57 Times People Went To A Friend’s House And Instantly Realized “Oh… This Family Is Different”

It was me that was weird. My father never spoke to me, not once. unless I was about to get beat. I was like 15-16 at my friend's house and they were watching tv, and talking to each other. Then he asked if we wanted some ice-cream, and I just had this what moment. Like it just hit me, hard, that my dad was just a horrible person.

As a child, I would play with the girl next door. We usually played in her yard, but one day I was invited in. She was an only child and was super-mega-spoiled with tons of nice toys, but her room was unusually tidy and organized at all times. I wasn't allowed to touch any of her toys EVER, and she had to ask permission before touching or playing with them, every single time. 

But that's not the weird part. 

She went to the bathroom, then, while she was in there, she started calling for her mom over and over again. But her mom didn't respond, so she called for me and asked me to enter the bathroom. 

I did, and was shocked to see her bent over with her poopy butt pointed at me and her pants and undies down. She wanted me to wipe her! I ran out and got her mom. 

She was 7 and she had never learned how to wipe herself because her mom always did it for her. I was a year older than her and this struck me as very, very weird.

When I was a kid, bike helmets went from being recommended to legally mandatory.
I already had one because my parents felt that it was a good safety measure. My friend did not.

Their parents decided since they had to have a helmet, that would be their birthday present. My friend showed me the helmet sitting in their parent's bedroom cupboard. The law had come in to effect, my friend knew they were getting a helmet for their birthday, it was already bought and they were allowed to look at it, but they weren't allowed to WEAR it until their actual birthday, several months later. In the meantime, they had to ride their bike around, helmetless.

There were several little things going on in that household that made me realize they were weird, but this was the biggest "your parents are nuts" moment for me.

Visited the family of a friend of my father’s. Sat down to a meal, took a sip of my milk, suddenly dead silence. The father looked at me with a military stare (my father and he served in the US Navy together) and said, “In this house, we do not drink our beverage until we have finished our meal and cleaned our plate.” My father told me to apologize to “Warrant Officer Beaver.” (Might have been some other rank).
Later, when his son committed some transgression, Warrant Officer Beaver made him run two laps around their house in his underwear in the dead of winter.

It was the first time, even coming from my hyper-discipline home, I felt sorry for another kid. I can distinctly “re-feel,” the dread of hearing my mom say, “We’re going to the Beaver’s this weekend, be on your best behavior.”.

How about the moment when you realized your house WAS a weird household ... Happened to me pretty young. I remember going to a friend's house and nothing the house didn't smell like smoke. Her parents seemed engaged and loving towards her whereas mine were mostly absent either at work or at bars or hiding in bedroom. No smell of alcohol. She had a nice room, nice house, bright and safe feeling, not dark and ominous like mine. Had furniture that actually matched whereas I definitely did not. Her life looked like something out of home and gardens. They had all the good snacks. My mom didn't keep snacks like that and kept things like pop in her room. My snack was usually cheese on bread or peanut butter on saltine crackers. I had to clean the house everyday after school, chores! While it was clear that my friend's mom stayed at home and did all those things. Also Realizing that even my clothes were dingier and had a fire smoke smell to them that other kids did not because their clothes smelled like laundry detergent. (My parents washed our clothes but they were also smokers... So everything in our house had that smell.)

Yeah... And then the defining moment of knowing my family was different and not normal.... Was when a friend in class had a birthday sleepover. My mom drove me over. Dropped me off. Birthday commences and we come to part where it's time for birthday girl to open presents. Parents made everyone sit in a circle with their gifts and one by one had them to her to unwrap. I panicked! My mom hadn't dropped me off with a gift to give her. All I had were my two favorite stuffies that is brought to help comfort me when going to bed. So I rushed back to my bookbag and grabbed em. I had to give her something,.I couldn't stand to be the only kid who hasn't gotten her a gift. I've never been more embarrassed than to hand over my favorite worn in stuffies. But I was happy to be able to give her something. I was so mad at my mom for dropping me off without a gift.

