I hope it is OK to continue this topic, it was too late to say anything.

My Dad [a never-Mormon] was interesting. We were forced to hold a fork properly when eating. If we held it wrong, we got knocked in the head. We got hit for other bad table manners too. I get indigestion just thinking about it.

As a result, I never have cared whether we eat as a family or not. We often eat separately wherever we want.

Did he teach you how to cut your meat? That is the skill that makes me a little bit crazy when I watch people full-fisted trying to cut their meat.

Bet he got hit up to the side of the head too.

Oh jbug, so sorry you had to grow up like that!I imagined experiencing what you described and it made me feel absolutely sick. I can't blame you for being traumatized and never wanting anything to do with family dinners. May you find healing & happiness and it sounds like you have to some degree, still enjoying dinner with/near/at the same time as your family but on your own terms.

We children had to do all the chores that our stay at home mother would have done had she not been laying down in the fuzzy glow of tranquilizers and a tube radio.

Certain tv shows were banned arbitrarily. All In The Family was banned for awhile and then suddenly okayed with no reason given.

No swimming on Sundays as the devil reserved the pool for that day.

Beatings were delivered in a ritual manner: one at a time in a back room.

Church meetings were mandatory, even for sick children.

Boys were made to endure buzzcut haircuts with a dull electric razor--these were painful and embarrassing in the Beatles era.

Many Saturdays were spent working for the church without pay.

No allowances.

No lunch money for school.

Hanging out with poor kids or non-Mormons was cause for accusations and arguments. Lots of shouting and name-calling was used to keep us on our heels.

Priesthood rank was absolute. Belief in the Book of Mormon was mandatory. There was no middle ground--all things were either of the Lord or of the devil.

Money was in short supply, but punishment and criticism were abundant. Abuse poured out of a cornucopia of meanness. Going to bed crying was very common.

WOW! Donbagley, I thought MY household was bad. We didn't get lunch money, but my Mom made us a lunch. At least we ate.

I never thought to mention beatings....of course I got them, that's what parents did in the 60's! We ran to our rooms, pulled down our britches and got the belt. If you didn't get in position, it was lots worse.

My Mom, however, would hit us with whatever was handy, hairbrushes, sticks, anything. Once I got hit with a flying shoe. I've blocked out a lot of it...I do remember being dragged around by my hair.

These were not Mormons so I don't talk much about this here.

thought I had it bad but my folks were great in comparison! our family joke was that our mom could actually heave a shoe around a corner and hit us upside the head with it as we were yapping at her while she was on the phone. :-D

My Dad a non-mo except for the last few years of his life, had a habit of pulling us up at the table by saying "You wouldn't do that at Lennons". Lennons was a high class restaurant in the city I lived in, one our family could NEVER have afforded to go to. But it was held up to us as an example of good manners. Every time we put our elbows up too high while using a knife and fork,or swapped our knives into the wrong hand or failed to get up from the table if we needed to sneeze or blow our nose, Lennons was trotted out as a level for us to reach. None of my Dad's requests were unreasonable, we just used to quietly roll our eyes at the Lennons' reference.

I moved away from the city I was raised in at 18 and really have only been back for visits since. But I have promised myself that some time soon I will go to Lennons, order a posh expensive meal, and then proceed to hold my arms up, blow my nose into the serviettes and even perhaps dance on the tables. I SO want to get my revenge on Lennons! Heh heh!!!

We were not Mormons, but my mother was such a control freak that when I talked to my best friend on the phone, it had to be in the family room so Mother could hear what we were talking about. And there was a 10-minute limit.

By the time my best friend and I reached Spanish III in school, we could converse in Spanish, (which my mother did not speak) so I got the idea of conversing in Spanish, just to have some privacy. Mother went berserk and started screaming "ENGLISH-ENGLISH-ENGLISH. . .!!!" I pointed out (in a quiet voice) that if she weren't eavesdropping, it shouldn't matter what language we spoke, now should it? She insisted that she was NOT eavesdropping, but it was rude to speak a foreign language just to exclude somebody. Well, of course it is, but still. . .

