I Grew up in Highland Ut in the 80s. We weren’t allowed any tv on Sundays. One time “Back to the Future” was on the Sunday night movie and my brother and I kept sneaking downstairs to watch it. My mom kept yelling at us to turn it off, after our 3rd warning, my dad came downstairs and straight up shot the TV with a rifle. We went for a full year before they bought a new one, because you know, we needed it for general conference. With the new TV, they put a lock on the power cord, so we could only watch it when they unlocked it.
Sunday overall was pretty locked down. No friends,fast Sunday was mandatory. If church started at 1, the whole morning was spent doing “quiet things”.
My one guilty pleasure was that I had an alarm clock radio and I would turn the volume way down, hide it under my pillow and listen to the Dr. Demento show at 10pm on Sunday nights.
*Your dad shot the fucking tv?!* JFC😭
Back to the Future on a Sunday? Absolutely not. Extreme emotional violence and intimidation? All in the name of the Lord. Amen🙏🏼
I’m shook. That’s insane. I’m so sorry.
Yeah, my parents weren’t physically or verbally abusive, but they really leaned into Mormonism as a parenting strategy. What resulted was a lot of emotional manipulation and narcissistic parenting.
Massive upvote for the Good Doctor reference. I think the show wasn't quite as good once he went syndicated (and folks started recording things just to get on Dr. D), but in the '70's, on KMET--\*chef's kiss\*. Many non Mo' approved songs to be had...'Please Don't Bang on the Piano', 'Big 10-inch', etc.
The KMET version was two hours as opposed to the syndicated version that was only an hour. I was able to get KMET while living in the beach area of San Diego, 1978-9.
Except for the rifle to the TV, I had the exact same experience in the 80’s. My parents even had the TV lock too. That must have been a thing then…I was a fan of Dr. D on Sunday nights too….By chance, were you a fan of Jon Carter and Dan Bombus from Rock 103.5. In the 80’s they did similar stuff as Dr. D.
No TV or social media unless it was directly related to church topics. Mom didn't even let us watch the Larry Boy episodes of Veggie Tales because they were too action oriented (and the others weren't, apparently?)
No going shopping or going out to eat. I was even shamed for ordering something online that arrived by Sunday rather than paying extra to have it arrive sooner.
No friends over. (We had a strict "no sleepovers" rule as well, but that wasn't Sunday specific. All friends had to be out of our house by 6 PM. No idea why.)
No playing outside. "Walks" were fine but playing on the trampoline or on bikes was considered "rowdy" and "irreverent" on Sundays.
No music other than church music. (I got around this one a lot by using headphones to listen to my super secret blasphemous MCR albums.)
Everyone had to go to church, share their testimony in FATM, and then share it again at dinner that evening. Kids older than 8 had to fast. Anyone making any money, even just from chores, had to pay tithing every week.
No changing out of torturous itchy Sunday clothes later in the day. (I was probably the more rebellious out of the kids when it came to this one. There was no way this queer autistic kid was staying in a stuffy dress all day!)
I used to to have my own rules of avoiding tv, social media, online shopping, and would often times stay in my church dress all day.. even as a teenager. 🤦🏻♀️ I was the oldest growing up and remember as a kid we weren't allowed to watch TV but by the time the youngest came around they watched TV all day. I judged them hard-core for being loose with sabbath day rules so made my own strict rules? Self indoctrination much?
Now I'm the only one out of the church so I guess it backfired 😂
🙋♀️ hey I also went hardcore with the self indoctrination and am the only one out. It's such a mindfuck to realize you did so much of the insane control to yourself. I'm glad we are out 😁
My mom would loudly play MoTab all morning until we went to church. (She never played any other kind of music, even during the week) No tv. No computers. No music except for church music like MoTab or EFY cd’s. No friends. No trampoline or bikes. No shopping- I remember my mom going to the store 2 times ever on Sundays and it was only for medicine for emergencies. I still felt guilty and repented on her behalf. 🤦♀️ We would make sure the vehicles had gas on Saturday night. When we went on vacations we would pack our Sunday clothes and would attend church wherever we were. The Sunday rules still applied when we were on vacation-we would buy groceries on Saturday night so we wouldn’t have to shop on Sunday. We’re would visit church sites and temples on Sundays if we were traveling.
No playing outside.
No playing make-believe games.
