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Post by Lexica on Jul 27, 2024 20:33:59 GMT
For those of you who had either very strict rules or very lax rules, did it strongly influence the way you parented your own children, if you had them? my parents were fairly strict and old-fashioned in general but we were pretty free range (growing up in the 70s/80s). So long as I was home for dinner, my parents probably had no idea where I was - as a 11/12 y/o, I biked all over the island we lived on (Newport RI - it's about 15 miles long and 5 miles wide), when I was younger I lived on military bases and had free range of the housing estate we lived in. I also remember as a 5th grader being on the safety patrol at school, wearing my orange safety patrol belt, carrying my stop sign, and walking out to the middle of the crosswalk to stop traffic while students crossed. And at 16, I flew back to the UK for three weeks by myself - I stayed with my aunt and uncle for a week and then my older sister for the rest - she left on a business trip for about 10 days in the middle, left her kids with the au pair, and I was only stayed at the house to sleep...I took the bus into Oxford and Reading and the train into London...and had a blast. I'm less strict (although DD17 laughs because her friends think I'm super strict, she doesn't agree with them - I suspect it's because I'm stricter with different things than their parents) and my kids are more free-range than many but much less so than I was. Part of that is due to location - we live rural so there weren't friends to walk/bike to or anywhere they could really go with a ride. But I let my young kids play in my (unfenced) backyard to the horror of my friends - what if something happens? And DS would walk home from Boy Scouts as a young teen (to the horror of the adults - the meeting was about a mile away) down a quiet road, mostly unpaved. And my teens have never had curfews - I always told them I wasn't giving them a curfew unless they showed that they needed one - and they never abused that trust. In general, I've chosen to trust my children unless they show me I can't/shouldn't and that's worked out well for us. (my kids are almost 18, 24, and 32 now). My mom always gave us the line that she fully trusted us, it was the strangers that snatched young girls that she was concerned with. THAT got my full attention, better than any punishment for staying out after curfew would have done. I became very nervous if I saw any males wandering around where we were, even during the daytime at the malls. I became very aware of my surroundings.
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Post by Lexica on Jul 27, 2024 20:44:48 GMT
No boys in bedroom. No phone calls from boys til age 15. No asking if friends can stay for dinner in front of friends. No phone calls after 9 pm. No swear words of any kind, including non swear words like fart, pissed off or crap. No skirts above where your hand at side ends. No ripped jeans to school. No makeup til 15. Boy I could go on and on. However my Italian American parents allowed drinking wine with dinner for everyone at any age. (I hated wine.) I had forgotten about these! We were not allowed to call a boy either, unless the boy called us first and specifically asked for us to call him back when we got home. Mom didn’t want her daughters to appear desperate and easy. I remember having a girlfriend keep mascara in her purse for me. We would meet in the school bathroom before classes to put it on and then after school to wash it off again. My parents didn’t have a rule about dress length because our schools had them. We had a Dean of Women who walked around checking skirt lengths. The rule was that your dress/skirt had to touch the ground when you were kneeling on the ground. Mrs. Troutner would wander the halls making various girls kneel down on the cement to check skirt lengths. If yours was too short, your parent had to come get you and take you home to change into something appropriate. We also were required to wear a skirt or dress every day, except we eventually were given a casual Friday where we could wear a pantsuit. That didn’t happen until I was in high school! No jeans, ever! And this was just a generic public school, not some private school.
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Post by katlady on Jul 27, 2024 21:55:33 GMT
No asking if friends can stay for dinner in front of friends. Yup, and no asking if we could go get food, like at McDonald's, in front of friends. We also were required to wear a skirt or dress every day, except we eventually were given a casual Friday where we could wear a pantsuit. That didn’t happen until I was in high school! No jeans, ever! And this was just a generic public school, not some private school. Wow, that is pretty strict for a public school. I wore dresses through elementary school (6th grade). I don't know if it was a rule or just what my mom made me wear. I know once I got to Junior High (7th grade), I wore jeans, along with some short skirts. My mom once made the comment that I used to dress so much nicer when she picked out my clothes. What we never wore to school though was shorts, and no midriff showing.
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Post by epeanymous on Jul 27, 2024 22:44:36 GMT
I wasn't allowed to have friends over unless the house was spotless. That rule sucked.
