Strict? Probably just damaged and mean.
No rules spring to mind, just what I thought was normal until I was about 10.

Mother: World beating guilt merchant with a nice sideline in obsessive compulsion. More than once had me take off my 'filthy' school uniform on the driveway to be placed in a bag for safe transference to the washing machine so's not to contaminate the house. We lived on the road most people used to walk home from school... Washed car and door keys (as they'd been OUTSIDE!) amongst other plainly paranoid things. Obviously this didn't really leave any room for having friends round the house. Once yelled at me for having the radio on when sent to my room for punishment only to find her lonely 9 year old son having an animated conversation with himself. Didn't see the signs and managed to pass on a inconvenient amount of her loopiness.

Father: Prone to violent outbursts and rages and tighter than a gnats arse. While not being at all poor, the washer was only allowed on once a week and then on the economy 7. Same weekly routine with baths until early teens. Showers not allowed unless on aformentioned economy 7. Instigated garden chores that mean't I got covered in grass cuttings setting off mother. Once, on the account of a few bits of grass, mum wound dad up so much he shook my sister by her ankles until the strap on her dungerees broke, depositing her head first on the floor. It was, according to my spent, post-row parents, my fault.

As you can see, it was bit difficult to please them both at the same time and I revelled in my time away from the house, although it took me a few years to work out that the strange sensation I was feeling was relaxation. Now me and sis have both left the 'nest', both parents seem much happier with less to disrupt their routines/co-dependencies. Somehow, they've managed to reconcile the "you're dirty!" / "don't wash!" paradox that I never could.

Strangely, we could watch ITV whenever liked.
(impostercat, Sat 10 Mar 2007, 5:03, Reply)

My sister-in-law (no, not the crazy one)
will totally deny this... When her 4 kids were little, she got sick of them staying up Christmas Eve and destroying her peace, quiet and Christmas cigarette. So she told them the Christmas Clown would get them if them didn't go to sleep! "He creeps around the outside of the house and peeks in the windows. If he sees that your eyes are open, he'll break in and claw your eyeballs out."

Jesus, Kitty!

In a few years she couldn't remember the whole clown thing and told the kids the Christmas Owl would scratch their eyes out if they didn't fall asleep right away.

She swears up and down it isn't true, but I vividly remember it and her kids were scared to death of clowns and owls for years. So I guess they were banned from being awake on Xmas Eve.
(TDub Nunc id vides, nunc ne vides on, Sat 10 Mar 2007, 4:02, Reply)

I wasn't allowed to smile as a child.
Every time I did, I would be whipped with a razor strap, punched and forced to eat a raw bulb of garlic.
But I grew up OK & I sure do still love my garlic. I eat it every day.
( Sir Pigeon Nipples Did you sit in some sugar?, Sat 10 Mar 2007, 2:58, Reply)

Jesus
Let's see.

NO:

~jeans - Mom didn't want to shop somewhere else (we only ordered from Lands' End)
~pierced ears - I wasn't old enough
~rock concerts - dangerous people everywhere
~rock music - "You don't need to listen to that. Hear, listen to the Beach Boys."
~movies over PG - "There's sex and violence in there"
~cut-off shorts - hookers wear them
~high heels - hookers wear them
~candy - "You don't need to eat that shit." (I spent many a Halloween watching my dad throw everything out, piece by piece, right in front of me. I got so desperate I'd pick it out of the trash.)
~junkfood - "You don't need to eat that shit." (Desperate moments included sneaking cake icing from the tins.)
~movies - "Go read a book."
~food at the movies - "We have food at home!"
~Calvin & Hobbes - (Okay, I used to imitate them. I brought that on myself, but I was bored!)
~wandering around the neighborhood - dangerous people everywhere
~cussing - *SMACK*
~pets - unless I found one that didn't pee, poop, or die (Dad used to get me quiet and thinking for HOURS with this one. Sneaky bastard.)
~TV - "You don't need to watch that shit!" (I'd sneak Power Rangers anyway, but this blew into a huge war come seventh grade when I tried watching 'The Simpsons'.)
~CD player - too expensive and I didn't need them (oo. Wow. Casettes. Greeeat. (I have since learned to appreciate the casette.))
~video games - too violent
~jewelry - hookers wear it
~perfume - hookers wear it (and it turns out I'm allergic, so my face blows up like John Merrick if I wear it)
~Girl Scouts - I never got a reason why I couldn't join, I just wasn't allowed to. O.o
~smokes - duh
~booze - duh (they emphasized this hideous sin a lot, actually)
~drugs - duh
~foreign stuff - "Why?"

