Parents can be overprotective; it comes with the territory. But sometimes, even the most well-intentioned ones get out of control. Here Redditors share their frustrating experiences with parents who completely overreacted and sent them over the edge. Time to chill out and cut the cord!
1. Within An Inch Of Tears
When I was about 12, right when the Beanie Baby craze was erupting, I spent a good portion of my money collecting Beanie Babies. My mom was so upset that I was "wasting" my money on things that made me happy that she did something so despicable—I'll never forget it.
She cut all of them up with scissors in front of my eyes and threw them in the trash. She grabbed my favorite—Inch, the rainbow caterpillar—and cut him in half. I remember all the filling pouring out into the trash, and she watched while I cried.
2. Nice Job Mom
I was going to a job interview for a summer internship. My mom drove me there—which was a mistake on my part—and I told her I would call her when I was done. Thirty minutes in, I saw my mom walking outside the diner I was interviewing in, trying to find me. She had a puzzled look on her face because she couldn’t see me.
I was in the very back, as we had moved tables because the other one was too sunny. She called my phone, but I didn’t pick up. But she didn't stop there. She then called the interviewer's phone because she had the company number which was directed to his cellphone.
Later, she told me she was afraid I had gotten into the car with him and that he had sinister intentions. I was 19!
3. Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost
When I was in fifth grade, I slept over at a friend’s house on a Saturday. After waking up and eating breakfast the next morning, I walked home. I walked to and from various friends’ houses fairly regularly. Upon getting home, I went to my room and sat down to read some Lord of the Rings. I got caught up in the book and read straight through lunch.
When it started getting dark, I realized I was pretty hungry, so I went to the kitchen to see what was in the works for dinner...Instead, I made a disturbing discovery. I stumbled upon a full-out investigation/mediation with the authorities.
There was a detective and a couple of uniformed officers talking to my parents and various neighbors; there was an aura of quiet despair about the whole thing. I was horrified. I thought perhaps my sister had been hurt or some other atrocity had happened while I was blissfully skipping along with hobbits and slaying orcs.
It turned out I was the missing child. My parents and the authorities had gotten half of the community involved in looking for me without checking my room to see if I was there. How on earth the authorities didn't bother to check there for me baffles me to this day.
4. I Did What I Was Told
My mom always told me that if I ever missed the bus after school to walk to my aunt’s house, which was about 10 minutes away. It was in a good part of the town, and all the kids walked home. So one day, I missed the bus and walked to my aunt’s house. This just so happened to be the first day I ever missed it.
She would keep the back gate open, so when I got there, I was just waiting for her to get home. I didn't have a cell phone until my senior year in high school. So, I just sat in the backyard playing with her dogs. A couple of hours went by, and she still hadn't come home. It was already dark—probably about eight-ish—but there was nothing I could do.
Luckily, she had a fridge full of soda in the backyard. She finally arrived, saw me, and just bawled. My sister had called my mom, saying that I never got home. My mom got off of work, went to the school, and cried her eyes out there.
When she was there, a few of my teachers and classmates saw her and told her they had seen me at school, so they called the authorities. She called my aunt—the one whose house I was at—and they were driving around town looking for me.
My aunt finally called my mom and told her I was at her house. When my mom got there, she looked like a crazy clown with her makeup smeared all over the place. I told her that she had told me to go to my aunt’s house and asked her why she didn't look there first.
5. College Call Out
When I first moved away from home, my mother used to call me about three times a day minimum; it was pretty bad. One day I was busy in class all day and then had a tutorial until 9 PM, so I wasn't able to answer my phone because I had left it in my room. The consequences would haunt me for the rest of my university experience.
The first I found out about this was when a bunch of my friends turned up at the tutorial with the college porters and two of the secretaries. My mother had freaked out and phoned the college because I hadn't answered my phone, saying she thought I'd been abducted, had injured myself, or God knows what, and that they had to go help me.
She also called all my friends, whose numbers she had surreptitiously copied from my phone earlier, demanding they find me. That incident made the next four years there lots of fun.
6. A Real Sore Spot
I woke up with a sore chest because I had slept in an awkward position. My mom decided to—without discussing it with anyone beforehand—call emergency services because she was convinced I was having a heart attack. An ambulance came to my house, and I had to have all sorts of tests done on me.
Of course, they concluded that it was, indeed, just soreness.
7. High Five Hassle
My dad once saw a friend give me a high five on the way out of school, and he somehow interpreted that as the guy hassling and harassing me. He got out of the car and stormed up to the guy, ready to beat him up, but with the incredulity that only 15-year-old girls are capable of, I was like, “OMG, Dad, what on earth?"