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gina
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,331
Jun 26, 2014 1:59:16 GMT
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Post by gina on Jul 27, 2024 23:07:50 GMT
I don't remember being told to wear my seatbelt. In fact, we had a station wagon and my brothers would get the bench and I would get the wayyyy back so if we got rear-ended, I was toast. Then we moved to a mini van. My brothers each had a bench (I am talking for family road trips when we would drive from NY to Virginia or such) and I again, made a little bed in the way back. I loved it! We got pulled over once and my parents told me to lay still. The cop never even knew I was back there. This was mid 80s. My Dad had a utility van he had put a bench in and then carpet He used it for deliveries for a successful chocolate business . Anyway we would take that van upstate. My Mom and Dad in front, Aunt & Uncle on the bench and me, my 2 brothers and 1 cousin rolling around the back carpet area! We still talk about our "death rides" in the van. lol Everyone set up their blankets and I would happily read my Nancy Drew books all the way upstate. My mother to this day says you will catch a cold going out with wet hair. I remember discussing this with my kid's pediatrician years ago. In college (1999/2000), I would call my Mom from the payphone outside the bars near school. (I stayed home. This was the university I went to about 20 min away but it had a happening night life so I would always be there at night). Remember leaving a message with the operator when you called collect before your mom denied the call? "Hey mom I am sleeping at Nicoles"! you said a mile a minute and then, click. I was FREE for the night! I had a beeper at this time... no cell phones yet. now my kids are on Life 360 and I know where they are at all times (mainly for driving purposes). ETA: No boys in the bedroom for me either. When my oldest daughter started dating her bf 4 years ago, I had the same rule. Sometime a few months in, she asked if they could watch tv in her bedroom and to this day thats fine but DOOR IS ALWAYS OPEN!
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Post by AussieMeg on Jul 27, 2024 23:11:47 GMT
For those of you who had either very strict rules or very lax rules, did it strongly influence the way you parented your own children, if you had them? Interesting question. My parents were fairly strict in some ways, and not in other ways. My BFF's parents were pretty lax is most ways, and strict in others. The things that my parents were strict about were the things that hers were lax about, and vice versa. Regardless, we both managed to get up to the same mischief such as smoking and drinking at 14yo amongst other things. My BFF was super strict with her own kids. When I asked her about why she wouldn't let her son do something, she said that was the reason she was so strict, because of what she got up to as a teen. When my son got caught smoking pot at 14, I insisted on a much harsher punishment than DSO was going to give. When we spoke about it, DSO's attitude was along the lines of "We all did those kind of things at that age." As I pointed out, just because we did something stupid/illegal, doesn't mean I want my kids to do it! I'd say that I was the same level of strictness as my parents, and DSO was the same level of strictness (laxness) as his parents.
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Post by crazy4scraps on Jul 28, 2024 16:07:49 GMT
We were pretty free range as kids but my parents (more my dad than my mom) were pretty strict in that they expected us to respect them and other adults in authority. They expected us to do as we were told. We had to be home for dinner and when the streetlights came on. No fighting in the house (but perfectly okay to do outside in the yard, go figure, LOL), and some of my siblings would get into some real knock down drag outs.
My younger brother and I were allowed to ride our bikes to the public pool and the public library, both over two miles away when we were preteens, as long as we went together. I remember going to the local cheap movie theater with my brother to watch a movie alone when we were in grade school.
I had more self imposed rules mostly because I watched my older siblings do all sorts of really stupid things, and I also saw them face the real life consequences for those stupid actions. I grew up never expecting my mom to get me out of a self imposed jam. My mantra growing up was, “Don’t get yourself into anything you can’t get yourself out of.” My mom trusted us until we proved we couldn’t be trusted, so I never gave her a reason to not trust me.
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katybee
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,468
Jun 25, 2014 23:25:39 GMT
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Post by katybee on Jul 28, 2024 17:41:28 GMT
I got to thinking about some of the rules my parents had for us that didn’t make sense to me. And then the things that they did allow that were actually dangerous. I’m thinking of the rule that we couldn’t go in our backyard pool if we ate anything and had to sit there for a full 30 minutes before going back in the water. But we could go in a car traveling 65 miles an hour down the freeway without a seatbelt on. And it wasn’t just my parents, these were rules for all the kids I knew. Did you have any rules like these that your parents enforced that you now know were totally wrong? This one for sure! Even if we were just going in a wading pool. Which is ridiculous, because the whole idea was that you might cramp up when swimming and not be able to stay afloat…
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Post by smasonnc on Jul 28, 2024 19:22:58 GMT
I had a very strict stepfather from the time I was 10. No going in each other's rooms or in the master. No going out the front or back door, only the utility room. No pierced ears or makeup. No posters on the walls of our rooms. No friends in the house after school. Chores after school before homework. No getting up from the table until plates were cleaned. My mom was a terrible cook and I was a picky eater so that was tough. There were a million other ones.
They got divorced the year I left for college and my brother and sister went off the rails. I was pretty strict with my kids, not because of how I was raised but because I assumed that if you didn't watch your kids like a hawk they'd turn to drugs immediately.
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Post by boys5times on Jul 29, 2024 3:51:48 GMT
The first thing I thought of when at a kindergarten open house. It was maybe a week or 2 after they started, and the teacher was teaching them about rules. She had them draw a picture of a rule they had their house. My sons (who was, BTW, #5 of 5 boys) was "No jumping off the roof."
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Post by gryroagain on Jul 29, 2024 5:19:06 GMT
We had to vacuum, and as I was a latch key oldest daughter that meant me. So I’d roll the vacuum over the carpet but not turn it on to make lines. Perverse sense of satisfaction my mom never noticed.
