31 Wild Rules People Dutifully Followed That Are Weird in Retrospect

‘Don’t feed friends’
31 Wild Rules People Dutifully Followed That Are Weird in Retrospect

When you’re a kid, you’ve got a whole lot of world to learn about. You’re trying to take in millennia of rules and traditions, while puberty wreaks havoc on your whole body. With all that, it’s not surprising that some things might not seem immediately weird, since a quarter of the stuff you’re being told only makes half-sense anyways.

This especially applies to the rules laid out by our parents in our own households, which are issued from on high. You simply stamp them onto your brain and keep things moving. It’s only later, sometimes much later, that you realize those rules were far from universal. 

Redditors have shared some of the weirdest rules from their childhoods that they only realized were unusual once they got a view of how the larger world was living, including a bath-towel mandate that will send a chill up your spine.

Jaives . 5mo ago Everyone takes an afternoon siesta. Turned out, my grandma was narcoleptic and her kids got used to napping with her.
Relevant-Package-928 . 5mo ago Don't feed friends. If friends came over after school, we weren't allowed to offer them snacks or drinks. My parents didn't want them to eat all our food. As an adult, I feed everyone. I offered food to my kids' friends. | find it so weird that my parents were so stingy. We weren't broke, growing up, we were well off. I never minded feeding the kids who came over.
SuperPomegranate7933 . 5mo ago Not being allowed to get the bath mat wet. What's it for, then?!
EarlGrey1806 5mo ago Edited 5mo ago Not my house but at a friends.... I slept over at a friend house once in elementary school and during dinner no one was allowed to drink anything. The mom's reasoning was that by filling your stomach with water you would be too full and cause you to not finish your meal. After everyone cleaned their plate (required by the parents to not waste anything) everyone got up and went to the refrigerator to get a can of Coke. I asked for a glass to get some water and was given a rolled eye
 a 5mo ago When I was a kid, the rule in the car was that the driver picks the music. When | turned 16 and started driving, it became owner of the car picks the music When I got my own car it became most experienced driver in the car picks the music Basically my mom just changed the rules at random so that nobody could listen to music except her
afeeney 5mo ago Not mine, but a Dine (Apache) friend's. When the doorbell rings, the kids hide. My friend and her mother grew up thinking that was just a fun game. Then her mother found out that it was because her grandparents were hiding the kids that hadn't been taken to a mission school. Her grandparents told their kids that it was a game so that they wouldn't be scared.
NextSplit2683 . 5mo ago Girls were not allowed to be around boys during that time of the month. Turned out to be a crazy lie.
Obvious_Lobster2403 . 5mo ago Dont use the decorative towels to dry your hands, use the old towels. Also only use half a pump of soap to wash your hands
croieile ® 5mo ago We were not allowed to lay on the bed and just read or be on the phone. Everytime we did it my father would come screaming and mocking us for being lazy or something else. When i was a teenager i always listened for his footsteps in the hallway so i could get up quick enough and pretend to do something.
Severe_Funny_3852 5mo ago No locked doors, ever. In fairness, it started as a safety thing when we were kids. When I was a toddler, I fell asleep behind a locked door and my parents thought I was dead cause I wasn't responding. But when it carried into adulthood, it became about not letting us have boundaries or our own space. My mother assumed we were keeping horrible secrets or plotting against her if we locked a door. Heaven forbid if we just wanted an ounce of privacy!
Mariah_Kits 5mo ago Edited 5mo ago My grandma told me to not eat what they serve at birthday parties because it's rude to eat their food and also you don't know what they put in it Update: I asked my uncle why my grandma was like this and his responses she told us this because people would do witchcraft to the food to get someone sick one purpose and curse them.
Brite_Butterfly 5mo ago My mom had a strict rule about me not being allowed to eat at anyone's house. She was convinced that if I accepted an invite for dinner it would make it look like she couldn't afford to feed me. It just became my normal to say no if someone invited me to dinner. That was until I met the man who would be my ex husband. His family kept inviting me over to dinner so that they could get to know me. I kept saying no. They thought I was rude. I finally explained why. That was