Rules incldued:
~playdates needed to be organized a week in advance, parents need to be met, we need to take you there ourselvses, blood samples, etc
~in bed by 7 PM, even summer. I had to argue them up to 8 PM in third grade. It didn't help that I wouldn't fall asleep until 11 PM - 2 AM. Continues to this day.
~we ALWAYS go to church on Sunday mornings. This is non-negotiable. (Until my family (well, all of us except mom) started fucking around during mass, found other ways to have peace with God, and did our own things come the teenage years).

And my personal favourite was when dad told me I couldn't go to the bottom of the hill from where we lived, cos a man pulled a boy into the woods along the road and raped him. It happened about fifty years ago, but it still happened, and scared the shit out of me. (Our city was having a lot of problems with gang violence, so twas probably the best.)

That and when I got a 2-3 hour lecture from papa when he found 'From Hell' in my room, flipped through it page by page (starting from the back) until he found the sex scenes (which were at the front), and made me sit there while he looked for it. I got bellowed at, and then when I brought it up to him a year or two after, "I don't remember that." AAaagagh!!

Fast forward to when I'm sixteen. I'm in a mood, storm up to my mother and announce I'm going to get my ears pierced and go downtown for a concert that will probably end around midnight.

"Okay, have fun."

D'oh. After enough fighting with them (and a fascination with the macabre around puberty), I won just about everything (finally). Although I'm starting to think all of that was for the best cos I'm considerably less fucked up than most of the people I graduated high school with. Although, it is kind of annoying to be the only sober person at a party and not by choice.

I love 'em dearly tho. :) It helps that they're less uptight than before and poop and barf jokes were plentiful when I was little. Oddly enough, my dad was delighted when I got him the little robotic dog that humps your leg for Christmas. I'm still pretty much virginal in most things, but TV is my shrine, my language is so filthy it'd make dock workers cry, I'm rarely seen without platform boots, and I'm a loyal Dir en grey fan (Japanese band that has one music video of a geisha getting cornholed with a giant robot dick until blood gushes from her mouth. It helps that the music is pretty good. ^.^)

Apologies for length. 'Swhat happens when you don't wear a bra.
(DeadCats, Sat 10 Mar 2007, 2:22, Reply)

If I stay at my parents and go out
I'll come home at 2am to find my mum still up, worried about me being out so late and stuff.

All fine, but... I live 330 miles away from them and she doesn't bat an eyelid when I'm down here! Oh, and I'm 24 and 6 years out of home.
( NomDePlume fo shizzle my nizzle old bean, Sat 10 Mar 2007, 0:53, Reply)

Never!
...eat with your mouth full!

Yeah, a family of 8 does not a sane parent make.

My parents aren't really that strict though - they don't have enough time to regulate their pronouncements and they know it.

