Weird things your parents made you do:

[applegrove]

My mom liked photography. She used to dress us up, comb our hair and sit us in the middle of the woods to photograph us. What remains today are a few photos, mostly of my brother, in the middle of green foliage with a goofy look on his face. We call these photos the "nature boy series". LOL!

My mom also made us smoke a cigarette when we were 9, 10 and 11. She told us to inhale completely on the first puff and hoped that it would dissuade us from smoking. I coughed like crazy but unfortunately was a pack a day smoker from the time I was 16.

[tigereye]

1. wear wool clothes when school started and it was hot? Well, it was the 60s...

[EFerrari]

8. My mom dressed me up in one of those boxy wool suits like Jackie was wearing.

It was beautiful if very turquoise and then Mom told me I should never scratch there. I hated that suit.

lol

[woo me with science]

2. Chicken pox parties.

I never went (and got a horrible case of chicken pox as an adult!), but I have many friends who remember being made to attend them.

[quakerboy]

11. I did go

And still have never had them. Somewhat worrysome, actually.

[woo me with science]

13. I will spare you the details, then.

It was not pretty as an adult.

Good luck...:scared:

[Jamastiene]

3. My mother made me get up on Saturday mornings and wash the hall walls.

Not just wash them, but scrub them. The Kerosene heater was at the end of that hall and left a tar like substance on the walls, not to mention the permanent smell of Kerosene. That smell never leaves anything once it sets in.

I missed so many good cartoons. Anybody know where I can find good cartoons online for free? I can't believe Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck aren't around any more. I tried to tell my mother they wouldn't be around forever, but she wouldn't listen. Said they would be around forever. :(

[Archae]

10. Try Youtube.

Just about anything from the 50's to today is there.

[LiberalAndProud]

4. Wear knee-length skirts in jr hi, early 70s.

To this day I hate the yardstick she used to measure my hems.

[nolabear]

5. Mine made me EAT Vicks Vaporub.

Swear to god. When I had a cold my mother would smear it on my chest and then swipe a big old glob on my tongue and make me swallow. I was a sickly kid til I was about eight and I swear now and then the Munchausen by Proxy concept does cross my mind!!

[Chan790]

6. Starting when I was 8...

my parents used to make me babysit for my newborn brother and I was a major caretaker of him.

I wonder where I went wrong with him. He's 23 now, has a communist beard, lives in my mother's basement, reads Pynchon and Foucault, has a degree in political science...and talks like Keanu Reeves.

Like...(10 second pause)...whoa!

P.S. How messed up is he? He wrote his senior thesis on the legitimacy of political violence (ie. terrorism and assassination.) and idolizes Josef Stalin.

[woo me with science]

12. You really shouldn't have locked him in the toybox and made him eat worms. nt

[TK421]

7. Partake in the whole "Lent" deal...we lived it, the whole damn thing

I really can't touch fish sticks to this day without grimacing

but the mac and cheese was something we all enjoyed, at least

[EFerrari]

9. Besides perming my hair when I was like 5, the only thing I can think of

is the ballet lessons with the scary lady with the big stick. That and having to be quiet until almost noon on weekends because Rosie liked to sleep in.

Mostly, my mom was fun. She was only 22 when she had me and it was like being brought up by a teenager under the watchful eyes of her mother. :)

[DeltaLitProf]

14. At 15, on Sat mornings, I'd be rousted out of bed to go to the 300-feet long chicken houses

. . . where we'd pick up the chickens who'd died the day before. Many of them were in jelly form. My parents took care of 5 broiler houses for my dad's boss at his job as a dozer driver. They won awards for their production. I was always pretty bummed out at having to do it. I wanted to be a novelist and here I was trudging through chicken shit and breathing the ammonia their pee became. I wanted to be home listening to see whether the NPR station in Shreveport would play my requests, so I could tape them. So you can imagine how it must have been for them to deal with me.

I feel ashamed of my complaining today. Wish I could have made it easier on them. I'm convinced the ammonia they breathed over those years has done terrible things to their lungs and overall health.

[applegrove]

15. That is a tough life farmlife. And yes it takes a toll on bodies. I'll never

forget going to a demonstration on Parliament hill to back up farmers. Their hands were all so huge from hard, hard work. Was a humbling moment for me.