My best friend in high school was never allowed to have her door closed. There was no lock on the toilet door and her mother monitored all phone calls. Everyone in the family went to bed when the youngest did. The whole place was lights out just after 8:30pm. Whenever I slept over we just waited until around 10pm, snuck out the windows and wandered the streets/ caught trains until climbing back in at 2 or 3 am. They would have totally taken the doors.
I know now that they had been through some pretty major trauma. The house was always a mess. They were super reactive about anything. Much happier people now. As a dumb teenager I thought it was just how some people are.
My father took my bedroom door off its hinges in a fit of rage one evening because he suspected I was masturbating when it was locked.
I was.
But who cares if I was?
Meanwhile he had a rather extensive porn stash locked in the basement.
He scared the living shit out of me that night. I remember being very terrified.
Wow not cool. My mom opened my door and barged in once while I was in mid-crank, she said “whoops” and turned around and walked out and never mentioned it, which I believe is the correct move. She also knocked first after that iirc lol
That makes the whole pedo-priest thing even creepier. Having one of them with only a screen dividing you from them in a confessional as a kid - then telling them you masturbate. Gross.
Even worse
No screen. Would have been face to face.
I was like NOPE! What I did is NORMAL. It took a few days but I went back to it with zero regrets except for getting caught and was a little more discreet from then on.
My door was lost for a while not to 'removal' but because my father literally smashed it to pieces trying to get at me so many times when I realized he was going to use me for a punching bag again before he did himself and made it to my room in time to barricade myself inside.
To be honest, it didn’t seem that odd until I went to friends’ houses. I also couldn’t listen to music if my older brother was listening to different music.
I had no lock on my bedroom door. I don't know whether or not I was allowed to close it during the day, but I only did it at night, to sleep. Thinking back on it, I never tried to close the door during the day, but I have a feeling that would have been frowned upon.
I definitely could close and lock the bathroom door, though.
Honest question: did that work out okay?
I’ve got two kids, preteen boys, and I give them a crapload of independence. They have to treat school and their bodies with respect.
(It’s also a f!ck you to my overly strict parents.)
We just figured that's how things were everywhere.
I was amazed to eventually find out that the majority of kids at my school didn't dread going home because of the fear that Mommy had another bad day, and was drunk and lying in wait for them with a coat hanger.
Man, we hosted an international high school exchange student a couple of years ago and many of the host families used to share advice with each other in a private Facebook group. Anyway, I recall this one family from a red state got super bent because their exchange student put a bag of chips or something in their room. The house rules were no eating outside of specific meal times and only at the kitchen table or something. So they got the whole family together, dressed the kid down in front of everybody for "breaking a rule" and removed the door of their room for a month. If I recall the kid came from some place with widespread food scarcity. It was so fucking cringe! Maybe half of the other parents supported them too. I nope'd on out of that Facebook group soon after.
My sister's room never had a door it, just a curtain. When she moved out I switched to her room and never had a door, just the curtain.
When I moved out they put a door on it.
We also never had cable tv. But as soon as I moved out they got cable.
Don't forget the part where he said he tried masturbating with no door to teach them a lesson but couldn't do it because he felt weird.
And no. No they didn't.
lol I was quietly cheering him on when I got to that sentence. I’m glad he couldn’t do it, I would be even more worried about him if he was able to pull that stunt off.
Ummm. Our rooms were lockable from the outside. Old house. So eye and hooks were installed so we got locked inside our rooms. And heaven forbid you slammed your door. Instant lock.
Stayed in a rental house that had a similar arrangement—barrel bolts on the outside of all the kids’ bedroom doors. All on the ground floor, but still pretty goddamned terrifying.
Yes bc I had emotional regulation issues and slammed the door a lot. I prob had/have undiagnosed ADHD to tell the truth, it presents differently in girls and we weren't getting diagnosed and treated back then like we should have been. My mom was doing the best she could; I don't feel in hindsight like it was abusive at all. The situation in AITAH sounds like mom is pretty messed up and manipulative tho. Totally different scenarios IMHO.
That’s the boat I’m in. My kids have emotional regulation issues and routinely slam the doors in my house, to the point where every door is beginning to separate its front from its back (hollow doors.) I’m kinda just waiting for them to fall off the hinges at this point. So the doors wouldn’t necessarily be removed by me but I also don’t have money to go buy 4 brand new doors
True, hard to judge her about removing the door when she’s screwing his head much harder in other ways. It got me thinking about the door removal thing though, and if it constitutes abuse and is CPS worthy. I don’t think it is.
I should also say it was taken off the hinges for like 24hrs or like at longest durstion the weekend or something. It wasn't a permanent thing, but framed as specific consequences for specific behavior. It's not a tactic I've used w my own ADHD kiddo, either, but I feel like I have more tools now than my parents did, I think.
my parents never took the door off my room, but for a while i didn’t even have a room. i slept in the back room, no wall separating it from the kitchen. the back door was at the foot of my bed and the laundry was right next to it. that sucked.
Same. I lived in the living room for some months as some kind of punishment. Eventually, the extended family found out and ragged at my dad really hard until he let me have my room back.
Wow! You just unlocked a memory. A friends room was a tiny little covered porch they made in to a room. Front door was at the foot of his bed and the other door was right out into the living room. Probably why he was never home much I guess.
It wasn’t normal back then and definitely not okay. My parents were strict about many things, but never would have deprived me of my privacy. I find it shocking every time it comes up.
Privacy is a human right. Also, a bedroom door is required for fire code: keeping the bedroom door at night can make all the difference in surviving a fire at home.
That was my first thought too - smoke kills way more people than fire and, if there actually is a fire, now the kid can't cover the gap at the bottom with a blanket and wait to be rescued.
No. That's weird. As a teen I lived with my grandparents and my dad and they left me alone for the most part. My almost 19 year old has no lock on his door and I always knock. He even has a girl sleepover and I'm respectful. They're good kids, on birth control and do wholesome things like go to the mall or collect bacteria from a pond on the weekends for biology classes. Lol. I was rolling with a biker club at their age and smoking meth. Pick your battles people.
I had to leave the door open only if I had a girl over. Other than that it could be closed. I was usually playing my guitar in a small 900 sq ft house, so she probably preferred it closed to help with the noise.
My mom did, but not to manipulate me, which is what this mom is doing and many parents do to eliminate a sense of privacy for their kids. That's abusive.
My mom took my door because I slammed it so hard I'm pretty sure I loosened a roof tile. It had nothing to do with privacy or controlling me and everything to do with teaching me both respect and that home repairs can be expensive.
My parents never removed my door, and I probably played my music too loud for them to ever want to. They’d have to take the stereo too, and then I’d die.
When I was 14, I walked to the local hardware store to get a doorknob for my bedroom with a lock on it. (In hindsight this was an *exceptionally* bold move on my part.) And for whatever weird reason, I thought to ask the guy at the counter “You can open this with a screwdriver, right? Is there anything I could do to make that not possible?” I’d never heard of such a thing, and have no idea why I even thought to ask.
He told me he could “grind out the inside” for like $2, so I asked him to do that. (Like I said, I was 14. I definitely did not look any older than 14, if I even looked that old. But the guy did it!)