EDIT @LINBOB: Heh, sux to be you. We've been allowed alcohol at tea time ever since we were old enough to sit up pretty much. Reminds me of a time when my youngest sister (4ish) had a nip of wine, screwed up her face like she'd eaten a persimmon, and asked for 'more vinegar', since she obviously thought it was the cool thing to drink...
(satellite blows, Sat 10 Mar 2007, 0:26, Reply)

Telly
ooh and it was law that i had to be in bed before Minder came on at 9 o clock but they made sure the telly was up as loud as possible so i knew THEY were watching it and I wasn't. Bastards.
(lynney666, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 23:36, Reply)

Alcohol
My parents taught me how to make the perfect Bacardi & Coke but were so strict they would not allow me and my 10yr old sister to taste it! Evil much....
(lynney666, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 23:29, Reply)

My mum
Xmas about 3/4 years ago. Age 22 (approx). Go to my parents with the wife. Take PS2 to parents in anticipation of opening and playing the GTA the wife had bought me. Play GTA for 15 minutes. Mum says "What is this filth. I forbid you to play this game in my house". I say "fuck off mum I'm 22 (approx)". She says sorry.
(daveymac99, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 23:22, Reply)

I was grounded many times
Mainly for being arsey about things.

All rules in our house only applied to me anyway and not my brothers. If they did something wrong then the rule was ignored.

The only rule that my parents still insist on is telling them where you're going when you go out. They didn't mind where as long as I told them (going to the pub at 16 was ok).

I used this greatly against my youngest brother, who had left the house in a tip and not done any chores he'd been given etc. then fucked off someone without telling anyone. He got a bit of a bollocking even though he was 16 but more importantly it was 1-0 to me that week.
( thistle, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 22:26, Reply)

I wasn't allowed to look out of the windows.
In case someone outside SAW me, looking out of the window.
Because then they'd KNOW that I'd been, you know, looking out of the windows.

Looking back, I think my mother's idea was that, as she hated me so much, it was probably best all round if I wasn't there at all, or failing that, became invisible.

I was also regularly locked out of the house on Saturdays and told not to come back until teatime, not allowed to drink milk, rarely allowed meat, forbidden to play music loud enough to be heard by my mother's ear pressed to my bedroom door and sent to bed at 9pm until I was 15.

No wonder I left at 17 to live in a dingy bedsitter with a drug-addled biker. Hah, that taught'em!
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 22:17, Reply)

They never figured out it would have been better to let me wear jeans like the other kids ...
My parents like to think of themselves as middle-class. This means going to every length to cover up their inner-city Birmingham/Paisley accents and upbringing. It also meant buying our clothes from jumble sales as kids (with strict warnings to never tell anyone) so that they could afford to live in a fairly large house in one of the 'posher' estates. Its all about apprearances ...

Its relieving to know we weren't the only kids not allowed to watch ITV, due to it being too common. My Dad used to frown on Channel 4 too, until I finally convinced him to compare the Channel 4 and BBC news in the mid-nineties. Anyway, they had an interesting combination of absurd strictness, and extreme permisiveness, apparently depending on how things would look to the neighbours, and whether it was likely to affect me going to university and getting a good job (I was even warned I would be disowned if I didn't go to uni).

Me and my sister weren't allowed Barbie dolls, as they were 'far too tacky'. No, we had to play with Cindy dolls and Sylvanian families, which obviously weren't tacky at all. My mum used to get my primary school teachers to give me homework to do, at a time when no other children ever had to do homework. Then she would make me stay in during the holidays to do it, while the other kids played out on the street - something I was never allowed to do, for fear of annoying the neighbours.

At Secondary school, I was the only kid in my class forced to wear the 'recomended dress' of black trousers, white shirt, and black sweatshirt - whilst all the other kids wore jeans and trainers. Woo. What it took them over 2 years to figure out, is that I'd buy really sheap sluttly clothes at the weekend with my pocket money, and get changed after they went to work in the morning, and then back into the 'recomended dress' before they got home from work. So from the ages of 12-15 I'd generally turn up to school in mini-skirts, 3 1/2 inch platform heels, and tight, low-cut tops. I went from being a social outcast, to the one who every one knew and gossiped about, I don't think that was quite what they were hoping for when they decided I should be 'different'. Eventually they figured out that my school clothes were always miraculously clean. I wasn't allowed to pierce my ears until I was 16 because it's 'too tacky'. Two weeks later, my mum decided it looked good and had hers done too.