To this day, he still thinks I was covering for this guy’s offensive behavior or something.
8. D&D Stands For Dirty Doings?
In my senior year of high school, I started playing D&D with my friend's older brother. Every Wednesday around 9 PM, he'd come to pick me up, and I would be gone for a few hours, but I would always be back home by 1 AM.
My dad, a Chinese immigrant who's lived in the US for about 20 years, had no idea what D&D was, despite my repeated attempts to explain the concept. Hence, he was always a little wary about letting me go out on a school night.
However, he trusted my judgment and knew from experience that telling me I couldn't go wouldn't do anything, so he let me continue for months. Every now and then, he would ask me where it was held and who was there, but he seemed more or less fine with the whole enterprise.
When it came time for me to travel to China for the summer, I had to stop playing with my group. I was moving away to college immediately after my return to the US, so it made sense to just stop there. My dad professed profound relief over this, even going so far as to jump up from the couch he was sitting on and start doing a little jig.
When I asked him why he was so excited, he told me he was glad I'd no longer be doing "dirty things" with people. It took me a while to realize he had never understood that D&D was a nerdy game—and then it dawned on me.
To him, every week that I was going out until midnight and role-playing in a game, I was engaging in debauchery in the basement of a young adult's home with several other teenagers.
9. Busting Up The Party
Once when I was around 19 and home during a college break, one of my best friends from high school called to catch up. During the call, I had my door closed, and we talked for maybe an hour before hanging up around 11 o'clock at night. A few seconds after we hung up, I heard my father bounding up the stairs.
He ripped open my door without any sort of warning, demanding to know who I had in my room because he had heard voices. It took him a little while, along with a thorough search of both of my closets, to believe that I was only on the phone.
10. What’s The Emergency?
My dad always overreacted about the tiniest things. Most memorably, I had just gotten to my ex-boyfriend's house via an hour-and-a-half subway ride when I got a phone call from my dad saying, “Get home right now”. I tried to pry him for answers, but he wouldn't give me any. My little sister also refused to answer any of my questions.
Once I got home, my dad came up to me and told me to look in the living room. It looked normal, so I asked him, "What am I looking at?" He then proceeded to point to my coffee mug from earlier that morning that I had left in the living room, and said, "Put it in the dishwasher".
I put it in the dishwasher after which he forced me into a hug and said, "I only did this because I love you".
11. Weeding Out The Bad
One day, I came home smelling like weed, only to unexpectedly find my dad home early from work. I discreetly headed up to my room, showered, and changed into my pajamas for the night. My dad, a law enforcement officer, walked in an hour later holding my hoodie, yelling about the smell.
He berated me for an hour, yelling that I will end up on a street corner, turning tricks for substances, and that he was not going to bail me out when I got busted. He also told me that I was going to flunk out of college and be an all-around waste of space and failure in life.
Meanwhile, I was about to graduate with a near-perfect GPA and several honors, and an internship awaited me when I got out. All from someone with a drinking problem who was terrible to his wife and kid. But that wasn't the last stunt he pulled.
After I left for college and went back home for a visit, he accused me of being on even harder substances because I had some glow sticks left over from Halloween the year before.
12. She Was A Wii Bit Paranoid
I bought a Nintendo Wii and Brawl about six months after they came out. So, naturally, I hooked it up to the internet and started playing against my friends.
My paranoid mom came in and said, "What are you doing? Playing on the internet? What if you're playing with CREEPY STRANGERS?! Turn that off right now! You could be playing with a pedophile RIGHT NOW!" I was 18 years old!
13. Diet Pill Debacle
I was a fat 14-year-old girl. My mom and dad were always on me about losing weight, restricting food, telling me I would never get married, etc. So, I saved up my allowance and bought some Mini Thinz, which were over-the-counter diet pills. My mom and dad searched my bag one night and found them.
They were convinced that I was using them like speed and snorting them and grounded me for three months.
14. Put To The Test
I was getting a tad pudgy and hadn't had my period for six months. My Asian parents had suspicions that a boy probably slept with me, so they went to some extremes. They indirectly made me take a pregnancy test.
They drove to Walmart at 10 PM and bought a pregnancy test. Then, my mom asked me to pee in a cup, saying, “We'll use it to figure out if you have a disease”. I told her I was not having a baby and was not going to pee in a cup, but they made me do it anyway. The three of us sat around the pregnancy test, waiting for the results.
Of course, I wasn’t pregnant, and I wouldn’t have been offended if it wasn't for the fact that I have straight-up never even kissed a boy.
