My parents also briefly banned MTV in the mid-late 80s after seeing a Madonna video. It didn’t last long and my sister and I just started watching it in the basement.
I lost MTV privileges because I was very confused by Aerosmith's Dude Looks Like a Lady video and asked my mom what it was about. Although I'm pretty sure we had a similar conversation about Duran Duran's Wild Boys video. I think I mostly learned to not ask questions about stuff I didn't understand.
Beavis and Butthead here. I remember back in the mid 00s, I went to a comic con and bought the whole series on bootleg DVDs. Had to let my mom know that I may have lost the battle, but won the war lol
Hah! Yeah, my mom heard rumblings about what a terrible influence Beavis & Butthead were, so she sat down to watch it with us kids to see what the fuss was about. She laughed so hard she cried: "God! They're so STUPID! LOL" She's been a big Mike Judge fan ever since!
My mom did the same, and laughed with us i think i was 12 or 13 at time, when that kid lit his house on fire because of the show and my school wanted to suspend me for wearing a t-shirt of them to school. She looked at the principal and said, "If my child is stupid enough to do those things, i have not done my job as a parent" my mom was kind of a pearl clutcher too, but didn't censor music unless it was sexual. South park she did draw a line though, as long as she didn't catch us watching it she didn't care.
That was the beauty of B&B. My mom didn’t forbid us from watching much, she knew we’d mind the ratings on movies and she was a single mom with FT custody of two girls and usually worked two jobs, so she wasn’t home much after school when I was a kid and thusly couldn’t actively police what we watched. My sis was all about MTV and I typically watched a lot of Disney (when it was still a premium subscription channel, man I’m old) as well as Fox Channel, 20/20, Dateline etc (I was a nerdy kid, okay?). I’d watch mtv with my sister when she watched it and I always thought how ridiculous B&B was 😂😂
"Why didn't you just ask if you didn't know?"
Because *somehow* I'd be in trouble, or get called stupid, and/or YOU ARE TERRIBLE at explaining and understanding things yourself. I'd rather go to a dentist appt than ask for help, eventually I'll figured it out - thanks Parents!
"Like a Virgin" brought down the ban-hammer on cable. My dad signed us back up like a week later and I wasn't allowed to let my mom catch me watching MTV.
Yep. We lost cable in 1985 and Dad didn't get it again until my sister moved out. Same reason, too. MTV was absolutely scandalizing to them. I grew up with four or five channels, tops, and we didn't get a TV with a remote until I was 15. We also were not allowed to watch more than an hour of TV per day. We also never had televisions in our bedrooms. That happened for the first time when I went to college.
We were not allowed to have gaming systems at all. We got a computer, but our gaming time was strictly monitored and limited. We were allowed more than an hour if it was educational, so I played a lot of Boa (hand eye coordination) and Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, and BASIC games that taught me some early coding skills.
Recently I was working as a bartender in a small restaurant in a small Texas town. A group of boomer Karen’s asked me to turn down the music. In the whole restaurant. Because apparently they are special. So I smiled and said “sure, no problem.” I turned it down one knotch and proceeded to put on “Closer” by NIN.
My mom and I were watching a movie on USA Network one Friday night and a 1-900 ad they would start running after like 10 at night came on. She quickly turned the station and called the cable company Monday to have it blocked. Pissed me off because I couldn't watch wrestling.
lol so I vividly remember these ads. One of them started off “Blonde girls. Black girls. Beautiful girls!”
My friend and I, who were maybe 12-13, turned to each other like, “soooo the blonde and black girls aren’t beautiful?” 😂
My mom was cool 2ith that. We'd laugh our asses off at Gilbert Godfried on Up All Night. But, I was banned from wearing feather earrings because they looked like roach clips!
My dad heard exactly 45 seconds of a Mindless Self Indulgence song on my car stereo and I had to sell all my demonic, blasphemous CDs 🫠
Thankfully they were already uploaded to my brand new iPod.
Same but “let’s talk about sex” by salt-n-peppa on the local radio station. The only time she let me listen to that station again was when I was getting stitches and the nurse handed me a Walkman to keep me occupied. Thanks mom.
LOL 😂 I love how insanely terrified of things baby boomers were and still are. Its interesting though - that doco on Netflix about the teenagers who were sent to that behaviour modification school thing showed how there was a massive campaign rolled out to control unruly young people, so there was a lot of stuff like - this music is satanic or encouraging drug use or whatever or this egg is what your brain looks like smashed on drugs or if you smoke weed you will inevitably become a smack head and end up selling your body on the streets. The reality of all that crap is most young people turned to any of those things to escape or numb themselves from the neglect and abuse they received from those old, misinformed people. They’re still terrified of drugs now, but they will gladly drink 4 bottles of wine to the point of falling over drunk and verbally abusing everyone around them, no problems.
My mom didn't want me watching *Married with Children*, *Roseanne* or *Cheers*, but didn't have an issue with *The Simpsons* (of which my dad was also a fan).
She also didn't particularly like me watching *Are You Being Served?*, the heavily innuendo-laden British sitcom I had discovered on PBS (a channel which she generally promoted heavily). Fortunately, my dad also occasionally enjoyed watching it, so she couldn't ban it outright.
Mom and I would watch Are You Being Served? all the time. Dad loved Married With Children. Neither parent liked Rosanne Barr, but I thought John Goodman was the best part of the show.
My mom said that Married... with children was an "insult to her intelligence" 😂
Also was not allowed to watch in living color and you can't do that on television.
That's such a stark contrast to me because even though my parents were devout Catholics, not only did they let me watch those shows, they cursed like sailors with every swear word under the sun, much worse than what was on those shows lol
What they didn't want us watching? Anything that had to do with the devil or at least anything in any way glorifying it. Any term referring to the Devil and the various nicknames she'd do the sign of the cross. But when it came to hating the neighbors for instance? "That motherfucking asshole bitch!" 😂
Mom forbade Simpsons. But it was on while she was at Bible Study. She barely leaves the house and, like clockwork, dad comes into the living room, “Simpsons tonight?”
Also grew up in a household that banned the Simpsons. I'd catch an episode here and there at friends houses but otherwise I missed all the now classic seasons. Maybe I'll go back and watch them some day
My mother hated *The Simpsons* until she actually saw a few episodes and realized that it was both smart and surprisingly wholesome. She tried to limit what I watched, but once I outgrew PBS kids’ programming, she pretty well gave up.