At the same time, I was always encouraged to try alcohol (drinking wine with dinner is cultured you know) and I used to go to the pub from the age of 13 with my parents' blessing - as long as it was with the right friends. They even bought me nice bottles of wine to take to parties when I was 15 (instead of drinking something cheap and tacky) and would give me a lift into town to go clubbing, to save me getting the bus. They'd let me go off to my bedroom for hours with boyfriends (surely they knew we were having sex??) but if I got anything less than an A in school, then there would be all hell to pay.

To be fair, despite the sex and underage drinking, I was a perfect child - no smoking, drugs or antisocial behaviour - but I always insisted on doing it my own way, which would lead to MASSIVE rows. My mum actually stopped speaking me for almost a year when I decided to take a gap year and move to London with my then boyfriend.

Having said all that, one friend's foster parents made her join a cult and stole all her money, another's Dad used to beat her, and my mate's dad used to anally rape him as a kid, so I can't really complain.
(cherrynicola, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 22:03, Reply)

ITV
That's right, my Mum wouldn't let me watch ITV. This was back in the "good old days" of three channels, and we couldn't _get_ BBC2, which narrowed the selection down to, BBC1 and, err, that was it. So pretty much all I could watch was Blue Peter. Woo.

I have hundreds of funting channels now. Ha.
(hokkyokusei, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 20:59, Reply)

My stepdad was a bit of a bastard.
I'll have a think about this and when I've formed some of my experiences into humourous stories I'll post something else.
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 20:57, Reply)

going clubbing until
stupid hours of the early morning when i was about 16... i know, its not so harsh but it was the way they did it... they would scream and shout and tell me off and forbid me from going out, but when i went and did it anyway they were perfectly chill about it. i remember a couple of times where i'd come in the door at 9 in the morning significantly wrecked and they would say "morning flynntoff, big night last night? did you have fun?" and make me toast... they were a bit strange like that...
(flynntoff, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 20:40, Reply)

I'm Ok
Truth be told I have damn good parents. Reasonable curfews 11pm til I was old enough to go out lots; 15ish? (Except if exams next, day fairy nuff.)
My dad still makes (and supplys me with) strong homebrew wine, I know its ok in moderation, like with sex etc. (Only drugs are really bad with them, not too fussed by this)

One main rule, was be nice to everyone, and try to treat everyone equally. As a result I'm a happy 19 year old.
My parents are ace.
(Ian_Ex_Machina Has nothing better to do, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 20:21, Reply)

Harsh
My parents were so harsh they didn't let me have ice cream they just tricked me by saying when the music played it meant they had run out.
(Charlietron Still can't think of anything witty to put here, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 20:11, Reply)

I laid down the law about how my kids could use the 'net,
back in the days of dial-up.

'You can use it after 6 at night and at weekends all you like, but no other time!'

They obeyed me. To the letter. A £580 phone bill, every penny of it spent at off peak and weekends, proved it.

Being quite flush in those days, and having no grounds for complaint after they'd followed my rules, I frowned, choked a bit and paid up.

Two of these underage 90s nerds are now b3tans. You know who you are, punks!
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 18:33, Reply)

School Daze
A long time ago, but i was banned from watching Grange Hill and Neighbours. Apparently my parents thought there was too much "naughtiness" going on in them and were worried the shows would pollute my young fragile mind with deviant thoughts of sex, drugs and alcohol...

Soon convinced them that i knew more than they showed on tv when my mum walked in on my then girlfriend blowing me whilst absolutely hammered...

Those were the days...
(Nuclear Ninja like a radioactive Chuck Norris..., Fri 9 Mar 2007, 18:29, Reply)

I'm just wondering
what ridiculously far-fetched, almost certainly bollocks or at the very least extremely exaggerated story Legless comes up with this week. No doubt he had parents who didn't allow him to breathe, eat or shit.
(hazey, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 17:52, Reply)

I'm not a kid, I'm 26, and thankfully moving out in 2 weeks time
Mainly because my relationship with my parents has broken down severely, to the point that I am banned from putting any food in "their" fridge. I bought some bacon and cheese, and they kept taking it out of the fridge and putting on the side, until they got fed up after I kept just putting it back.