15. Her Idea Of Chemistry Was Wild
My dad and I have always been very close because we were very similar—nerdy and liked science—whereas my mom, not so much. She got so jealous that, in her messed up head, she started to think that my dad and I were having an inappropriate relationship. As soon as I found out, which wasn't for a while, I freaked out.
My dad knew what she thought and was trying to keep it from me, so I wouldn't completely disown her. There was a lot of yelling and almost physical altercations before we finally resolved it.
16. On A 24-Hour Timer
I was over 18 and living with my parents. I had just gotten a car and would often spend the night at a friend’s house if I didn't feel like driving home. One day, I KNEW I was probably going to spend the night because my friend was having a party, and I told my dad I wouldn't be home until the next day.
He said, "Okay, but after 24 hours I'm calling the [authorities]". I thought he meant he'd call the authorities if I didn't show up the next day. NOPE. It turned out he decided he'd call them 24 hours after I pulled out of the driveway, DESPITE the fact that he knew exactly where I was.
Luckily, I got home before officers found me, but I was severely ticked off at my dad. With all the real problems that require attention, I couldn't believe he would squander law enforcement’s time like that.
What made it worse, was that I was maybe 20-30 minutes past the 24-hour mark, so when he called the authorities back, it was after I would be missing for only about half an hour. I moved out real quick after that drama.
17. Blown Out Of Proportion
I worked at a law office, and a part of my job was to deliver files to different courthouses in the state to file them, get them signed, etc. One day, I was driving down the highway and the motor blew in my truck. I was basically left stranded 50 miles away from home.
After calling a tow truck and dealing with the rest of that terrible day, my mom's reaction completely blindsided me. She told me that I purposely blew the motor in my truck because I never liked it. She then proceeded to boot me out of the house.
18. Read The Riot Act For Reading
My mom stopped drinking when I was 11 and started paying attention for the first time in years. She noticed—to her horror—that I was a bookworm. I read a book or more a day. To stop me from becoming "a nerd" she took all my books and gave them away, and restricted me from reading.
She also forced my older, more social sister to take me with her every time she went out with friends, hoping this would help me learn "to not be a nerd". It was the most confusing punishment to explain to other people.
19. Trust Issues
My friend’s parents used to suspect him of everything and anything that a kid could do wrong. The truth was he hung with a good crowd and generally kept himself out of trouble, was smart, and got good grades, yet they still tore his room apart thinking he used substances and engaged in other various illicit activities.
One night, he told his parents he was going to stay at my house for the evening for a video game marathon. At this point, we were both over 18 and it was the summer after high school. I didn't need my parent's permission to really go anywhere, but I'd let them know where I was at, for their own peace of mind.
We had some wiring problems, so we went over to another friend's house for our video game marathon. At about 2 AM my friend's mother called my dad, screaming and demanding to know where we were. My dad told her where we were, that the other kid's parents were there, and she asked how he knew that for sure.
He replied, "Because I called him and he told me". She said, "BUT you called him on a cell phone; you don't know they are actually there. How do you know he isn't lying". My father just matter-of-factly replied, "Because I trust my son," and she cursed him out and hung up on him.
This went on for years while he was in college. In the end, he decided to flip the script. He started doing all those terrible things she suspected him of. He was drinking, doing dope, and ended up dropping out of school. His reasoning was simple.
He said, “If the people who are supposed to care about me the most are going to falsely accuse me of doing these things all the time, I may as well just do them. I can't do anything to please them despite getting great grades, getting into a top engineering school, and doing well for myself. What's the point?"
He fell into a deep depression and self-medicated. We all tried to help him, but none of it stuck. He was too battered by all the horrible things his parents had said to him and accused him of over the years. He disappeared, and no one has heard from him since. It’s very sad.
20. Left Out In The Cold
I lived in Canada, in the basement of our house. During the night in the winter, it can drop below -30°C easily. My mom took away my space heater because she was convinced that it was the reason I was getting sick—even though there was a nasty flu going around at the time—and that it was going to give me lung cancer or something.
After the second night, it was gone, and I had frostbite on my feet.
21. Her Cookie Crumbled
My stepdad got a computer with some good old dial-up Compuserve. My mother being the nut job that she was, thought that he was using that to cheat on her. Every day she would be on there searching for info while he was at work. I would wake up to go to school every morning, and there she was. Finally, one morning, she sounded victorious.
She said she had caught him, and she had found all the proof she needed. I asked her to let me see it. She showed me his cookies folders, but just the cookies folders. I said, "Okay, which is it in?" She said, "This is it here. He's cheating on me with somebody named Cookie!" I laughed and went to school.