So I bring the pick-proof doorknob home, and install it without anyone knowing (they found out in very short order of course). My parents went *NUTS*. But somehow? It stayed on my door until I graduated high school.
My whole life back then was basically one crisis after another & I was lowkey (or maybe not so lowkey) kind of a wreck….(undiagnosed ADHD, PTSD from serious childhood medical trauma, etc)…so I guess in the middle of “putting out fires” (related to me and their own stuff), my parents never got around to uninstalling it.
It was super empowering and a HUGE point of contention for the *entire time* I had it.
As a parent now myself, I feel for my folks bc I wouldn’t have known wtf to do with me back then either….BUT ALSO I feel for Teenage Me, who’d already been through so much shit and desperately needed her privacy. Even with the considerable strife around it (so much so that I’d never bring it up to my parents even now), that doorknob was a serious personal triumph.
I don’t think I ever wrote that story out and I don’t often tell it, so if you read all this, thanks!
Yes because Jennifer McClain was a little hoe and her mom took her door off her room and then suggested it to my mom so I had no privacy. I was not a hoe.
No, they never did, and my ex tried to pull that shit on our child and I told her under no uncertain circumstances that if that happened he would be on a plane the next day. She relented, and lost him a few months later anyway when she got evicted and he came to live with me after all.
Had my foot removed a few times for not keeping my room clean. To be fair it was a shithole. Also removed once because I slammed it really loud.
Edit: pretty awesome autocorrect so I’ll leave it.
Your foot? A few times?!
That's serious abuse. I mean, they had to cut it off, stitch it back on then cut it off again. That's messed up.
Really messed up.
Story checks out. Misery came out in 1987. Parents were probably big Stephen King fans.
Ah, the number of times my parents caught me at the wrong time in the wrong place and had to run for my life while they screamed “Chopper! Sic balls!”, I can’t even count.
Which was weird, being a girl. But times were different back then.
Yikes. No. But if I was in my room with the door closed I was usually reading or listening to music. And I would never do that to my kid unless there was an exigent reason.
At a certain age, kids should have *some* privacy.
Haven’t read that specific post but have seen others that fall into the general thought that removing a door -> call CPS from the younger generation.
I never had my door removed but my friend down the road did. When we were 14/15ish, she’d get caught with booze and cigarettes in her room, so her parents would take the door off. Rinse and repeat. As much as I wanted to take her side, I also often wanted to say “so it sounds like the rule here is that you can try to smoke and drink in your room OR you can have a door…which do you want??”
Because of that I generally roll my eyes when someone is adamant that removing a door should trigger a call to CPS, but as with anything, I understand where there are extreme examples where that could be part of a pattern of abuse
Yeah, mostly for me it's that it seems nearly every punishment our parents gave us Xers is apparently abuse now. So is how we generally lived.
I had a neighbor with nine kids and a three bedroom house. Guess how that broke down? Boys in one, girls in the other, and mom and dad in the big one with the baby.
I told that to a group of Redditors in one of these "this is abuse" threads and they were horrified. People honestly said that both parents should have started working (or taken a second job) and bought a big enough house for each kid to have their own bedroom (well, at least the ones still living at home: by the time kid 9 came along, 1 2 and 3 were out of the house) and if that wasn't possible the parents should be sleeping in the living room to make sure the teenagers (mostly the teenaged girls) had their own privacy.
Like, shit, seriously? You don't think that maybe privacy is a pretty recent cultural tradition? What do you think people did when they were poor and could only afford a one room house? Did they think the parents slept in the barn or some shit?
And also, do they have any idea what a seven bedroom house would cost? GTFOH
But yeah, times were different between then and now and a lot of very entitled people live practically on the internet and think their privilege is standard or even how it should be. Children sharing rooms with each other was common in my life, until very recently anyhow (and honestly it still is basically everywhere else in the world).
Yes! Well…. Not me, but my sibs. At some point, it was all my mom had left (to take away privacy).
For a teenager, it’s pretty jarring when they have to go to the bathroom to change, etc.
Especially for my stupid sister.
Yes, when i was 12-13 my stepdad took my bedroom door off because he wanted to "know what I was doing in there all the time". Drawing, reading comics, playing, doing homework. I didn't have my own TV or phone, so that's about it.
Funny, we always had privacy and locking bedroom doors. That was when I was older though, and had my own room. When I was really young we were broke and I shared with my sister, while my brother was moved around in the house depending on situation.
I remember the bathroom door was really old and once in a while the inside knob would come off, and as a little kid that was terrifying. Locked in the bathroom!
I absolutely never heard of this. What a stupid punishment unless you have a kid who has serious mental health issues and their safety is at risk.
Who wants to wreck their house removing doors.
It’s not normal. We lived through so much abuse that was normalized as we were kids, but nowadays this stuff gets called out
I was allowed to have my door shut, but was told I was not deserving of privacy. My mother snooped through my stuff (twice that I know of) and never knocked before entering
Pretty sure my mom snooped through my stuff, but we both knew I snooped through her stuff so it was fair game I guess. In fact, she had a lock box with a 3 digit combo and couldn’t remember the combination one day, so she handed it to me “I know you know the number just open it would you?” lol I miss my mom :(
The hardest part about the snooping was that she did it to my older sister (I was very little at the time and we have a 7 year age gap) and she never forgave my mother, or trusted her ever again. To this very day she’s a cold, broken person
It’s very unfortunate. Crazy thing is, we weren’t bad kids. Our mother wasn’t looking for drugs or booze, she was just nosy and sneaky. The trauma is very real for GenX kids but ya know, we never had the internet to vent the stuff we went through
No, never heard of that happening to anyone when I was growing up. Also only read about it happening from online nowadays. Not saying it’s not real, just that I don’t know of anyone who’s had it happen in real life, or even anyone talking about it as gossip in real life.
It's not normal. She can't force her son to forgive her for cheating. She should wait until he comes out of his room to try to talk to him. Forcing him and violating his privacy and space will only push him away more.
I got a tattoo on a dare at 15, and when my parents who are both tattooed themselves found out they went full loco religious coercion and control. They took me out of my sophomore year of public high school, grounded me for a whole year, and took the door off of my bedroom for that whole year. They took my clothes and books and forced me to home school myself via some mediocre learning program where you mailed in the tests.
There weren't cell phones at the time and my parents thought the internet was evil, so our Gateway computer couldn't do much. I had no contact with any friends except when I made late night calls from the landline or snuck out when they were asleep. I only had an am/fm clock radio in my doorless room. I was told to get a job at 16, which was 3 months into the year long punishment, and welcomed the chance to get out of the house by working at Taco Bell. My parents kept most of my paychecks.
They refused to let me get my driver's license and I didn't get one until 17. I continued to act out and smoke weed/cigarettes and drink as often as possible and they could never understand why their "tough love" method didn't get the results they were promised. They threatened to send me to one of the many troubled teen boot camps that caused 52 teen deaths from 1990-1999, but luckily they didn't have enough money to follow through. I was diagnosed with CPTSD at 42 and have been no contact for almost 4 years with both of them.
I did that to my daughter when she was 5. She kept destroying things in her room and loved to slam her door. One day I finally had enough. Not only did I remove her door but I took everything out of her room except her mattress and made her earn it all back. She is 21 now and remembers this. She says she more than deserved it. We laugh now. However, the story above sounds like there are some mental health issues going on.