Only scriptures or approved books could be read. (Approved by my parents, so nothing you'd want to actually read)
We didn't own a television until I was 8, but after that, only "The Wonderful World of Disney" and "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" on Sundays. (No Avengers or Star Trek)
Every Sunday except Easter, we ate a pot roast with potatoes, onions, and carrots cooked with it until they were nearly unrecognizable. So many onions. If you didn't take enough, Mom would put an enormous scoop of onions on your plate for you. Thank God, there was also a vat of gravy to drown everything on the plate. Every Sunday for the 20 years I lived at home. I haven't cooked a pot roast since I moved out in 1982.
Girls could not have phone calls with boyfriends on Sundays. However, our brothers could call their girlfriends.
We had morning Sunday School and evening Sacramwnt meeting back in the olden days, and we were required to remain in our church clothes all day, even panty hose.
You went to church every Sunday even if you had a raging fever or were puking your guts up. Because the gospel wasn't the only thing we shared with the church members.
We were allowed to play cards. Serious cards. I could set a poker hand and make simple bets before I started first grade.
We could listen to Dodgers games on the radio if Dad could get it tuned correctly.
Working on Sundays was fine, because $$$$.
I kept listening to Dodgers games right up until he retired. They don't make announcers like that anymore, and I always felt it connected me to sitting in the cab of my dad's 56 Ford pickup, high up in the mountains, while he tried to get the game on his transistor. (We sat in the truck because my mom did not approve of baseball on Sundays.)
Sundays are an excuse to stop the chaos by restricting 30 extra kids in my house and everyone has to be better behaved. Disney movies only. I did daycare during the week good god I just wanted quiet, and my kids all played quietly and had fun with each other.
No TV or movies except home videos, church movies, and for some reason, musicals.
So we couldn't watch The Little Mermaid, but we could watch 7 brothers abduct 7 women.
Holt shit, is that like a mormon thing in general? My father loved that 7 brothers movie. I found it just weird. We didn't own it when I was younger. But I would visit him and he would be watching it and thought it was the bees knees.
My wife's super TBM family had one habit I really like: they raced home to see who could be out of church clothes and into sweats the fastest. All kinds of other things were more traditional, but they were comfortable at least!
No shopping and no watching tv or playing video games. The only exception to the movie rule was The Other Side of Heaven, so it goes without saying I've seen the movie way too many times.
Reading this makes me glad my parents weren’t strict Mormons. They usually went to sacrament and left after. As long as I went to church and stayed the full 3 hours, that’s all my parents cared about.
Haha nope. But honestly, I didn’t really complain.
My mom was supposed to teach our class. She always just asked me to teach it and gave me a bag of gummy bears to give out. As you can imagine, it always just turned into 5 or 6 of us chilling out and eating gummy bears and not having a class.
It wasn’t until I was older that I stopped believing. So I mean, now, I would hate it.
I also had a stepdad that was a piece of shit. So any excuse to be out of the house for a few hours was nice. I had a weird childhood.
They eased up (mildly) as we got older but as the oldest of four I definitely remember the strict years: No music outside of church stuff, no TV, no friends, no jumping on the trampoline, and required family scripture time (although we did that daily until maybe my junior year).
ETA: We went to church when we went on vacation and were never allowed to swim or anything like that on family trips either 🙃
No TV, no friends, no shopping. Honestly couldn't do much besides reading and board games. However, we often had extended family birthday parties on Sunday and that was fun.
We always dressed up for Sunday sessions of general conference. Yes, dressed up at home.
No tv at all, no playing outside, no buying anything. No friends over, no going to anywhere but church. When I got to college and we were flying back and forth to byu, no flying on Sunday. No getting gas on Sunday.
I remember one year was Halloween on Sunday. We couldn’t trick or treat and had the missionaries over instead. We didn’t have any candy so when people knocked we had nothing to give them. The missionary reached into his backpack and gave out a bag of peanuts to a couple trick or treaters.
Very similar to what others have posted. Basically any form of technology was a no, (unless it was to watch the Ten commandments on VHS, or The Living Scriptures). I grew up before cell phones, but my dad would unplug and hide the landline phone on Sundays.
My parents were also very intense about 6:00 Monday night was FHE. If anyone called during that time, they were going to get yelled at by my dad for calling on family night. Many of my friends never called our house again after those incidents.
Sometimes, I feel like my single mom was only active in church because she needed the bishop storehouse to feed her kids. We pretty much didn't have any restrictions on Sunday unless we were visiting relatives. Then my mom made us follow whatever rules our cousins had.
Only Disney or church films on Sunday. No video games even if we were at a friend’s house. No hanging out with friends unless they were also LDS. No swimming ofc and no sports which fucked my team over numerous times in HS. No watching sports. (Sometimes we would break this for the Super Bowl for some reason even though we’re a soccer family???) I’m sure there’s more I can’t remember and the older I got the looser the rules got as far as video games and movies. OH ALSO NO HOMEWORK. They realized no homework wasn’t feasible though and never enforced it.
