22 People Share The Most Outrageous Rules Their Super Strict Parents Made Them Follow

Parents, right? Their job isn’t easy. To be a mom or a dad is a combination of maintaining a household, earning money, and being emotionally available, all while trying to raise one or more of their offspring—who they love and protect with an unmatched ferocity—into stable, healthy, happy adults that can function in society. Sometimes, in their pursuit of these ideals, or maybe just because they’re control freaks, parents can go way too far. Some people recently got on an Ask Reddit thread to discuss their parents’ most freakishly strict rules that they had no choice but to obey.

22. littlewoodenfox:

I once got grounded because I did the dishes without having to be reminded. My mom said that I was trying to manipulate her and that I must have only done it because I was trying to get something out of her. In reality, all I really wanted out of her was to stop yelling at me about how I never do the dishes without having to be reminded.

21. librarianinfomaven:

I couldn’t shave my legs until I was 16. I did when I was 12. Mom found out and grounded me. I had to ask to get a drink of anything or eat anything.

Couldn’t go anywhere unless my little brother could go with too or if he had a play date. If he didn’t have anyone to play with, then I couldn’t either. (We are 8 years apart).

20. Leirbag43874:

I couldn’t brush my teeth after breakfast on school mornings. I had braces, and my mom wouldn’t let me brush my teeth after breakfast in fear of us being late for school. I offered to make my own breakfast earlier in the morning in order to compensate, so I could get all the gunk out of my braces after eating.

However, when I made my breakfast the next morning she revoked my “ride to school privilege.” Had to ride my bike to school every day from then on (luckily my school wasn’t a long ride, but rainy days sucked). It was my punishment for being disobedient.

19. Atillion:

I wasn’t allowed to swim in public swimming pools because I would catch AIDS. When my PE class would go to the pool one week a year, I had to walk laps around the pool because I couldn’t participate.

18. MrMcPsychoReal:

If I farted it was 2 hours outside, even in the freezing winter. One day I collapsed in the cold and was taken away from my mum after I was hospitalised 3 hours after collapsing; then lived with my grandparents for the rest of my childhood and legally not allowed to see my mum until I was 18. Guess it counted as child abuse

17. Unluckypuppy13:

My mom once kicked me out of the house for being gay and I’m not even gay.

16. Asphodelic:

My parents were horrible parents in general but the most bizarre rule that my siblings and I put up with was that we weren’t allowed to sneeze multiple times in a row. One sneeze? Fine. Another sneeze after some arbitrary number of minutes later? No problem.

Two sneezes in a row? Get yelled at for being unhygienic (even if you covered your nose/mouth properly) and for having no manners. God forbid if you sneezed thrice or more in a row… I have seasonal allergies and one time, my dad was in a particularly bad mood and caught me in a sneezing fit and grounded me for a week.

15. sowhatonion:

I was not allowed to use the money cheat on Sims growing up because that’s not how the “real world” works, I used the cheat once and couldn’t explain where all the money I had came from so I was grounded and had Sims taken away.

14. lisapocalypse:

My parents were all over the place with strictness. When I was old enough to drive, my younger sister and I would drive to McDonald’s, just a few miles away. My parents would admonish us “Whatever you do, do NOT eat french fries in the car!!!!”. Invariably, we would get home, they would run out, open the car doors, sniff, and start screaming at us for eating french fries in the car. We never did.

13. fudgeman:

My mom was absolutely obsessed with clean feet. Every day before school, she would make sure we got in the bath and cleaned our feet. I know most of you people are like, “Yeah well when I take a shower I’m already standing in soapy water, so good enough” but that attitude would get your face slapped off around my mom.

She’d have the bath full of scolding hot water every morning and the first thing would we do, before eating, before showering, before changing into our clothes, is dip our feet in that too hot water. Then my mom would load our feet up with this really strong smelling soap from some specialty store or something, because I’ve never seen it anywhere else, and she would scrub every square microinch of our feet with this stiff bristled big toothbrush thing. Maybe it was for cleaning horse teeth, I don’t know.

It hurt so bad. The water was too hot, the soap stung, and the brushing was too intense. I never got used to it, but I couldn’t talk back or avoid it either. If I tried to get out of it or complain about it, BLAM! Slapped across the face. Complain about the slap? BOOM! Grounded from TV, the computer, friends, and books.

It wasn’t until I left for college did I experience what it was like to not thoroughly clean my feet every single morning. It felt liberating. I even walked around without socks sometimes (my mom always made us wear two pairs). I still had my feet scrubbed like hell when I came home to visit though. Only those times it felt good, as if they needed a good cleaning.

Even now when I see my mom, she wants to clean my feet. It’s pretty great actually. Imagine going to the dentist to get your teeth cleaned, but it’s for your feet instead.

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