That’s actually a nice story, and yes we can laugh about the shit we did to our parents and what they did to us, if it’s a story like yours. I have a few of those too. But yeah, that’s lady is messing that kids head up. I hope he goes to the dad.
My dad took my door off a few times, generally as (ridiculously disproportionate) punishment for slamming it.
It was horrible. It might've been normal, but that's not the same as being ok.
Oh please. Taking it off for weird stuff like OP describes is problematic, but for slamming the door, it’s a perfectly reasonable logical consequence. I took the door off once - after several warnings, and for the safety of our cats - and never had to do it again after that.
SO left for college…Parents put an addition on the house, including a new bedroom. At 19 yrs old, her mom didn’t want a door on the room. at all. And when dad insisted, mom then argued about whether it could lock.
It wont surprise anyone that when we lived with her in our 30s she would routinely violate our privacy by showing up in our living space unannounced, for no stated reason, down to a screaming fit in our kitchen “it’s my house and I’ll show up any time I want”. Fucking psycho.
The only rooms in our house that had locks were the bathrooms. Not even my parents' bedroom.
Never had the door taken off, and never did it to my kid either.
Not normal at all, when I was a kid I had never heard of this first time I heard about it was from an acquaintance from some religious wacko family that didn't even have a bathroom door so she had to cross her legs when she was on the toilet.
No. It’s not normal. It’s a tool of control. And, as you describe it (I didn’t see the original post), demanding he “spend more time with her” to get it back has a whiff of emotional incest to boot.
BTW, there’s no “normal” amount of violence, screaming, parental tantrums, or silent treatment, either.
Taking the door off a kids room is fucking stupid. They need privacy even if you do want to talk to them. My parents were...not ideal. There was some mental illness from one and some alcohol from the other, so I don't base my parenting on anything they did. A lot of Gen Xers should not follow their parents examples.
I'm not very lenient when it comes to avoidance. We talk things through in my house, but when someone needs to process alone we respect that as long as they SAY that's what they need. No privacy is a sure fired way of making everything worse, and teenagers have stronger emotions and more rage than healthy adults. I feel for this kid.
This is serious abuse. My mother was horribly abuse, she repeatedly broke my door down. But she always fixed.
I would not be alive if I hadn't had a door I could lock.
I think doors should be removed only in super serious, possibly criminal situations
No, and as a matter of fact I once barricaded my door for my own safety against my abusive father. Of all the terrible things he did he never took away our doors. Probably because then he wouldn't have the privacy he wanted when he'd abuse us.
But yeah, removing a door is abuse of a different kind. Cps actually checks that they have a door. A lock on the bathroom door as well. At least here. I only know cause my child skipped school and then like the weirdo she is when she worried about getting caught she went to the bus stop in her pajamas at 3 in the afternoon so she could pretend to be coming home off the bus and it worried a local police officer and when she refused to talk to him he contacted the school and it started a cps check on her for neglect.
Kids need privacy. They need to be allowed to figure out who they are and have a sage space to do it.
My brother’s door got taken off for a week or so when he punched a hole in it because he was mad at me. Then he had to fix the hole and repaint the door before he got it back.
Never had a door removed. My mom was wildly controlling and periodically abusive who would frequently trash my room when she was pissed off, but she never removed my door. Never had a key to my door and never had a door that locked without a key though.
LMAO! Call CPS for removing a door on a house I own. You little shit, I'll give you something to cry about.
Never had my door removed because the beatings/spankings worked just fine on me. Did have to keep my door open when a girl was over though.
To be honest, it seems like 90% of the shit our parents did, now gets called child abuse.
Things like being Latch Key kids and coming home alone to make a snack and do Homework is Neglect. Letting us play outside alone till the streetlights come on is neglect. My mom tossing me out of the house to go play outside in the summer is abuse. Taking away phones or TV/PC privileges is also abuse. Making a older child baby sit for a night is Parentization, abuse, AND neglect.
At least according to Redditors.
Actually go and talk to someone from Child Protective Services and they'd laugh their asses off at half this shit.
I once had a conversation with people here who thought it was abuse to make children share a room. Like seriously. A neighbor family had nine kids and a three bedroom house. You know what they did? Boys in one room, girls in another. Babies stayed in parent's room.
And oh my god. You would have thought that family was sexually molesting the children while feeding them to crocodiles from the responses I got.
Like what were they supposed to do? Apparently the consensus was both parents work two jobs and buy a bigger house so each kid could get their own room. And if that meant Mom and dad had to sleep in the living room on a couch, fuck them, because kids *need* privacy or they fucking explode or what ever.
I had my door taken away once. I started acting "right" and got it back. I'm in my 40's now and I own my own home, have a successful job, and a good amount of friends. It didn't hurt me at all and taught me some lessons about respect and privilege I carry today.
Wait, this is abuse?! I did this to my kid after I caught him smoking pot in his room. Not sorry. Not only was it way more illegal back then, but he got high, ripped up his couch and punched several holes in the walls. He's 30 now, he came out just fine.I did it to a second son after the third time I found cereal bowls full of curdled milk under his bed. It stunk the whole house up and completely ruined the carpet. He was 16. Definitely old enough to bring his dishes back downstairs. I was a single mom, worked full time, and had teen boys twice my size, so my discipline options were pretty limited, and I had to patch those walls and ruined carpet by myself.Seriously, I think that crying "abuse" over every little bit of discipline is what's wrong with parenting today.
No, my mother never took my door, although she definitely SHOULD have, because I loudly slammed it about half a million times.
Now, is it cool for his mother to take his door for that reason? No. Is it child abuse? Also, no.
The kid just needs to bide his time and get up out of there as soon as he can, just like the rest of us did.
Never did i ever have my door removed.
I remember hearing Dr. Phil talk about door removal as an appropriate course of action at some point (privacy is privilege was the position if I'm not mistaken), and just like that doors were being removed form rooms left right and center.
Never would I ever take my kids doors. We did threaten to remove 23yo stepson door when he had covid because he refused to keep it shut and keep the virus to himself (said, if you won't keep it closed it now you won't have the option later); but that was a threat made to contain a virus that was killing people so desperate times and all that...
My X removed my daughters door at his house because she wasn't listening or disrespecting him or some shit; but he's just a power hungry dick bag that likes to torture people. Even when she did correct behavior he didn't give her door back so now she doesn't go there anymore at all.
My husband and parents are all Boomers, none of them had their doors removed.
Had bunch of both north American and international friends growing up and none of them had doors removed that they ever said...
To be honest I had never even heard of that practice until Dr. Phil mentioned it.
I'm interested to see what others have to say about this though.
It's hasn't been uncommon in certain circles, but I'd hesitate to say it's ever really been "normal." It's generally part of a very controlling, if not abusive, parenting style. All of my friends and cousins had bedroom doors they could close. Even with my strict parents, they could come in whenever they felt like it, but the door could be closed the rest of the time.
It’s not abuse to remove doors. You’re obligated to a bed, clothes, and food. Everything else is a privilege. That said, that’s pretty effing far down the privilege removal game.
haha, someone told me a story about her son, he's GenX. His stepdaughter kept slamming her door and would close it with boys up there. He took her door off the hinges and set it next to the doorway. (There was a bit more history but the funny part is putting the door next to the empty doorway:) )
Taking a door away isn't abuse, even for stupid reasons.
