How strict were your parents on what you could watch when you were growing up?

[Johnny Novgorod]

I remember my dad didn't want me watching the Simpsons when I was young but the one time I turned to it he didn't get mad nor did he seem to care, I never got into South Park, and while I don't have the cleanest mouth I don't enjoy hearing a curse word every few minutes. And Bevis and Butthead I could never get into because of the art style.

Samere here, my family was dead-set against The Simpsons... then I started watching it and they couldn't care less. Maybe because I started so late in my life. My dad was/is convinced they promote very cynical values. They may play the cynical card with most jokes, but in fact they're ultra conservative about their values (don't divorce, never remarry, unite the family, work together, don't give up, fight corruption, etc.). The movie is about caring for the enviroment, for crying out loud.

Also I have the distinct memory of them not letting me watch Hannibal.

 

[Rblade]

they weren't to thrilled about Southpark and DBZ when me and my brother were like in the 6-14 bracket but other then that they didn't really care. And this was pretty much pre internet and we didn't have TV's in our rooms so if it wasn't on tv during the day we weren't watching it without their knowledge.

 

[DanielBrown]

The only thing I remember my mom forbidding me and my sister to watch was Power Rangers when we were around five years old.
Was it really that brutal?

 

[Smolderin]

Oh, extremely strict. How strict? I had to beg my parents to let me watch Pokemon at age 7 cause they thought Pokemon was some kind of symbolism for demons. Ya, they were very....conservative. Of course, what they didn't know didn't hurt them. I had to sneak watch Dragon Ball Z because everyone at my school was talking about it at the time, and I didn't have my first video game system until I was 13, and that was a Nintendo Gamecube. They heavily monitored any games that I brought in and it took some major convincing to tell my parents that a Rated T for Teens rating was not that big of a deal.

It all got easy as I steadily grew older and once I reached the age of 17, my parents didn't seem to give a crap anymore. I have complete and total freedom on what I watch right now. But man, when I was younger I had it hard. It angers me sometimes though how hypocritical they could be. They wouldn't let me watch Harry Potter because of witch craft but they would sit with me and watch Lord of the Rings and buy me tons of fantasy books that has magic in it. I really don't know what they were thinking. They were oddly picky.

 

[omicron1]

We had no TV. The sketchiest things ever got was a box set of Stargate. And the first episode was permanently off limits.

...Do I win? Or lose?

 

[Scarim Coral]

Well my dad was kinda loose about it seeing how he did let me bro (me being with him) watch some 15+ rated movies like Predator (we were kids back then). Granted he did try to stop me (well actually it was my bro friend that stop me by covering my eyes with his hands) watching this subtle love making scene (think Mass Effect romance scene).
My mum on the other hand was against us from watching South Park when it was all new as she did read the newspaper that the show is a adult base cartoon show. I think she was afraid of be speaking profanity more but I never once cuse well increase from that show.

 

[Fijiman]

Not very. Aside from not wanting my brothers and I to not watch some of the more mature movies(and by that I mean mostly ones that contained swearing and lots of violence) my parents allowed a lot of freedom in what we watched. Although we tended to stick mostly to cartoons and occasionally something on one of the history or science channels.

 

[Trucken]

My folks didn't really care about what I watched. Sure, sometimes they wouldn't let me watch a scary movie right before bedtime, but since I didn't like movies like that until I was 14 it didn't really bother me. But I was allowed to watch and play more or less everything. Heck, the times I were sick and my dad had to stay home with me we watched like 2 violent movies a day.

 

[Pero]

Well my parents only didn't let me watch very scary movies and brutal action films (something that involved horrors of wars, rapists and other weird shit). I could really watch anything else.

 

[Disturbed-Hell]

My parents let me watch Crocodile Dundee at age 4 and Aliens at 6. So... yeah. Not strict at all.

 

[Whitbane]

Nothing with adult material, but cartoons were generally a free-for-all, regardless.

 

[Thyunda]

Like the title suggests, when you were a kid, what would your parents let you get away with in terms of what you could watch?