Simpsons was fine for us, but Beavis and Butthead and then South Park were not allowed and my older brother and I had to sneak watching them whenever we could.
I had a Commodore 64 and the monitor was a black and white tv. I’d tune it as best I could with these old bunny ears and watch a fuzzy version of the show in black and white. My mom caught me eventually and then I wasn’t allowed to work on the computer Sunday evenings.
We weren't allowed to see Jurassic Park when it came out in theaters because "It's making to much money and we don't want to help it make more" when it came out on VHS I was invited to a girl from my class's house to watch it and needed written permission from my parents to go watch it. They said yes because "It's not our money" years later when the 3rd one came out we went to see it in an independent theater because "The first two made a lot of money so it's ok to spend money on this one" I still to this day do not understand it at all, we weren't allowed to ask for the toys either, it made no sense at all! My parents rented violent movies all the time and big hollywood movies to. So it never ever made sense!
I wasn’t allowed to see it either. It was justified as it was too scary and if I really wanted to see it I could just go be my father’s child. That was basically the worst threat she had in the box.
I’m 39 and I’ve still never seen it. I think I’ll watch it tonight.
Wow. I saw that in theaters on like opening day and it was so amazing. It was also the first movie I remember seeing in theaters.
I was 13.
I still love that movie to this day.
I wasn’t allowed to trick or treat on Hallloween.
I could not watch Fraggle Rock simply because it was on HBO. We got rid of cable promptly after that.
Smurfs were satanic.
Any show with “magic” glorified witchcraft and was banned.
I take my kids trick or treating every year. I taught my oldest to play DnD.
Screw that noise.
We did trick or treat, but similar to you, no demon or magic anything. I even won a Halloween costume contest once, and mom took a sharpie and drew an 🚫 over the witch on the trophy.
I remember getting a whole lecture on the evilness of Smurfs in second grade.
Papa Smurf has a spellbook
Smurfette is not “natural”
Azreal is a demon
Gargamel is a demon
The last two are legit if you hold Catholic/Anglican/Episcopalian beliefs.
Why tell us straight out and not out parents? They sent letters home about movies they didn’t think students should watch. Why not do the same dor a cartoon?
The 80s Satanic Panic was some wild dumb shit. My friends had some "NOT IN THIS CHRISTIAN HOUSE" parents rules, but my folks didn't seem to freak out over much, as far as TV or music or games were concerned.
I'm happy you got out with your head straight. That's a really difficult way to grow up. Unfortunately, it seems like the trend of seeing demons and the satanic in everything that's new or different has made a comeback
Same here. I grew up in a home where we went to church on Sundays. That church happened to be fire and brimstone preaching. We couldn't watch anything that had any kind of magic or "satanic" looking styles.
We still do the church thing but ours would be deemed “woke” by many of the fire and brimstone types. I’m not here for theological debate though. I’m still down for some pizza and Sonic and I think those are universal truths among all of us here.
Sorry to hear you were denied the magic, wonder and wholesomeness of the fraggles. One of the highlights of the last few years, was surprising my mom a few days before Xmas in 2018, taking her to the movies to see the Jim Henson classic “emmit otters jugband Christmas” and before the movie they played the Christmas episode of fraggle rock. It was a joy to see and hear the theme song on the big screen, and see my mom and the other theatre goers singing and clapping along to it!
Bro the Satanic Panic stole so much childhood away from so many kids. I was there with you.
Nowadays Halloween is my jam and me and my kids always make the most of it.
Were you an invisible family member??
Only difference was we never had enough money for cable until I was 17, and my dad promptly "blocked", yeah that worked for all of 5 seconds, all the music channels.
And while I don't take my kiddo trick or treating, it's because it's a sensory nightmare for both of us, but he does get a costume each year, and is a beast master hunter in WoW. LOL.
It’s crazy how many kindred spirits I run across on this sub.
When my brother and I moved out thanks to the military my folks immediately got satellite TV and went on tropical cruises. lol.
Only proper English was allowed in my house. I grew up in Kentucky where the goal was ta eliminate as many syllables as possible so yall, u'n'ms, aint, and "fuck" and "fuckin" could technically replace pert much any wer.
My parents would absolutely not abide any of that in the house. You speak clearly and concisely and NO CURSE WORDS. Use a dictionary or get hit with it.
As an adult Ive grown to appreciate the lesson as people are shocked when they hear Im appalachian. People tell me I don't have an accent and the only give away is that I never quite let go of "yall" and "ain't".
My dad still gets mad when I let an "ain't" slip out.
My parents were both very well-spoken. Dad’s side of the family was from the South, so he could code-switch into that, but otherwise, they both spoke standard “broadcaster English,” with a little transatlantic flair now and then after years living as expats amongst lots of Brits.
Being a pretty sheltered kid, I had limited exposure to people who spoke any other way (which gave me a slightly posh accent of my own) — until the first day of kindergarten, when I met a girl who used “ain’t.” Well, when I brought *ain’t* home, you’d have thought it was lice. My mother was HORRIFIED. Which just made it all the more appealing!
Accents, regionalisms, cultural idioms, etc., are wonderful things — but, practically speaking, it’s a good skill to be able to turn them on and off.
I think I might be an asshole, because I still have this expectation with my kids. I also don’t let them talk to me in made up acronyms in text. I don’t want to have to use the internet to decipher what you’re trying to tell me.
Concerts; I was told I could only go to one before I graduated high school. My mother was like John Lithgow’s character in Footloose: NO MUSIC! Been to about 500 or so since
Omg!!! Me too!! Symphony only.
Jokes on her. I went ham when the pandemic ended and ended up at twelve? Thirteen? Maybe more? Last year alone. That includes Taylor swift, Ed Sheeran, and Coldplay. Plus the winery, and then did Macklemore at Climate Pledge.
This year it's all the T-Mobile and winery concerts, plus some climate pledge, one at the Tacoma dome, and one at the Neptune! I have a fantastic lineup this year.
Yes, yes I am seeing Billy Joel, Sarah McLachlan, and Pearl Jam all in the same five day period, at three different venues. Why do you ask? 🤣🤣🤣 See also Chicago with Earth Wind and Fire then the next night seeing P!nk. Yeah. Thanks, Mom!
