. it was only 9ish and my dad said be back by 12, my older brother was bored so he came along too. and one of his mates we met on the way.
anyway midnight came and went and my mobile battery died. so we left at about 1 me my brother and his mate, and half way home a police car pulls up next to us and asked us "you havnt seen 3 kids have you?"
we hadnt but then it dawned on us about 20 mins later that my dad might have rang the police because we wernt back by 12.

he was waiting up when we got in and when i asked him if he rang the police he didnt deny it. then we told him we bumped into the rozzers and they asked us if we'd seen 3 kids.
i think my dad felt a bit silly after that.
(suboftheday, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 0:48, Reply)

Lights out
My mum used to insist on me going to bed at 8.30pm until I was 16 years old.

Quite where she got the idea that teenagers' need eleven hours of sleep I do not know. Additionally, I am a lifelong night-owl - mum reports waking up at 2am feeling a spooooooky presence, to find me (at the age of 3) standing there quietly waiting for attention.

When I was 16 my parents broke up and she got a job as a waitress, returning home at 11pm. I'd sit up and watch The Big Gig, keeping an eye on the window for tell-tale signs of car headlights.

I now go to bed at 2am.
(Emily Bruce-Dickinson http://jovialfellow.blogspot.com/, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 0:44, Reply)

Sweet mother of God.
::NOTE:: My apologies in advance for length, but then again, my parents were really weird...

My mother was a dental hygienist for 18 years before going back to school to get her teaching degree (IDK why either). She's a teacher now, but some dental hygienist-type bullcrap stayed with her when I was young [in her defense, none of us kids--there were 3 of us--ever got a cavity, but still and all...]:

* only sugar-free candy (tastes like ~naughty~ and has sorbitol and/or xylitol in it, which is the same stuff that they put in Ex-Lax--so if you've got a sweet tooth, you'll wind up doubled up in pain on the toilet all night ~naughty~ing your guts out)
* take a travel toothbrush and toothpaste to school with you (I was the only kid EVER to have to get up from the lunch table and say, "Sorry, guys; be right back--gotta go brush my teeth!")
* floss twice a day (this was pretty strictly enforced, too)

As a "special treat", we got to pick out our own toothpaste! Woo!
However, it had to be mint toothpaste. Why not the cool, fun, awesome kiddie bubblegum-flavored ones that all my friends used, you ask?
My mother replied: "It's like brushing your teeth with Froot Loops, and your father and I [it was always "your father and I" when it was a serious issue, such as toothpaste] won't have that garbage in this house."

Also, my parents are excessively prudish when it comes to privileges and entertainment. A sampling of "The Best Of Mom & Dad LOLerskates & Co.'s Rules" follows:
* no caffeinated anything ("you'll twitch like a weirdo, and it'll probably mess with your fertility")
*absolutely no alcohol, ever (when I brought up the fact that Jesus Himself made water into WINE, my parents replied, "Well, it was DIFFERENT back then"); I don't drink anyways, so whatever
* no watching of certain programs
- Are You Afraid of the Dark? ("Satanic, obviously, and it'll give you nightmares for weeks")
- anything on MTV or VH1
- certain things on the Discovery or History Channels about Jesus ("probably biblically inaccurate; they'll just fill you with New-Age, Wiccan 'filth' and 'lies'"--yeah, mom and dad; they probably will... again, whatever)
- anything having to do with witchcraft/sorcery/magic, sex, obscene language/profanity, etc. (you can't even BEGIN to imagine how many shows, movies, etc. THIS ruled out)
* hella-strict curfews
- during the schoolyear, curfew was 10:00 p.m. Sunday thru Thursday and Saturday nights ("can't have you staying out late on Saturday night, 'cause there's CHURCH on Sunday morning, and you can bet your bottom dollar you and your brother and sister'll be there at 10:30 a.m. on the dot, young lady")
- during the schoolyear, curfew was 10:30 p.m. on Friday nights (the 'rents always sighed and said, "I guess you can stay out 'til 10:30... it is the weekend, after all...")
- during the summer, curfew was 11:00 p.m. Sunday thru Friday nights
- during the summer, curfew was 10:00 p.m. on Saturday nights (church again)
* no cursing, ever (they consistently broke, and still break, this rule at home)
* no calling boys (..."unless you want them to think you're some little harlot" said my mother; my father would nod assent)
* no "promiscuous activity" or drugs (I didn't anyways, but they way they went about saying it made "the act" sound so naughty and that nobody ever did it or talked about it)
* no going off to the mall on your own, ever ("some perverted old man is just waiting to get his hands on you--he'll 'take advantage' of you; that's for sure")