22. Pushed To The Limits
My mother threatened to press charges against me for "shoving her". I didn't live with her. She got me in the car under false pretenses, took me to church, forced me to chop off my hair, and pretty much talked trash about my grandma. As I was leaving the barbershop, I gently guided her with my hand on her shoulder, saying let’s go, and she freaked out.
She told me that I was shoving her and that if I did it once more she'd call the authorities. At that point, I told her to go for it because the authorities wouldn't charge me for that, and she was being a psycho. She actually called them but got dismissed.
23. Phone Home!
When I was nine, I lived with my dad in California and my mother lived in Arizona. I would usually talk to her every Sunday evening on the phone. I hadn't for a couple of weeks and apparently that freaked her out a bit. I was hanging out in my step-aunt's house when two cruisers came rolling up to the house.
One of them pulled me aside while keeping my dad out of sight. They started asking me if everything was alright, if I had been harmed lately, etc. My mother actually called the local authorities and filed a claim against my dad. It was later dropped once they checked out the situation, all because I hadn't called her in a while.
24. Punished For My Potty Mouth
I was playing Ninja Gaiden when I was about eight years old. Naturally, as does anyone who plays that game, I cursed pretty loudly when I bit the dust. My mom was walking by my door as that happened. She told me to give her the game, right then and there, so I gave her a cartridge.
She proceeded to throw it in the ditch behind our backyard. But there was something she didn't know. Thankfully, my mom didn't know anything about games, and I had smoothly given her a Duck Hunt cartridge instead. It was no biggie since I also had the Mario/Duck Hunt combo.
I then continued playing Ninja Gaiden for years.
25. She Crossed The Line
My mother once called the authorities on me when I was about 14 or 15 because I had decided that I no longer believed in Catholicism and refused to go to church anymore. I thought she was bluffing, but sure enough, officers arrived at the house a few minutes after she had threatened me with it.
I was still on the front porch sitting when she had retreated indoors to make the call. As soon as I saw them, I realized why they were there. The officer didn't say hello or anything, he just asked me if I had hit her. I was really confused, so I made a weird face, just said no, and laughed.
He went inside, and I heard him raise his voice about something, but I stayed outdoors. When he came out of the house, he was still talking to her as he was leaving, telling her never to call the authorities again to threaten a child.
He looked at me and asked again if I was sure I didn't hit her, and I said I was sure. He then said, "Just listen to your mother," and asked why I didn't want to go to church. I told him that I didn't really believe in it anymore and thought my presence there would be disrespectful.
After the officer left, she came out of the house and left for church. I felt like I had won a victory, but things were never the same between us.
26. Saving Some Self-Esteem
My sister, who was about 13 at the time, began gaining weight quickly and began the whole body image thing. She was scared of gaining weight and being made fun of and was under pressure to diet and eat less. My mom tried helping her make meal plans, but this soon became added pressure to lose weight. One day, my dad just lost it on her.
He told her she wasn't eating the right food and that her diet needed to change immediately. He then made her make brownies with him, and then they sat around eating them while he explained to her that being super skinny doesn't automatically make someone happy and that enjoying life and being comfortable with who you are is much more important.
My dad's biggest overreaction was single-handedly saving my sister from a lifetime of body image issues. Today my sister is 17, is at a normal weight, and has good self-esteem.
27. Scouring The Campus For My Gal
My girlfriend and I had really hit it off when we met in her freshman year, so she spent the night quite often. At the end of the first week, I got a call from one of my friends saying her mom was looking for her; she had been calling everywhere. It started with her dorm room, then the RA, then the sheriff's office.
The next day, she started to call random offices around campus, including the library where my friend happened to be working. It put me on edge around her after that.
28. Lost It Over Some Lunch Money
I forgot to hand in my lunch money at school when I was six. I got a letter to bring to my mom about it when I got home. It was a complete accident, but when I got home, my mom lost it. She smacked me across the face a few times, started shaking me, threw me into a wall, and then threw me out of the house.
She was screaming because she had to pay double the following week to cover this week and the next. There was no extra money lost, but I was thrown out. I ended up hiding in the park until she finally came and got me.
A few days later, she came home with a Barbie and told me not to tell anyone about what she did; no one believed me anyway.
29. She Just Couldn’t Do It
When I was 21, my boyfriend and I got engaged. We had gone to Disney World with his family, while my family stayed at home in MS. He proposed during the fireworks finale the last night we were at the park.
I called my mom and told her, only to be told she would have to call me back. Five minutes later, she called me back. I couldn't believe her reaction.
She was a crying mess. She told me that I'd made the biggest mistake of my life, asked how I could do this to her, and said that my whole family was at her house and she had to keep her composure while they left.