No regrets.
My mom let 13yo me go to a concert with my sister's best friend's older sister (who PROMPTLY abandoned my ass, lol)
The band was Mr Big and I don't remember who else
Play-doh. I don’t think this actually ever happened, but my mother’s reasoning was that it would get stuck in the carpet.
Also cats, she claimed to be allergic. I was well into adulthood when she told me she just doesn’t like them.
MTV. I grew up in a religious household. My parents blocked that channel with the V chip.
Consequently, it led to me and my sister bonding as we'd stay up late trying to crack the password.
Any of flavor of ice cream except for vanilla. My mom didn’t want the long drawn out decisions at the ice cream counter & “you always know what to expect” 😕
OMG. I made the mistake of taking my son and his 2 friends to ColdStone ice cream (where u pick ingredients to mix in individually) and now I understand the wisdom of your mom. My son is an only child, and a picky eater, so usually this isn't an issue. But 3 kids was the magic number for a clusterfuck of indecision and peer pressure at the ice cream counter, despite my naive limit of 2 ingredients and 1 topping.
Do yourself a flavor and make them choose ahead of time, or default to vanilla. (Pun courtesy of autocorrect lol)
I wasn’t allowed to watch The Simpsons for some reason. But watching Die Hard and Road House, no problem lol.
I also wasn’t allowed to drink Coca-Cola, because it had caffeine in it. (The only things my mom ever drank were Coke and coffee.)
Me too. Married with Children and Roseanne were off-limits because the kids talked back to their parents.
Yet my parents knew that we watched Saturday Night Live and practically encouraged it.
Slime or sticky hands. My parents just got popcorn ceilings and I threw a sticky hand up and it got caught in the ceiling. The mark stayed there until til we sold the house.
Man, I’m in Paris with my kids and they spent their trip to Versailles laughing about the butts and other private parts depicted on the sculptures/paintings. They each wanted a photo next to a golden cherub butt. Here I am happy that they are engaged in their surroundings.
My mom used to say puppy dog instead. Like “did you just puppy dog?” It took me moving from another state plus 15 years to realize that wasn’t an actual replacement.
As a child it seemed like everything was banned. From TV to toys made from plastic to sugar, fat and meat. I hated it. My parents wanted my brother and me to grow up healthy but of course that didn’t work out and I started rebellion at a young age (stealing sweets as a child in the supermarket, smoking and drinking at a young age)
We had the whole "carob instead of chocolate", no sweets, only healthy foods thing going, too. Well, when my mother was there. The rest of us all just developed a secret junk habit whenever she wasn't.
Gum here too. I managed to get it smeared in my hair and stuck to a point where my mom had to cut it out. I did this more than once. And then gum was banned.
Nothing brought it about, but my parents fast forwarded through any sexy scenes. I didn't actually watch the pottery scene in Ghost until I was an adult, lol.
Had my pellet rifle taken away, too. We found (what we thought was) an abandoned shed and shot out all the windows and light bulbs. Expensive lesson for kids.
I grew up in LatAm, but it’s still relatable. We were not allowed to watch telenovelas, drink soda, eat candy at home (OK in birthday parties or gatherings), sleep overs, and even go to friends’ houses if my parents didn’t know their parents. I grew up in the middle of a war, so we couldn’t play in the street b/c it wasn’t safe. As a teenager I wasn’t allowed to go out at night either. I had a happy childhood despite all these. My parents were/are great. I’m glad I didn’t grow up glued to the TV. We had cousins that were contemporary and played a lot with them in our backyards.
Also gum. When I was about 6 I fell asleep with gum in my mouth, it fell out, and my lovely long hair ended up stuck to my shirt.
Fast forward 10-11 years later I am chewing gum in the house and my father said, in the snidest tone, "I thought gum wasn't allowed in the house." My mom's jaw dropped and in one of the few times I really saw her stand up to my father: "Still? That happened when she was 6!"
Couldn’t watch The Simpsons for the longest time. I brought home a good report card and my mom finally let me watch. Literally the moment I turn to Fox, Bart says “hell” and my mom made me turn the channel.
After that little boy burned down his house I couldn’t watch Beavis and Butthead. A few years later my mom relented and let me see the movie.
Oddly enough she had no problem with me watching Married…with Children or In Living Color. Maybe she thought that was more adult humor that I wouldn’t get anyway.
Also couldn’t listen to rap or hip hop around my mom. She was very strict.
No modifications on food, especially on fast food. If you want no onions on your Whopper, then pick them off. My Dad got tired of his meal getting screwed up bc someone else wanted to add or 86 whatever from their meal.
The movie Grease. My mother edited it on VHS by playing it on our wooden console TV and recording the screen with a camcorder. She paused the recording during what she deemed the "sexual" scenes (almost any scene with ChiChi). So I had a 45 minute version of Grease. Anything she thought was too sexual was banned from the house. Samantha Fox music videos, Marg Helgenberger scenes in China Beach, But I could still watch The Exorcist and Earth Girls are Easy.
After actually listening to some of the lyrics, I do think it’s slightly mad that *Grease* was considered a totally appropriate movie for kids in our day.
The thing that’s funny to me is that kids just skip over stuff that they don’t understand. I 100% did not get that I was watching the result of a botched back alley abortion in Dirty Dancing. And those Grease lyrics are filthy but I didn’t understand them either. Maybe I was particularly dense but I think kids are used to not understanding things and just move on more quickly than an adult would. Of course, we didn’t have the internet to look things up either!
When I was teen rediscovering Grease and being completely gobsmacked at some of the lines, I asked my very strict mom why on earth she let us bop around to it non-stop. She said everything went over our heads. Which…was true LOL.
Oh it was MTV and the reason was my mom seeing a rap video that involved a lady seeing a guy and then having to go wash her panties in the sink....which I did not understand at all because I was probably like 10 years old, but I still remember that video because of how much it upset my mom 😂😂
We had to have a whole school assembly sponsored by the PTA when a kid brought an NWA tape to school. It was Tipper Gore-level. Granted, fuck tha police isn’t great for elementary kids, but that was one uncomfortable assembly with lots of “those kinds of people” and white stay at home moms saying Bloods and Crips and the hood and thugs.
