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

[Spinozaad]

Not strict at all. My mom even rented South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut when she found out I couldn't get it myself because it was rated as a 16+ movie.

When I was even younger, we even watched The Simpsons together. She's especially fond of S01E07 "The Call of the Simpsons".

 

[Cry Wolf]

I'm sure they would have stopped me if I went to watch anything extreme, but my parents never even tried to stop me watching anything. Infact, I use to watch films with violence, nudity and profanity with my Dad for as long as I can remember. My Dad prefered teaching me what I was seeing as opposed to stopping me seeing it. I've been playing games and watching movies of M+, MA 15+, etc. ratings pretty much since I grew out of kids TV shows.

 

[Tanis]

Boobies?
HELL NO!

Violent games?
HELL NO! But what they didn't know didn't hurt him.

Violent everything else?
SURE!


Hell, I saw Alien, Aliens, and other violent movies before my dad EVER let me buy a M-Rated game.
Weird, no?

 

[Jamieson 90]

My parents were pretty lenient about it and I quite vividly remember watching films like Terminator, Terminator 2, RoboCop, Nightmare on elm street, Alien, and Aliens when I was around 3-4, and from there I got into Resident evil, the Wolfenstein games and GTA and the like and I consider myself a pretty reasonably adjusted adult.

 

[Vausch]

Not very. My parents did try to keep me from seeing movies with gratuitous amounts of sex in it until I was older but didn't have any problems letting me watch X-Files or any version of Law and Order when I was 4.

Though when it came to talking back or doing something you just shouldn't do like take something or be rude? Got my arse smacked. And of course my dad always said if he ever caught me doing drugs or drinking he'd hit me with the bottle. I did not drink.

 

[saoirse13]

My family were kinda strict i guess. My mum and grandmother never let me watch anything taht had any sexual contact or really never seen many gory horror movies. Though watching The Omen with them when i was 10 or so was totally fine by their standards, Which terrified me. My uncle on the other hand let me watch some movies but made me look away if there was something not age appropriate that came on. One that stands out was I was allowed to watch jaws from about 7, pretty much everytime he babysat me, to the point that i knew the script off by heart Though i was not allowed to watch the end scene when Quint gets eaten. think i was 11 when i first saw that.

That was pretty much how most movies went.

I think because of that now i pretty much hate the idea of kids watching certain shows with no rules. The idea that 7 year olds watching the likes of the exorcist or american pie seems abit like bad parenting to me. I don't know, maybe i'm wrong but should children keep their innocents as long as possible.

 

[Mordekaien]

I wasn't limited in anything. See, my father, when I was little, used us (me and my brother) as an excuse to go see movies in cinema, so I was exposed to all kinds of stuff. So yeah, I had a pretty cool childhood.

 

[Frybird]

My parents actually did well enough to keep me shielded from overly violent movies and games and stuff for a pretty long time. I can hardly remember that my parents had to forbid or take away anything from me or that i watched horror movies or so in secret. (Well, i actually can remember that i was keeping a pirated copy of Manhunt [the game] secret, but i wouldn't know how they reacted if they had found out)

Might have something to do with me getting an own TV with the age of 12 or 13 and my first own PC by the Age of 14, where before both of it was only available at the shared sets at the living room, so they had a good amount of control anyways.
About that time, i think they had a good sense that i could take most things anyway (my father once bought me Syphon Filter 1 because the cashier wouldn't let me buy it) and they didn't mind what i watched, so from there on out i occasionally watched R-Rated Stuff and played violent games (wich, my father at least, mostly mocked anyway).

The only time when my parents were concerned and wanted to forbid me a violent game was, funny enough, at about Age 15, when someone gave me Resident Evil 2 (we were far into the PS2 era already) on a day where i got sick and started to get nausea and threw up while i played the game. They probably thought all the pixelated blood was too much for me ^^.

EDIT:
However, my father really didn't like if we played anything war or gunfight-like (water pistols excepted) when we were playing outside, going so far as to forcing any kid visiting us to not bring any "weapons". Our garden had a very strict no-guns policy ^^.

