Grounded Forever

Roseanne: That is not funny! You're grounded until menopause! Darlene: Yours or mine? Roseanne: Your father's! — Roseanne, "Toto, We're Not in Kansas Anymore"

Grounding is a standard discipline technique. But a frustrated parent may blurt out that their child is punished for a ridiculous amount of time, either for something very minor or something very bad. A variant involves a teacher (usually a Sadist Teacher) giving a student a severely extended detention, usually enough to go long after the kid has graduated. A sub-trope of You Are Grounded often falling under Disproportionate Retribution and usually Played for Laughs. Almost always undone via Snap Back. Besides, it is unrealistic for a parent to maintain a punishment for such a length of time. An inversion would be grounding the child for a ridiculously short amount of time for a very serious offense. Not to be mistaken with the show Grounded For Life.

Examples of Grounded Forever include:

Comic Books

• Variation in one issue of the The Simpsons comic book, where Bart says that if he doesn't find the school puma by the next day, he'd be doing detention till he's 80.
• An episode of Dennis And Gnasher had Dennis's parents ask themselves how much trouble he could have got into in the ten minutes since the school holidays started, only for a long string of neighbors to come to the door to complain. With each one, Dennis's grounding is increased by a year, until finally he's grounded forever.
• In Ms. Marvel (2014), Kamala is grounded forever after her parents find out that she snuck out to the party in the first issue. She is grounded even more forever in issue 5 when her midnight snack convinces her parents that she snuck out again. Grounding her is pointless anyway since the world's about to end.
• In Ultimate Fantastic Four, Dr. Storm threatens Sue with this.

Dr. Storm: You're grounded 'till you're thirty!

Fan Fiction

• Stars from Home, Ruth and Charles have threatened Scott with this on separate occasions, both in Fear Leads To Anger situations.

Charles: If you ever do anything like that again… Scott: Grounded for the rest of my natural life? Charles: No, no. I'll have you resurrected and re-ground you. Scott: Won't you be dead by then? Charles: My brain will be put into a supercomputer.

• In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (film)'s so-called sequel, The Strange Change of Veruca Salt, Rupert Henry Salt grounded Veruca from clothes shopping since he wanted her to be a good person by surviving one whole year with a few outfits. She had more, but it was her fault. Her father even threatened her to give all of her clothes away if she did not join any after school or weekend clubs that she was brutally rejected from.

Angina: Not this time, darling. I don't think it's a good idea. Veruca: But I only have five different outfits! Plus my stupid school uniform! Angina: (sounding doubtfully) Maybe you can save up your pocket money and buy something else (anything but clothes). Veruca: I would save up for ten thousand years if I wanted to get anything nice. Angina: Now darling! Calm down! We'll have a lovely day out! but I do agree with your father that it would be good for you not to go shopping. You are at your aunt's for a reason.