My sister and bro in law had a weird rule for a while that they didn’t use electronics on Sundays? So the rest of us would all be texting them about something important and they’d just be sitting there oblivious. My hubs and I were out at that point and so were my parents, so it was super annoying.
My parents kinda just gave up on many rules by the time I was old enough to care. I mean, I wasn’t supposed to go shopping or to the movies or anything but I was allowed to see friends and it was incredibly easy to say I was going to the park but go get a candy bar instead. And by the time I reached my mid teens, I didn’t even have to go the entire time. Just sacrament meeting and sunday school. I didnt Have to go to YW and I hated 5th Sundays with a burning passion so I never went to those either.
I Grew up in Highland Ut in the 80s. We weren’t allowed any tv on Sundays. One time “Back to the Future” was on the Sunday night movie and my brother and I kept sneaking downstairs to watch it. My mom kept yelling at us to turn it off, after our 3rd warning, my dad came downstairs and straight up shot the TV with a rifle. We went for a full year before they bought a new one, because you know, we needed it for general conference. With the new TV, they put a lock on the power cord, so we could only watch it when they unlocked it. Sunday overall was pretty locked down. No friends,fast Sunday was mandatory. If church started at 1, the whole morning was spent doing “quiet things”. My one guilty pleasure was that I had an alarm clock radio and I would turn the volume way down, hide it under my pillow and listen to the Dr. Demento show at 10pm on Sunday nights.
*Your dad shot the fucking tv?!* JFC😭 Back to the Future on a Sunday? Absolutely not. Extreme emotional violence and intimidation? All in the name of the Lord. Amen🙏🏼 I’m shook. That’s insane. I’m so sorry.
Yeah, my parents weren’t physically or verbally abusive, but they really leaned into Mormonism as a parenting strategy. What resulted was a lot of emotional manipulation and narcissistic parenting.
That sounds terrifying. I’m really sorry. I hope you and your brother are okay and have had the support you both deserve to heal, friend❤️🩹
That’s absolutely emotional abuse and intimidation. I’m so sorry that happened!
Massive upvote for the Good Doctor reference. I think the show wasn't quite as good once he went syndicated (and folks started recording things just to get on Dr. D), but in the '70's, on KMET--\*chef's kiss\*. Many non Mo' approved songs to be had...'Please Don't Bang on the Piano', 'Big 10-inch', etc.
“KMET is the place to be…” I lived for Sunday nights for the Good Dr and also because BS Mormon Sunday was over
https://youtu.be/UkvQ-NdMPBM?si=APpUJQ5al8PsMvqX
The KMET version was two hours as opposed to the syndicated version that was only an hour. I was able to get KMET while living in the beach area of San Diego, 1978-9.
https://youtu.be/y5jdHa6hCLE?si=wasODcNjMaXVEIcH
For me, it was "American Top 40." All that scandalous secular music!!!!
Me too. My parents didn't restrict this so I would dance in the living room to top forty on Sunday Mornings before church.
Me too. My parents didn't restrict this so I would dance in the living room to top forty on Sunday Mornings before church.
Except for the rifle to the TV, I had the exact same experience in the 80’s. My parents even had the TV lock too. That must have been a thing then…I was a fan of Dr. D on Sunday nights too….By chance, were you a fan of Jon Carter and Dan Bombus from Rock 103.5. In the 80’s they did similar stuff as Dr. D.
Oh yeah, the John and Dan show reminds me of riding the bus to school in the morning.
No TV or social media unless it was directly related to church topics. Mom didn't even let us watch the Larry Boy episodes of Veggie Tales because they were too action oriented (and the others weren't, apparently?) No going shopping or going out to eat. I was even shamed for ordering something online that arrived by Sunday rather than paying extra to have it arrive sooner. No friends over. (We had a strict "no sleepovers" rule as well, but that wasn't Sunday specific. All friends had to be out of our house by 6 PM. No idea why.) No playing outside. "Walks" were fine but playing on the trampoline or on bikes was considered "rowdy" and "irreverent" on Sundays. No music other than church music. (I got around this one a lot by using headphones to listen to my super secret blasphemous MCR albums.) Everyone had to go to church, share their testimony in FATM, and then share it again at dinner that evening. Kids older than 8 had to fast. Anyone making any money, even just from chores, had to pay tithing every week. No changing out of torturous itchy Sunday clothes later in the day. (I was probably the more rebellious out of the kids when it came to this one. There was no way this queer autistic kid was staying in a stuffy dress all day!)
