Strict ParentsI always thought my parents were quite strict, but I can't think of anything they actually banned me from doing, whereas a good friend was under no circumstances allowed to watch ITV because of the adverts.
This week's Time Out mentions some poor sod who was banned from sitting in the aisle seats at cinemas because, according to their mother, "drug dealers patrol the aisles, injecting people in the arm."
What were you banned from doing as a kid by loopy parents?
(
chthonic, Thu 8 Mar 2007, 12:37)
« Go Back
Dads know best...I was a tense and neurotic child.
I wouldn’t describe Mr. Father as strict. No. I own both a dictionary and a thesaurus. Perverse, sadistic and irrational are far more apt terms for the lengths Mr. Father would take to stifle my pint-sized pursuit of happiness.
He told me that I should never pick my nose or put my fingers in my mouth. Not for reasons of good manners or hygiene, but because it would inevitably lead to irreversible ‘spastic hands’. Apparently a former colleague of Mr. Father used to bite his nails, developed said condition and was promptly relieved of his duties. He ended up living under the flyover eating old chips out of the gutter on account of his stricken digits.
A similar fate awaited me and my feet if I continued to wear socks in bed. Mr. Father helpfully explained that such unnecessary attire would most definitely cause my toes to fuse together, thus leaving me with amorphous lumps of meat hanging from the ends of my legs.
Mr. Father said that eating white bread and biscuits would render me incapable of opening my bowel and that he would then have to send me to ‘a doctor’ who would open it for me. Conversely, consuming too much fruit or even a solitary peanut would leave me unable to hold anything in.
Hence I waddled through my formative years with a colon packed so tightly with super-dense faecal matter that my waistline became comparable to an event-horizon. Merely unbuckling my belt could suck the light from a room and gassy emissions had been known to draw planets out of orbit. To this day I have a grossly oversized large intestine which ripples like a steroid-chomping strongman’s arm.
Other memorable parenting tactics were to advise me to go to sleep as quickly as possible because a child falling asleep after midnight would often never wake up. Also I had to be quiet, as failing to hear one’s own heartbeat would likely cause it to stop.
A few years ago I reminded Mr. Father of these pearls of wisdom so kindly entrusted to me.
Oh, how he laughed...
(, Fri 9 Mar 2007, 9:23, Reply)
« Go Back