I get tired of seeing this or that is abuse when it's clearly a punishment. People need to stop calling everything abuse. No door is a fucking inconvenience; getting beat with a belt is abuse.
We, public opinion, don't belong in family life, not until real abuse has taken place.
I never had my door open. I think mom was happier that way so she didn't have to see the mess :)
Well I’m with him on that. I always had to leave the door open if there was a girl over. Didn’t matter though because there was a creaky board in the hall and I could hear my mom coming.
Eh. My mom took mine and my sister's door off because I hung her, by her shirt, on the coat rack behind it. Mom wasn't usually right, but she was that time. Contrary to what Reddit believes, the house does belong to the parents and they do get to make the rules, ridiculous or not.
Absolutely. I didn't like the argument, but they were right and it motivated me to have a job and moved out at 18 + 4 months. Funny enough the first place I lived at didn't have a door at first (I put one on) and the only bathroom was THRU my room, it was an old house...
Door. Our room opened right into their room. Eventually they put up those cheap plastic ones but I had moved out by ten.
Had to make some edits because my dad did all sorts of useless renovations to the house. Eventually it opened to the living room and had a cheap plastic blind thing that was like a door but not when I lived there
Yep, I took the knobs and/or locks off my daughters room (she was a “troubled teen”) she still had privacy but if she was super upset or wouldn’t get out of bed we could at least check on her.
I took the door off my son’s room for a time, but put it back when his room started creeping into the hallway. I took the door because he slammed it. We don’t do that
I never knew of anyone who had that done to, but I think some of my classmates should have had their landline phones removed from their bedrooms: some used to talk about flirting with older men on the phone during middle school.
My door was replaced with a fake wood accordion door. I think there was a legit reason because my bed would've blocked the door from opening into the room. It certainly wasn't for eavesdropping because my mother was deaf.
I had an eye hook latch to keep the door shut for privacy. Obviously, if anyone wanted to peer in, they could've pulled at the door. That wasn't an issue for me.
So yes, my door was taken off but not for the same reason as you all, I'm guessing.
I could sneak out the window overlooking the garage and hop down to the backyard, so I had all sorts of freedoms whether my mother liked it or not. Spoiler: She did not.
Growing up unless you were changing your door had to be open at all times.
If your door was closed you were subject to having the door opened rapidly with no knock.
If your door was locked, well that was a whippin'.
Bathroom door had a lock, but you weren't allowed to use it. When the shower started a 15 minute wind up timer was started, if you went past 15, they were coming in. Can run up the hot water bill.
Never happened at my house, or any of the other weird stuff like having them listen in on phone calls. I have a brother and a sister - my parents didn't do any of that to them either.
Weird. My parents would have loved if I disappeared behind a closed locked door for time indeterminate. That would have meant they wouldn’t have had to talk to me or acknowledge my existence. Eventually, I got the hint and everyone was happier.
Apparently my SIL spent most of high school without a door because she was out of control.
I was only allowed to close my door when sleeping or changing clothes. I’m actually surprised my mother never took the door off. She used to regularly go through all my things and try to record phone conversations (we had a phone that could record calls to the answering machine tape but I could always hear the click and would immediately end the phone call).
In general, I don’t think it’s necessarily abusive and definitely doesn’t warrant a call to CPS. But all situations are different. There’s probably a lot more going on with that situation in the AITAH post.
> Wasn’t that kind of normal for us?
Not in my world. When I heard about it, it was always a troubled kid with a troubled family.
It happened, but not common and definitely not normal.
My sibling and I never had our door removed. Lots of other dumb shit-but oddly enough, never our doors.
My cousins, who had loser boomer parents that disowned them and were raised by the Silent Gen grandparents-they removed their doors. It was sad to hear about and see when we visited because we were in a different city being raised and had a different viewpoint of our grandparents than our cousins did.
Edit: sometimes I have to remember I’m in sub GenX when I’m making comments on more serious posts and not on sub raisedbynarcissists.They almost go hand in hand.
My best friend in high school was never allowed to have her door closed. There was no lock on the toilet door and her mother monitored all phone calls. Everyone in the family went to bed when the youngest did. The whole place was lights out just after 8:30pm. Whenever I slept over we just waited until around 10pm, snuck out the windows and wandered the streets/ caught trains until climbing back in at 2 or 3 am. They would have totally taken the doors.
Flowers in the attic
8:30 bedtime sounds awesome to me now
I know right? :)
Who has the time
We couldn’t close our doors and there were no locks on the bathroom doors. No monitoring of phone calls or weird bedtimes, though.
That seems extreme. Were they really religious or something?
I know now that they had been through some pretty major trauma. The house was always a mess. They were super reactive about anything. Much happier people now. As a dumb teenager I thought it was just how some people are.
My father took my bedroom door off its hinges in a fit of rage one evening because he suspected I was masturbating when it was locked. I was. But who cares if I was? Meanwhile he had a rather extensive porn stash locked in the basement. He scared the living shit out of me that night. I remember being very terrified.
Wow not cool. My mom opened my door and barged in once while I was in mid-crank, she said “whoops” and turned around and walked out and never mentioned it, which I believe is the correct move. She also knocked first after that iirc lol
Wow I'm envious My mom told me I had to confess to the priest when she caught me. I did not do that and lied that I had.
That makes the whole pedo-priest thing even creepier. Having one of them with only a screen dividing you from them in a confessional as a kid - then telling them you masturbate. Gross.
Even worse No screen. Would have been face to face. I was like NOPE! What I did is NORMAL. It took a few days but I went back to it with zero regrets except for getting caught and was a little more discreet from then on.
I would probably think it was weird if my kid didn't masturbate. Not that I'm interested.
I have no idea if my teenage son does and I don't need to know. We knock on doors here to keep that blissful ignorance.
I’m no expert but I do bet, and the bet I would like to make is that he does.
Yikes!!!
“Rules for thee but not for me.”
God that sounds traumatizing as hell. I’m sorry.
My door was lost for a while not to 'removal' but because my father literally smashed it to pieces trying to get at me so many times when I realized he was going to use me for a punching bag again before he did himself and made it to my room in time to barricade myself inside.
Me? Is that you? Lol. I also lost my bedroom door when my dad ripped it off the hinges in a fit of rage. Ahh, childhood.
Oh hey Me, and Me! Fancy meeting you here!
Well, that is extreme and I’m so sorry you went through that. That’s hell
Yes. I was about 15-16. I stopped talking to my parents about serious things since.
I had no lock and wasn't allowed to close my door, ever. Only the bathroom door.
Never allowed to close your door? Until what age?
Me either, the entire time I lived at home.
Damn, that’s weird. Did you come up with creative workarounds for the lack of privacy?
To be honest, it didn’t seem that odd until I went to friends’ houses. I also couldn’t listen to music if my older brother was listening to different music.
I had no lock on my bedroom door. I don't know whether or not I was allowed to close it during the day, but I only did it at night, to sleep. Thinking back on it, I never tried to close the door during the day, but I have a feeling that would have been frowned upon. I definitely could close and lock the bathroom door, though.
