Rules I Had As A Child
As the child of two teachers, there was absolutely no getting away with, ummm, anything in my house growing up. A few childhood rules from the House of Yes and Yes?
No white bread/sugary cereal/full cans of soda
Sugary cereals were to be mixed half and half with a healthier counterpart - Kix plus Trix, Honey Nut Cheerios plus normal Cheerios. I would quickly lose my mind at sleepovers where I was exposed to unaltered bowls of Lucky Charms. Good lord, I had to be pried off the ceiling. Of course, now that I'm an adult, I realize what a hugely beneficial and healthy rule this was. Good job, 'rents.
Saying "shut up" is unacceptable
And it still is, isn't it?
Only one hour of non-educational television per day
I got around this one by watching hours upon hours of PBS. "I'll show them! I'm going to watch Ghostwriter till my eyes fall out!" I would ferret away that one hour for delicious viewings of Ducktales or Scooby Doo. Tales of daring, do bad and good, indeed.
You only get the special spoon every other day
In our kitchen drawer of tastefully simple silverware there lurked one rogue spoon, all full of curlicues and baroque detailing. Obviously, being the princesses that we were, my sister and I both had eyes for this fancy piece of spoonery and much fighting ensued. Thus, the spoon rule was born and we begrudgingly shared it between us every other day. Until we got old enough to fight over computers and bathroom usage.
What rules did you have as a child?
Posted by Sarah Von
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12 comments:
Fart was a swear. You said "poof"
No sticking out your tongue. My dad would of cut it out if he saw you doing that.
No soda.
No pointing. Not sure what the big deal with that one was but OY they were so strict with it.
We had a rule in middle school years that entailed having to do pushups every time you said something like "I can't", "I won't", "I hate", or "shut up". The number of pushups grew the more you wound up having to be punished (I suspect because we were getting stronger and it wasn't such a big deal after a while). My mother also implemented the rule in her classroom, since it worked so well at home!
Ahhaha! We had to say 'poof,' too! Where did they get that?!
true story. My cousin is 9 years younger than me and when he was probably about 6 and me 15 my grandparents took us on a road trip for the day so brandon and I goofed around all day and he could write so he wanted to write notes in my notebook and one of the notes I wrote was "brandon poofed" with a little cloud.
Fast forward to year or so later. My dad grabbed said note book (reporter style) and was at a job site one day (hes a carpenter) and he was writing notes and a guy says to him "who is brandon and why did he poof"
Took my dad the longest time to figure out what in the world was going on.
I also could not say shut up or butt.
We didn't get soda unless we had pizza for dinner or were at the beach/camping/other special occasion.
no toys that required batteries to work
no juice unless its a special occasion
TV only on Sundays, when there were several special kids programs on
+ only two biscuits at morning/afternoon tea (one chocolate and one plain)
+ my parents were big on table manners so there were lots of rules around meal time!
+ no saying the word "hate"
+ and my Dad's favourite saying "this house is not a playground"
Shut up, when said in earnest, isn't very nice, is it? I didn't understand that as a kid, but I do now.
I wasn't allowed to swear at all, which included "God" and "crap."
After watching The Wonder Years, I thought it would be awesome to call my brother butt head. The rents didn't like it, but now we've won them over. Even they toss out the occasional "butt munch" (the new butt head) and "crap" is a regular vocab word.
My mom was a big proponent of that first one!
+ No saying "shut up".
+ Never poke out your tongue.
+ When allowed biscuits you could only have one plain on and one fancy one (there was always debate on the catagory of the chocolate chip ones).
+ You had to ask "May I please leave the table" before you got up.
Forgot to add the first one I had remembered:
+You were never, ever allowed more than two Roses chocolates in a day.
My mother had one rule for me:
*No holding the cat when you're naked.
She also developed one for my father, after an unfortunate Heimlich-maneuver-requiring incident:
*No eating steak when you've had too much to drink.
And Sarah Von! Your mother was my first grade teacher, and the only time in my life I've been in trouble for saying "shut up" was in her classroom. It all makes so much sense now...
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