Kids Decided To Chuck Their Chores In Favor Of Playing Outside, So Mom Locked The House Down Like An Actual Prison
by Sarrah Murtaza
Most people allow others to parent the way they want while they do the same, but a strict parent can easily cross the line into something more sinister.
This mother turned her house into a prison to teach her kids a valuable lesson, but not everyone agrees she’s done the right thing.
Find out what went down!
This is a HOME not a PRISON!….yet.
Well Mother’s Day has come and gone once again.
Children of all types have spent the day annoying their mother’s enough that she is pleased to see them either leave, or go back to their old routines and just leave her to her peace.
This mother had her ways around the house…
Now I am not a mother myself, but if you have read my first ever post on Reddit then you all have at least heard of my mother.
If not then let me tell you a tale.
One of bratty kids, an overworked mother…and her revenge.
Sit back, relax, because my mother can break your back.
This is entirely true. She’s a chiropractor.
She actually learned how to break someone’s neck and back to know the signs just in case she ever came close to actually doing it.
Which, ok, wow scary…but she learned it in a university setting on cadavers so all good?
She has an ancient story to share…
Let’s take a look back, waaay back, to the time of the first stirrings of the y2k bug where people believed that the world was going to end in a nuclear holocaust because the computers were going to hit 00 when the year 2000 came around.
It was almost the summer of 1999 I was just a twig of a child, mostly gangly limbs and big eyes, and all of eleven years old or so.
Our cast for this tale is A, my eldest step-sibling…
N, the catalyst of this tale…
M, me, the Bambi looking gullible mo-fo who should have known better…
Lu, step brother, my age and he should have known better too…
K, younger sister by 2 years and L, youngest. The baby of the family.
The mother had simple rules!
Now my mother remarried a man we shall call RG when I was about 8 years old.
Due to the whole ‘soap incident’ he delegated all forms of discipline to her when it came to punishing us all on a whole.
So due to her working long 13 hour days to support us all and the lack of allowance for doing chores because let’s face it, 6 kids tends to run you dry if you try to keep up with it all, we the children, started slacking off.
She would police around!
This did not sit well with my mother, who used her usual threat of “I WILL go into your rooms and whatever is on the floor, goes in the garbage.”
This is something we had heard all our lives but us younger kids, as in me and all below me, totally believed she would do it…
…until THIS one faithful day.
The day was lovely until…
It was gorgeous outside, the sun was shining, spring had brought new leaves to the trees and all the neighbourhood kids could be heard screaming through the streets.
This was the 90s where a time of uncontrolled childhood chaos where parents happily released their spores into the wild and drank wine while they didn’t have to think about their hell spawn until the street lights flicked on.
Unfortunately for us MY mother decided that this gorgeous weekend day was best used for picking up the slack that we let get away from us.
She demanded we clean our rooms while repeating that well known phrase we all knew and despised.
We groaned, we whined…we relented and started to comply.
The sister wasn’t having it!
But then my sister N, the stone cold and wisest of the elder sisters, just shrugged and IGNORED THE ORDER!
Her and A shared a room, practically having one side of the upper floor, which had a wall knocked down and renovated into almost like a mini apartment sans kitchen, all to themselves.
At the all knowing age of 13 (N) and 15 (A) they both decided they had better things to do that day then listen to our Mom.
‘A’ left to go on a date with her boyfriend she made the year before and N sat in her room on her computer. (a giant PC of a thing linked into a separate line so the dial up wouldn’t fudge up our phone systems.)
When we, the younger kids, started bugging her, shocked at her audacity my sister N said these words.
“It’s not like she’s actually going to throw all our stuff away. She paid for it all, she’s not just going to toss it all out because that’s a waste of money.
This is a home, it’s not a prison. She’s not the warden and we don’t HAVE to do what she says.”
That was some new revelation for the younger ones!
Then she left us standing there with our puny impressionable minds totally blown.
We DIDN’T have to do what mom said? Is that even possible?!
My younger sister K and my brother Lu took this at face value and immediately took off.
They where 11 (Lu) and 9 (K) and had friends waiting on them, they didn’t have TIME to waste cleaning their rooms on an empty threat.
L, only seven years old, was more hesitant but was as easily distracted as I was and we ended up playing barbies for the rest of the day totally forgetting about our worries until dinner time.
Silence.
Mom wasn’t sure what went wrong…
Dinner was quiet, awkward. Mom was mad the house did not get cleaned and RG was ready to lay his hammer down at my mother’s command.
The interrogation went as expected and K, our more…erm.. expressive sister who had a bit of a Raph from the ninja turtles type personality blew up (figuratively) at my mother.