I'll spare you the rest (and, to be honest, there are too many to remember).
You can imagine how cool Mom & Dad LOLerskates seemed to all my friends.

I love them both dearly. I just wished that the rules hadn't been so strict... I probably missed a lot of good shows.
(Mademoiselle Dustman picked a bouquet of oopsie daisies for you on, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 0:37, Reply)

My mum...
when I was younger (about 14) mother dearest banned me and my brother from watching anything after Blue Peter as it was dross.

That meant no byker grove, no neighbours, no simpsons etc and the TV would go off until 7.30 when coronation street came on (and she said we watched dross??)

Anyway, Im sat here now watching porn. IN YOUR FACE MUM!!!

(P.S we were allowed to watch ITV, but i think thats only because my dad worked for them!)
(stevio is on the prowl for a girlfriend!, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 0:37, Reply)

Not me,
for I inherited my mother's manipulative side and my father's legendary temper. Combine this with the simple fact that I'm a fair degree more intelligent than my parents and them being fairly liberal in the first place and you can see why I didn't encounter too many problems growing up.

However, it all balances out when you consider a few of the very unlucky fellows I know. Mark's parents didn't allow him to watch TV after 5pm or listen to any 'rock' music (i.e. anything with prominent electric guitar) until he was 16, with the net result of him becoming a social outcast and not hitting puberty until quite a bit after his 17th birthday.

Pottsy was a borderline-schizophrenic with a habit of lashing out at passersby with branches when he was in the lower forms. He took a trip to the local sunshine bar and got 'sociable' on £3 cider one sunny day in the September before his GCSEs. His parents must have the fairly extreme step of grounding him for more than three years, for he was never seen again outside of school.

Then there's poor Sam, who was (and by all accounts still is) forbidden from going out aside from Saturday nights, due to a combination of enforced homework sessions and working for at a tenner a shift in her father's shop. For 6-8 weeks before exam time she is locked in a room with no windows for periods of up to 4 hours at a time for 'revision'. They're too rich for this to be abuse, it's merely 'eccentricity'.

Don't even get me started on the ex, whose parents once infamously shot each other (I shit you not) and forbid her to hang about with anyone not 'approved', i.e. not a gun-toting, catholic-hating paramilitary 'Loyalist' cuntrail like them.

Time for a sterilization program, methinks...
(SurferRosa causing the lamentation of the womenfolk since, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 0:28, Reply)

But everyone KNOWS that's a Bad Thing.
No gum, of course. (It now really annoys me to see my mum chewing it. Was it all lies? She denies having told me that swallowing gum turns your guts inside out, but then she would.)

No buying sweets with our pocket money (which amounted to 50p a week until I was 13, so what else was I supposed to spend it on?). This led to us sneaking money out of the house to buy sweets (especially bubble gum) from the newsagents, then eating them up trees down 'The Field'.

No ITV, naturally.

Only lemonade sparkles if we were eating icecream/lollies in our clothes, because they dripped clear, colourless juice and thus didn't stain. We were allowed others, notably My Whippy, if we were standing in the garden in our swimming costumes, or naked, since we could be hosed off. I'm not kidding. Of course, they could have had a point; we have pictures of us doing this, and we're coated in icecream from our noses to our toes.