We would sometimes arrange to call each other at midnight or some such thing which required all the ringers on the house phones to be turned off so the parental types wouldn't hear them ring. We did this for years on New Year's Eve after our parents were asleep. It was such fun for us to talk as long as we wanted.

Mother would also go berserk if I locked my bedroom door and start pounding on it and screaming. She made my father take the door off the hinges once when I was fairly small and when I heard that going on, I climbed out my bedroom window and didn't come home until well after dark. Of course, I got a terrible "lickin' " for that, but I told them that if they ever took my door off, I'd do it again and not come home. The door stayed on, but Mother still raised Cain if it was locked. She was absolutely certain that if I wanted "privacy," I was up to something "bad."

She did NOT tolerate the concept of "boundaries."

" The door stayed on, but Mother still raised Cain if it was locked. She was absolutely certain that if I wanted "privacy," I was up to something "bad.""

As a parent...my kids' room doors do not have locks on them...their room IS my room since I pay the mortgage...

All that said...I have no problem with their doors closed for their privacy. Since they are teenage boys...I ALWAYS knock before entering......

It's more and more obvious that parents that say this don't remember being children themselves and are completely oblivious to the message they are communicating.

Gee, children are forbidden by law from working, therefore forbidden from helping you out with that mortgage. Hmm.

Do these parents make their children because they want to raise good humans? Or only because some authority in their life will disapprove if they don't make future tithe payers? Because the latter reason causes parents to resent their offspring who become quite aware that they are not desired company but exist only as part of the parents' checklist of righteousness.
Not respecting their very existence, denying them ownership of even the space they must occupy, is it any wonder teens leave a messy room and get accused of disrespect all the time? It's been made clear it is not theirs, respect is never given, only demanded, all they are is a greedy nuisance...

Oh, my bad, I'm projecting again. I'm sure you're a MUCH better parent than mine were, lol.
How polite of you to knock on your own property. Would you give girls the same respect? Hmm.

No idea why anyone contributing to these threads would voluntarily have children after being subjected to such an upbringing.
Some obviously make a misguided attempt to recreate the childhood they didn't get, but that leaves the next generation of children filling shoes they had no hand in fashioning, parents probably failing to acknowledge these childrens' own needs and natures by remaining myopically focused on repairing the parents' own pasts.

Any wonder mormons as a group are so offensive? Never able to look past their past, constantly projecting onto people their own needs and issues, never able to acknowledge the people and problems right in front of them.

catnip Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Mother would also go berserk if I locked my
> bedroom door and start pounding on it and
> screaming.
>
> She did NOT tolerate the concept of "boundaries."

Holy crap, do we have the same mother? Mine did this as well. One of my enduring childhood memories is of her screaming, "DON'T LOCK YOUR DAMN DOOR! DON'T LOCK YOUR DAMN DOOR!" over and over again while I was trying to get dressed. This happened frequently from the ages of 12 to 18. She also took it off the hinges for awhile, until a nosy ward member came upstairs one day, saw it, was duly horrified and told other people in the ward that my mother was crazy. Then the door went back up.

One night when I was 16, she called me a horrible obscene name (bad enough that I won't repeat it even here), so I went upstairs and locked myself in my room while I tried to figure out what to do. She broke the door down and came after me with a set of salad tongs, of all things. I packed a bag very quickly, left and didn't go back for a few weeks.

Back to the topic of ridiculous household rules, one of our many ironclad directives was no hitting or swearing. Only our parents were allowed to hit and swear, which they did to their children on a daily basis.

Use your bread as a "pusher" and if you didn't, the 'ol man would get pissed and toss the meal in the trash. If we were lucky. Otherwise, he would scream and tantrum and sulk because we used our "fingers" and sometimes slap our fingers for being dirty with food.
Also, "milk" was a food, not a "mouthwash", When we could get it. Cheap prick. Had go arounds on that subject also.
Meal time was a delight with that jack-mo S.O.B.

I was not allowed to wear blue jeans or shorts outside of the house because, supposedly, I would act less lady like. My stepmother took my favorite pair of jeans away from me the day I moved in to live with her and my dad and I never saw them again. I also had to buy my own school clothes, school supplies and school lunches all earned by babysitting for neighbors and ward members throughout the year.

