Adults Are Revealing The Bizarre House Rules Their Parents Enforced That They Now Realize Were Completely Unhinged

Have you ever realized that a totally “normal” rule you grew up following was actually completely unique to just your household? Recently, Reddit user u/Howdoibuycrypto asked, “What’s the weirdest rule your parents had that you didn’t realize was insane until you grew up?” — and some of the responses were truly wild. Here’s a roundup of answers:

1. “Growing up, my parents had this super strict rule that we couldn’t wear socks in the house after 6 PM. They said it was because your feet need to breathe in the evening. I didn’t question it. Just barefoot all night like it was some kind of family ritual. I remember once I had friends over and one of them got scolded for having socks on at 7:30.”

—u/1108susiep

2. “I lived with a parental dress code in high school. White socks, black shoes, pants an inch too short (making the white socks more obvious), button-down collared shirts, and crew cut.”

—u/ratherBwarm

3. “We weren’t allowed to watch anything that involved witchcraft or magic. We’d watch The Little Mermaid, and my mom would fast-forward through the part where Ariel sells her soul and gives up her voice. Lion King? The scene where Rafiki summons Mufasa’s spirit. Snow White? When the crone makes the poisoned apple. I couldn’t watch or read Harry Potter until I was well into my teens, and that was only after a serious conversation with my parents explaining how none of it was real and to read it with a ‘discerning eye’ to avoid…tarnishing my soul? I don’t know.”

—u/lylalexie

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4. “No pooping in the house. Not mine, but a classmate’s dad had this rule, and he was SERIOUS about it. So any sleepovers, there was a zero tolerance rule about shitting in his house. We had to hold it or go on a group exodus to the nearest store to poop together. What’s strange is this was in the Bay Area where everyone was on city sewer and septic wasn’t a thing. Also his house was massive (6 beds, 5 baths) so it wasn’t an issue of availability. To this day I have no idea why he didn’t want kids shitting in his house.”

—u/ohlookahipster

5. “Don’t sleep with the fan on or you will die. Apparently there was an urban legend in Korea that someone died in their sleep and it was because of the fan.”

—u/Lower_Group_1171

6. “When I was in high school, my dad would take my car keys if my grades slipped (in his definition, anything under a B+). Which in and of itself wasn’t too crazy…except that if I wanted them back before the next report cards came out, I could ‘earn’ them back by donating blood. I was never able to get him to explain the reasoning behind it. It was just like this weird blood sacrifice ritual to summon car keys back from the shadowlands or something.”

—u/Proof-Mongoose4530

7. “We weren’t allowed to have any lights on after 9 pm. Like, no lamps, no TV, nothing. Thought it was normal until I realized most people just… live in their houses at night.”

—u/Impressive_Cod5502

8. “I wasn’t allowed to wear black two days in a row because I might be perceived as ‘gothic.’”

—u/chaoticgoodness789

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9. “If you go to the kitchen to cook something for yourself, you have to offer to cook for everyone in the family too. Can’t be simple food either, has to be a balanced meal. I would fast until someone else caved and cooked lol. This made me grow up HATING cooking so much. Still makes me irrationally angry.”

—u/FermentedEel

10. “My dad didn’t allow us to listen to, sing, or even mention the existence of ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ by Billy Ray Cyrus. This was a very strict rule and he’d get very stern if we brought it up. We learnt to be a little bit scared of the song and I still have a weird compulsion to avoid it. Turns out Dad was just fucking with us, and made the rule because he thought it was funny.”

—u/murgatroid1

11. “In my teen years, I had to wear clothes many sizes larger than what I actually was to hid my figure. Like, pants were size 8-12 and shirts size large. When I moved away from home and gained independence, I realized I was a size 4 in pants and a size small in tops.”

—u/obigimli2022

12. “We weren’t allowed to scrape the butter knife of peanut butter, butter, mayo, jelly, things of this nature back into it’s container. They called it ‘the devil’s share’ and you had to just waste whatever was left on the knife because if you didn’t, the devil would be mad at you.”

—u/DlVlDED_BY_ZERO

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13. “We were never allowed to wash our hair directly with the shower head, it had to go into a bucket first and then we had to pour it on our head. My mom was convinced it would prevent hair-loss in the future and sadly it didn’t work.”

—u/ConsecratedSnowfield

14. “We had 20 mins to eat a meal and couldn’t talk during dinner.”

—u/carolbaskinssucks

15. “You were only allowed to take two slices of cucumber from the communal salad bowl at dinner, no more. There was no cucumber scarcity or anything like that. Just that my mother insisted on making sure everyone had an exactly equal share. Just cucumber though, nothing else.”

—u/tiptoe_only

16. “Nobody was allowed to go to the toilet at night. We all had buckets (with lids) in our bedroom.”

—u/kampernoeleke

17. “I wasn’t allowed to say I was bored. This always struck me as normal because my dad just didn’t want me to be ungrateful and he wanted me to recognize my privilege. But speaking with my old roommates about it, they pointed out that it’s kinda weird and not-good to not be allowed to express normal, age-appropriate human emotions.”

—u/Mountain-Resource656

18. “We could only chew gum on Saturdays.”

—u/c1524064

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19. “My brother and I shared a car in high school and for whatever reason my mom (who never drove or even entered the car after we got our licenses) wouldn’t let me put an air freshener in it. She would literally look in the windows and if she saw an air freshener she would take it out. Made no sense to me then and still doesn’t.”

—u/jc8495

20. “My dad would NOT let me and my siblings own a deck of cards. I think because he associated it with gambling? but every time I would win like a cute fun-sized one from Chuck E. Cheese, he would confiscate it and stow it with the other decks he took. I just wanted to play Go Fish, man.”

—u/silvamoney

21. And finally, “When the microwave wasn’t in use we had to keep a mug of water in it.”

—u/italyqt

If you have any bizarre rules to share, drop them in the comments, or via this anonymous form!

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