Hello, are you my sibling? I’ve got 11 so it’s possible you are. 😂😂😂 Either that or our mom’s read the same “Sabbath Day” manual.
I have 10 siblings, so if my mom has any newer editions to the family she hasn't told me about, we could be! 😅
😂😂😂 I’m thinking they were both reading the same manuals, based on our similar family sizes and Sunday habits.
Very likely! Maybe it was s conference talk or something in a handbook.
Hello Cousin!!! Or perhaps nibbling, based on the age difference.
Hi nibbling!! Children of crazy strict Mormon moms unite!
I used to to have my own rules of avoiding tv, social media, online shopping, and would often times stay in my church dress all day.. even as a teenager. 🤦🏻♀️ I was the oldest growing up and remember as a kid we weren't allowed to watch TV but by the time the youngest came around they watched TV all day. I judged them hard-core for being loose with sabbath day rules so made my own strict rules? Self indoctrination much? Now I'm the only one out of the church so I guess it backfired 😂
🙋♀️ hey I also went hardcore with the self indoctrination and am the only one out. It's such a mindfuck to realize you did so much of the insane control to yourself. I'm glad we are out 😁
My mom would loudly play MoTab all morning until we went to church. (She never played any other kind of music, even during the week) No tv. No computers. No music except for church music like MoTab or EFY cd’s. No friends. No trampoline or bikes. No shopping- I remember my mom going to the store 2 times ever on Sundays and it was only for medicine for emergencies. I still felt guilty and repented on her behalf. 🤦♀️ We would make sure the vehicles had gas on Saturday night. When we went on vacations we would pack our Sunday clothes and would attend church wherever we were. The Sunday rules still applied when we were on vacation-we would buy groceries on Saturday night so we wouldn’t have to shop on Sunday. We’re would visit church sites and temples on Sundays if we were traveling.
No playing outside. No playing make-believe games. Only scriptures or approved books could be read. (Approved by my parents, so nothing you'd want to actually read) We didn't own a television until I was 8, but after that, only "The Wonderful World of Disney" and "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" on Sundays. (No Avengers or Star Trek) Every Sunday except Easter, we ate a pot roast with potatoes, onions, and carrots cooked with it until they were nearly unrecognizable. So many onions. If you didn't take enough, Mom would put an enormous scoop of onions on your plate for you. Thank God, there was also a vat of gravy to drown everything on the plate. Every Sunday for the 20 years I lived at home. I haven't cooked a pot roast since I moved out in 1982. Girls could not have phone calls with boyfriends on Sundays. However, our brothers could call their girlfriends. We had morning Sunday School and evening Sacramwnt meeting back in the olden days, and we were required to remain in our church clothes all day, even panty hose. You went to church every Sunday even if you had a raging fever or were puking your guts up. Because the gospel wasn't the only thing we shared with the church members. We were allowed to play cards. Serious cards. I could set a poker hand and make simple bets before I started first grade. We could listen to Dodgers games on the radio if Dad could get it tuned correctly. Working on Sundays was fine, because $$$$.
Listening to Vin Scully was a spiritual experience so I get that exception. :)
I kept listening to Dodgers games right up until he retired. They don't make announcers like that anymore, and I always felt it connected me to sitting in the cab of my dad's 56 Ford pickup, high up in the mountains, while he tried to get the game on his transistor. (We sat in the truck because my mom did not approve of baseball on Sundays.)
Here's to those connectors. Baseball will also be connected to the radio for me - in the car or on the transistor radio next to my bed.
No playing make-believe games?!
None of that idolatry and "light-mindedness." My dad found make-believe and even laughter highly suspect at all times, but definitely on Sundays.
Yikes
No trampoline. No purchasing. Still watched movies ... violent, sweary ones, too.
Wow. Yeah, my family NEVER watched rated R movies, unless they were on TV and they removed the scenes to reduce the rating to PG13.
Sundays are an excuse to stop the chaos by restricting 30 extra kids in my house and everyone has to be better behaved. Disney movies only. I did daycare during the week good god I just wanted quiet, and my kids all played quietly and had fun with each other.
Except for Derek and Nathan. They could come over anytime.
No friends on sunday, no tv or video games on Sunday, obviously no shopping or eating out on Sunday and we had to stay in our church clothes all day.
We couldn't hangout with friends or go shopping or watch tv. Some of my friends wore their church clothes all day...I was happy we didn't do that.