Nothing else appears to be off limits though, I can still use other facilities. They will get a shock though when I leave and take "my broadband", "my graphics card, operating system and Office 2003" from my dad's PC.

I can be childish too, it seems.
( Rubymurray is disdainful of your hateful, ill-formed opinions, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 17:43, Reply)

My room was at the back of the house...
And my parent's was at the front. When my first boyfriend use to stay over, my mum would make him stay in my sister's room. Which was next to my parent's room. I used to sneak into his room.

Until I woke my mum up having sex. I was no longer allowed near him unsupervised.

But I was 18!!!
(mazzmatazz is messing it up like a blue bottle, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 17:35, Reply)

Another thing..
On my fifteenth birthday I got a little too pissed.

which would be OK with them.

I think i crossed the line when me and my mate sneaked out of my house at 5 in the morning and i downed the best part of two litres of vodka. (after drinking quite a fair amount of beer)

i awoke in a daze a few hours later - after having passed out in the park at 7 in the morning - with my mum sitting next to me in a hospital room laughing and taking pictures of me in a slightly rough state, so she could forever rub in my face that i fucked up.

Luckily i'm too immature to care, and i destroyed all pictures.

And i'm not a chav.
(Snailfighter Mk VIII MASTER of the bits underneath the ledges on fences, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 17:20, Reply)

Friggin In The Riggin
My first record was at the ripe old age of 7 - maybe 8 'Something Else' by the Sex Pistols - the b-side was a lovely little ditty titled 'Friggin In The Riggin'.

After I had purchased said record and taken it home to play, my mum aked me to play the b-side - Probably she was more aware of the Sex Pistols due to media frenzy of the time than I was - so I play said b-side - much to the disgust of mother - who immediately banned me from playing it again.

Well - this had me thinking, i'm going to investigate further - so off to the record shop, and lo and behold a double album 'The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle' with the b-side on - and a naked girl on the inside of the gatefold sleeve - jackpot, couldn't afford it, but back in those days you could play records on the turntables in the shops, so not only could i play 'Friggin In The Riggin' I could gawp at a naked girl........ fantastic being banned - introduced me to punk and porn.

Length - it was a double album.....
(moriarty, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 17:18, Reply)

Evil fuckers
My parents had the usual rules (reading through here), no tv, no magazines, no friends, no hobbies, no life, no music, no boys until I was 18 ( and then to be accompanied by one of them ). I was routinely locked out of the house for coming home late and then other times they'd phone the police if I was 15 minutes late. I never knew whether I was coming or going. I took the only release possible and got heavily into drugs - they clearly didn't give a shite and just packed me off to boarding school.

I'm 33 now and despite having done all the things since that they banned me from I'm still terrified of boys. :-( Wankers and no, I do NOT forgive them. Fucking 'tards.
(betty_bongo, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 17:15, Reply)

my parents wouldn't let me
ask a girl from my school to the Year 10 formal.

And I was like, but she's really nice, she's in my Science class...

But then they said I wasn't just forbidden to ask that particular girl, I couldn't ask any girl!

God they went on - blah blah blah, you'll get fired...
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 16:51, Reply)

my Mum only let me lick the bowl

if I flushed it first.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 16:49, Reply)

Motorbikes are the tool of Satan
Like many others, my parents banned me from owning or riding a motorbike. My Mum was particularly against it and I sort of got the impression that Dad would have let me, except that Mum would have chopped his todger off if she'd found out. He used to have a bike and I've seen him ride sans-helmet.

Mum's basis for the ban on bikes was do with her fear that I'd end up in kit-form at the side of the road.