When I asked her to just be happy for me, she said, "I can't be happy for you. I just can't do it. I can never be happy for you when you do things like this". My entire engagement was a nightmare, thanks to all the parties involved.
30. The Damage Was Done
I was fired from the grocery store I worked at when I was 16 because I was caught eating "damaged food" and "damaged soda". There was a rack with broken or smashed items on it and everyone did it. However, the owner happened to catch me and saw me put the finished bottle back on the damage rack.
He called me over and told me he was going to need to see me in his office. I was taken up to his office and grilled for about 45 minutes on my "tendencies to take stuff". The managers both came up and were acting like I was a low life.
The first manager said he wanted to call the authorities, but he didn’t know how I would look in cuffs. He repeated this tough manager act for 10 minutes, then asked me to tell them who else was in on it.
The owner then said, "You can go, but you need to tell me first, is this a storewide problem and why, and then sign this form stating you are voluntarily quitting". I told him, "Yeah, other people have done it," and before I could go on, the second manager grabbed my shirt and said, "Who else you in with, you punk?”
So I pointed to both managers, and they turned ghost white and stopped talking, and the owner let me go home. I was told he wanted to talk to my parents, and I needed to have them call when I got home. When I got home and told my parents, they freaked out.
My dad took my door off the hinges so he could "watch me," there was no TV, no computer, no books, no video games, and no music. I was not allowed to talk or hang out with my friends, had no car privileges, and had to do all the house chores when I got home.
To top it off, for a month or two, both of my parents yelled at me 24/7 when they saw me. Then they started sending me to a shrink a few times and would tell everyone they knew, including the family, not to trust me because I was a thief.
For years afterward, people looked at me funny, and my family still calls me "thief" when they see me. When something goes missing, they grill me about when I "took it". Although I deserved to be punished, the constant yelling for weeks afterward, the shrink, and calling me a "thief" business were a bit over the top.
31. Freaked Out Over A Fake Name
My eBay username reads like a real name, more specifically, a very Russian-sounding one. I had bought something from a Chinese eBayer, and the seller wrote my username on the package rather than the name PayPal gave him. My dad brought in the package looking confused.
I saw the name on it and instantly knew what it was. I said, "Oh, that's me. It's my username". Suddenly, both parents were looking at each other and were asking me what I was doing “buying things from China with fake Russian names”.
They asked me if I was an identity thief and told me I could have the authorities already looking for me. They demanded I open the package in front of them, which I refused to do. Of course, that got them even more suspicious.
First, they thought it was illicit substances; then, they thought it was a piece. I finally relented and opened the package.
It was a cute, somewhat girly little anime figurine. My dad gave it a long, hard stare and said, "Oh". He sounded so disappointed.
32. Drop It Already!
I transferred to a private art school in order to study animation, and in doing so, left a university where I was studying computer science and animation. From then on, whenever I made a lifestyle change of any kind, I got the following question from my mother, "Are you dropping out of school?"
I would respond, "No, I'm just going to a different school," but it kept on. If I said, "Hey, mom, I moved out of my apartment because it was filled with black mold, and moved to a new apartment at the edge of town that sits on a direct bus line to school," she would say, "Oh my God are you dropping out?"
When I told her that my girlfriend and I were renting a place together, she said, "You're dropping out, aren't you?" I would keep having to tell her no. In the meantime, I was living with my uncle, at which point, my mom called all of my uncles and asked them if I was dropping out. It was absurd.
Mind you, she was always one of those moms who called/texted constantly just to check in on me, make sure I wasn't the guy who just offed a bunch of people at the mall, jumped off the bridge the day before, etc. It never ends.
33. Putting An End To The Runaround
I was a scrawny shrimp in junior high and was harassed pretty mercilessly. I had not one but at least three arch nemeses. I told my parents, and both teachers at other schools about it all the time, but there was little they did other than listen and offer support. I just don't think they realized the extent of it.
Even though I was not welcome by my peers, I still tried to have a social life. I ran cross country and two of my nemeses were also on the team. I sucked, but my only real friend was on the team and we had fun running together even though I know I held him back.
We had a meet at my dad's school and he stayed after to watch me start and finish and give me a ride home. On one particular day, my father finally realized how intensely I was being tormented. Practically right in front of him, one of my nemeses started calling me names.
My dad kind of gave him a sideways stare and asked me if he heard that correctly. I said he did and that it happens nearly every day. Then Dad went into "serious dad think mode" which is usually the look I would get before I got into trouble. I knew something was up.
The meet was about 15 minutes from starting and I went to stretch my calves on a nearby tree, about 20 feet away from where my dad was sitting. My nemesis practically clotheslined me and sent me flying to the ground as soon as I touched the tree.