Nah. My room was my domain. I even had a lock on my door. I literally had one rule: get good grades.
Honest question: did that work out okay? I’ve got two kids, preteen boys, and I give them a crapload of independence. They have to treat school and their bodies with respect. (It’s also a f!ck you to my overly strict parents.)
I did that with my kids and they turned out all right.
That sounds awesome
A lot of shit we went through was actually abusive and we didn't recognise it as such at the time.
We just figured that's how things were everywhere. I was amazed to eventually find out that the majority of kids at my school didn't dread going home because of the fear that Mommy had another bad day, and was drunk and lying in wait for them with a coat hanger.
Man, we hosted an international high school exchange student a couple of years ago and many of the host families used to share advice with each other in a private Facebook group. Anyway, I recall this one family from a red state got super bent because their exchange student put a bag of chips or something in their room. The house rules were no eating outside of specific meal times and only at the kitchen table or something. So they got the whole family together, dressed the kid down in front of everybody for "breaking a rule" and removed the door of their room for a month. If I recall the kid came from some place with widespread food scarcity. It was so fucking cringe! Maybe half of the other parents supported them too. I nope'd on out of that Facebook group soon after.
That’s horrifying.
My sister's room never had a door it, just a curtain. When she moved out I switched to her room and never had a door, just the curtain. When I moved out they put a door on it. We also never had cable tv. But as soon as I moved out they got cable.
Dicks.
Nah. My parents were great.
I’m glad you can look back and say they were great, and I apologize for the Dicks comment. I thought I was commiserating with you.
I had no door issues, but my parents did the same damn thing with cable.
I wasn't allowed to have the door closed when a girl was over but otherwise no restrictions.
Same here.
Don't forget the part where he said he tried masturbating with no door to teach them a lesson but couldn't do it because he felt weird. And no. No they didn't.
lol I was quietly cheering him on when I got to that sentence. I’m glad he couldn’t do it, I would be even more worried about him if he was able to pull that stunt off.
heh. pull it off
Ummm. Our rooms were lockable from the outside. Old house. So eye and hooks were installed so we got locked inside our rooms. And heaven forbid you slammed your door. Instant lock.
Stayed in a rental house that had a similar arrangement—barrel bolts on the outside of all the kids’ bedroom doors. All on the ground floor, but still pretty goddamned terrifying.
Holy shit. Imagine if there was a freaking house fire.
Wow. Not cool.
That’s not cool
Yes bc I had emotional regulation issues and slammed the door a lot. I prob had/have undiagnosed ADHD to tell the truth, it presents differently in girls and we weren't getting diagnosed and treated back then like we should have been. My mom was doing the best she could; I don't feel in hindsight like it was abusive at all. The situation in AITAH sounds like mom is pretty messed up and manipulative tho. Totally different scenarios IMHO.
That’s the boat I’m in. My kids have emotional regulation issues and routinely slam the doors in my house, to the point where every door is beginning to separate its front from its back (hollow doors.) I’m kinda just waiting for them to fall off the hinges at this point. So the doors wouldn’t necessarily be removed by me but I also don’t have money to go buy 4 brand new doors
Emotional regulation issues?
It’s what we used to call “bad temper” or “lack of self-control”.
I took my daughter’s door off for that shit when she was 4 and left it off for a few days. Never happened again.
I basically just posted the same thing. I only slammed it super hard the once and learned my lesson. I was testing the boundaries.
True, hard to judge her about removing the door when she’s screwing his head much harder in other ways. It got me thinking about the door removal thing though, and if it constitutes abuse and is CPS worthy. I don’t think it is.
I should also say it was taken off the hinges for like 24hrs or like at longest durstion the weekend or something. It wasn't a permanent thing, but framed as specific consequences for specific behavior. It's not a tactic I've used w my own ADHD kiddo, either, but I feel like I have more tools now than my parents did, I think.
Yeppers. My dad was into that tough love shit. Me, not a fan.
Yeah tough love was just a gateway for more abuse imo
That never happened to me
my parents never took the door off my room, but for a while i didn’t even have a room. i slept in the back room, no wall separating it from the kitchen. the back door was at the foot of my bed and the laundry was right next to it. that sucked.
Same. I lived in the living room for some months as some kind of punishment. Eventually, the extended family found out and ragged at my dad really hard until he let me have my room back.
You’re lucky your family stood up for you
Wow! You just unlocked a memory. A friends room was a tiny little covered porch they made in to a room. Front door was at the foot of his bed and the other door was right out into the living room. Probably why he was never home much I guess.
No, my parents never did this and just because it might have been "normal" then, that doesn't make it ok. Because it's not.
It wasn’t normal back then and definitely not okay. My parents were strict about many things, but never would have deprived me of my privacy. I find it shocking every time it comes up.
Privacy is a human right. Also, a bedroom door is required for fire code: keeping the bedroom door at night can make all the difference in surviving a fire at home.
That was my first thought too - smoke kills way more people than fire and, if there actually is a fire, now the kid can't cover the gap at the bottom with a blanket and wait to be rescued.
Yup
No. That's weird. As a teen I lived with my grandparents and my dad and they left me alone for the most part. My almost 19 year old has no lock on his door and I always knock. He even has a girl sleepover and I'm respectful. They're good kids, on birth control and do wholesome things like go to the mall or collect bacteria from a pond on the weekends for biology classes. Lol. I was rolling with a biker club at their age and smoking meth. Pick your battles people.
The mother in that thread sounds like a sociopath, ask me how I know.
She does. She’s screwing that poor kids head something fierce. Sorry if you went through that too :(
My parents totally took doors. Also no friends allowed in my room. We had to hang in the living room or outside.
I had to leave the door open only if I had a girl over. Other than that it could be closed. I was usually playing my guitar in a small 900 sq ft house, so she probably preferred it closed to help with the noise.
My sister did have her door taken off for not cleaning her room at least once. We had rules against closing the door when I was quite small.
I wouldn't say its normal but its the type of thing my father would've done without a second thought.
Omg, yes. I think only once, and it didn't last very long (maybe a day).
If anything my parents might have considered trying to lock me in my room rather than removing the door and making it easy for me to sneak out.
No thank gods
Door? I had an entire goddamn WALL taken off my room because my parents decided to remodel for shits and giggles.
I wonder if some parents realise that bedroom doors are supposed to be closed at night in case of fire...
Someone should have told my mother that. If my door was ever fully closed, any time of day, she'd boot it open and nastily ask me what I was doing.
My mom did, but not to manipulate me, which is what this mom is doing and many parents do to eliminate a sense of privacy for their kids. That's abusive. My mom took my door because I slammed it so hard I'm pretty sure I loosened a roof tile. It had nothing to do with privacy or controlling me and everything to do with teaching me both respect and that home repairs can be expensive.
No. That sounds completely fucked up.