As for me, my parents were fairly loose on stuff I could watch. The only show my mom was ever sketchy on was Beavis and Butt-head. She didn't approve of my watching it... but I was never actively punished for watching it. Bear in mind, I was about 7 or 8 when Beavis and Butt-head was on the air.

Weirdly though, they never had an issue with South Park. I was 11 at the time, and they were totally cool with it. Hell, I even watched it WITH them.

Rated R movies are another that they were fairly lax on. Again, I can only think of ONE time where they didn't want me to watch a movie due to content, and it was just because of a sex scene (I don't remember how old I was, nor do I remember what the movie in question was). Bear in mind, they had NO problem letting me watch the movie Weekend at Bernie's 2 (which had at least one topless scene in it that I remember).

So yeah, I never really had to worry about whether or not what I was watching was appropriate, my parents were cool with it. What about the rest of you?

I reckon that's because South Park is stupidly over the top and genuinely quite funny...whereas Beavis & Butthead is just kinda obnoxious. And not very funny.

They weren't regulating your morality. They were regulating your taste.

 

[Orks da best]

Only sex was really out of the question, and pokemon since my mom did not like it, but then again I never liked pokemon so eh.

 

[Comocat]

My parents generally watched something before they let me see it, which was probably a good idea. They showed me "The Birds" and literally lost my shit at the thought of killer birds, because we had parakeets. My dad spent a lot of time trying to show me that the birds were puppets, but it only made things worse. We didn't have cable so monitoring what my brother and I watched was kind of a moot point, since we only had network TV and the occasional VHS rental. Pretty much by the time I was 16 or 17 most movies were on the table, provided I wanted to see them with my dad.

 

[scorptatious]

My parents would never allow me to watch South Park. I convinced my mom to buy me a DVD of the show, but when we got back, my dad saw the DVD and didn't allow me to watch it. I think he even returned it to the store we got it from as well. They also didn't like me watching Family Guy, as I sometimes said lines from the show that were very derogatory. Simpsons was okay though.

It's funny though, one time my grandmother was babysitting us, and my brother and I convinced her to have South Park on the TV. During the commercial breaks, there was this "girls gone wild" commercial that came on. My grandmother complained: "I can't believe they would show something like that during a kid's show". I couldn't help but raise my eyebrows and roll my eyes up.

My parents also didn't allow me to so much as even look at M-rated games when I was little. At least not until Halo 2 came out, which I believe was my very first M-rated game that I've ever played that wasn't a demo. (First M-rated demo I believe was Silent Hill 1. Of course, my parents gave me and my brother hell when they saw us playing it)

So yeah, my parents were kinda strict with what we watched, but not so much now for obvious reasons.

 

[Jakub324]

My parents were fairly relaxed. They didn't so much mind swearing and violence most of the time, but they didn't approve when they saw me playing the demo of some WWE game. They didn't stop me, though. When I was eight (approximately) my dad bought me Conflict: Desert Storm. Then the Vietnam game of the same series. When I was 15, they bought me MW2 for Christmas. Then Black Ops and MW3, also for Christmas.
TV and film-wise, they didn't care half as much as my sister. When I was six, I mentioned having watched Con Air. Parent's didn't care; sister gave me shit. I watched Band of Brothers with my dad.

 

[Verlander]

Reasonably strict, but they knew I watched stuff at my friends houses, so I guess they just didn't want it under their roof. Hasn't really altered me I don't think. I don't like horror movies much, but I don't think that's related. They just bore me

 

[jdogtwodolla]

As a child, I was only ever called out on watching Family Guy at age 10 when my father heared lois talking about getting Peter beer for piano playing. That led nowhere.

 

[Megan Vandenberg]

I might be the only female my age who was not allowed to watch Sailor Moon when I was young. My mom was seriously strict about TV. I could barely watch anything when I was little.

 

[DSK-]

My parents weren't. Truth be told, I watched the likes of Alien, Robocop and Predator long before I ever watched E.T (that film scared the living crap out of me when I was little, and I didn't watch it until I was 16. True story).