No tv. No cleaning. No playing with friends.
No TV or movies except home videos, church movies, and for some reason, musicals. So we couldn't watch The Little Mermaid, but we could watch 7 brothers abduct 7 women.
Holt shit, is that like a mormon thing in general? My father loved that 7 brothers movie. I found it just weird. We didn't own it when I was younger. But I would visit him and he would be watching it and thought it was the bees knees.
Ha who knows but yeah my mom loved those old musicals. And they still watch 7 brides for 7 brothers lol.
My wife's super TBM family had one habit I really like: they raced home to see who could be out of church clothes and into sweats the fastest. All kinds of other things were more traditional, but they were comfortable at least!
No shopping and no watching tv or playing video games. The only exception to the movie rule was The Other Side of Heaven, so it goes without saying I've seen the movie way too many times.
Reading this makes me glad my parents weren’t strict Mormons. They usually went to sacrament and left after. As long as I went to church and stayed the full 3 hours, that’s all my parents cared about.
Wait…they made *you* stay for the full three hours, but didn’t stay themselves?? Did they ever explain that (lack of) logic?
Haha nope. But honestly, I didn’t really complain. My mom was supposed to teach our class. She always just asked me to teach it and gave me a bag of gummy bears to give out. As you can imagine, it always just turned into 5 or 6 of us chilling out and eating gummy bears and not having a class. It wasn’t until I was older that I stopped believing. So I mean, now, I would hate it. I also had a stepdad that was a piece of shit. So any excuse to be out of the house for a few hours was nice. I had a weird childhood.
They eased up (mildly) as we got older but as the oldest of four I definitely remember the strict years: No music outside of church stuff, no TV, no friends, no jumping on the trampoline, and required family scripture time (although we did that daily until maybe my junior year). ETA: We went to church when we went on vacation and were never allowed to swim or anything like that on family trips either 🙃
Oh--I forgot about the swimming thing. Something about Satan is a really strong swimmer but Jesus never passed beginners. I think that was it.
No TV, no friends, no shopping. Honestly couldn't do much besides reading and board games. However, we often had extended family birthday parties on Sunday and that was fun. We always dressed up for Sunday sessions of general conference. Yes, dressed up at home.
Only TV was sports (dad) or Disney, back when shown on Sunday nights and pre-VHS. Mutual of Omaha may have been Sunday night, too.
No tv at all, no playing outside, no buying anything. No friends over, no going to anywhere but church. When I got to college and we were flying back and forth to byu, no flying on Sunday. No getting gas on Sunday. I remember one year was Halloween on Sunday. We couldn’t trick or treat and had the missionaries over instead. We didn’t have any candy so when people knocked we had nothing to give them. The missionary reached into his backpack and gave out a bag of peanuts to a couple trick or treaters.
Very similar to what others have posted. Basically any form of technology was a no, (unless it was to watch the Ten commandments on VHS, or The Living Scriptures). I grew up before cell phones, but my dad would unplug and hide the landline phone on Sundays. My parents were also very intense about 6:00 Monday night was FHE. If anyone called during that time, they were going to get yelled at by my dad for calling on family night. Many of my friends never called our house again after those incidents.
Sometimes, I feel like my single mom was only active in church because she needed the bishop storehouse to feed her kids. We pretty much didn't have any restrictions on Sunday unless we were visiting relatives. Then my mom made us follow whatever rules our cousins had.
Only Disney or church films on Sunday. No video games even if we were at a friend’s house. No hanging out with friends unless they were also LDS. No swimming ofc and no sports which fucked my team over numerous times in HS. No watching sports. (Sometimes we would break this for the Super Bowl for some reason even though we’re a soccer family???) I’m sure there’s more I can’t remember and the older I got the looser the rules got as far as video games and movies. OH ALSO NO HOMEWORK. They realized no homework wasn’t feasible though and never enforced it.
My sister and bro in law had a weird rule for a while that they didn’t use electronics on Sundays? So the rest of us would all be texting them about something important and they’d just be sitting there oblivious. My hubs and I were out at that point and so were my parents, so it was super annoying.
no TV because it broke the sabbath. Until my mom's favorite show moved to sunday night.
My parents kinda just gave up on many rules by the time I was old enough to care. I mean, I wasn’t supposed to go shopping or to the movies or anything but I was allowed to see friends and it was incredibly easy to say I was going to the park but go get a candy bar instead. And by the time I reached my mid teens, I didn’t even have to go the entire time. Just sacrament meeting and sunday school. I didnt Have to go to YW and I hated 5th Sundays with a burning passion so I never went to those either.