My dad, who had been physically handicapped since I was a wee lad, was on that kid in a matter of seconds. He grabbed him by the throat and held him against the tree and said, "You are a poorly behaved, little piece of [trash]".
Then, he grabbed him by the T-shirt collar and took him over to his own father who happened to be there. He told him to look after his kid, then went to our coach and berated him. I'm sure he was overreacting because he realized this had been happening and he felt horrible about not doing anything about it sooner.
I was looking around shocked and saw a lot of "not bad" looks from fellow teammates and parents. I was embarrassed, mortified, amazed, and proud all at once. I was still harassed by that kid, but we eventually became friendly and he profusely apologized to me a few years after graduation.
It was one time that I was glad my dad had overreacted.
34. On A Viral Spiral
When I was 14, I got pleurodynia. After complaining of chest pains for about two weeks, I blacked out at my grandparents’ house. I woke up in the hospital to my parents demanding how long I had been using and what kind of substances I was on.
I wasn't on anything, but they refused to believe me and brought an addiction counselor in to talk to me. After about three hours, the doctors explained that pleurodynia actually has nothing to do with substances, and more likely had something to do with the recycled air on an international flight we had recently taken.
There is nothing like blacking out from incredible pain and then having an intervention for a viral infection.
35. Right Of Way
Learning to drive with my dad was a horrible experience. Instead of yelling what I should do, like slow down, he would just scream my name at the top of his lungs, which only made things worse.
One day we were driving and I ran through a yellow light, which caused him to start screaming. I pulled over and he told me that I ran a red light, and to hand the keys over. I started to argue that what I did wasn’t against the law, but he disagreed. He started to drive and I had no idea where he was going. That's when it hit me.
I realized he was pulling into the station house. He walked in, talked to an officer, then all of a sudden, I was being taken into a room with the captain who began to lecture me—or rather my dad—on the laws of stop lights. It turned out, I was right all along. He never criticized me for that again.
36. My Mom Was Out To Lunch
A friend offered me a programming/SEO job out in Seattle while I was in NJ, and I was planning on going. I was going to finish up a master’s in chem and then leave, but this didn't sit well with my mom. She told me a few days before that a friend was coming into town and we should all have lunch. I was like sure, whatever.
She showed up at my place with her friend and we got in the car. She missed the exit for the restaurant and proceeded to drive. I asked her where we were going since I had to be back in about an hour and a half for something. She just said, "An adventure". My heart sank.
She proceeded to drive to a shrink because she felt like I had lost direction in my life and needed career guidance. It was the most embarrassing thing I've ever experienced and filled me with rage. I was 26!
37. Bonfire Of The Profanities
When I was about 17, my girlfriend and I had bought a Polaroid camera and we took some racy pictures of her and a few of us getting busy, which was awesome, and put them in an album.
Normally, I hid the photo album in my sock drawer in my room, but I was "browsing" through it earlier that day before I went to a party and left it out.
I went to said party, and at about two in the morning, my friend and I were walking by my house on the way to another party, when I saw a light coming from my backyard through the fence. We both peeked through the fence. When I realized what I was looking at—my jaw DROPPED.
I saw my mom standing over a bunch of sticks that she had lit on fire with my little photo album in it. In one hand was her Bible and in the other hand, was a little necklace with a cross on it. My mom was never really THAT religious, but she sure went nuts that night.
The next day when I got home, I asked her why there were ashes on the walkway in the backyard. She said she was burning some garbage she found. To this day, we still haven't spoken about it, and I miss those pictures; that girl was hot.
Pxfuel
38. Crying Over Spilled Ink
I started talking about getting a tattoo when I was about 10. I started when I was 19 and I'm now 30 with no end in sight. I want lots and lots of tattoos. When I got my first arm tat, I showed my mother, who cried for three days. She yelled at me, and asked, "How can you do this to me?!"
She even tried to force me to get it removed. I can’t even wear short sleeves around her because she will immediately get irate and start yelling at me. I was 28 when I got this tattoo.
39. Time To Cut The Cord
I was 19 when my uber-religious mom let herself into my first apartment to drop off some groceries. She happened to walk in on me looking at some girls in swimsuits. She lit into me and eventually stormed out. That wasn’t even the overreaction.
The overreaction was when she came back later with my dad and staged a full-on intervention over the "way I was living". My first apartment was a bit of a nerdy disaster area. My bedroom was trashed and covered with old mail and magazines, the rest of it was filled with computer parts and other cool junk.