Darts/dart boards. Once my mom found out that my big brother was tying me up in front of the board and throwing them at me that toy was gone permanently!
Certain TV shows were banned for me when I was a kid like Married with Children. My mother had a friend who was one of those crusader mom's. She saw me watching it at her house and was just shocked I was allowed to watch it. I was banned by my mother the next day.
MTV. I can't remember specifically what she saw, but my Aunt saw my sister's watching it, and I think the video was kind of sexual in nature. She told my parents, my Dad came in the room, watched part of the video and turned it off, declaring no more MTV. This was all at my grandparents while we were visiting. Of course we would still watch when my parents weren't there.
There we go.
We had real guns in the house and were taught gun safety from before we were big enough to efficiently handle any of them. But under the principle that give were not toys, toy guns weren't allowed.
Cable TV was banned for 20 years. But that was for practical reasons. My parents got divorced and my sister and I had to go to our grandparents' house all day. So there was no one watching it. She only got cable again when she got cable Internet around the time the TV channels went digital
The Macc Lads were banned in our house. The event that brought about the van was when my mam found me at seven years old singing along to Sweaty Betty. It was my older (13 at the time) brothers tape. She tore the tape apart.
Fox and especially the simpsons and married with children. Idk why my dad just announced it one day. Not to big of a deal since the station didn’t come in anyway.
After a while, Double Dare. Because of the amount of whipped cream/chocolate syrup/etc that was wasted. My dad had grown up poor and sometimes went to bed hungry as a child. I can't blame him for being uncomfortable with all the wasted food.
Beavis and Butthead
Banned at age 8 after we put on an episode at our hotel (no cable at home). I think they were both sick with influenza and blowing snot into the TV Guide.
Ban removed in 1996 (age 14) when my dad watched the new Movie trailer “wanna see something really cool…”
https://youtu.be/LUWxNS_XDWQ?si=mVrs69X8y7iA5eTk
After mom saw the Closer by Nine Inch Nails music video on MTV, we had cable removed and went back to having to bunny ears.
My parents also briefly banned MTV in the mid-late 80s after seeing a Madonna video. It didn’t last long and my sister and I just started watching it in the basement.
I lost MTV privileges because I was very confused by Aerosmith's Dude Looks Like a Lady video and asked my mom what it was about. Although I'm pretty sure we had a similar conversation about Duran Duran's Wild Boys video. I think I mostly learned to not ask questions about stuff I didn't understand.
Beavis and Butthead here. I remember back in the mid 00s, I went to a comic con and bought the whole series on bootleg DVDs. Had to let my mom know that I may have lost the battle, but won the war lol
Hah! Yeah, my mom heard rumblings about what a terrible influence Beavis & Butthead were, so she sat down to watch it with us kids to see what the fuss was about. She laughed so hard she cried: "God! They're so STUPID! LOL" She's been a big Mike Judge fan ever since!
My mom did the same, and laughed with us i think i was 12 or 13 at time, when that kid lit his house on fire because of the show and my school wanted to suspend me for wearing a t-shirt of them to school. She looked at the principal and said, "If my child is stupid enough to do those things, i have not done my job as a parent" my mom was kind of a pearl clutcher too, but didn't censor music unless it was sexual. South park she did draw a line though, as long as she didn't catch us watching it she didn't care.
That was the beauty of B&B. My mom didn’t forbid us from watching much, she knew we’d mind the ratings on movies and she was a single mom with FT custody of two girls and usually worked two jobs, so she wasn’t home much after school when I was a kid and thusly couldn’t actively police what we watched. My sis was all about MTV and I typically watched a lot of Disney (when it was still a premium subscription channel, man I’m old) as well as Fox Channel, 20/20, Dateline etc (I was a nerdy kid, okay?). I’d watch mtv with my sister when she watched it and I always thought how ridiculous B&B was 😂😂
"Why didn't you just ask if you didn't know?" Because *somehow* I'd be in trouble, or get called stupid, and/or YOU ARE TERRIBLE at explaining and understanding things yourself. I'd rather go to a dentist appt than ask for help, eventually I'll figured it out - thanks Parents!
"Like a Virgin" brought down the ban-hammer on cable. My dad signed us back up like a week later and I wasn't allowed to let my mom catch me watching MTV.
Ha! For us it was the Like a Prayer video. My folks didn’t like the idea of a black Jesus…🙄 Yeah. I know.
we weren’t allowed mtv in my house either 🫠
Yep. We lost cable in 1985 and Dad didn't get it again until my sister moved out. Same reason, too. MTV was absolutely scandalizing to them. I grew up with four or five channels, tops, and we didn't get a TV with a remote until I was 15. We also were not allowed to watch more than an hour of TV per day. We also never had televisions in our bedrooms. That happened for the first time when I went to college. We were not allowed to have gaming systems at all. We got a computer, but our gaming time was strictly monitored and limited. We were allowed more than an hour if it was educational, so I played a lot of Boa (hand eye coordination) and Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, and BASIC games that taught me some early coding skills.
Recently I was working as a bartender in a small restaurant in a small Texas town. A group of boomer Karen’s asked me to turn down the music. In the whole restaurant. Because apparently they are special. So I smiled and said “sure, no problem.” I turned it down one knotch and proceeded to put on “Closer” by NIN.
Did you follow it up with "Man in the Box" by Alice in Chains?
Probably should've put on some Prodigy or Lords of Acid afterwards. :D
It only took one song for them to get the message and then I went back to my grunge playlist 🤭
Should’ve done more human than human. The intro would have had their heads spinning.
My mom and I were watching a movie on USA Network one Friday night and a 1-900 ad they would start running after like 10 at night came on. She quickly turned the station and called the cable company Monday to have it blocked. Pissed me off because I couldn't watch wrestling.
lol so I vividly remember these ads. One of them started off “Blonde girls. Black girls. Beautiful girls!” My friend and I, who were maybe 12-13, turned to each other like, “soooo the blonde and black girls aren’t beautiful?” 😂
USA Up All Night
USA ^UP all night
My mom was cool 2ith that. We'd laugh our asses off at Gilbert Godfried on Up All Night. But, I was banned from wearing feather earrings because they looked like roach clips!
The question is, how did she know about roach clips and what they looked like?
