26 Family Traditions People Thought Were Completely Normal Growing Up
Your parents can make up a rule at the kitchen table, enforce it your whole life until you move out, thinking it’s just how everyone lives. Then you’re in your 20s, visiting someone’s apartment who looks at you like you’re psychotic.
I’m sympathetic to this because I’m about to become a parent, which means I’ll soon have the authority to establish some household nonsense of my own. A rule I invent because I’m tired on a Tuesday could become something my kid has to explain to their future spouse. That’s a lot of power for someone who still checks the instructions on frozen pizza.
Reading these family habits has me wondering what I haven’t discovered about my own upbringing yet. There’s probably something I’m still doing that everyone around me has been too polite to point out.
1. The Fireplace Needed A Bowling Pin
“I thought everyone used wooden bowling pins to start a fire in the fireplace. My parents bought our house from a guy who owned a bowling alley. There were wooden pins stacked in the garage three deep and 10 feet high. Dad would send us out to grab one to start a fire. My first sleepover at my friend’s house, her Dad said he was going to start a fire, and I wanted to be helpful, so I asked him where they kept their bowling pins.🤷”
2. Apparently, Everyone Didn’t Have A Little Plane
“My dad was a pilot, and we owned a little plane that lived at a little airport. Until like 3rd grade, I thought everyone had a little plane.”
3. Birthday Parties At The Funeral Home
“My parents were funeral directors who owned their own funeral home/mortuary. They were very kind to always give their employees holidays off, so they had to run the business on those days. Therefore, we had to celebrate all of our special occasions at the funeral home. Sometimes families would come in, and we’d be sitting at a table with birthday hats on, singing happy birthday or opening up Christmas gifts.”
4. The Big Light Felt Like An Interrogation
“We never used the ‘Big Light’ (overhead ceiling light). We lived exclusively by the light of three dim lamps in the corners of the room. I went to a friend’s house, and they had the ceiling light on at 8 PM on a Tuesday. It felt like an interrogation room.”
“The overhead light has ‘you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here’ vibes.”
5. A Warning About Dad’s Morning Dress Code
“Not family per se, just my dad. He chills in his underwear for most of the morning. Some days he just watches TV and drinks coffee, other days he cleans, makes breakfast, and sings. It wasn’t until after I got married, and we were visiting my dad, that my husband told me I could have warned him about it. I was confused because I thought all dads do that.”
6. Every House Was Supposed To Have Congas
“I’m Puerto Rican, and all five of my uncles were musicians. I would go to other people’s houses and ask, ‘Where are the congas?'”
7. The Whole Family Met In The Kitchen At 2 AM
“I used to think it was totally normal for families to have a ‘midnight snack party’ where everyone would randomly wake up, raid the fridge, and chat in the kitchen at like 2 AM. It wasn’t until I stayed over at a friend’s house and realized their family actually, you know, slept through the night that I figured out it was just my quirky family tradition.”
8. Grandparents Spoke Sign Language
“I grew up with only one set of grandparents. They are profoundly deaf and use sign language; neither of them speaks. I remember going to my first-ever sleepover, and my friend’s grandmother was there. I signed ‘hello, nice to meet you’. She was utterly confused, as was I, when the penny finally dropped that not everyone’s grandparents are deaf.”
9. The Family Card Game Was An Intense Event
“I thought that people always got really competitive when playing card games. Like, seriously, half the fun of the Thanksgiving card game was watching my aunts swear at their children. Everyone enjoys themselves, but it is very, uhhh, intense. Then I went off to college and started playing cards with my new friends, and there was only one other person who played with anything remotely close to the intensity I was used to.”
10. The Fairies Left Sweets In Their Shoes
“I thought everyone left their shoes out for the fairies each day in Advent. The fairies would leave sweets in them every night.”
11. Every Morning Started With A Family Run
“I thought it was normal to run a mile together before starting the day. All five of us in my family did every day.”