She offered to help on the condition that I get rid of the internet and let them basically make my decisions for me until I could get control of my life. As they picked up random stuff and put it in a box to take to the trash, I kept asking, then insisted they leave. I told my dad to put the box down, or I'd have to call the authorities.
He took it out and threw it in the dumpster; it was full of computer parts. I called the officers and had them remove my parents. They even took with them the car they'd co-signed for me. They made my life a nightmare for a few years, hoping I'd "get right and get help".
Not having a car cost me my job, eventually my apartment, and they even went so far as to tell the nice family from church who took me in that I was now looking up naughty stuff on their computer, and they needed to toss me out. Eventually, my mom mellowed out and cut the cord.
40. Under Constant Monitoring
I'm a sophomore in college, almost 20 years old. Last semester I didn't call my dad or post a Facebook status for about a day and a half. My mom called me, begging me to talk to my dad because he thought I'd been abducted and was about to call the authorities. He's done this several times since I've been at school.
Every time I was on the computer until I got my own when I turned 17, my dad would also demand to know what I was looking at. He always thought I was looking at inappropriate stuff. Never mind that I'm a girl and pretty much played Neopets or Webkinz until a shamefully recent time, and ONLY used the computer for that.
Meanwhile, he was always leaving his inappropriate stuff on the screen, not just in the history, but leaving it UP on a SHARED computer!
41. Santa Spoiler
When I was little, my little brother and I used to occasionally spend the night at his friends' house. They were twins a little younger than him, and I was two years older. Somehow while hanging out over there, we got on the subject of the non-existence of Santa Claus.
My brother and I weren't teasing them or anything intentional, it just came up in passing. These kids were far too old to believe in Santa; they were in grade school. My little brother had known for years, and we assumed everyone knew.
This brought about some questioning for their mother, and when we got home the next day, we got an earful. She had angrily called our mother to tell her we had almost spoiled it for them.
I was seriously and unapologetically yelled at and had the TV taken away for nearly spoiling Santa Claus for children who were far too old to still believe in him.
42. Send In The Marines
Years ago, my family and I lived overseas, and my dad was in the service. It was September 11th, and I had to come home from school to meet my parents in the middle of the day to go to the dentist. In all my middle school wisdom, I decided I would save the taxi money they gave me and take the bus instead.
I got on the bus and began playing Pokemon, losing all track of time. I soon realized I missed my stop and I had no idea where the bus brought me. I finally flagged down a taxi and returned home three hours after I was supposed to. When I walked through the door, I encountered pure chaos.
In my absence, my parents called the authorities, and the embassy and they had the Marines who were stationed in the country out looking for me.
43. Chill Out Dad
In my senior year of high school, after I had already gotten into college, I stopped caring about making it to school on time. My first-period class was CAD, taught by a really chill, nice guy who didn't care what I did as long as I didn't cause trouble for him. This meant that I'd take my time and actually eat breakfast in the morning.
My dad, who was driving me to school, didn't like this one bit. He told me to hurry up, and I said, "Please feel free to just get to work. I'll walk to school, it doesn't matter if I'm marked late if I even am". He started nattering on about how that wasn't acceptable.
When I asked him what the problem was, he said, "My problem is that I have a non-functional, useless son". This was after I had turned things around and gone from being falsely misdiagnosed with a learning disorder to being in the top 10% of my class and receiving a college scholarship.
I didn't talk to him for months afterward.
44. A High Sign
My parents repeatedly caught me with weed when I was a teenager. After I got smart and stopped bringing it home, they surprised me with a test, and it was dirty.
I had been grounded for a long time and was only left unattended on my walk home. My mom figured out I was buying it on the way home, so she showed up at my high school at 3 PM with a giant sign on a stick with my school picture on it.
The caption read, “THIS MINOR GIRL IS BEING MONITORED AND RECORDED BY A PRIVATE DETECTIVE AT ALL TIMES. SELLING HER SUBSTANCES WILL RESULT IN IMMEDIATE ARREST". I wasn't really being followed, and when I saw her, she ripped the sign to shreds but, still.
45. She Got Testy Over Some Tacos
I was going to a Mexican meat market across the street. As I was leaving, my mom asked me to get some taco shells. I searched the store, which isn't too big, but they didn’t have any. There was an aisle with tortillas and chalupas but no shells. I thought it was odd, so I checked each aisle three times.
I called my mom to tell her, but she didn’t pick up. Finally, as I was paying, she called back and said, "Well, just ask the cashier". I responded, "No, I just paid, and I've looked everywhere, plus there's a long line I'm holding up". I just hung up and went home; no big deal.