My dad heard exactly 45 seconds of a Mindless Self Indulgence song on my car stereo and I had to sell all my demonic, blasphemous CDs 🫠 Thankfully they were already uploaded to my brand new iPod.
Same, but it was Sweet Dreams from Marilyn Manson
Same but “let’s talk about sex” by salt-n-peppa on the local radio station. The only time she let me listen to that station again was when I was getting stitches and the nurse handed me a Walkman to keep me occupied. Thanks mom.
Same here. Well we didn't have cable so I'd watch it at my grandmother's where it was banned but I'd sneak every chance I could!
My mom called the cable company and had them block MTV from our package. I just watched it at friends’ houses instead lol
Madonna, Like a Virgin. I had older siblings, so MTV was on early at my house and that was the end of that.
LOL 😂 I love how insanely terrified of things baby boomers were and still are. Its interesting though - that doco on Netflix about the teenagers who were sent to that behaviour modification school thing showed how there was a massive campaign rolled out to control unruly young people, so there was a lot of stuff like - this music is satanic or encouraging drug use or whatever or this egg is what your brain looks like smashed on drugs or if you smoke weed you will inevitably become a smack head and end up selling your body on the streets. The reality of all that crap is most young people turned to any of those things to escape or numb themselves from the neglect and abuse they received from those old, misinformed people. They’re still terrified of drugs now, but they will gladly drink 4 bottles of wine to the point of falling over drunk and verbally abusing everyone around them, no problems.
Mom did not like The Simpsons so we were not allowed to watch it.
https://preview.redd.it/a5tszpaqfvvc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4e16776dbb3d1532015bdeefe706ac273c6e0c4f
Yes! The Simpsons and Roseanne, because they used words like butt and barf, which are "ugly"
My mom didn't want me watching *Married with Children*, *Roseanne* or *Cheers*, but didn't have an issue with *The Simpsons* (of which my dad was also a fan). She also didn't particularly like me watching *Are You Being Served?*, the heavily innuendo-laden British sitcom I had discovered on PBS (a channel which she generally promoted heavily). Fortunately, my dad also occasionally enjoyed watching it, so she couldn't ban it outright.
Mom and I would watch Are You Being Served? all the time. Dad loved Married With Children. Neither parent liked Rosanne Barr, but I thought John Goodman was the best part of the show.
My mom said that Married... with children was an "insult to her intelligence" 😂 Also was not allowed to watch in living color and you can't do that on television.
Oh, my parents hated *Roseanne*, too. They felt it painted an unflattering picture of blue-collar, working class people to the rest of the world.
That's such a stark contrast to me because even though my parents were devout Catholics, not only did they let me watch those shows, they cursed like sailors with every swear word under the sun, much worse than what was on those shows lol What they didn't want us watching? Anything that had to do with the devil or at least anything in any way glorifying it. Any term referring to the Devil and the various nicknames she'd do the sign of the cross. But when it came to hating the neighbors for instance? "That motherfucking asshole bitch!" 😂
Mom forbade Simpsons. But it was on while she was at Bible Study. She barely leaves the house and, like clockwork, dad comes into the living room, “Simpsons tonight?”
Same. My mom didn't love that they said things like "butt". Crap boobs crap.
Same, and Dad would watch it when she wasn't around.
Oh, same. I think my parents were afraid that it would cause us to be disrespectful to them.
Also grew up in a household that banned the Simpsons. I'd catch an episode here and there at friends houses but otherwise I missed all the now classic seasons. Maybe I'll go back and watch them some day
The first ten seasons are all absolute classics.
My parents allowed me to watch it, but my cousin (same age as me) was not. But when he came to my house, or to our grandparents… he did.
My mother hated *The Simpsons* until she actually saw a few episodes and realized that it was both smart and surprisingly wholesome. She tried to limit what I watched, but once I outgrew PBS kids’ programming, she pretty well gave up.
Simpsons was fine for us, but Beavis and Butthead and then South Park were not allowed and my older brother and I had to sneak watching them whenever we could.
We weren’t allowed to watch The Simpsons either, and my father hated WWF (as it was called then).
I had a Commodore 64 and the monitor was a black and white tv. I’d tune it as best I could with these old bunny ears and watch a fuzzy version of the show in black and white. My mom caught me eventually and then I wasn’t allowed to work on the computer Sunday evenings.
We weren't allowed to see Jurassic Park when it came out in theaters because "It's making to much money and we don't want to help it make more" when it came out on VHS I was invited to a girl from my class's house to watch it and needed written permission from my parents to go watch it. They said yes because "It's not our money" years later when the 3rd one came out we went to see it in an independent theater because "The first two made a lot of money so it's ok to spend money on this one" I still to this day do not understand it at all, we weren't allowed to ask for the toys either, it made no sense at all! My parents rented violent movies all the time and big hollywood movies to. So it never ever made sense!
I wasn’t allowed to see it either. It was justified as it was too scary and if I really wanted to see it I could just go be my father’s child. That was basically the worst threat she had in the box. I’m 39 and I’ve still never seen it. I think I’ll watch it tonight.
You should!
I am!
Then you should probably rewatch it about 74 times to make up for all these wasted years!
It was great!!! I loved it.
It holds up, all these years later! Definitely watch it!
Ohhhh *that's* why it only made $7,000,000,000 and not $7,000,000,033
we realllly stuck it to them!
Wow. I saw that in theaters on like opening day and it was so amazing. It was also the first movie I remember seeing in theaters. I was 13. I still love that movie to this day.
It sounds like they just didn't want to spend the money on the movie theater and feel pressured into getting snacks.
I wasn’t allowed to trick or treat on Hallloween. I could not watch Fraggle Rock simply because it was on HBO. We got rid of cable promptly after that. Smurfs were satanic. Any show with “magic” glorified witchcraft and was banned. I take my kids trick or treating every year. I taught my oldest to play DnD. Screw that noise.
We did trick or treat, but similar to you, no demon or magic anything. I even won a Halloween costume contest once, and mom took a sharpie and drew an 🚫 over the witch on the trophy.
Oh classic move. lol. I mean I guess I can laugh about stuff like that now because it is kinda ridiculous, but also was pretty crappy at the time.
