Authoritarian parenting places high expectations on children with little responsiveness. It focuses more on obedience, discipline, and control rather than nurturing the child.
And while this approach might raise responsible, goal-driven people, it also tends to damage their self-esteem, create problems with accepting failure, and leave them with a lack of social abilities.
Interested in how such moms and dads manage their households, Redditor u/Elveyon asked platform users to share the most ridiculous rule they had to live by. And many delivered.
Continue scrolling to check them out and don't miss the talk we had with broadcaster, lifestyle blogger, and parenting expert who runs the website Honest Mum, Vicki Broadbent — you'll find it in-between the entries.
#1
I was grounded from the time I was 8 until I moved out. My stepmom would always find another reason to extend it, no matter how small, even just my bookcase being messy, and at some point it just became normal that I wasn't allowed to do anything and my dad didn't bother to fight it. And grounding for me didn't just mean I couldn't play video games, it was everything. I had no access to any kind of tech (she took away my alarm clock when she found out I was using the radio on it), I couldn't go outside, I couldn't watch TV, I couldn't be up past 8 (yes, even in summer when I was 17), I couldn't leave my room without a good reason, I wasn't even allowed to be in my sister's room or talk to her at all.
I lost my real mom at 5, and my stepmom came into the picture within the year. I was still nowhere near recovering, and felt like she was trying to replace my mom, so of course I wouldn't call her "Mom" or anything like that. She and my father married when I was 7 without asking me or my sister (3 at the time). My little sister was only 1 when my mom died, and didn't feel bad letting our stepmom be "mom". She didn't even know anything else. She loved my sister and hated me, and I started doing worse and worse in school, giving my stepmom reason enough in my dad's eyes to keep me grounded that whole school year. It just never stopped after that.
When I was 9 she found a cover to a porn DVD I'd found in the trash and beat me with the buckle end of a belt. My grandparents (mom's side) got pictures of the bruises, but were too afraid my dad would move me across the country to do anything. It was enough that she was never physical again, but she just started making me write sentences after that. It started out *"I will not lie"* 100 times, but that didn't keep me busy long enough, so she kept adding to it every time I did something she didn't like. The worst was when I was 14, and I ate some stevia packets from on top of the fridge, and told her I didn't know where the empty packets came from out of fear. *"I will not lie, I will not steal. God hates a thief and sin is death."* 10,000 times. Due by the end of the month, in December. While I was writing them out, she came by my door, didn't say a word, and just set her belt on the doorknob.
That was about as bad as it got, and honestly I consider myself lucky it never got worse. I went to my grandparents' house almost every weekend, and they tried to spoil me as best they could. They weren't rich, but they loved me and gave me everything they could. I wouldn't be anywhere near the kind of person I am today without them, and I'm so thankful they were a part of my life. They taught me how a family is supposed to show love, since my mom couldn't, my stepmom wouldn't, and my dad didn't know how.
I don't know if anyone is gonna read this (I'm kinda late to the thread), but if you got all the way here, thank you. I've been thinking about that part of my life a lot lately and it's helped to just get it out. It's a huge part of me that I'll never completely get past, but it's gotten easier.
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400points
"The authoritarian parenting style seems utterly archaic and reminiscent of Victorian times, to me," Vicki Broadbent, the author of Mumboss: The Honest Mum’s Guide to Surviving and Thriving at Work and at Home, told Bored Panda.
"It certainly reminds me of the style of teaching I was subjected to at strict private schools I attended (and wasn't a fan of). It's not how I raise my own children nor is it how I'd advise others to either."
#2
It was never explicitly stated or anything, but I was never allowed to have a bad day, or feel upset about anything.
I was diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety during high school. Got home from the doctor, and my mother told me that she couldn't love me anymore and that I didn't have a right to feel like that.
Would get screamed at almost every day about how ungrateful I was and to 'snap out of this f*****g phase'.
She forced me to give her my passwords for Facebook, Skype and pretty much everything else, and would religiously log on every night to read through my private messages to see what I was talking about.
Had to have all electronic devices confiscated after 9pm, this caused a number of late assignment submissions at school.
I ended up burying my mental illness for a few years, didn't let my parents anywhere near what my feelings were doing.
Fast forward, now in first year of university. Started hearing voices and seeing things, thinking about dying on a more-than-daily basis. Turned 18, got myself to hospital and got prescriptions I've needed for years.