 

[Xannidel]

My parents were pretty strict, I could not watch South Park at my house, had to watch them at a friends, but the Simpsons were okay. There were rarely any horror movies I could watch either.

 

[Nazulu]

I remember I innocently asked my Grandmother to rent Wicked City for me because the box art looked cool. That was a big bloody mistake, but I am still surprised no one actually checked the rating, especially when I was just over 10 years old then.

Also, when I was about 12 I think, my parents were channel surfing for something we could all watch. They stumbled upon the very first episode of South Park, and it was a shocker. I thought they weren't even allowed to swear on TV at the time it came on.

Can't say they were strict at all. Hell! My Dad let me play Carmaggedon when he took me for work experience once, and I was under 15 then. Great times.

 

[blizzaradragon]

I was a sheltered child, so my folks were very strict on what I could watch or play. There were a good variety of kid's shows I wasn't even allowed to watch(examples include Cow and Chicken, Courage the Cowardly Dog, AHH! Real Monsters, Rocko's Modern Life, things like that), let alone anything aimed towards a more mature audience. I didn't get my first T game until my 14th birthday(they had to make sure I "was ready to deal with that kind of maturity") and no M games until my senior year of high school. They also wouldn't let me play outside for longer than 90 minutes to prevent me from getting worn out, sick, and/or injured(ironically it's because of this I have a piss-poor immune system as an adult). Like I said: sheltered.

 

[Epic Bear Man]

My parents were more strict about at what times I could watch TV. I've pretty much always had trouble sleeping, but computers and TVs really boosted that issue with problematic sleeping. As such, my parents were more so strict about me turning off the TV at certain hours. They never cared what I watched though.

But my parents also both worked very late, and the only time I had a babysitter was my grandpa and my aunt when I was very young. By the time I was in the third grade, they just had me stay home after I got out of school, so they wouldn't really have any control over what I watched until about 8 or 9 pm at night.

 

[Padwolf]

My parents weren't very strict. Hell I was watching South Park when I was around twelve. I remember watching a lot of horror movies when I was under ten. I was always meant to be in bed by 9pm though. It was pretty cool.

 

[White_Lama]

Not strict.

That is all.

 

[hooblabla6262]

I was given no restrictions as a child. Absolutely none. It wasn't that I had bad or neglectful parents. They simply believed that I was an intelligent child and capable of making my own decisions at a young age and living with the consequences of those decisions.

I owned the South Park movie when it came out. I must have been around 9 years old at the time. I remember not understanding the "finding the clitoris" joke.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Up to the age of twelve my mother kept a good lock on what I couldn't see in terms of horror movies. Which was probably a good thing since seeing Silver Bullit at like age 8 or 9 fucking scarred me. But then I kind of had a great fear of werewolves and wolf-like creatures as a kid. The Gmork from The Neverending Story helped with that, too.

She didn't seem to have that much of an issue with most violence and nudity though, unless ofcourse it was pretty extreme. Plus, I grew up in the 80's - If I wasn't allowed to see nudity, I wouldn't have been able to watch 90% of the movies back then.

She generally tried to not let me see the shit that she knew would keep me awake at night.

 

[Sansha]

I was given no restrictions as a child. Absolutely none. It wasn't that I had bad or neglectful parents. They simply believed that I was an intelligent child and capable of making my own decisions at a young age and living with the consequences of those decisions.

I owned the South Park movie when it came out. I must have been around 9 years old at the time. I remember not understanding the "finding the clitoris" joke.

Hahaha, same here. I too remember not getting the joke until much later, right up until the moment I was confronted by my first real vagina.

My parents gave no fucks.
I was watching violence and horror when I was four, racey stuff up to and including porn when I was ten and playing violent video games since I was five.

I've developed into a well-adjusted individual with no violent or twisted tendencies. I find real-world violence despicable but watchable, and the only things I find offensive are animal cruelty, domestic violence, genocide and rape.

In fact my parents were pretty 'give no fucks' all around but were supportive and loving parents, by all standards, but they made it good and goddamn clear that when in trouble with other authority figures they'd leave us to the wolves. I don't know what they did exactly but it worked - we stayed safe and out of trouble.