Cue the next day at school ... And my embarrassment turned to actual shame when that same birthday girl came up to me to return my stuffies. (As an adult I can imagine that her mom probably had a talk with her about how I didn't have a gift and gave my favorite personal stuffies to her and maybe to focus on the thoughtfulness of it.... But as a kid... I was so angry at her mom because I felt like her mom told her daughter to return them because they weren't good enough present and talked down about me and my parents the whole time. I was so so embarrassed and ashamed. Felt like I made it through the hot seat at gift unwrapping, and had given my friend a gift and her mom had to go and still put me on blast that I showed up to party with no gifts for her. I didn't have to give her my stuffy. But I did it cause I wanted her to have a gift from me.


Anyway.... It's a core memory moment. No doubt a huge contributor to my social anxiety. Not just for the moment in the party, but for what followed the next day.

I was in first grade.

And yeah... That's when I realized my family was the weird one and my upbringing was not normal.

They had a pet bird they’d let fly around. That’s cool and everything, but it pooped all over the house and they wouldn’t do anything about it. I had a difficult time finding a clean place to sit. That’s just gross and weird.

We were that "weird" house lol.

When I was 14, I almost-ish, had my first boyfriend. He told me that his mother had previously told him he couldn't see a girl anymore because her parents drank too much alcohol. Me, desperate to be seen as normal for once, didn't say "oh yea mine too."

Signs were there tho, we ate dinner between 8 pm and 12 am. People thought I was joking when I told them I had to go offline to have dinner at 11 pm.

Anyway, had this first "date". Went over to his house, my mother and stepfather insisted to take me and drove there, already had a couple of drinks. His mother invited them in and asked what they would like to drink. "Beer please."

"I don't have any alcohol in the house, I do have tea, coffee or cocacola, juice.. (etc)"

"No problem, we brought our own. Would you like one?"
"No thank you."

I bet they had an awkward conversation for about an hour in which my mother and stepfather had more and more of their own drinks.

Eventually, after an hour or so, they left and the woman said she would bring me home because they had been drinking.

When she brought me home, to my horror, they were invited in by my mother and stepfather. They joked about kicking his butt if he'd ever hurt me, all while being very affectionate. My mother demanded me to let him see my room, which was one big mess, so she made me clean my room while they talked some more.

When half an hour later I returned, my mother had slurred speech, they left and my mother gave my never-to-be "boyfriend" a big hug, when he gently pulled away after a couple of seconds, she lost her balance and fell on the floor.

Yea.. he said his mother forbid him to contact me ever again.

They clapped when the microwave finished like it just gave a TED Talk.

Went to a friend's house to learn the only furniture in the whole house was some dirty mattresses lying directly on the floor. The only toy was a single [bare] Barbie doll. We had to scrounge the whole house to find a single piece of paper and something to write with. The whole time her "step dad" (really the 30th dude her mom dumped her child on claiming she was his) was teasing, saying, "I bet you wish you were home right now. I see you watching every car going by hoping it's someone to pick you up."

I didn't go back.

They had a “pet” bobcat that lived in their home with them. When I and other guests would visit, the bobcat would be put away in his “room” which was an enclosed space in the bathroom. The bobcat roamed freely otherwise and was shown in all the family photos around the home.

At my neighbors house when we were playing outside we weren’t allowed to use the bathroom inside, boys and girls. We were expected to find a bush or something. When we asked we would get laughed at and they would close and lock the door on us. When me and my sister just went to our house to use the bathroom the neighbor’s parents would scold us. When we invited the neighbor to use our bathroom he got yelled at across the block

We weren’t allowed to play outside with him without our parent’s specific supervision.

Also, when he played outside he wasn’t allowed to drink water. Only cream soda. They would offer me and my sister water but not him and when they did give us water they said he wasn’t allowed to have any

Strange people.