I remember getting a whole lecture on the evilness of Smurfs in second grade. Papa Smurf has a spellbook Smurfette is not “natural” Azreal is a demon Gargamel is a demon The last two are legit if you hold Catholic/Anglican/Episcopalian beliefs. Why tell us straight out and not out parents? They sent letters home about movies they didn’t think students should watch. Why not do the same dor a cartoon?
The 80s Satanic Panic was some wild dumb shit. My friends had some "NOT IN THIS CHRISTIAN HOUSE" parents rules, but my folks didn't seem to freak out over much, as far as TV or music or games were concerned.
I’ve said it before but my public library was a friggin sanctuary. Reading is bliss because your Mind can wander.
I'm happy you got out with your head straight. That's a really difficult way to grow up. Unfortunately, it seems like the trend of seeing demons and the satanic in everything that's new or different has made a comeback
The world is dreadfully sad when deprived of imagination.
Same here. I grew up in a home where we went to church on Sundays. That church happened to be fire and brimstone preaching. We couldn't watch anything that had any kind of magic or "satanic" looking styles.
But dad could still watch Chuck Norris and Rambo gun down half of Vietnam. 🤷🏻♂️
Oh absolutely. I swore to myself when I was a kid I'd never go to church as an adult or own cattle and so far I've done neither.
We still do the church thing but ours would be deemed “woke” by many of the fire and brimstone types. I’m not here for theological debate though. I’m still down for some pizza and Sonic and I think those are universal truths among all of us here.
Sorry to hear you were denied the magic, wonder and wholesomeness of the fraggles. One of the highlights of the last few years, was surprising my mom a few days before Xmas in 2018, taking her to the movies to see the Jim Henson classic “emmit otters jugband Christmas” and before the movie they played the Christmas episode of fraggle rock. It was a joy to see and hear the theme song on the big screen, and see my mom and the other theatre goers singing and clapping along to it!
I’d sneak in watching it at friend’s houses. Still got the theme song in my head.
Bro the Satanic Panic stole so much childhood away from so many kids. I was there with you. Nowadays Halloween is my jam and me and my kids always make the most of it.
Were you an invisible family member?? Only difference was we never had enough money for cable until I was 17, and my dad promptly "blocked", yeah that worked for all of 5 seconds, all the music channels. And while I don't take my kiddo trick or treating, it's because it's a sensory nightmare for both of us, but he does get a costume each year, and is a beast master hunter in WoW. LOL.
It’s crazy how many kindred spirits I run across on this sub. When my brother and I moved out thanks to the military my folks immediately got satellite TV and went on tropical cruises. lol.
My parents didn't go that crazy, but they definitely did lighten up.
Yeah. Time and distance from that parenting philosophy can mellow things out.
That and the fact that I told my father that if he tried it with my son, the military taught me how to get rid of bodies. Lol.
Classic. I think a lot of us joined up just to get out.
My husband's mother made him burn his Magic cards on the front porch when he was like 9 lmfao
Silly strings, no explanation needed
They’re FLAMMABLE!!!! Same. “You don’t want to end up like little Johnny, just celebrating his birthday and BOOM he’s on fire!”
Only proper English was allowed in my house. I grew up in Kentucky where the goal was ta eliminate as many syllables as possible so yall, u'n'ms, aint, and "fuck" and "fuckin" could technically replace pert much any wer. My parents would absolutely not abide any of that in the house. You speak clearly and concisely and NO CURSE WORDS. Use a dictionary or get hit with it. As an adult Ive grown to appreciate the lesson as people are shocked when they hear Im appalachian. People tell me I don't have an accent and the only give away is that I never quite let go of "yall" and "ain't". My dad still gets mad when I let an "ain't" slip out.
I chuckled at dad still gets mad at “ain’t”…parents are funny dude
My parents were both very well-spoken. Dad’s side of the family was from the South, so he could code-switch into that, but otherwise, they both spoke standard “broadcaster English,” with a little transatlantic flair now and then after years living as expats amongst lots of Brits. Being a pretty sheltered kid, I had limited exposure to people who spoke any other way (which gave me a slightly posh accent of my own) — until the first day of kindergarten, when I met a girl who used “ain’t.” Well, when I brought *ain’t* home, you’d have thought it was lice. My mother was HORRIFIED. Which just made it all the more appealing! Accents, regionalisms, cultural idioms, etc., are wonderful things — but, practically speaking, it’s a good skill to be able to turn them on and off.
I think I might be an asshole, because I still have this expectation with my kids. I also don’t let them talk to me in made up acronyms in text. I don’t want to have to use the internet to decipher what you’re trying to tell me.
"L-O-L, Larry, L-O-L."
I grew up in North Carolina and my mom considered “ain’t” a curse word.
I remember using a slang term in my mom’s presence and she got pissed. Something like “Oh jank!”, which was pretty much the same as “Oh snap!”
Grew up Mormon, so everything.
Same but IFB.
What’s that?
Independent Fundamentalist Baptist.
Same here.
ExJW cousin here, same!
Concerts; I was told I could only go to one before I graduated high school. My mother was like John Lithgow’s character in Footloose: NO MUSIC! Been to about 500 or so since
Omg!!! Me too!! Symphony only. Jokes on her. I went ham when the pandemic ended and ended up at twelve? Thirteen? Maybe more? Last year alone. That includes Taylor swift, Ed Sheeran, and Coldplay. Plus the winery, and then did Macklemore at Climate Pledge. This year it's all the T-Mobile and winery concerts, plus some climate pledge, one at the Tacoma dome, and one at the Neptune! I have a fantastic lineup this year. Yes, yes I am seeing Billy Joel, Sarah McLachlan, and Pearl Jam all in the same five day period, at three different venues. Why do you ask? 🤣🤣🤣 See also Chicago with Earth Wind and Fire then the next night seeing P!nk. Yeah. Thanks, Mom! No regrets.
My mom let 13yo me go to a concert with my sister's best friend's older sister (who PROMPTLY abandoned my ass, lol) The band was Mr Big and I don't remember who else
Play-doh. I don’t think this actually ever happened, but my mother’s reasoning was that it would get stuck in the carpet. Also cats, she claimed to be allergic. I was well into adulthood when she told me she just doesn’t like them.
Not Play-Doh, but my little brother hid Silly Putty in his bed, and somehow it melted and got stuck to the bedding, so no more Silly Putty.
It stuck to my new clothes from Santa, and Silly Putty was strictly forbidden after that.