Also, I had to pick my brothers up from school and the babysitter and take care of them after school while I was doing my chores. since I was the oldest and the only girl, I did ALL the household chores which included doing the dishes every night, dusting and cleaning the whole house every day, cleaning both bathrooms every day, making my bed and unloading the dishwasher every morning before school and taking care of the pets.

Talking on the phone, dating and social activites were practically nonexistent and I had to earn those privileges by keeping my grades at an A average and doing my chores to my perfectionist father's standards. If I got grouchy or mouthed off dad would beat the daylights out of me when he got home from work at midnight.

My brothers never had chores that I can remember.

and they all wonder why I left after high school and never looked back. To this day, 33 years later, I have nothing to do with any of them.

Nothing compares to being the oldest sister in a family of too many kids. That's a reason to delay, delay ,delay kids or avoid them all together!

We had to play with a mormon every other time we played with someone. I hated it. There were two mo girls my age. I would not have chose to be friends with either of them.

I was forced to go play with this one mo girl because her mom wanted her to have friends that were girls. Well we had NOTHING in common. She was a tom boy but it was deeper than that. She was a lesbian and was 'different' from the start. I hope she is okay. She resented having to play with me and I don't blame her. She was very mean to me and each time I begged not to go. I can't imagine doing that to my kid.

We were not allowed to waste food, ever. If it was put on your plate you ate it. If you took too much ketchup you had to get another corn-dog to finish it. We had a lazy-susan on our table. If you didn't turn the serving spoons they would knock the glasses over. One time the missionaries were over and one of us kids left the spoon out. My dad's cup was knocked over onto his freshly dished up plate of food. In a rage my dad picked up a full pitcher of powderer milk throwing it at the wall he yelled out "DON'T WASTE FOOOOOOOD!" Us kids sat there stunned as milk dripped of those unlucky to be sitting by the wall.

You could never argue or disagree in any way. My dad like to say "don't, don't your dad." He thought it was funny. Now I realize how sick and wrong it was. He'd tweak your nose and you would say "don't" he laugh and say "don't, don't your dad" and then do it again.

We were suppose to predict when we should not be around him. If you accidentally did not know you would be walking down the hall at the same time as him and he would hit without warning and for no know reason.

After the beach when we would get home at night he would line us all up outside and spray us with freezing cold water so we did not bring sand into the house. Then we would have to wait until our turn for the bath or shower came.

If you did not attend church you may be thrown in the car by your hair. If you did not wake up for early morning seminary you may be beat with a surfboard.

I wanted so bad to make him proud. I didn't have a penis so that was impossible. I tried anyways and I no longer care. You are an asshole dad.

:-( I hate your Dad too.

That makes no sense. Do you know what he thought it meant?

I took that as "Don't tell me not to do anything. I am the Dad and I will do whatever the hell I please." In other words, she didn't have the authority or autonomy to set boundaries for herself. Dad expected to be no-holds barred.

Yup. Don't say the word don't to your dad. We were not ever suppose to tell him to stop. I guess he thought he was being funny. I now feel this "game" had the most damaging effect on me.

I was molested in high school and completely froze. Looking back I think the boy would have stopped if I had just asserted myself. My dad taught me I did not have a say over my body.

Thank you everyone for validating my feelings. It is very therapeutic.

Oldest of 6, raised Lutheran. Dad was career Navy, big, loud and a bully. Mom was short, chubby and submissive. Both depression-era children, so they had that mentality of skimping on everything.

When I was in elementary school, my mom made me wear the same outfit to school 2-3 days in a row. I was made fun of a lot for that. She had to do that when she was young, so we did too. It ended for me when I went to Jr. High and started just changing outfits each day, even if I had to wear the same thing Monday and Friday.

Dad was the king of his castle. When we had supper, if we wanted seconds we had to wait to see if Dad wanted it first. He always got first dibs on the food. We had to eat everything on our plate no matter what. No talking during the meal.

Dad hit us a lot. Spankings with the belt on our bare butts for the stupidest thing, like talking in bed after lights out.