“This is a HOME, Mom! Not a PRISON! And it’s MY room!” With this dinner was concluded.
K stormed off.
Mom went quiet and with the most stepford wife smile ever just asked us all if we felt this way.
My elder sisters agreed immediately, not really caring because of teenage angst and we younger kids slowly nodded at their insistent stares.
“I see”.
She was up to something with this.
And that was that.
No punishments, no scolding or groundings and the rest of the weekend went off without a hiccup.
We should have known something was up.
Mom sent us all off to school Monday herself, which was unusual because she usually woke before us and was gone by the time we finished brushing our teeth.
She was obviously planning something!
We then wouldn’t see her until dinner later in the day but she made us a biiiig breakfast, hinted at a surprise for us when we get home from school, kissed us goodbye and sent us happily our the door.
Now I am sure you are all thinking that I should get on with it. What was the revenge and how does it fit into pro.
Well I’ll tell you.
Mom’s revenge.
While we were at school Mom, RG and some of his friends came in and got rid of EVERYTHING that would be enjoyable to a child.
The basement was emptied and cleaned, all computers, video games, gameboys, CD players, rodeos and tvs where taken.
OUCH!
Dressers and closets where emptied, toys upon toys where tossed, colourful blankets and sheets removed from beds, decorations, pencils and colouring tools, papers and scissors, glue…basically any and all craft supplies, GONE.
When we returned home RG was in his military uniform and accosted us as we came in through the door, pinned us to the wall and frisked each of us.
Backpacks, candy and everything we had on us where taken.
My mother then handed us some grey pajamas and ordered us to march into the bathroom to change. Terrified we complied.
Everything was GONE!
The living room seemed so bare.
The piano/recorder was gone, along with the tv…the puzzles and games usually kept in the room gone from the shelves.
The bathroom was no better.
Bare of except head and shoulders and a bar of soap on a string for some reason…it smelled strongly of bleach.
We were then sat down on lawn chairs, the couch occupied by my stone cold mother, as we waited for every child to arrive in silence.
Welcome to the month of hell.
They were literally in prison.
We watched as my mother tossed all our clothes into a garbage bag.
All toys and art supplies from our backpacks followed, and RG was in uniform and with his scariest expression as my mother went through our new itinerary for life from now on.
Wake up at dawn, PT in the mornings through the town lead by RG.
Oatmeal, no sugar, for breakfast then off to school.
Drop off made to the classrooms by RG and pick up the moment the bell goes at the end of the day. Lunch is roast beef sandwiches, barely any mayo and wilted lettuce.
School has been informed to not give us anything else and to take away anything not given to us by our parents.
They had a lot of insane rules!
Once home we are each assigned a room to clean, our bags taken and checked for contraband.
Room clean?
PT on the back yard, a deflated soccer ball as a toy, nothing else, leave the fenced in area and you get extra punishment.
No friends, calls or escape. Dinner was colds peas, corn, beans and mystery meat. No butter, salt or ketchup allowed.
“You don’t take care of your home you don’t deserve your home. Welcome to prison.”
Homework was done at the table, use of pencils and paper regulated and inventory counted.
Bed time was at 6. Lights out at 7 and the doors locked until morning.
Bathroom must be used before bed or you have to go in the pot put in your room. It is up to you to keep it cleaned.
They even had limited clothes!
We had two sets of pjs we went to school in, all grey, and a set for bed. It was up to us to keep them clean.
Uniform must be maintained, hair must be maintained, out grades must stay high. No excuses, no exceptions.
By the time a week was up she had broken us. N and A had stayed stubborn but even they broke by the second week. Then the appeals.
You want release? Write us an essay on why you think your ready to return to society.
They were finally able to get out of it…
Then an interview to determine leniency. Myself and my younger sister L managed to be allowed outside beyond the yard, it took several days for the others to follow.
By the end of the month we were ready to do anything my mother asked us to.
Then on the same day as last time she and RG came into our rooms and dumped garbage bags upon garbage bags, every book to every lego was in there, marked with our names.
They learned their lesson!
All our stuff was brought back and my mother dumped them all out onto the floor and said “when I come back up here whatever is on the floor, goes in the garbage.”
We cleaned that Ish up FAST. We never ignored our chores again.
The kids sure learned their lesson the prison way!
Let’s find out what the Reddit community thinks about this story.
This user knows the mom dodged a bullet.
This user detests the idea!
This user has some interesting question!
That’s right! This user knows mom has potential as a strike breaker.
This user shares their own experience!
The comment section seems divided!
It’s either team kids or team mom.
If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.
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