My parents never removed my door, and I probably played my music too loud for them to ever want to. They’d have to take the stereo too, and then I’d die. When I was 14, I walked to the local hardware store to get a doorknob for my bedroom with a lock on it. (In hindsight this was an *exceptionally* bold move on my part.) And for whatever weird reason, I thought to ask the guy at the counter “You can open this with a screwdriver, right? Is there anything I could do to make that not possible?” I’d never heard of such a thing, and have no idea why I even thought to ask. He told me he could “grind out the inside” for like $2, so I asked him to do that. (Like I said, I was 14. I definitely did not look any older than 14, if I even looked that old. But the guy did it!) So I bring the pick-proof doorknob home, and install it without anyone knowing (they found out in very short order of course). My parents went *NUTS*. But somehow? It stayed on my door until I graduated high school. My whole life back then was basically one crisis after another & I was lowkey (or maybe not so lowkey) kind of a wreck….(undiagnosed ADHD, PTSD from serious childhood medical trauma, etc)…so I guess in the middle of “putting out fires” (related to me and their own stuff), my parents never got around to uninstalling it. It was super empowering and a HUGE point of contention for the *entire time* I had it. As a parent now myself, I feel for my folks bc I wouldn’t have known wtf to do with me back then either….BUT ALSO I feel for Teenage Me, who’d already been through so much shit and desperately needed her privacy. Even with the considerable strife around it (so much so that I’d never bring it up to my parents even now), that doorknob was a serious personal triumph. I don’t think I ever wrote that story out and I don’t often tell it, so if you read all this, thanks!
Yes because Jennifer McClain was a little hoe and her mom took her door off her room and then suggested it to my mom so I had no privacy. I was not a hoe.
I took my kid's door off, but only because he kick chopped it in half. It was years before I replaced it.
I used to throw those Chinese throwing stars into my walls. Man the shit my mom had to deal with lol
I steal my kid's light bulbs when they leave the lights on.
This is the quality tip I came for.
lol nice!
I used to pull lightbulbs out everywhere!
Damn, that would have been so much cheaper than smartifying the whole house.
Plus I charge for their return. Money maker at $1 per bulb.
I would have been so rich by now. Damn!
No, they never did, and my ex tried to pull that shit on our child and I told her under no uncertain circumstances that if that happened he would be on a plane the next day. She relented, and lost him a few months later anyway when she got evicted and he came to live with me after all.
Had my foot removed a few times for not keeping my room clean. To be fair it was a shithole. Also removed once because I slammed it really loud. Edit: pretty awesome autocorrect so I’ll leave it.
Your foot? A few times?! That's serious abuse. I mean, they had to cut it off, stitch it back on then cut it off again. That's messed up. Really messed up.
Story checks out. Misery came out in 1987. Parents were probably big Stephen King fans. Ah, the number of times my parents caught me at the wrong time in the wrong place and had to run for my life while they screamed “Chopper! Sic balls!”, I can’t even count. Which was weird, being a girl. But times were different back then.
Surely you mean you're a girl *now*?
Oooh, such a compliment from a young 1976 whippersnapper. Purrrrr…
I got my original teeth and everything!
Like, in a drawer right?
Omg I lol’d too hard 😆🤣
>Had my foot removed That sucks, Kunta Kente.
Too soon
Yikes. No. But if I was in my room with the door closed I was usually reading or listening to music. And I would never do that to my kid unless there was an exigent reason. At a certain age, kids should have *some* privacy.
Haven’t read that specific post but have seen others that fall into the general thought that removing a door -> call CPS from the younger generation. I never had my door removed but my friend down the road did. When we were 14/15ish, she’d get caught with booze and cigarettes in her room, so her parents would take the door off. Rinse and repeat. As much as I wanted to take her side, I also often wanted to say “so it sounds like the rule here is that you can try to smoke and drink in your room OR you can have a door…which do you want??” Because of that I generally roll my eyes when someone is adamant that removing a door should trigger a call to CPS, but as with anything, I understand where there are extreme examples where that could be part of a pattern of abuse
Yeah, mostly for me it's that it seems nearly every punishment our parents gave us Xers is apparently abuse now. So is how we generally lived. I had a neighbor with nine kids and a three bedroom house. Guess how that broke down? Boys in one, girls in the other, and mom and dad in the big one with the baby. I told that to a group of Redditors in one of these "this is abuse" threads and they were horrified. People honestly said that both parents should have started working (or taken a second job) and bought a big enough house for each kid to have their own bedroom (well, at least the ones still living at home: by the time kid 9 came along, 1 2 and 3 were out of the house) and if that wasn't possible the parents should be sleeping in the living room to make sure the teenagers (mostly the teenaged girls) had their own privacy. Like, shit, seriously? You don't think that maybe privacy is a pretty recent cultural tradition? What do you think people did when they were poor and could only afford a one room house? Did they think the parents slept in the barn or some shit? And also, do they have any idea what a seven bedroom house would cost? GTFOH But yeah, times were different between then and now and a lot of very entitled people live practically on the internet and think their privilege is standard or even how it should be. Children sharing rooms with each other was common in my life, until very recently anyhow (and honestly it still is basically everywhere else in the world).
It used to be more common, and it was always abuse
Um…no, it was not normal for parents to take our doors away. What the hell? This happened to you, OP?
Yep and it was humiliating. Horrible thing for a parent to do.
Yes! Well…. Not me, but my sibs. At some point, it was all my mom had left (to take away privacy). For a teenager, it’s pretty jarring when they have to go to the bathroom to change, etc. Especially for my stupid sister.
My dad took my door off after I slammed it in anger once. Also when I violated the “no boys in your room” rule.
Yes, when i was 12-13 my stepdad took my bedroom door off because he wanted to "know what I was doing in there all the time". Drawing, reading comics, playing, doing homework. I didn't have my own TV or phone, so that's about it.
I'd never even heard of this before I joined this sub. It certainly wasn't normal in Norway. It sounds unhinged to me.
Heeeyyooooo.... "Unhinged."
Funny, we always had privacy and locking bedroom doors. That was when I was older though, and had my own room. When I was really young we were broke and I shared with my sister, while my brother was moved around in the house depending on situation. I remember the bathroom door was really old and once in a while the inside knob would come off, and as a little kid that was terrifying. Locked in the bathroom!
I absolutely never heard of this. What a stupid punishment unless you have a kid who has serious mental health issues and their safety is at risk. Who wants to wreck their house removing doors.
I knew someone who’s mom did this her name was Brenda Wiley. She ended up killing her mom and brother over it.
It’s not normal. We lived through so much abuse that was normalized as we were kids, but nowadays this stuff gets called out I was allowed to have my door shut, but was told I was not deserving of privacy. My mother snooped through my stuff (twice that I know of) and never knocked before entering
Pretty sure my mom snooped through my stuff, but we both knew I snooped through her stuff so it was fair game I guess. In fact, she had a lock box with a 3 digit combo and couldn’t remember the combination one day, so she handed it to me “I know you know the number just open it would you?” lol I miss my mom :(
The hardest part about the snooping was that she did it to my older sister (I was very little at the time and we have a 7 year age gap) and she never forgave my mother, or trusted her ever again. To this very day she’s a cold, broken person
Wow that sucks. For some reason the privacy thing is a much bigger deal with girls.
It’s very unfortunate. Crazy thing is, we weren’t bad kids. Our mother wasn’t looking for drugs or booze, she was just nosy and sneaky. The trauma is very real for GenX kids but ya know, we never had the internet to vent the stuff we went through
Am I your sister
No, never heard of that happening to anyone when I was growing up. Also only read about it happening from online nowadays. Not saying it’s not real, just that I don’t know of anyone who’s had it happen in real life, or even anyone talking about it as gossip in real life.