Children belonged outside. Especially in the summer, we were expected to stay out until we were called in for supper.

Dad liked to sit around at night in his underwear, so he would drape a towel over himself so we couldn't see his tighty whiteys. Ugh.

The parents were like bunnies, and on Saturday mornings, we had to stay in bed until the all-clear ("OK you can get up now"). Sometimes that wasn't until 10 a.m. It wasn't until years later I realized it was because they were having sex. Ugh again.

Like other first-borns, I was the built-in babysitter, and was in charge of the siblings a lot when mom took a nap and such (she had depression issues). By the time I was 11, I was watching them by myself if mom wanted to run an errand. I'm afraid I often abused my power, but you just shouldn't let kids parent their siblings that way.

Things became a bit more relaxed when I was in 7th grade for some reason, but then I went to confirmation class. In our particular church, classes were held every Saturday morning 9-noon during the school year, on Sunday during Sunday School and also for a two-week period in the summer while Bible School was going on. That lasted for three years, from 7th-9th grades. We were NEVER allowed to miss church for any reason. One time I skipped a Saturday confirmation class to go to Six Flags Over Texas with my best friend, who also went to my church. Her parents said OK and I lied and said mine did too. Wow, was I punished for that.

If we acted up in church or made too much noise, we had to sit in a chair in the middle of the living room for an hour when we got home.

We were all afraid of my dad. None of us wanted to be around him. The best year of our collective childhood life was the year he went to Viet Nam. I think we were all praying he wouldn't come home. I know I was pretty mad when he did. In some ways he was even worse after that, and I saw him severely beat the two siblings who were most defiant. I played the good girl to stay off his radar. I left home immediately after high school to get away from him. In the end, when he died, not one of his children went to his funeral. Nobody misses him.

My parents divorced when I was 26. I realize my mom was also afraid of my dad (he beat her up a few times), but I wish she had stood up to him more and stood up for us. It was a real effed up childhood, but I've read worse in these threads, so I guess I have to put things in perspective.

I am so sorry that so many of you had such rotten parents. Wow...that's just so F_ _ ked up! I didn't realized how good I had it as a kid. It goes to show, you really don't know what's going on inside other peoples houses.

I remember there being no eating allowed after about 8pm. I remember so many times when my dad would get out of bed wearing nothing but his garment bottoms and yell at us about eating cereal or whatever. He never got the memo that the garments were see-through. He loved to walk around showing off the old one-eye. My siblings and I still talk about it and shake our head.

My parents cleaned businesses as janitors every week night and for about 3-4 hours on Saturday. We had no choice but to help every night or there would be threats of physical violence from my dad. We had to plan our entire young lives around cleaning toilets and taking out trash. Thanks a lot tithing.

There wasn't really a lot of other rules but there was an overwhelming amount of general stupidity. I've tried to get over it and start anew with my parents but I just don't think it will ever be possible. I fucking hate mormons. There I said it. I fucking hate mormons and I fucking hate mormonism. It has robbed so many of us of so much with nothing in return.

Mother snooped in my room when I was in H.S.and had my dad rake all over me for buying 2 new skirts, with My baby sitting money.

She had my dad remove the lock from the bathroom door, so she could come in and use it when I was showering.

Once they turned the water off during my shower, because I was taking too long of one.

I had to turn over all the money I made working for four summers at the Jersey shore board walk concessions, supposedly for college. When the time came for me to go, she asked, 'What do you want to do that for?'

There's much, much more that my narcissistic mother cooked up, but these are samples.

I had a horrible psychopath brother, 6 years older, who beat and tortured me just for the heck of it. My parents would look the other way. This brother was extremely manipulative, and talked his way out of blame, and talked it onto me. I would get spanked for defending myself, but I chose to kick my brother off of me, and take the formal beating from my father. I had bags under my eyes, an eating disorder, and stomach aches every night. My brother would come in at two am and wake me up with his loud music and noises. Early mormon seminary would rob me of more sleep. I could not do anything right. Everywhere I turned, there was torture, criticism, and punishment for me.