It's been almost a year since then, and while I'm still fairly unwell I'm doing a little better.
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201points
"Children need love and, most importantly, to know they are loved (through actions and words) in order to thrive. It is our duty of care as parents and guardians to be compassionate and nurturing whilst exercising boundaries," Broadbent said, adding that this doesn't mean you throw discipline out of the window.
"It's important children learn how to be respectful and follow rules but there is a gentle way of exercising those. Being firm and fair but equally loving. To criticize the behavior, not the child. For example, when my 13-year-old spoke rudely to me today, he lost access to his phone. The punishment must fit the crime."
#3
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
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191points
Of course, mistakes happen. Especially when it comes to something as challenging as raising a child.
In fact, the statement that it is the hardest job in the world isn't just a catchphrase. According to a new Pew Research Center survey, most American parents (62%) say being a parent has been at least somewhat harder than they expected, with about a quarter (26%) saying it's been a lot harder.
This is especially true of mothers, 30% of whom say being a parent has been a lot harder than they expected (compared with 20% of fathers).
#4
My mom once kicked me out of the house for being gay and I'm not even gay
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165points
The same survey also asked whether moms and dads tend to stick to their guns too much or give in too quickly, praise or criticize their children too much, be overprotective or give too much freedom, and push their children too hard or not hard enough, and the share which said neither option accurately describes their parenting style ranged from 34% to 53%, meaning that most households probably couldn't be described as solely strict or flexible, and have features of both.
#5
My mom wouldn’t let me open a new milk without her permission or open anything really without it. Like we would have an extra milk in the garage fridge and I would use the rest of the mil inside.
Instead of a normal household where you could just get more I had to call her and ask. So that meant if she didn’t pick up then I would have to wait for her to call back.
The first time I realized this wasn’t normal is when I friend went to open a new gallon of milk and I got super anxious and was like “dude you have to call your mom right now or she’ll freak out.”
She was like “umm... my mom will be okay if I need a glass of milk.”
Instead of a normal household where you could just get more I had to call her and ask. So that meant if she didn’t pick up then I would have to wait for her to call back.
The first time I realized this wasn’t normal is when I friend went to open a new gallon of milk and I got super anxious and was like “dude you have to call your mom right now or she’ll freak out.”
She was like “umm... my mom will be okay if I need a glass of milk.”
It suddenly clicked that my mom was a control freak.
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162points
"If you push your children to feel they must achieve 10/10 and nothing is ever good enough, they will feel constantly on edge and that your love is conditional," Vicki Broadbent said. "Focus on praising your children on their behavior, attitude, kindness etc., outside of school objectives/exams."
Analyzing your own past will probably point you in the right direction when you aren't sure how to react to a particular situation. "Reflecting back on my own high school days, I felt disrespected, dismissed and that I could never do any good in my teachers' eyes so I stopped trying," Broadbent added. "It's a miracle I did well academically."
#6
Something less serious.
My mom was paranoid everyone and everything was a kidnapper. She hated the mailman on our route. So, when I was young, 3, 4 years old, my mom told me it was illegal to be outside when the mail came.
Around 11:15 every day I'd see that truck coming. I'd high tail it inside the house, terrified I would be spotted.
Fast forward 30 years. I still genuinely feel a tinge of panic in the smallest recesses of the back of my brain when I see the mailman arrive. Only now it's overpowered by the excitement of my latest Amazon package I really don't need.
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142points
"Children fare better mentally, physically, and academically when they feel emotionally safe and furthermore, when they're having fun," Broadbent said.
"Parenting is a tough gig no doubt, no one expects you to be perfect, we're all simply trying our best but my advice, is to be the parent you wish you had in your life if yours didn't match up to expectations and reconnect with your inner child and how you felt at your kids' age."
#7
I had a stepdad who was a police officer and all this occurred until I was 15:
-I had to eat beans first on my plate and then clockwise. If I didn't follow this rule, I would get no food and smacked from dinner table.