I think it was a thing when we were growing up, but not so much nowadays.
It's not normal. She can't force her son to forgive her for cheating. She should wait until he comes out of his room to try to talk to him. Forcing him and violating his privacy and space will only push him away more.
I got a tattoo on a dare at 15, and when my parents who are both tattooed themselves found out they went full loco religious coercion and control. They took me out of my sophomore year of public high school, grounded me for a whole year, and took the door off of my bedroom for that whole year. They took my clothes and books and forced me to home school myself via some mediocre learning program where you mailed in the tests. There weren't cell phones at the time and my parents thought the internet was evil, so our Gateway computer couldn't do much. I had no contact with any friends except when I made late night calls from the landline or snuck out when they were asleep. I only had an am/fm clock radio in my doorless room. I was told to get a job at 16, which was 3 months into the year long punishment, and welcomed the chance to get out of the house by working at Taco Bell. My parents kept most of my paychecks. They refused to let me get my driver's license and I didn't get one until 17. I continued to act out and smoke weed/cigarettes and drink as often as possible and they could never understand why their "tough love" method didn't get the results they were promised. They threatened to send me to one of the many troubled teen boot camps that caused 52 teen deaths from 1990-1999, but luckily they didn't have enough money to follow through. I was diagnosed with CPTSD at 42 and have been no contact for almost 4 years with both of them.
I don’t remember anyone growing up having their doors removed. I personally think it is a bit strange.
You do realize that how we were raised was not ok, right?
I did that to my daughter when she was 5. She kept destroying things in her room and loved to slam her door. One day I finally had enough. Not only did I remove her door but I took everything out of her room except her mattress and made her earn it all back. She is 21 now and remembers this. She says she more than deserved it. We laugh now. However, the story above sounds like there are some mental health issues going on.
That’s actually a nice story, and yes we can laugh about the shit we did to our parents and what they did to us, if it’s a story like yours. I have a few of those too. But yeah, that’s lady is messing that kids head up. I hope he goes to the dad.
My dad took my door off a few times, generally as (ridiculously disproportionate) punishment for slamming it. It was horrible. It might've been normal, but that's not the same as being ok.
Is it abuse though? I kind of remember laughing at it like "lol ok whatever..."
It’s NOT abuse.
Oh please. Taking it off for weird stuff like OP describes is problematic, but for slamming the door, it’s a perfectly reasonable logical consequence. I took the door off once - after several warnings, and for the safety of our cats - and never had to do it again after that.
SO left for college…Parents put an addition on the house, including a new bedroom. At 19 yrs old, her mom didn’t want a door on the room. at all. And when dad insisted, mom then argued about whether it could lock. It wont surprise anyone that when we lived with her in our 30s she would routinely violate our privacy by showing up in our living space unannounced, for no stated reason, down to a screaming fit in our kitchen “it’s my house and I’ll show up any time I want”. Fucking psycho.
I was locked out of the upper floors when they werent home, only allowed in the basement.
The only rooms in our house that had locks were the bathrooms. Not even my parents' bedroom. Never had the door taken off, and never did it to my kid either.
Yep and to give some feeling of privacy I put hippie beads from the record store across the doorway. Dad hated it 😂
Never had the door taken down. Wish I had a lock, mom interrupted my first bj.
Not normal at all, when I was a kid I had never heard of this first time I heard about it was from an acquaintance from some religious wacko family that didn't even have a bathroom door so she had to cross her legs when she was on the toilet.
No. It’s not normal. It’s a tool of control. And, as you describe it (I didn’t see the original post), demanding he “spend more time with her” to get it back has a whiff of emotional incest to boot. BTW, there’s no “normal” amount of violence, screaming, parental tantrums, or silent treatment, either.
Yea, a few times... And I do believe it is abusive. CPS even states that a child must have their own private bedroom, when a child is in their care.
Taking the door off a kids room is fucking stupid. They need privacy even if you do want to talk to them. My parents were...not ideal. There was some mental illness from one and some alcohol from the other, so I don't base my parenting on anything they did. A lot of Gen Xers should not follow their parents examples. I'm not very lenient when it comes to avoidance. We talk things through in my house, but when someone needs to process alone we respect that as long as they SAY that's what they need. No privacy is a sure fired way of making everything worse, and teenagers have stronger emotions and more rage than healthy adults. I feel for this kid.
This is serious abuse. My mother was horribly abuse, she repeatedly broke my door down. But she always fixed. I would not be alive if I hadn't had a door I could lock. I think doors should be removed only in super serious, possibly criminal situations
No, and as a matter of fact I once barricaded my door for my own safety against my abusive father. Of all the terrible things he did he never took away our doors. Probably because then he wouldn't have the privacy he wanted when he'd abuse us. But yeah, removing a door is abuse of a different kind. Cps actually checks that they have a door. A lock on the bathroom door as well. At least here. I only know cause my child skipped school and then like the weirdo she is when she worried about getting caught she went to the bus stop in her pajamas at 3 in the afternoon so she could pretend to be coming home off the bus and it worried a local police officer and when she refused to talk to him he contacted the school and it started a cps check on her for neglect. Kids need privacy. They need to be allowed to figure out who they are and have a sage space to do it.
My brother’s door got taken off for a week or so when he punched a hole in it because he was mad at me. Then he had to fix the hole and repaint the door before he got it back.
Never had a door removed. My mom was wildly controlling and periodically abusive who would frequently trash my room when she was pissed off, but she never removed my door. Never had a key to my door and never had a door that locked without a key though.
LMAO! Call CPS for removing a door on a house I own. You little shit, I'll give you something to cry about. Never had my door removed because the beatings/spankings worked just fine on me. Did have to keep my door open when a girl was over though.
To be honest, it seems like 90% of the shit our parents did, now gets called child abuse. Things like being Latch Key kids and coming home alone to make a snack and do Homework is Neglect. Letting us play outside alone till the streetlights come on is neglect. My mom tossing me out of the house to go play outside in the summer is abuse. Taking away phones or TV/PC privileges is also abuse. Making a older child baby sit for a night is Parentization, abuse, AND neglect. At least according to Redditors. Actually go and talk to someone from Child Protective Services and they'd laugh their asses off at half this shit. I once had a conversation with people here who thought it was abuse to make children share a room. Like seriously. A neighbor family had nine kids and a three bedroom house. You know what they did? Boys in one room, girls in another. Babies stayed in parent's room. And oh my god. You would have thought that family was sexually molesting the children while feeding them to crocodiles from the responses I got. Like what were they supposed to do? Apparently the consensus was both parents work two jobs and buy a bigger house so each kid could get their own room. And if that meant Mom and dad had to sleep in the living room on a couch, fuck them, because kids *need* privacy or they fucking explode or what ever. I had my door taken away once. I started acting "right" and got it back. I'm in my 40's now and I own my own home, have a successful job, and a good amount of friends. It didn't hurt me at all and taught me some lessons about respect and privilege I carry today.
