Thread title says it all. I do not remember this phrase from my childhood at all. Seems to me I started hearing it in the 80’s when my kids were little. Heard it in a comedy routine the other day and started wondering (again) if this phrase had a specific origin, from a movie or a book, or if it’s always been around but just wasn’t common in NE Ohio during the 60’s and 70’s.
Did you say it as a kid when someone tried to tell you what to do?
Ngramshows the phrase “not the boss of me” was used from time to time starting around 1900, but took off around 1980.
I seem to recall hearing it from my sibs - especially when I was babysitting them - and we were all born in the mid-50s to mid-60s. That phrase was right up there with “I’m telling!!!”
Yeah, we were a loving brood… 
I didn’t hear it until Malcolm In The Middle’s theme tune and if I heard it now it here it would only be said ironically.
I’m guessing from about 5 minutes after Cain and/or Abel could talk.
I recall it from my childhood in the '70s.
I remember my younger brother saying it to me (quite angrily) in the early to mid-80’s. Came up with it spontaneously, as far as I know. Maybe there’s some inherent linguistic thing that leads younger kids to construct that in lieu of “you’re not my boss.”
Get with the times:
Safe for work (although loud).
When I used to complain to my mother that my brother wouldn’t “obey me” when I was babysitting, (early 1980’s–I was about 4 1/2 years older) she told me “You are NOT the boss of him. You are responsible, but not his boss.”
Responsibility with no authority. Yeah, like that works.
When it’s your turn, tell your daughter: “You’re not very good at giving orders.”
First time I recall hearing it was from Monica Lewinsky.
Cain, Abel was younger…
I avoided that problem by having one child. 
A very conscientious boy, who somehow has become gregarious and outgoing with adults, but also very respectful, mainly because he seldom gets “because I said so” answers. 75% (at least) of the time he does what he is told, or if he doesn’t understand, he asks why and gets an explanation. He also knows my “Just do what I say and I will explain later” voice.
He has, in the last few months, started lashing out a bit when his step dad (co parented with me since my son was 3) asks him to do something when I have already told him to do something else. “I can’t bring the recycling downstairs, Mom told me to pick up my Lego!”, but that is about the extent of things.
I don’t think I heard it until the late 80’s.
It’s such a whiny thing to say. Saying that is proof they probably need another person to make decisions for them.
It appears normal grammar isn’t the boss of them either.
Well, it IS something usually proclaimed by seven year old girls who have just been told to do something they don’t want to do, or to stop doing something they do want to do…
I can’t remember whether I heard “You’re not the boss of me” in those exact words before Malcolm in the Middle, but the sentiment behind the phrase is certainly a familiar one. It’s the same in spirit as
“You can’t tell me what to do!” or
“What are you, the fucking hall monitors?” or
“Who told you that you were … the big Jello Sheriff of the house?”
Definitely remember it from when I was a kid - early '60s, southern Michigan.
Likewise.
I never heard it (another NE Ohio kid here) or used it in my late '70’s/early '80’s childhood. My sister, who is a decade younger, said it a lot, and I assumed she developed it spontaneously. I first heard someone other than her say it (or something close to it) on an episode of Friends which Google tells me was in the second season.
–Cliffy
Same here.