No newspapers, or other forms of news, from the moment I started reading the headlines at the breakfast table. This led to me thinking that we gave up all that fighting/killing malarkey after WW2, because everyone realised it was a Bad Thing. This further led to me seriously considering the army as a career, since surely all they do nowadays is march around, shoot paper targets, maybe stab straw things with bayonets and play on obstacle courses (yay!). I shudder to remember the horror when I realised we still had wars.
(Skittlemcfluff ......................, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 23:59, Reply)

Never was allowed to watch the A-Team
Which having seen how saccharine it is, confuses me.
(Eli-T, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 23:58, Reply)

smarties
My mum always used to go through my packets of smarties and remove (and eat) the red ones herself, i wasn't allowed cause of something they used in the colouring. I forget the name, something to do with beetles blood, or so i was told, but they've stopped it now.
Strict?...nah, just my mum being greedy.

We wernt allowed to go down the slides at the park unless my dad had run his hands down either side where u sit cause apparently "People plant razerblades down there so you slice yourself to bits"....seemed i lived in a rough area.
(icely05 suggests killing the frosties kid, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 23:45, Reply)

Grrrmachine
While you were walking the dog up and down the beach, you're dad was shagging the swiss bint. You were just clearing the way for him.
(TheBigOne, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 22:59, Reply)

Bloody Kids
When I was but a wee lad, I was round a kids house, for their birthday party, not that i really liked them, but my mother was in the competitive mothers club (its oldar than you think).

Anyway, the supposed birthday boy said something wich irritated me, so i lamped the little bugger.

Suffice to say, I was banned from going to parties of my classmates for a while.

Do i think that my parents were strict? Not now, but i was damn pissed off at the time.
(DanS like you've never DanSed before!, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 22:28, Reply)

oh god..
A good family friend is a raving fundamentalist Christian(it's the American way). She has three kids, between 10 and 13. They're not allowed to watch or listen to anything except Christian television and music. No Harry Potter, it's the spawn of Satan. She once went out and bought sheets because the only spare ones we had for her kids to sleep on were my old Harry Potter and Pokemon ones.
They're really nice people, but there's nothing I want more than to corrupt those damn kids.
( trintrin has jam for blood, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 22:10, Reply)

Allo Allo
We were banned from watching Allo Allo. Something to do with the subject matter and having family die during the French occupation.

To be honest, I don't think I missed out.
(Rilux might be pregnant and has bum-aids, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 22:02, Reply)

PARTIES
my mum hated me having parties - as such I never had a b'day party till I was 10 or 11 when I invited loads of people around anyway.

She still hates me having more than 2 mates in the house at anyone time - especially if they spill drinks or cause chaos (well fair enough mum)

I remember the first time I swore at my dad - I was really young and had learnt this *new word* on the playground.

So one day my dad wouldnt take me and my mates to a park to play footie - so I called him a wanker. Shit that was a bad idea as I felt the consequences ramming into me a minute later...
(Huggy G The Last time I raped your mum was on, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 21:49, Reply)

Hypocrite? Her?
The nightclub in my town used to run underage nights in the middle of the week: no alcohol on sale, chucking out time at 10pm - looking back, it must have been crap but I'll never know since my parents banned me from going. They also tried to ban me from working in a pub when I turned 18 because the pub in question "used to be a brothel".

I was a model daughter. Straight As at school, always helped with the housework. Stayed at home reading while my classmates were drinking White lightening in a local park. Got a job while I was doing my A Levels and gave a percentage of my wage to my Mum to contribute to the bills. The ONE time I slipped up and came home at 1.30am instead of 1am (at the age of 18), they forced me to give up my job in the bar and had to account for every minute spent outside of their house.

6 months later, I packed my bags and moved to France. It took me years to get over the urge to ask their permission before doing something and feeling guilty when I stayed out late.

To top it all, a few months ago, my aunt told me that during my Golden Girl years, my mother would frequently complain that I wasn't normal, never went out with my friends, yata yata yata. I was 14 OF COURSE I wanted to go out with my friends, get drunk, have underage sex but SHE banned me from leaving the house.