When I got home, she started yelling at me because I didn't ask the cashier for taco shells. She went on and on saying, "WELL NOW WE CAN'T HAVE TACOS TONIGHT". I did my best to ignore her and started to walk away. But that wasn't the end of it.
As I was going upstairs, she said, "What is the Mountain Dew for? Are you and your friends going to spike it?" I told her yes and went upstairs. I drink maybe twice a week, and only with my friends. Then she said, “Every time I see you, you're drinking something. I didn't raise you this way. You're going to ruin your life".
I just looked at her and told her I had it under control while she stood there glaring at me.
46. Panicked Over My Pants
I went out and bought a pair of Tripp pants and nonchalantly wore them. Then, I heard a gasp and silverware dropping, followed by, “We need to talk!"
Confused, I walked over and was met with my red-faced seething mother. She said, "I...I don't even know where to begin with you...what is this?" She lectured me in a manner one would expect had they been caught with REALLY bad images on their computer.
There was a lot of “I can’t even believe this" and "what can I even begin to do?" They were PANTS. Not to mention I was 20 and about to move out.
47. Nana Wents Nuts
My mom was always chill and I lived with my dad throughout my childhood. In high school, I was a super goody two shoes and would tell my dad where I was and call if I was going to be later than I said I would be.
When I came home for the summer after my freshman year, my dad knew I was more independent and let me do whatever I wanted. My grandparents, on the other hand, always assumed the worst. They 100% wanted to hold my hand and do everything for me that seemed "scary," like driving me downtown rather than going myself.
When I told them I would be going to college nine hours away, they immediately offered to drive me there because of the freeways and such. They also suddenly had a newfound interest in the area and seriously talked about selling their house and getting an apartment NEAR MY SCHOOL.
They claimed it would be a "nice and quiet place to retire," but I knew that was a lie. I eventually transferred to a college back home, which was about 45 minutes from where I lived. I would take the bus to save money. I had a 9 AM class and would have to get up at 6 AM and leave around 7 AM.
One day, my grandmother decided she hadn't heard from me in about two weeks which was not unusual. As I was sitting on the bus, I got a frantic call from them.
Since they were wondering what I was up to, they decided to drive over to my house in the wee hours of the morning, noticed that my car wasn’t in the driveway—it was at the park and ride—and flipped out. Then, they got mad at me when I "didn't mention to them I had an early class".
48. She Went Bananas Over A Bathing Suit
In high school, I was packing to go on the yearly Cedar Point trip that all the honor students got to go on. I was looking for my bathing suit to wear under my clothes so I wouldn't be uncomfortable if I got wet on any water rides. Being the unorganized teenager I was, I couldn't find it, so I went downstairs to ask my mom if she had seen it.
She said she hadn't, so I went back to looking for it. After about an hour or so, I still couldn't find it, so I was getting a little frustrated. I asked her, "Are you sure you haven't seen it?" Then she completely flipped her lid. She started screaming at me, saying, "If I go up to your room and find your bathing suit I'm gonna hurt you!"
She stomped up to my room and started destroying it, throwing my stuff everywhere. She even went as far as flipping my mattress onto the floor. In the meantime, I was just standing there confused. She didn't find it, so she turned to me, screaming about how I lose all my stuff and she was never buying anything for me ever again.
She started hitting and clawing at me. I shoved her away as soon as my stepdad came to see what was going on. I had to have my dad come pick me up for the night and take me to school in the morning for my trip. When I got home, my bedroom was still wrecked and I had to clean up after her temper tantrum.
49. The Laurel Leaves Letter
During my senior year in high school, I had this pretty cool English teacher who loved to be sarcastic. She decided to write this facetious letter to us about the "Laurel Leaves" competition.
This was a way for students to get recognized for the Arts and you could submit papers and poems from your work throughout the year. It was completely voluntary but highly encouraged.
So, she wrote this really sarcastic letter to us “threatening” to not let us graduate and embellishing how important entering our work into the competition was. I stuck it in my backpack as I do with everything, and my dad found it. He thought the letter was completely serious.
I tried to tell him that the teacher was joking, but all he could say was, "Why would she write a letter?" He was pretty angry and threatened all sorts of things if I didn't turn in entries for Laurel Leaves.
50. They Went Crazy Over My Crush
In 7th grade, I was hanging out with this girl. I had a huge crush on her, and I told her that we should meet up close to the park by my house. We met up and were having a good time when I saw my mom driving toward me. She looked furious.
My best friend ended up telling my mom that I went out to go see a girl. Since I'm Muslim and my parents are strict, they hit me with a wooden spoon, then booked me a plane ticket for a Pakistani boarding school. It was crazy, but thank God I never went.
Sources: Reddit,