In retrospect, my mom and dad both worked but of course the housekeeping and cooking etc was all mom. My dad was a lovely guy but this was the 80s and that’s how it was. So I appreciate and understand how difficult life was for my mom then, and I know it wasn’t out of any bad place I was caring for my siblings and such at 8. I wish now I’d turned the vacuum on and just done it, actually.
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Post by whipea on Jul 29, 2024 12:28:23 GMT
I was latch key so no friends in the house, stove or oven use, swimming in the pool or taking out the boat until an adult was home. No food anywhere but in the kitchen. Oh, appropriate grammar and language when speaking was a big deal.
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Post by lbp on Jul 29, 2024 14:23:34 GMT
We had the same no swimming until after 30 minutes of eating.
We could go barefoot after Easter. Even when it was in March.
No Swimming until Memorial Day.
No pierced ears until I was 16. Which was also the age I could date.
No canning produce when I was on my period. I was told it would cause the produce to spoil!
In bed by 9:00 on a school night.
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Post by workingclassdog on Jul 29, 2024 19:02:25 GMT
I have to say, in my generation and probably most of us on here, never wore seatbelts. Back, front or otherwise.
Also had the swimming rule. I would guess that came from medical people because we all had to wait 30 minutes.
Heck I wrecked our car when I was three years old. Dad left me in the car alone. (no car seats then). I drove it through our family room. Mom wasn't too happy with our dad.
Our 'rules' were: No TV No playing with friends/outside during the week, had to stay in our rooms and either study or read. I had to mow the lawn and don't think you could not go out and play or swim before mowing or chores. Had to go to church on Sat night or Sun morning. (while father sat at home)
Funny enough I never had a curfew either. But I always worked. I was to scared to do anything else though.
It was fun growing up. Let me tell you.
Edited to add: Boys? Nope. No talking to them. No going to their houses. Period. Once I was down the street at a neighbor's house that had three boys, all around my age. We all went to the same high school and two of us worked at the same place. Well I was (illegally) hanging out at their house. Outside while they were tinkering with their cars. No biggie. My dad drove by and yelled at me to get my butt home and basically called me a slut. Yeah. Good times.
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Post by needmysanity on Jul 29, 2024 20:42:48 GMT
If I was out at night my mom would sleep in my bed until I got home. I always thought it was so I couldn't sneak in if I was late. I found out years into my adulthood she did it so she could smell if I had been drinking. I never did that with the boys but they did wake me up when they got home.
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Post by jill8909 on Jul 29, 2024 20:51:21 GMT
We had the same no swimming for 30 minutes after a meal. And if you left your hair wet , it was instant pneumonia. Everything cold is bad for you… no AC and no fans. You caught colds from them Instant pneumonia made me laugh.
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Post by jill8909 on Jul 29, 2024 20:52:01 GMT
We couldn't sit in the living room "in case the priest dropped by."
My mom wanted one neat room in the house. Needless to say, the priest never dropped by.
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Post by smalltowngirlie on Jul 29, 2024 21:26:19 GMT
I grew up on a farm and the biggest rule was the animals got fed before we did. Both mom and dad worked outside the home so it was up to us girls to do the chores when we got home. Dad would always ask if chores got done. One time we said we didn't we would do them after supper since we were already sitting down. Nope, he made us get up and go feed everything. Supper was rather cold that night. We ate what we raised, so if they didn't eat, we didn't eat.
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Post by papersilly on Jul 29, 2024 22:09:13 GMT
saturday mornings --wake up early, do house chores. nothing "fun" until those things are accomplished. today, i'm a young senior citizen and i still do those things.
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bethany102399
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,665
Oct 11, 2014 3:17:29 GMT
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Post by bethany102399 on Jul 30, 2024 2:38:08 GMT
I remember having a girlfriend keep mascara in her purse for me. We would meet in the school bathroom before classes to put it on and then after school to wash it off again. I was in Catholic School through high school and makeup wasn't allowed at all. No nail polish, any kind of makeup etc. This was in the late 80's when hair and makeup was wild. To this day I don't often wear makeup and I don't paint my nails hardly at all. The rule was that your dress/skirt had to touch the ground when you were kneeling on the ground. Yep, we had this rule too. I was never asked to kneel, but rebel that I was at that age I would have refused which I'm sure would have had major consequences. I still have a gut check reaction even thinking about it. I have a clear memory of family visiting and my cousin and her infant maybe toddler daughter. We were headed out to dinner and her father (my uncle) was throwing a fit at having to put the baby's car seat in the car as it would take up too much room! This was in the early 80's so car seats were pretty standard by then I would think. That baby now has 2 kids of her own with another one on the way and I think abut that memory when she posts her adventures with her kids. I'm sure there's no way my uncle, would ever consider driving without one of her kids in their car seat but it was what it was back then.
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