-I couldn't listen to Vanilla Ice because it was "black music"
-I had to stand in the corner with both feet on floor and back straight for hours
-I had a time limit on hugging my mother. If we hugged too long he called me homosexual slurs
-I had to get up in the morning and sit on the toilet and shine his leather while he showered
-I couldn't shut the door to poop
-I couldn't shut the door to shower or bathe
-if my bed squeaked at night, I would get whipped for what he thought was self-pleasuring
-I couldn't listen to Vanilla Ice because it was "black music"
-I had to stand in the corner with both feet on floor and back straight for hours
-I had a time limit on hugging my mother. If we hugged too long he called me homosexual slurs
-I had to get up in the morning and sit on the toilet and shine his leather while he showered
-I couldn't shut the door to poop
-I couldn't shut the door to shower or bathe
-if my bed squeaked at night, I would get whipped for what he thought was self-pleasuring
Oh, yeah. There is more. I just don't want to dig into those tunnels before bed.
EDIT: I am Mid-thirties straight male and in a professional career. Happened 84-1997 in Southern U.S. This is just surface stuff. I didn't even mention the stuff I KNEW was off growing up. He is retired on police pension living off the state. Never had a single charge formally put in his jacket or his criminal record.
Mom was abused as well.
Thanks for the words internets!
Mom was abused as well.
Thanks for the words internets!
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137points
Luckily, it sounds like most moms and dads are succeeding. When KidsHealth.org and TIME for Kids surveyed over 9,000 children ages 8 to 14, 85% of them said they have fun with their parents and 79% said they feel close to them.
#8
My dad wouldn't let me go out, at all. The only time he would let me leave the house was to walk to school and even then, he had to walk me to the entrance. Was teased for it all the time. Due to my isolated upbringing, I'm very socially awkward...and he wonders why I won't go out and find myself a partner. He never raised my sisters that way, just me.
He also wouldn't let me chew gum. He would flip out. He has physically pried my mouth open to take the gum out.
He is such a bizarre, controlling man.
132points
#9
my time to shine.
-no nail polish
-no tights under dresses
-no drinking tea
-not allowed to watch anything with any cursing
-had to call my parents sir and ma'am (now they're upset that I call them this instead of mom and dad, but it's what they asked me to do)
-bed time of 9:30 until I was 18
-parents took my phone at 9pm every night when I was in high school and read through all of my texts
-opening my bank statements
-not a rule, but my parents would read my diary and go through my computer, and once left video cameras up while I was hanging out with a friend and talking. they loved to repeat things I had said or written to me, just to let me know that I had no privacy
-in elementary school, my parents sat me down and said "we just want you to know, if you get pregnant while living with us we WILL kick you out"
-my parents gave my dog away while I was at school one day without telling me. I was nine
-no tights under dresses
-no drinking tea
-not allowed to watch anything with any cursing
-had to call my parents sir and ma'am (now they're upset that I call them this instead of mom and dad, but it's what they asked me to do)
-bed time of 9:30 until I was 18
-parents took my phone at 9pm every night when I was in high school and read through all of my texts
-opening my bank statements
-not a rule, but my parents would read my diary and go through my computer, and once left video cameras up while I was hanging out with a friend and talking. they loved to repeat things I had said or written to me, just to let me know that I had no privacy
-in elementary school, my parents sat me down and said "we just want you to know, if you get pregnant while living with us we WILL kick you out"
-my parents gave my dog away while I was at school one day without telling me. I was nine
and these days they wonder why I never want to share anything with them 🙃
edit: added more bc this is kind of cathartic
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130points
#10
I once got grounded for 2 months because my school bus was late.
EDIT: Back story - I was 12 years old when this happened. A couple of kids almost got into a fistfight before the school left the parking lot and the bus driver had to get the principal to break it up and escort them back into the school. The bus driver lectured us about fighting before driving us home. This caused us to be 30-minutes late. When I explained this to my mother she blamed the whole situation one me which was completely irrational because 1.) I barely knew the kids who were involved 2.) I was an introvert/bookworm type who never got into a fight & 3.) if I had been in the fight I would have been taken to the principal's office for punishment instead of being allowed to ride the bus home.
She made a rule that I would be grounded every time the bus was late going forward regardless of the reasoning. I grew up in the northeast part of the U.S., so even when the bus driver had to drive home slowly because of snow I would still get punished. Needless to say, I wasn't allowed out of the house much in middle school & high school.
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127points
#11
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.
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117points
#12
Nobody in my house was allowed to get the mail except my dad. Doesn't matter what time he got home. Leave the mail in the mailbox. He would also personally open all the mail no matter the recipient. He would always know if anyone touched it.
Edit: We aren't in piles of debt, I am not Harry Potter, I think he just likes control.