Anyway, when I was 16 I couldn't afford to buy or insure a motorbike, so I stuck to my pedal cycle.

When I was a poor student I still couldn't afford to buy a bike, so I slummed it on the bus.

When I finally went out to work, I couldn't afford a car or a bike, so I slummed it on the bus.

My Mum has told every single girlfriend I ever had that I wasn't allowed to ride a motorcycle. And in every case they agreed with her! Grrr...

She formed a pact with my wife, ensuring that the ban would continue well into my thirties! I couldn't even keep a bike under my own roof.

As is nature's way, you can only keep a man away from motorbikes for so long. Eventually, the draw becomes too much. I took and passed my Direct Access test in complete secrecy. And I bought a bike.

Agreed with wife that it was better to keep the parents in the dark, as they'd only worry. Mum comes around to visit and what do I find... wife has dobbed me in and there's Mum sitting on the bike in the garage! I now have her approval - but not Dad's, he's terrified I'll come a cropper. Parents worry too much.
(KingboyD, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 16:43, Reply)

Mind the roads
Even now my Mum tells me to mind the roads.

I am 33.
(brocky, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 16:38, Reply)

Going Out - Or not, as the case may be
My Dad was a comissioning engineer so regularly spent 18 months at a time in India, Zimbabwe etc, so my Mum had free reign over the house. My childhood up until starting secondary school at age eleven was fairly happy and care-free (what I remember of it anyway).

Anyway, upon returning from my first day at said secondary school my Mum informed that I was no longer allowed to leave the house to "play" in the evening as "your school work is now your first priority". I was pretty gobsmacked to say the least as I was looking forward to seeing my ex-primary school chums who had gone to different schools to see how they had got on etc etc. The new regime only got stricter from there. I was informed that I would be able to go out on Friday evenings and Saturdays only, even Sunday was a no-go. Two hours of homework were required every night, followed by any and all chores she could think of to keep me busy until 9pm whereupon I had to go to bed.

Sundays were spent, without fail, doing no less than THREE hours of homework, then cutting the grass (my parents had to go and buy a house with a huge lawn and driveway), sweeping the drive, cleaning both bathrooms, ironing all the clothes that had been washed over the weekend and generally being her personal slave. This continued up until the age of 16, when I finished my final GCSE exam.

I then went on to Sixth Form where the regime continued unabated, despite my protestations I wasn't developing social skills and was struggling to keep friends. When I finally finished my last A Level exam I thought I would be free, but was then told to immediately get a job as I now owed her £60 a week rent and board, on top of the insane number of chores I was still expected to do. I thought passing my driving test would gain me some freedom but I more often than not spent my time driving her places, doing shopping or any other inane errand she could think of.

To this day I still blame her bitterly for my complete inability to handle myself in social situations or make friends with people, my chronic (for two years at least) agoraphobia, and being unable to leave the house after dark unattended.

Hell, if it weren't for the internet I would probably still be totally lacking in romantic experience owing to the fact that it is hard to have a girlfriend who you can only see at school, and on Fridays and Saturdays.

I also lament the fact that her constant drive to make me better myself has now resulted in me being terminally lazy with zero ambition or self confidence. I have now worked for the same shitty IT company that pays terrible money for 6 years simply because I cannot be bothered to try and find another job. All my will to put effort into doing or learning things was used up during my childhood and try as I might, I cannot change it.

Reading back what I have just written, it seems as though my childhood was relatively easy compared to some of the other stories here, but this isn't really the half of it. I think I have probably repressed most of it.

My sister claims to have had a much worse time of things (I was oblivious to most of it as she is 6 years older than me) and I am inclined to believe her since my Mother made it very clear to her from an early age that she was a mistake. They get on OK at last now (my sister being 32) and laugh about what happened all those years ago but I still cannot. No doubt I will go to my grave bitter about it.

B3ta cherry = popped. Thank You and good night.
(Trancemaster, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 16:38, Reply)