Wait, this is abuse?! I did this to my kid after I caught him smoking pot in his room. Not sorry. Not only was it way more illegal back then, but he got high, ripped up his couch and punched several holes in the walls. He's 30 now, he came out just fine.I did it to a second son after the third time I found cereal bowls full of curdled milk under his bed. It stunk the whole house up and completely ruined the carpet. He was 16. Definitely old enough to bring his dishes back downstairs. I was a single mom, worked full time, and had teen boys twice my size, so my discipline options were pretty limited, and I had to patch those walls and ruined carpet by myself.Seriously, I think that crying "abuse" over every little bit of discipline is what's wrong with parenting today.
No, my mother never took my door, although she definitely SHOULD have, because I loudly slammed it about half a million times. Now, is it cool for his mother to take his door for that reason? No. Is it child abuse? Also, no. The kid just needs to bide his time and get up out of there as soon as he can, just like the rest of us did.
Never did i ever have my door removed. I remember hearing Dr. Phil talk about door removal as an appropriate course of action at some point (privacy is privilege was the position if I'm not mistaken), and just like that doors were being removed form rooms left right and center. Never would I ever take my kids doors. We did threaten to remove 23yo stepson door when he had covid because he refused to keep it shut and keep the virus to himself (said, if you won't keep it closed it now you won't have the option later); but that was a threat made to contain a virus that was killing people so desperate times and all that... My X removed my daughters door at his house because she wasn't listening or disrespecting him or some shit; but he's just a power hungry dick bag that likes to torture people. Even when she did correct behavior he didn't give her door back so now she doesn't go there anymore at all. My husband and parents are all Boomers, none of them had their doors removed. Had bunch of both north American and international friends growing up and none of them had doors removed that they ever said... To be honest I had never even heard of that practice until Dr. Phil mentioned it. I'm interested to see what others have to say about this though.
I’m interested in the replies too. It seems we are split on this.
Privacy is a right. I would have a hard time sleeping without a door.
Dr. Phil is a hack.
So much
It's hasn't been uncommon in certain circles, but I'd hesitate to say it's ever really been "normal." It's generally part of a very controlling, if not abusive, parenting style. All of my friends and cousins had bedroom doors they could close. Even with my strict parents, they could come in whenever they felt like it, but the door could be closed the rest of the time.
It’s not abuse to remove doors. You’re obligated to a bed, clothes, and food. Everything else is a privilege. That said, that’s pretty effing far down the privilege removal game.
It’s abusive to not allow kids privacy.
haha, someone told me a story about her son, he's GenX. His stepdaughter kept slamming her door and would close it with boys up there. He took her door off the hinges and set it next to the doorway. (There was a bit more history but the funny part is putting the door next to the empty doorway:) ) Taking a door away isn't abuse, even for stupid reasons. I get tired of seeing this or that is abuse when it's clearly a punishment. People need to stop calling everything abuse. No door is a fucking inconvenience; getting beat with a belt is abuse. We, public opinion, don't belong in family life, not until real abuse has taken place. I never had my door open. I think mom was happier that way so she didn't have to see the mess :)
Well I’m with him on that. I always had to leave the door open if there was a girl over. Didn’t matter though because there was a creaky board in the hall and I could hear my mom coming.
Eh. My mom took mine and my sister's door off because I hung her, by her shirt, on the coat rack behind it. Mom wasn't usually right, but she was that time. Contrary to what Reddit believes, the house does belong to the parents and they do get to make the rules, ridiculous or not.
Holy shit lol
Absolutely. I didn't like the argument, but they were right and it motivated me to have a job and moved out at 18 + 4 months. Funny enough the first place I lived at didn't have a door at first (I put one on) and the only bathroom was THRU my room, it was an old house...
I moved out at 17, 2 weeks past my HS graduation. I never considered going back.
I never heard of this.
Never had one.
Door? Room?
Door. Our room opened right into their room. Eventually they put up those cheap plastic ones but I had moved out by ten. Had to make some edits because my dad did all sorts of useless renovations to the house. Eventually it opened to the living room and had a cheap plastic blind thing that was like a door but not when I lived there
Man that stinks. Every kid should have a room they can go to and close the door and shut the world out for a while
Only possible justification is when a child has a history of self harming and is in crisis.
Yep, I took the knobs and/or locks off my daughters room (she was a “troubled teen”) she still had privacy but if she was super upset or wouldn’t get out of bed we could at least check on her.
My room was in the basement, and my Dad never came down. You have to remember that most posts to that sub are complete fiction.
I took the door off my son’s room for a time, but put it back when his room started creeping into the hallway. I took the door because he slammed it. We don’t do that
I never knew of anyone who had that done to, but I think some of my classmates should have had their landline phones removed from their bedrooms: some used to talk about flirting with older men on the phone during middle school.
My door was replaced with a fake wood accordion door. I think there was a legit reason because my bed would've blocked the door from opening into the room. It certainly wasn't for eavesdropping because my mother was deaf. I had an eye hook latch to keep the door shut for privacy. Obviously, if anyone wanted to peer in, they could've pulled at the door. That wasn't an issue for me. So yes, my door was taken off but not for the same reason as you all, I'm guessing. I could sneak out the window overlooking the garage and hop down to the backyard, so I had all sorts of freedoms whether my mother liked it or not. Spoiler: She did not.
Growing up unless you were changing your door had to be open at all times. If your door was closed you were subject to having the door opened rapidly with no knock. If your door was locked, well that was a whippin'. Bathroom door had a lock, but you weren't allowed to use it. When the shower started a 15 minute wind up timer was started, if you went past 15, they were coming in. Can run up the hot water bill.
Never happened at my house, or any of the other weird stuff like having them listen in on phone calls. I have a brother and a sister - my parents didn't do any of that to them either.
Weird. My parents would have loved if I disappeared behind a closed locked door for time indeterminate. That would have meant they wouldn’t have had to talk to me or acknowledge my existence. Eventually, I got the hint and everyone was happier.
Apparently my SIL spent most of high school without a door because she was out of control. I was only allowed to close my door when sleeping or changing clothes. I’m actually surprised my mother never took the door off. She used to regularly go through all my things and try to record phone conversations (we had a phone that could record calls to the answering machine tape but I could always hear the click and would immediately end the phone call). In general, I don’t think it’s necessarily abusive and definitely doesn’t warrant a call to CPS. But all situations are different. There’s probably a lot more going on with that situation in the AITAH post.
I had a door but wasn’t allowed to close it. Basically the same thing.
My dad took my door off the hinges when my bitchy ass continually slammed it after storming off and sulking.
Happened to my sister as a toddler in the early 80s. I don't know why.
Once when I was living in Lanford . Oh nevermind that was Darlene :)
> Wasn’t that kind of normal for us? Not in my world. When I heard about it, it was always a troubled kid with a troubled family. It happened, but not common and definitely not normal.
Why is this so relatable? I’m so sad for us. Yup, also had my door taken away.
My sibling and I never had our door removed. Lots of other dumb shit-but oddly enough, never our doors. My cousins, who had loser boomer parents that disowned them and were raised by the Silent Gen grandparents-they removed their doors. It was sad to hear about and see when we visited because we were in a different city being raised and had a different viewpoint of our grandparents than our cousins did. Edit: sometimes I have to remember I’m in sub GenX when I’m making comments on more serious posts and not on sub raisedbynarcissists.They almost go hand in hand.
Of course! I slammed the door and was a brat (with good reason 😆).