Ahh, see this was in the 80’s and early 90’s (they stopped when my parents divorced, except for the month we’d spend at Grandma’s in the summer) and we were always home in time to crawl into bed. This was considered odd by my peers.
Oh, this one just occured to me. We were not allowed to read or do puzzles and such in the car. We would watch out the window for any sign of animals or anything interesting and try to be the first to spot them. We also played a lot of car games (making words from letters on license plates, counting cars) and if that palled Dad would quiz us on the multiplication table or our spelling. I can still remember sitting in the truck, somewhere out on the highway and proudly spelling <i>chocolate</i> for my Dad (I must’ve been in grade 3 or thereabouts). If we ever asked how long until we got somewhere he would point at the next sign and tell us to multiply the distance (kilometers) by .6 which would give us an approximate time (and I still do it today).
This was also odd to my peers, and would seem weird to kids today considering all the handheld toys and portable DVD players and such.
It was the rule in my family that you weren’t supposed to have anything to drink at dinner.
No water, soda, tea or coffee. You were expected to wait until dessert or after the meal. This went for at-home meals and eating out.
The craziness of this finally inspired me to rebel when I hit my teens, and began brinking drinks to the dinner table. Surprisingly I was not banished to the attic or struck by lightning.
My family did that, but it started when one of my parents had to take medication that had to be kept in a dry place. Later as an adult, I also had some pills that had “keep away from moisture” on the label. And now my cat, Lenny, needs pills before feeding… all in all, a medicine cabinet in the kitchen makes more sense to me.
I also keep band-aids in the kitchen rather than the medical cabinet, because in all honestly, chances are if I’m going to cut myself while in the apartment, it will probably happen in the kitchen.
We had a bread box groing up. Now, due to limited counter space and the fact that Lenny is bread thief, I keep it in the fridge. The cold seems to delay mold, but the bread gets stale faster. I don’t care, it’s just there to hold the peanut butter.
I grew up in the extreme rural part of Alberta Canada, our family settled there in 1907, and there are towns named after various members of my family tree. There are a lot of rural cemetaries with our DNA slowly composting in it, and from each one, my mom would gather a wild strawberry plant and “introduce/transplant” it into our 'wild" (babied, nutured and loved) patch on our property.
those are the BEST strawberries I will ever eat…
Regards
FML
You have a breadbox so that when someone says, “I have a present for you!” you can say, “Is it bigger than a breadbox?” and thus start the required guessing game before receiving the aforementioned present. Really, I think that’s what they’re for!
I don’t think that’s weird at all. That’s what we did growing up, and it’s what we do now. Some medicines, as has been mentioned, are supposed to be in a dry place. Plus, Mr. Stuff gets our vitamins and daily stuff out every morning while I’m cooking breakfast and puts it by our plates. He should have to schlep to the bathroom to get the stuff?
Mr. Stuff’s mom did this, and it took a while to convince him that I really wasn’t going to. First, I hate frying bacon, so there isn’t much bacon fat around. Second, I don’t WANT to fry things in bacon fat! Third, I don’t want a little jar of bacon fat sitting around in my kitchen. Yech. When PAM, olive oil, and butter all simultaneously become unavailable, perhaps I’ll be sorry. But I’m taking my chances.
When I was a kid, we could only have two boxes of cereal open at once, to prevent six open boxes with crumbs in the bottom. I understand my mom’s point, but it led to a lot of ruthless strategizing. The person who emptied a box could open a new one, of their choice, if they didn’t quite have a full bowl. A great deal of energy was expended trying to manage the boxes just right so you could open your favorite.
**jsgoddess **beat me to it, but I wanted to chime in and say I also grew up calling the knit cap a toboggan. South-central Ohio (Chillicothe). Nice to know this regionalism – one of my favorites from childhood, along with “the lawn needs mowed” – made it as far as Virginia.
Hmm… that might be a good strategy. Perhaps by having this silly rule, your parents subtly encouraged you to satisfy your desire to rebel in an entirely non-threatening and actually quite socially acceptable way.
I come from a very affectionate family. Lots of hugs, lots of kisses, and we always say “I love you.” This didn’t end after the kids grew up, and as adults we are still that way. Most of my friends growing up came from very similar houses, so I never thought it was strange. Maybe its a small town, big family thing…I don’t know.
My boyfriend’s family is different. His dad doesn’t hug anybody accept his wife, and that is very occasionally. Affection between men is called a handshake. A lot of affection is given to the children, but it stops come puberty. The only time I see hugs are at get-togethers when they haven’t seen a person in a long time, or if someone is leaving for an extended period. In the year that I’ve been with him, I’ve never once heard them say “I love you” to each other. I mean, its obvious they love each other, but it still bothers me. They’re not by any means cold or unfriendly otherwise, but being around that makes me incredibly uncomfortable.
Haha!
We did the same thing growing up. I never even thought about that until just now.
Apparently I still announce it, I just asked my SO. I don’t even notice. laughs
Same at our house.