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117points
#13
Go to school, but i wont drive you, get good grades but dont stay for any extracurricular or sports because once you get home you have a list of chores to do. Must be perfect, theres a water spot on this fork you have to redo every dish in the house. I just made food after you vacuumed, you missed all these crumbs do it again, why are you still up so late, light off (while trying to get homework done since i spent hours cleaning) no friends over, curfew is 8pm, 8:01 youre not allowed in just stay out. Youve done everything i asked, you dont deserve your room, you get the garage. And you need to pay some rent to live under this roof so you need to get a job. Oh you got a job okay move out, if your.stuff is here by the time i get home its going in the trash :)
Edit: i feel the need to note that i am a girl, ive seen a lot of references asking if im their brother or refer to me as he- probably makes this worse that their daughter had to be out at all hours of the night with all this but just tt clarify for yall
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114points
#14
When I was 17 my parents “grounded me” and confiscated my savings account. Literally transferring all of the money from my account to theirs. They day I became ungrounded and the money was transferred back, I closed the account and opened a new one with another bank that was not connected to theirs.
108points
#15
I had a ton of absurd rules growing up, too many to just list one.
No eating of birthday cupcakes at school. No giving or receiving of birthday presents.
No dressing up for Halloween or going trick or treating.
No Christmas presents.
Must get up every Saturday morning, put on a full suit and tie no matter the heat, and knock on strangers' doors to try to give them propaganda for a cult.
Not allowed to have friends who weren't in said cult.
Threatened with disownment if I ever wanted out of said cult.
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102points
#16
Had to get home before the sun set. Even though I went to school an hour and a half away and would get home at the same time each day, but always found myself in trouble during winter.
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99points
#17
The rule was that my mom had to pick out my friends because she didn't want me hanging out with anyone who wasn't Catholic or was into Satanic content.
To my mom EVERYTHING was Satanic. So basically just about everyone I brought home was influenced by the devil because their parents let them listen to modern pop music and watch Pokemon and DBZ (mid-late '90s.) Visiting their homes was strictly forbidden on account of the fact that the only opinions she wanted me to have were hers and hers only. It also didn't help when I wanted to play at the park with my friends and my mom would literally follow us and watch us the entire time. Eventually, no one wanted to be my friend anymore and that was when the bullying began. This torture went on for 7 years. Then my mom wondered why I didn't have any friends and was bullied for such a long time. It was a miracle that I even had friends when high school came along.
Needless to say, I'm not a Catholic anymore and my mom and I are not in good terms. There was a s**t ton of crazy rules living with my parents (mainly from my mom; my dad only followed to avoid arguments), but this rule was the one that affected me the most.
EDIT: Thank you for the gold!
99points
#18
I had to ask for permission to use the bathroom and I was not allowed to shut the door. My younger brothers did not have that rule.
I was not allowed to be in any room with the door shut unless it was with my dad.
I was not allowed to eat unless I had been weighed. If I weighed too much I did not get to eat.
I was allowed to watch some tv but I was not allowed to touch any buttons either on the tv or the remote. My brothers were allowed to do whatever.
I was only allowed to read 20 pages of material a day. This included school work and the mandatory newspaper reading session.
Even until I went to college I was not allowed off of the property unless it was for a job or school. We lived in a suburb. Getting a job was hard because I had to get my younger brothers to go with for the interview. And we had to come up with an excuse for them to leave.
Every time I had a conversation with someone I had to recount the entire thing to my parents and in my diary.
My diary was read on the daily and if I forgot to put something in, I was grounded.
If I ate something without permission, I was required to throw it up.
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97points
#19
Attended Church 3 times on Sunday (9am 11am and 7pm) followed by Bible study Tuesday nights and Youth Group Friday nights.
I can count on 1 hand the times I missed attending from birth until I moved out at 17.
I haven't been back since.
I can count on 1 hand the times I missed attending from birth until I moved out at 17.
I haven't been back since.
95points
#20
Basically don't be shocked when she hits you. If you flinch, that's disrespect. If you raise your hands to cover your face, that's a threat. If you threaten to call the police or hit back, that's questioning her authority.
I put up with that for 22 years. Finally at 24 I stand up for myself. I have yet to hit her back lol. I'm compiling evidence to take to the police.
EDIT: Holy f**k I got my first gold!
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94points