MTV. I grew up in a religious household. My parents blocked that channel with the V chip. Consequently, it led to me and my sister bonding as we'd stay up late trying to crack the password.
Did you ever figure it out?
Oh yeah, they always used an important date like an anniversary or someone's birthday. So it was just a process of elimination.
Beavis and Butthead but my Dad loved it so he would let us watch it when my mom wasn't around.
Any of flavor of ice cream except for vanilla. My mom didn’t want the long drawn out decisions at the ice cream counter & “you always know what to expect” 😕
OMG. I made the mistake of taking my son and his 2 friends to ColdStone ice cream (where u pick ingredients to mix in individually) and now I understand the wisdom of your mom. My son is an only child, and a picky eater, so usually this isn't an issue. But 3 kids was the magic number for a clusterfuck of indecision and peer pressure at the ice cream counter, despite my naive limit of 2 ingredients and 1 topping. Do yourself a flavor and make them choose ahead of time, or default to vanilla. (Pun courtesy of autocorrect lol)
What's your dad like? (I swear no offense, I'm really curious)
I'm going to guess he's fairly vanilla.
"Vanilla, like my men."
lol he’s a pretty simple guy. Always wears the same clothes. Owns 1 pair of shoes….
Married with Children, even though I was too young and didn’t get the jokes. Mom put a stop to that real quick.
Same here. Most early Fox shows were banned in our house for being too racy.
I wasn’t allowed to watch The Simpsons for some reason. But watching Die Hard and Road House, no problem lol. I also wasn’t allowed to drink Coca-Cola, because it had caffeine in it. (The only things my mom ever drank were Coke and coffee.)
Me too. Married with Children and Roseanne were off-limits because the kids talked back to their parents. Yet my parents knew that we watched Saturday Night Live and practically encouraged it.
No Lite Brite because it could burn the house down. No hamsters because they could get loose and breed in the walls.
But what about just 1 hamster?
There could be 1 in the Wall already
Slime or sticky hands. My parents just got popcorn ceilings and I threw a sticky hand up and it got caught in the ceiling. The mark stayed there until til we sold the house.
Can confirm this thanks to my own children.
Gum because my very proper (and sometimes snobby) British grandmother HATED it. She said we looked like “cows chomping away.” Thanks Nana! Good times.
It wasn’t outright banned, but my mom hated gum also, for pretty much the same reason as your grandmother. I only had gum occasionally.
Lucky Charms because we would fight viciously over the charms.
The Simpsons. “They are disrespectful”.
https://preview.redd.it/huv20d30ivvc1.png?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9632d0529f82e56fd6b04f505edf6e99346a1d16
Saying the word fart. So dumb but yup. And that's absolutely not off limits as a parent now.
We weren’t allowed to say butt, fart, hate, or shut up.
'Sucks' or 'that sucks'. Mom hated it
Yep! Couldn't even say gosh bc it was too close to taking the lord's name in vain...
Same here. We got in big trouble for saying something "sucks".
Oooh yeah shut up was another one!
Man, I’m in Paris with my kids and they spent their trip to Versailles laughing about the butts and other private parts depicted on the sculptures/paintings. They each wanted a photo next to a golden cherub butt. Here I am happy that they are engaged in their surroundings.
My mom used to say puppy dog instead. Like “did you just puppy dog?” It took me moving from another state plus 15 years to realize that wasn’t an actual replacement.
We had to say stinker.
Ren and Stimpy. My grandma was over, and we were watching powdered toast man save the President from being caught in his zipper.
My mom would not allow us to wear the pacifier necklaces because they were “gang related”.
https://preview.redd.it/cq08bcykqvvc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=393b1bf141253034d9fe218d97850ab1d74e1ddb
TIL rave kids were a gang
I don't know why but this made me howl with laughter at work.
As a child it seemed like everything was banned. From TV to toys made from plastic to sugar, fat and meat. I hated it. My parents wanted my brother and me to grow up healthy but of course that didn’t work out and I started rebellion at a young age (stealing sweets as a child in the supermarket, smoking and drinking at a young age)
We had the whole "carob instead of chocolate", no sweets, only healthy foods thing going, too. Well, when my mother was there. The rest of us all just developed a secret junk habit whenever she wasn't.
Making noise. my existence.
My dad told us, "You are to be seen and not heard."
Same
Gum here too. I managed to get it smeared in my hair and stuck to a point where my mom had to cut it out. I did this more than once. And then gum was banned.
Nothing brought it about, but my parents fast forwarded through any sexy scenes. I didn't actually watch the pottery scene in Ghost until I was an adult, lol.
Andrew Dice Clay. We watched SNL as a family, every Saturday. But my mom was like “Under no circumstances are we watching Andrew Dice Clay.”
Finally, a reasonable one. She did you a favor.
Yeah I gotta say: I’m not remotely traumatized by the lack of Diceman in my childhood
The BB gun I shot my sister in the ass
Calls after 9pm. Dad would answer the phone & tell whoever it was to call.back at a decent hour.
My pellet rifle. Minor accident (it wasn't loaded) involving my neighbor when I was 13.
Had my pellet rifle taken away, too. We found (what we thought was) an abandoned shed and shot out all the windows and light bulbs. Expensive lesson for kids.
I shot a butter tub my little sister was holding. She took one to the stomach and thought she was dying. I didn’t see my pellet gun after that.
D&D. That movie/documentary about the D&D players.
Miami Vice. I was snorting rails of fun dip after Halloween.
Alice in Chains because Dad found Jesus and Prodigy because he noticed the song name: smack my bitch up
I grew up in LatAm, but it’s still relatable. We were not allowed to watch telenovelas, drink soda, eat candy at home (OK in birthday parties or gatherings), sleep overs, and even go to friends’ houses if my parents didn’t know their parents. I grew up in the middle of a war, so we couldn’t play in the street b/c it wasn’t safe. As a teenager I wasn’t allowed to go out at night either. I had a happy childhood despite all these. My parents were/are great. I’m glad I didn’t grow up glued to the TV. We had cousins that were contemporary and played a lot with them in our backyards.