5mo ago SkillDifficult3555 My mom used to close the kitchen at 6 for me but everyone else in the family could use it freely whenever they wanted. My brother was allowed to have snacks that I wasn't so he could keep them in his bedroom. I wasn't allowed to eat in any room but the kitchen.
RepulsiveAttitude480 5mo ago We weren't allowed to have after school snacks because they would spoil our dinner. Dinner usually ended up being served between 8 and 9 p.m.
TragicalExpress 5mo ago Not being able to eat/make anything in the kitchen after dinner. After dinner was finished and the kitchen was cleaned, it was essentially closed. When I was younger I had some friends over for a sleepover and they wanted to get a snack, and I told them the kitchen was closed. So we'd just have to wait until morning. They all looked at me like I was insane. They convinced me to sneak a bag of chips and I was panicking the entire time.
Mistakesweremade8316 5mo ago My dad used to come into our rooms after bedtime, and if he saw that we were awake, he'd yell, Roll over, face the wall, and go to sleep! I always wondered why facing the wall was required. I realized as an adult that if we were facing the wall, we wouldn't see the strangers coming in and out of our house at all hours of the night.
eliota1 . 5mo ago Every clock in each room of the house was set ahead or behind to either spur action or to make it seem like you had more time.
myobservationonly 5mo ago Mom was foreign and carried weird habits with her to America. Her slogan I heard a million times? No need. Can I get fries with my burger? No need! Can we go to the movies? No need! Can I get sprinkles on my ice cream cone? No need! Anything that required spending ANY money was a no need. Hell, if you had to pay for oxygen to live, mom would probably still say, no need.
ya_boi_eli_ 5mo ago When | stay at my grandparents, my grandfather WILL NOT go to sleep until he knows that everybody in the house it asleep. One time I woke up to use the bathroom, keep in mind its 3 or 4 in the morning, as I'm walking out he comes out of know where and goes, What are you doing awake, Не got pretty mad. I never understood this but I won't ask him why.
Miss-Indie-Cisive . 5mo ago Not me but my ex: Not allowed to eat hotdogs unless it is accompanied by a glass of orange juice, because of a belief that things in the orange juice cancelled out harmful nutritional things in the hotdogs.
gotogarrett . 5mo ago My grandfather wouldn't allow us anything to drink during dinner as we weren't ducks.
tomd65 . 5mo ago We could not watch TV Monday through Thursday unless we had straight A's.
LilBird1946 . 5mo ago Raffi couldn't be played in my dad's car because it would break the tape deck.
jazzed4 . 5mo ago Kids had to stay outside unless they were doing homework. My youngest brother was 5, and he got to stay inside, but the rest of us, 8,9 12,14,16, had to be outside. This was in the 90's.
Ditzykittie 5mo ago the living room was for decorative purposes, NOT use... the dining table, the couch, the television, the carpet , and indoor mat... my mom was really obsessed with those home magazines and the reality shows of rich lifeless people who always seemingly had a spotless home. also the hand towel's in the kitchen and bathroom were not for use. additionally if you could just overall avoid walking on the carpet just avoid it... but the house was mainly carpet.
markmark29 . 5mo ago Bedroom window had to be open at all times, even in the winter. I thought it needed to be open to get air. We would suffocate if it wasn't open. Seemed totally logical.
krisann67 . 5mo ago The entire family shared a bath towel for the whole week.
myobservationonly . 5mo ago Each time we would enter the house we were required to shout, woo hoo. My mom hated it when she felt like someone was sneaking up on her.
T3rminallyCapricious 5mo ago Wasn't allowed to say someone was lying because lie was a bad word. Had to say you're telling a story. Also shut up (be quiet), penis (pokey), vagina (vayanya or cooter); crap, frick, flip, shoot, darn, fudge, dang, and bye we're straight up no's. (Bye was rude, had to ends calls and conversations with GOOD bye or I love you)
decorama 5mo ago Rule at girlfriend's house: Men sit on the toilet when peeing to avoid creating an embarrassing noise.
InannasPocket a 5mo ago We were only allowed ginger ale if we were sick or on an airplane. It wasn't common but we would occasionally get soda, but ginger ale was special I guess? I was well into my 20s and had an epiphany one day that I'm a grown adult with my own money ... I can just go buy a ginger ale if I want to.

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