Funny, we had dinner table rules, too. Especially, no laughing at the dinner table. I was the youngest, and laughed easily, so I got sent to bed without any dinner, quite often. My father dressed for dinner in a suit and tie, and we children had to wear our Sunday clothes. The blessing on the food was very long and sanctimonious (hence, my giggling).

I babysat every evening I could, to be out of that house. In the summers, I was a nanny. When I was old enough to get real jobs, I would work in the summers, evenings, and at Christmas time. More pay, and less time spent with my family. I fell in love with a Mormon in our ward, but he decided not to go on a mission, so my parents suddenly stopped liking him. I went with him to Graduation Night, but packed my bags and left two days later. We kept touch, and in graduate school, he proposed. By this time, he was an Atheist, and my parents were against the marriage, so I married a RM, BYU grad, football player, scholarship student, and a close relative to a Mormon GA. I knew him only a few months, and ha never met his mother, father, and two sisters--only his brother. He had a history of assault on his sister, other girls, neighborhood pets, etc, and no one told me. When he beat me, I tried to get a temple divorce, but the Mormon church thinks it is OK for a man to discipline his wife. According to the D & C 132, a woman is a man's "property.

GBH says, "Your wife is your greatest possession."

My husband's household rules were that dinner had to be ready on time, though I was working full time, and he was a student. I was putting him though school. Nothing could be undercooked, which was difficult, with a stove that kept quitting on me. I could not speak to another man, without my husband there. I ran into my old HT, when we were getting ice cream cones, and we walked and talked, as we ate them. For that, I was beaten and strangled, and almost killed.

The tradition of bullying and physical punishment for breaking arbitrary "rules" is too common in Mormonism. All of you posters described my own dysfunctional family. I went back for a few visits, and the best visits were when my parents came to see me. But my bully brother started to whine and cry, that he felt left out, so my parents began bringing him with them. He was so horrible to my children, that I refused to have him stay at our house. MY house rules are to leave our private tax and finance records alone, stay out of my and my daughters' underwear drawers, son't say sexy things to my girls, don't insult them about their breasts, legs, hair, whatever, don't scream and swear at my sons when they say they are not going on missions, don't break the furniture, don't crash my car. He wreaked havoc in our lives!

Now, I have nothing to do with my brothers, or their sons, who are criminals. One of them stole money from our family business, and the other committed personal fraud against me. I took them to court and won--but the emotional price almost caused me to break down. I got sick, and couldn't work for several months.

Where is the love? Where is Christ?

He had a mood disorder, yelled a lot, and was omnipresent and really controlling. His behavior and parenting style certainly affected me in some negative ways, but whenever I read threads like this he looks pretty good by comparison.

He had a few stupid things I would call rules, like:

-- Don't squeeze the toothpaste tube in the middle. (This was back when toothpaste tubes were metal and highly crunchable, so I can see the basic rationale, but I don't think the waste was very much and he had his own toothpaste in his bathroom, so why did he give a shit.)

-- All showers must be Navy showers. (Ugh! I still often think how great it is that I'm not having a Navy shower.)

-- If you're not gone by 8 pm, you're not going anywhere. Why? Because there's nothing to do but get in trouble (but really mostly because I don't like your friends and have correctly guessed that you are wanting to do un-Mormony things with them).

-- There must be no possibility of the hems of your jeans ever touching the ground. (This at a time when the style was to drag them out. My brother was horribly traumatized and to this day has a huge thing about flood pants.) Hate to think how Dadbotaz would have done with the falling-down pants, lol.

Rule #1 was unspoken: Do not make your dad angry. It was just so darned easy!

It helped a lot to think about his childhood and realize he was always that little 6-year-old boy who lost his father and got a mean stepfather instead, trying to control what he could.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/13/2013 06:31AM by munchybotaz.

My best friend's father had you all beat. There was no man more controlling or meaner than he. No one in the family was allowed to use more than four squares of toilet paper to wipe themselves with, and he made sure of it. It would take a lot of imagination to make that work, and my friend would sneak squares from the school and church to make it work, or just make sure he always did his toilet stuff at school or church.

His dad did everyone's hair at home with electric clippers. He would make the boys take off their shirts then he would shave their armpits.