Now she sees my once a year and one day, when she's old and infirm she'll have to go into a nursing home because I won't be there to look after her. Ha!
(ellen smellen, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 21:47, Reply)

never take your mum down the pub
my brother took my mum down the pub for the first time when she visited his new house.

we've always through my mum was stuck in the past, but this was remarkable.

walking back from the pub, a few glasses of white wine later, my mum got very upset. She, my brother and his wife, and their neighbours were walking in a line along a narrow pavement back to his house when she cried (in all seriousness)

"don't walk in a line! if you do that, the japs will get us. The sniper always shoots the one at the back and no one notices"

they had to obey, otherwise she would have kept screaming.

this was in 2003. 58 years after Japan surrendered in WWII. not that that counts for my mother.
(sdflkjhdsmnb, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 21:41, Reply)

BANNED from watching or listening to radio version of Top Of The Pops
Their reason was "because it's not proper music". This started in the late eighties, and for my age this meant no Rick Astley, Kylie, Jason, Bananarama, Pepsi & Shirley (generally no Stock Aitken Waterman), Five Star, Bros, Worlds Apart etc, etc. (carrying on through most of the 90s)
This meant all I had to listen to was my parents' records from 60s/70s.
Result?
My friends from back then now listen to acts like Phil Collins, Robbie Williams and Boyzone.
I like everything but. And b3ta. Which I think says it all, really.
Thinking of banning my kids from iTunes or suchlike when they finally arrive...
(niceandwarmandhot vive la résistance, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 21:40, Reply)

More fun with my mum. (No, wait, that sounds wrong...).
When he was a young 'un, my brother was a bit of a bad lad. Nothing entirely criminal, but enough to be slapped with an ASBO these days.

He'd always get himself in bother, and being the baby of the family, mum would always give him a telling off and that was it.

But, as he approached his 10th birthday, it seems my mum had seen enough. The reprimands were getting more severe, and the punishments worse (I remember one particular time he had to scrub the bathroom floor. With an old toothbrush).

Still our kid would get into bother but the final straw was him smashing a neighbour's window down the road, whilst my mum was out in the garden. She said nothing, just walked into the room, and phoned the coppers.

Yes, she shopped her 9 year old son to the cozzers.

Police car roars round the corner, shoves our kid in the back, takes him 50 yards up the road, to our house.

I've never seen my brother so upset. He was almost shitting tears. The best bit was when my mother said:

"I'd like you to lock him up".

Apparently the police can't do that, but it was enough for my brother to never even breathe in the wrong way again.

Again, another reason why me and my bro ended up on the straight and narrow, despite coming from a broken home and being raised on one of the roughest estates in England. My mum HAD to be strict.
(scentless_apprentice takes two bottles into the shower!, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 21:34, Reply)

I just couldn't believe
My mum got so upset about me wanking on the stairs.
(Give me the cheese you cocksucker No board sig in protest., Thu 8 Mar 2007, 21:34, Reply)

The comic they tried to ban
My parents were pretty laid back, but a mate who lived up the road had all kinds of odd rules. One of the things his parents had banned from the house was The Beano.

Yes, The Beano. Dennis the Menace, the Bash Street Kids and Biffo the Bear were somehow unsuitable. However, Whizzer and Chips (a vastly inferior alternative) was allowed. I shit you not.

The upshot of this was if he ever came round my house after school, all he wanted to do was read Beanos.

Anyway, I once lent him a few to read at home, and he must have got into some trouble because some time later his Dad bumped into my Mum and gave her quite a talking to. It actually took her several minutes to realise he wasn't taking the mickey, but was actually pretty pissed off.
(lolwhites, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 21:34, Reply)

Thankfully
my parents were quite cool, could go out late, have a laugh with friends, bugger off to places without telling them etc etc.

But say any sort of bad word in front of my Dad was a complete no no! My Mum? Can say all sorts in front of her.

Oh, I'm 28 and still scared to swear infront of my Dad! :(
(Laxly, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 21:32, Reply)

My parents were OK
but when I have kids I'm going to really fuck with their minds, for the entertainment value. Kids will believe anything you tell them... going to the toilet is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG
( Peregr1n @peregr1n, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 21:20, Reply)