24 Rules That Every Child With An Overbearing Parent Has Experienced
By Alice Eh
My parents are wonderful, loving people who like to instill their fear and paranoia within others, particularly their children. Growing up with paranoid parents certainly leaves its mark; for those who know #thestruggle I’m sure you’ll recognize some of the following comments, statements, house rules, thoughts and bits of wisdom.
1. No friends are allowed in your bedroom, because someone might steal something.
2. If you shop online, your identity and information will be stolen.
3. “Make sure you check the backseat of your car before getting in when you leave it in an empty parking lot. Especially if it’s after dark.”
4. You must also always have your keys ready in your hands to shank someone or stab them in the eyeball when they burst out of your car in previously mentioned empty parking lot.
5. Hot tubs are evil and will kill you with bacteria. And they’re especially filled with bacteria if there are drunk people in said hot tub.
6. “No lighting candles in your bedroom! You’ll burn the house down!”
7. “Always keep your arm over your purse, I don’t care if we’re in a suburban mall anyone could reach in and steal your wallet!”
8. Birth control in all its forms will ruin your fertility.
9. “Your signature is always changing; you need to watch that, what if the bank rejects it? What if they refuse you access to your accounts?!”
10. “Ankle boots will restrict your blood flow and give you cankles.”
11. Always hide your purse under other things. And never leave it in the car.
12. Thanks to years of scolding, lectures on bacteria and embarrassing encounters in change rooms, there is no circumstance where you will ever put unwashed underwear anywhere close to any patch of unprotected skin on your body. Ever.
13. Unwashed fruit is filthy. If you think just running it under some water is good enough, you are a fool. If you’re fruit doesn’t taste like soap it’s not clean enough for ingestion.
#13 also applies to fruit with peels. What, you think not eating the peel of an orange will make it safe? “You know that if you touch the outside of the skin, and then peel it, and then touch the fruit before eating it, then any germs or pesticides or traces of rat poop will go on the fruit and then you eat it…Just wash the damn fruit.”
14. You should never use antiperspirant; it is unnatural to not sweat. It must be harmful.
15. “Why do you have to make your own jam? Why can’t you just buy it from a store knowing that it’s a glass jar without botulism?” Instagram/Pinterest/Facebook envy is never a useful reasoning tool either.
16. Microwaves will cook your insides, which is why I grew up without one. To this day I struggle with how to use one.
17. Pork, eggs and ground meat must always be cooked through, no exception. All those weirdos eating steak tartare are just asking for death, or at the very least, food poisoning.
18. Bottled water is full of plastic and chemicals. Don’t ever drink bottled water if you don’t have to, especially if it’s been left in the sun or a really warm place because then the water is even more full of chemicals. *This is your number one fear unless you are in some destitute country where Hep A runs rampant at which point bottled water is your best friend. And always check the seal because apparently people like to tamper with things for no reason, just to ruin other people’s lives.
19. Never listen to the tampon instructions – if it says you can leave it in for 4 hours you should probably only leave it in for 2. “Don’t you remember that woman on Oprah with TSS? Didn’t her uterus fall out because of a tampon?”
20. Never buy anything from the dollar store. You don’t actually think that the ingredients on the labels are the things actually making up the product you’re busying? Don’t be naive. That’s not real Colgate toothpaste. Just spend more and get “real” things.
21. “Children who like the taste of alcohol are probably going to end up with drinking problems.”
22. Going outside or going to sleep with wet hair will make you sick.
23.Any receipt with credit card info should be ripped up, and then shredded, and then if you can get away with it or don’t live in an area with strict bonfire by-laws then you should burn it with fire. Because you know someone will go through the trash one day and find your credit card info and steal all your money.
24. The first time you try and book a plane ticket online you develop such a severe bout of anxiety that you end up not being able to go through with it and end up having to fork out an extra $50 to a travel agent just so you can stop panicking over the idea of not being allowed on to the plane because something wasn’t filled out correctly when you bought your ticket online, because as my dad just said to me 20 minutes ago “Why do you have to risk it? Why deal with all this shit when you can just pay someone who actually knows what they’re doing and then you know for sure you’ll be allowed on the plane?” Thanks Dad.