Went to a Christmas party at a co-workers house. They had put up the poles and ropes used at places like amusement parks or movie theatre to keep people out of their living room, which was all white. I commented to someone that it was probably a good idea to rent them for a party particularly with an all white room. They paused, sized me up a bit, and then shared that the dividers weren't there for the party. My coworker has them all the time. And moved them around weekly creating a path that her family was allowed to use so that they didn't create wear patterns in her rugs or on her floors.

I was over at my best friend’s house, we were 7 or 8 years old and playing hide and seek. It was her turn to hide and I looked all over and couldn’t find her. I yelled a few times that she won and to please come out. Her dad came in and asked me what was going on, and I told him that we were playing hide and seek and I didn’t find her. He started yelling that she needed to come out now or she would get punished. She reluctantly emerged from another room. He immediately hauled her up onto his lap, demanded that she apologize to me, and then spanked her while she cried and apologized. I was sobbing. I was a kid of the 80s, I got spanked occasionally growing up, but this was just angry and mean in a way that didn’t make sense. I realized then that we had two very different families and I never slept over at her house again.

The mom's boyfriend living above the garage at the annoyance of the dad.

Similar to the top comment- i had a few different friends ask why my parents were so angry- or ask why my family was fighting when they came over.. eventually realized like most first gen middle eastern immigrants that our language in any volume sounds aggressive, angry, or mean to most kids- especially post 9/11.

They had assigned seating in the living room. Not like vibes based. Like laminated labels. I knew then.

My best friend in middle and high school. They lived in a normal suburb but nobody ever turned the lights on in the house. It was always very dim. I thought it was to save electricity but I was her best friend for ten years and I NEVER was able to see her parents' faces. They had dogs that they neglected and my friend and her little sister were the only ones who would take care of them. The toilet and showers were extremely precarious. Like, poorly maintained and you're scared you're gonna break them, you know? The parents would dump a bunch of snack foods on the dinner table every week and thats what they ate. If my friend and I wanted to cook a meal, we had to walk to the store and buy ingredients ourselves and the kitchen was almost unusable. It wasn't always that bad when I started visiting (my home situation wasn't great either and I was 12 so I wasn't really thinking "neglect") but it slowly got worse. My friend was always clean and polite and made good grades and stuff, so I thought that maybe her parents were just busy or something. Then over the years I saw the house degrade in real time and it got so bad that you'd walk in and the air was so thick it was hard to breathe. The only clean room was my friend's room.

One time her dad, who lived there but I had never seen before, called her out of the room. I heard noises and when she came back, she was crying and said that he'd held her by the neck and pushed her because he thought we were being too loud. All I can remember after that is we just held each other and cried.

I wish I could say she ended up alright. In some ways she did, but she's very troubled, understandably so, but there are some bad things she ended up doing that you can't really blame on anything, you know?

Anyway second place goes to my friend's parents who were mostly normal except they would go absolutely berserk any time anyone casually said "yeah." And I'm not talking "would get miffed if you said yeah instead of yes please." I mean if you used "yeah" casually in conversation they would start screaming at you. The mom also had one of those pastel frilly sitting rooms full of infinite statues and trinkets where you'll be skinned alive if you even think of sitting in there. They were always making their daughters take meds and pregnancy tests even though they weren't doing any of those things.

A cigarette machine. About 5 people in the family and they all smoked. The machine was full of different blends. They had to pay the machine but it worked out cheaper.

Once was having a sleepover at a friend's and we decided to do some pedicures.
Start clipping my toenails when my friend suddenly jumps up and hurries off. Comes back a minute later with a rather large glass jar half full of nail clippings.
Friend proceeded to ask me to add my toenails clippings to the jar. It was a thing her family did. Kept all their finger and toenail clippings.
Later noticed another 3 jars full of nail clippings on display throughout the house.

The entire family smacked their lips violently while eating.