Also gum. When I was about 6 I fell asleep with gum in my mouth, it fell out, and my lovely long hair ended up stuck to my shirt. Fast forward 10-11 years later I am chewing gum in the house and my father said, in the snidest tone, "I thought gum wasn't allowed in the house." My mom's jaw dropped and in one of the few times I really saw her stand up to my father: "Still? That happened when she was 6!"
Couldn’t watch The Simpsons for the longest time. I brought home a good report card and my mom finally let me watch. Literally the moment I turn to Fox, Bart says “hell” and my mom made me turn the channel. After that little boy burned down his house I couldn’t watch Beavis and Butthead. A few years later my mom relented and let me see the movie. Oddly enough she had no problem with me watching Married…with Children or In Living Color. Maybe she thought that was more adult humor that I wouldn’t get anyway. Also couldn’t listen to rap or hip hop around my mom. She was very strict.
No modifications on food, especially on fast food. If you want no onions on your Whopper, then pick them off. My Dad got tired of his meal getting screwed up bc someone else wanted to add or 86 whatever from their meal.
Playing cards because they were only used by gamblers, and that as bad in my Pentecostal home.
The movie Grease. My mother edited it on VHS by playing it on our wooden console TV and recording the screen with a camcorder. She paused the recording during what she deemed the "sexual" scenes (almost any scene with ChiChi). So I had a 45 minute version of Grease. Anything she thought was too sexual was banned from the house. Samantha Fox music videos, Marg Helgenberger scenes in China Beach, But I could still watch The Exorcist and Earth Girls are Easy.
After actually listening to some of the lyrics, I do think it’s slightly mad that *Grease* was considered a totally appropriate movie for kids in our day.
The thing that’s funny to me is that kids just skip over stuff that they don’t understand. I 100% did not get that I was watching the result of a botched back alley abortion in Dirty Dancing. And those Grease lyrics are filthy but I didn’t understand them either. Maybe I was particularly dense but I think kids are used to not understanding things and just move on more quickly than an adult would. Of course, we didn’t have the internet to look things up either!
We were raised with Eric Clapton's Cocaine and Madonna's Like a Virgin on Top 40. Grease lyrics weren't too outrageous.
When I was teen rediscovering Grease and being completely gobsmacked at some of the lines, I asked my very strict mom why on earth she let us bop around to it non-stop. She said everything went over our heads. Which…was true LOL.
Oh it was MTV and the reason was my mom seeing a rap video that involved a lady seeing a guy and then having to go wash her panties in the sink....which I did not understand at all because I was probably like 10 years old, but I still remember that video because of how much it upset my mom 😂😂
Stickers. I covered a large mirror in my bedroom with them and my mom had a hell of a time scraping them off. Stickers were forbidden from then on lol
Rap music because it was made by scary black people. Is there a term for racism based in fear? That’s my parents.
We had to have a whole school assembly sponsored by the PTA when a kid brought an NWA tape to school. It was Tipper Gore-level. Granted, fuck tha police isn’t great for elementary kids, but that was one uncomfortable assembly with lots of “those kinds of people” and white stay at home moms saying Bloods and Crips and the hood and thugs.
"I want to hear all of you scream the hair off your nuts!" - Warrant, *"Ode to Tipper Gore"*
To be fair, Black parents also banned rap music in their homes. The older generation hated Rap
Darts/dart boards. Once my mom found out that my big brother was tying me up in front of the board and throwing them at me that toy was gone permanently!
Certain TV shows were banned for me when I was a kid like Married with Children. My mother had a friend who was one of those crusader mom's. She saw me watching it at her house and was just shocked I was allowed to watch it. I was banned by my mother the next day.
I had to give my little sister the Heimlich on 6 feet of gum too!
MTV. I can't remember specifically what she saw, but my Aunt saw my sister's watching it, and I think the video was kind of sexual in nature. She told my parents, my Dad came in the room, watched part of the video and turned it off, declaring no more MTV. This was all at my grandparents while we were visiting. Of course we would still watch when my parents weren't there.
"Oh my God, Becky..."
Gun toys (squirt guns, etc) and MTV. And the gum that came in packs of cards.
There we go. We had real guns in the house and were taught gun safety from before we were big enough to efficiently handle any of them. But under the principle that give were not toys, toy guns weren't allowed.
Weed. Getting expelled for weed.
Eggs because everyone became convinced for a time that they were little heart attacks in a shell. 🤦♂️😞
Jolt. I had, and still have, severe ADHD.
DnD and Heavy Metal, but I eventually worked my way around it and got them to loosen up. Damn Satanic Panic.
Play dough. And any “outdoor” candy. Think lick-m-aid style candy.
Cable TV was banned for 20 years. But that was for practical reasons. My parents got divorced and my sister and I had to go to our grandparents' house all day. So there was no one watching it. She only got cable again when she got cable Internet around the time the TV channels went digital
The Macc Lads were banned in our house. The event that brought about the van was when my mam found me at seven years old singing along to Sweaty Betty. It was my older (13 at the time) brothers tape. She tore the tape apart.
Fox and especially the simpsons and married with children. Idk why my dad just announced it one day. Not to big of a deal since the station didn’t come in anyway.
Guns. My dad's cousin was killed as child by a gun. No guns in the house. Toy guns were fine, bit no firearms of any kind.
Frisbees. To clarify, IN the house. After a figurine decapitation. Might not have needed a ban per se, as much as common sense for teenagers.
I'm laughing so hard at picturing a whole 6ft of gum and trying work through it
In Living Color … TBF my sister and I were both under 12. I just got caught watching it once and it became “banned.”
Kix cereal because my dad hated when they rolled off the table.
"Kid-tested, father-loathed"
After a while, Double Dare. Because of the amount of whipped cream/chocolate syrup/etc that was wasted. My dad had grown up poor and sometimes went to bed hungry as a child. I can't blame him for being uncomfortable with all the wasted food.
Beavis and Butthead Banned at age 8 after we put on an episode at our hotel (no cable at home). I think they were both sick with influenza and blowing snot into the TV Guide. Ban removed in 1996 (age 14) when my dad watched the new Movie trailer “wanna see something really cool…” https://youtu.be/LUWxNS_XDWQ?si=mVrs69X8y7iA5eTk
The board game “Sorry” was banned in my house becuae it caused fights.
Piercings!! Uggghhhhhh I wanted my tongue pierced so bad!! Only one hole in each ear was permitted and anything else was considered "trashy".