"Only One Person Is Allowed To Be Sick At A Time" And 18 Other Really Stupid Rules That Strict Parents Actually Came Up With

    "If I stayed home sick from school, I would have to stay home on the weekend because if I was 'too sick for school' on a Tuesday, then I would be 'too sick for anything' four days later on the weekend."

    Ajani Bazile-Dutes
    by Ajani Bazile-Dutes

    BuzzFeed Staff

    Recently, Reddit user u/kabosu_official asked, "What was the dumbest rule from your Strict parents?"

    Character from a show wearing a head wrap and patterned robe with text "MOTHER KNOWS BEST."
    FX

    The rules these parents came up with were certainly...creative. Here are the strangest ones:

    1. "Only one person is allowed to be sick at a time. If you're sick and a family member picks it up from you, it's not your turn anymore so don't you dare show any symptoms!"

    —u/Tazzamaraz

    Screenshot from "Euphoria"
    HBO

    2. "No yawning allowed when doing homework. Apparently, it meant that I was not interested in doing homework."

    —u/FullM3TaLJacK3T

    3. "Dinner was at 5. If you weren't there, you didn't eat. I had a paper route in the evenings and weekends. I missed a lot of meals."

    —u/CTnaturist

    Peter, Lois, Meg, Stewie, and Chris Griffin sitting at the dining table in a scene from the animated show Family Guy
    Fox

    4. "When I was 17, I went on a date with a 16-year-old girl who was new to my school. She had moved there from Northwest Arkansas. Her parents were really strict. When I showed up to our date, I was told that we'd be traveling in her parents' car. I had to sit in the front with her dad, and she sat in the back with her mom."

    —u/smeapbave

    5. "If you had fun yesterday, you can't have fun today."

    —u/PenelopeAldaya

    Screenshot from "The Breakfast Club"
    Universal Pictures

    6. "No cooking. My mom didn’t like how the kitchen was dirty after I cooked. Fast-forward to when I was 18, when she got upset that I could not cook."

    —u/Not-From-Pakistan

    7. "I could play Mortal Kombat, but only with the sound off. Apparently, it was fine to see all the gore and stuff, but heaven forbid I listen to the soundtrack and fight noises."

    —u/cardboardshrimp

    Damon and Stefan from The Vampire Diaries playing video games on a couch
    The CW

    8. "I had to be back home by 10 p.m. Even when I was 25."

    —u/velvetblue929

    9. "I wasn't allowed to watch Rugrats because Angelica was mean."

    —u/riphitter

    Character Angelica from the animated series 'Rugrats', looking frustrated while standing in a playpen
    Nickelodeon

    10. "I was not allowed to ride my bike past the property line or the edge of the driveway. The only exceptions were the times my friends randomly showed up and asked FOR me."

    —u/kbyyru

    11. "Two-minute showers. Not one second more."

    —u/AdWonderful5920

    Screenshot from "Barbie"
    Warner Bros.

    12. "If I stayed home sick from school, I would have to stay home on the weekend because if I was 'too sick for school' on a Tuesday, then I would be 'too sick for anything' four days later on the weekend."

    —u/luculia

    13. "My dad had a rule that we couldn’t drink anything while we were eating dinner. We had to put our drinks in the middle of the dining table and couldn’t even have a sip until we finished all of the food on our plates."

    —u/im_a_geese_goose

    SpongeBob sitting at a picnic table looking disappointed, with Squidward standing behind the table
    Nickelodeon

    14. "Me and my twin sister would both be punished if one of us did something wrong. My sister got in an argument once with my mum, and then BOTH OF US were banned from using our computers."

    —u/CutlassKitty

    15. "Card games are forbidden, because they make you an addicted gambler. To this day I have problems with numbers and card games."

    —u/Fabio170790

    Two actors at a poker table in a scene, one with chips in hand, the other gesturing, with cards and chips on the table
    Interscope Records

    16. "I wasn't allowed to say the word fart. I had to use the word 'lovepuff.' My 10-year-old self genuinely believed it was a swear word, and I was shocked when other kids casually said 'fart.'"

    —u/threekittycats

    17. "I was never allowed to have a friend older than me."

    —u/112967398

    Two characters from a TV show are standing in a school hallway, one facing the camera and the other with a side profile
    CTV

    18. "You could only use four squares of toilet paper each time you went to the bathroom. It didn't matter if you had the runs or not. Four squares was all you were allowed."

    —u/cathline

    19. And lastly, "I wasn't allowed to eat anything with Devil in the name. Deviled eggs? Hell no! Devil's Food Cake? Not in this house. Because of religion."

    —u/BrattyLilEsther

    Now I want to know, people who grew up with religious parents who were super strict, what was the dumbest rule you had to follow? Let us know in the comments (or use this Google form if you want be anonymous).