The old man was a mean old libertarian and didn't believe in obeying any laws at all, and kept loaded guns around the house, ready to shoot at any threat. He would also poach deer from an orchard across the street (they lived in a rural area on the back side of the San Gabriel mountains in California). He would notch .22 cal bullets and paint glow in the dark paint on the bead of his rifle, and put out salt licks. When he went hunting on tag, he would shoot in excess of 5 deer on one tag, quickly field dress the animal like some sort of commando, and leave most of the carcass so that he could quickly get away with as much good meat as he could. The family ate nothing but venison.

Postscript: The two oldest kids (my friend and his sister) were outwardly perfect. But the daughter, who remained TBM, married her TBM German teacher at 17, as soon as she graduated high school. My friend went on to get kicked off his mission, disfellowshipped, then went to BYU, had five kids, taught school, left his wife for a 16 year-old student, lost his state credentials, and worked driving Keebler products the rest of his life, despite his higher education.

My dad was actually very authoritarian and could be very mean. He did beat 2 of my brothers. The girls were never beat. We got spanked some--not much. He seemed to want to make his sons tough. We had a disabled brother who was the 5th of 6. It nearly broke my dad--he had a stroke when born, drank paint thinner at age 18 months, and got hit by a car on his bike at age 5. My parents spent most of their life taking care of my brother. Then my oldest brother had a stroke at age 42 and my dad took care of him. They made peace. My dad gave him his IV antibiotics for the infection he got. He had 5 surgeries and he lived with my parents. My brother never completely recovered, but, in the end, he took care of my parents by walking to their house every day and they paid him. He took care of them both until the days they both died.

My dad could be very mean and we were afraid of him as children. My mother had depression problems.

I wasn't the oldest. I was third. I took care of my 2 younger siblings--the 2 closest to my disabled brother. They still see me as a mother figure. My youngest brother is 11 years younger and he was my JOY. I wouldn't give up taking care of him for anything. He took me on a cruise to Alaska this year--and I took him in when he was going through his divorce (and I was going through mine).

In the end, after losing them both--they were far from perfect, but they were NOTHING like the parents you guys are talking about.

Oh--I have to add we spent our lives working on my dad's farm--you name it, we did it. Hoed beats for 15 summers. Hauled hay. Planted, picked, sold tomatoes, corn, cantaloupe, potatoes. We spent UEA on our knees in the potato fields. We even raked the sheep pen and sold sheep at the fair, etc. We worked ourselves to "death." And we used our earnings to buy our school clothes and pay our school fees.

We had some rules, but nothing like the ones you guys are talking about. My dad wasn't very active mormon and so the mormon rules weren't that big of a deal.

For many reasons, this board has helped me heal--that is one. I feel so lucky to have had the parents I had. I miss them every day.

You all have my sympathy!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/13/2013 10:46AM by cl2.

My TBM grandfather and grandmother would slap me in the head for eating with my left-hand (or anything with my left-hand for that matter) or for sleeping with my hands under the blankets (they thought I might be touching myself).

Oh, and my step-father's parents wanted their Oak Hills Provo home to be BYU approved so they would not allow shorts or blue-jeans in their home. I didn't realize that BYU approved housing didn't allow shorts or blue-jeans.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/13/2013 10:37AM by budweiserbaby.

We were not allowed to lock the bathroom door or close our bed room doors, or open our bedroom windows. That was the weirdest... Once my step mom declared that were were only allowed to use five squares of toliet paper when we use the bathroom. I'm sure that if she had a way of enforcing this, she would have.

And the usual, HAVE to attend church/seminary. Dress only for girls. My sister wanted to wear slacks one week and my dad grabbed her by the shoulder and shoved her and told her to change.

Don't date guys who drive vans. Still haven't technically broken this rule, even though I have dated a single Mom who drove one. Oh, and then there was that girl who drove the airport shuttle.

I think there may have been a double standard somewhere in there...

Oh, and then there was, "go some place private to have your phone calls, because the rest of us don't want to hear you yapping like an idiot." My father never mastered the whole, Mormon Priesthood holder control freak. It's probably why he eventually apostatized.