12. Everyone Had That One Uncle
“Apparently, not every family has that one uncle who just shows up, eats, naps, and leaves like an NPC.”
13. Dinner Came With A Conversation
“I had a big family, and we had very strict rules about not eating anywhere but the dining room table. When I was 18 and witnessed my boyfriend’s parents eating dinner on the couch, watching TV, while my boyfriend and his little sister ate their dinner in their rooms, I was mortified. I asked him, ‘When do you guys talk about your day?’ and he laughed at me, thinking I was joking.”
14. The One-A-Day Snack Rule
“The ‘one-a-day rule’. Whenever we had a 12-pack of soda, Capri Sun, or even snack cakes like Twinkies, we had a rule where you could only have one a day. Going to others’ houses and seeing them have two sodas at a time or three Twinkies instead of a meal was mind-blowing to me.”
15. A Bathroom Announcement Before Every Shower
“Asking everyone else in the house if they needed to use the bathroom before taking a shower.”
16. There Was A Different Word For Farts
“I thought everyone’s families called farts ‘boops’.”
17. Picking Out The Fish Bones Was Your Job
“I was confused when I went to a white friend’s house, and they cooked and served fish with no bones. My family is Chinese and just cooks the fish as is — it’s your job to pick out the bones. My friend’s family thought I was crazy when I mentioned it.”
“Never mind the bones, my Chinese fam was busy fighting over who got to eat the eyes!”
18. Family Gatherings Came With A Singing Session
“My family was big into church, and lots of us were in the choir. When we all got together at Grandma’s, we would often sing. Maybe at a church service or just listening to music at the house, we’d always have singing sessions. I’ve never been at another home that sang as a family.”
19. Water Came From A Spring
“Collecting water. My grandparents grew up poor, and the only source of water was from a natural spring in the mountains. Even when things got better, and they were close to being middle-class, they never outgrew that habit. They taught this habit to my mother, who later taught it to me. Then I became independent, and it still feels weird to buy water.”
20. Dad Had A Rule About Getting His Own Beer
“One time, when I was around 10, I offered to grab my dad another beer since I was going to the kitchen anyway. He told me that getting alcohol for adults is not the job of a child. Then he followed me inside, we each grabbed our drink of choice, and we walked back outside together. I’m 36 now, and last year, some friends were talking about how they learned to mix their dad’s drinks by age 8 or whatever. It wasn’t until that conversation that I realized that my dad’s response 25 years ago wasn’t the norm. He was breaking generational curses.”
21. Every Christmas Eve Had The Same Argument
“Talking to friends about their Christmas memories growing up and realizing not everyone remembers the ‘it’s YOUR fault we’re late’ debate happening every single Christmas Eve since birth.”
22. Divorced Parents Never Spoke Again
“Based on both sets of grandparents, I thought divorced couples were always completely estranged from each other with absolutely no contact, ever. I was shocked when my friend’s parents got divorced, and her dad showed up at her mom’s house on Halloween to say hi and hang out for a little while.”
23. Yelling, Then Acting Like Nothing Happened
“I thought every family yelled at each other like they were fighting and then acted totally normal five minutes later.”
24. Water And Sleep Were The Family Remedy
“I genuinely thought every family had a ‘we don’t need the doctor, just drink water and sleep’ policy. Turns out, no, that was just mine.”
25. Their Parents Communicated Through Mirror Notes
“I grew up thinking it was normal for parents to sleep in separate buildings, never kiss, and communicate almost exclusively through notes on the bathroom mirror.”
26. Making Dinner Alone At Six Years Old
“My family was broke, and I was ‘independent’ as a child, so when they couldn’t afford for both my younger sister and me to go to after-school care, I was sent home by myself at 6 years old. I was expected to make dinner, do my homework, do chores, etc. This was never discussed with me, so I thought it was normal until a couple of years back. My friends brought up how they were never left home alone until they were teenagers, as I was joking about almost burning the house down with an oil fire when I was 6 and home alone making dinner.”