Southeners, how strict are your parents?

26 comments

1. Mine were arguably too lax.

2. They were kind of strict – more so than some people I knew, less than others – but I still managed to do plenty of stupid things despite their best efforts.

   I’m 40 now, so I see things a fair bit differently than I would have at the time. I don’t agree with every choice they made, but I know they were trying their best.

3. I mean, they tried. Wasn’t “allowed” to watch Dragon Tales, Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, or pretty much any mainstream secular anything. Couldn’t be out late, have a Myspace, email account, etc. Obviously couldn’t drink, smoke, do drugs(got tested monthly), be gay, or stay up after 8pm. Out of all of these, the only one they were able to stymie was being gay. Threatened to call the police on my boyfriend’s parents if I went over to his house. Not a huge loss, he was a cheater, but the psychological scars of the homophobia were somewhat less easy to shake off.

4. I was abused growing up mentally, emotionally, and on a couple rare occassions physically so I’m may skew this. My mom wasn’t strict at all maybe too lax at times. However, she’d have these week long spells that she was going to be severely strict. She was the one who had a tendency to cross into physical sbuse territory with her punishments. My dad and stepmom were strict to the point that it crossed into mental and emotional abuse. Couldn’t show too much emotion without the fear of getting in trouble. Couldn’t do anything without thinking about how if I did something wrong that I’d get grounded for weeks or months at a time.

5. Not from the south, but I do live here so I’ll answer. I wouldn’t consider my parents very strict, pretty much as long as I fulfill my obligations and get above a 3.75GPA they don’t gaf what I do in my free time.

6. My brother and I were basically left alone as long as we wore our helmets, which we ditched as soon as we were out of sight. The classic feral children. It was great.

7. My mom basically gave me a long leash.

   I got lucky in the sense that I grew up in a neighborhood that was in development hell. So a good portion of it was vast and open for us to play in. It was not uncommon for me to ride my bike several times around the neighborhood. And I often would walk off on my own in shopping complexes and outlets once I was a reasonable age.

   My dad was the scariest parent, honestly. He never used physical punishment, but his tongue lashings and disappointment stuck with you for sure. Those were fairly rare, though.

8. I was puzzled when I learned other children had curfews. I was not allowed to leave the house.

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   If we had fun one day, we weren’t allowed to have fun the next day.

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   Have you seen Mommy Dearest? It was kinda like that but without the boarding school, garden, and we had to dig our own swimming pool.

9. Borderline southern.. but my parents were only strict about things like alcohol and tabacco. Also showing respect for elders. That’s about it.

10. Mine weren’t strict. Granted, there were things generally assumed, like we were going to get A’s. There weren’t any real punishments for not meeting expectations, just disappointment.

11. IDK my dad just doesn’t like cussing and that’s really the only thing he was ever strict over.But my mom cussed a lot. Mom was strict about cussing too,a classic case of “follow my directions not my actions”.She also would not let me go outside when dad wasn’t home EVER unless she took me shopping and as an adult I look back on that experience very negatively as I loved being outdoors just sitting on the porch would be fine but she was against even that and so I don’t speak to her much anymore because I truly couldn’t go outside EVER not exagerating unfortunately.

12. Not very. I held myself to stricter educational and moral standards than they set.

13. Fairly strict, no having friends over at all my whole childhood, no borrowing anything, no cussing, no sleepovers, no sweets, a bed time until after highschool, church every wed and sun…etc.

14. Not very. We were given quite a bit of freedom, which was tied to proving we could and would make good decisions.

15. Mine were strict. The kind that used belts, slapped, and screamed constantly at their kids. We (to this day) must address my father as Sir. And he “runs the family” (ex.over there, he decides when to eat, what to eat, how it would be served- but for everything).

    My parents both sheltered us too much and threw us to the wolves.

    They would punish us if we got bad grades but never help us with school work. Just punishment if it wasn’t good enough. (Well..technically we did get a reward of a dollar per A and 50 cents per B- but even then that didn’t really buy anything.) We weren’t allowed an allowance (except during the summer- they’d give us one dollar a week) but we had a huge list of daily chores. I honestly can’t remember an age I didn’t have chores. For ex- at age 10, I cooked dinner every week night and washed all laundry and all the dishes (that was just some of my chores).

    They were the kind of parents that (literally) kicked us out of the house if we disobeyed them. (My brother for not joining the army. And later me for getting pregnant.)

    Tbf- no one else I knew (family or friends) had parents that were as strict as mine.

16. Lol. No drinking, no dancing, no cursing, no movies…and I had a curfew of 10:30 pm until the day I married and moved out.

17. They weren’t strict at all. I was a latchkey kid and stayed outside all summer, so they were more like my landlords.

18. Mine were only strict on how I acted in front of guests, they were kinda relaxed otherwise.

19. My dad is from southern Greece and we grew up in the south. He was very strict.

20. Was not allowed to buy/listen to non-Christian music, no alcohol was allowed in the house, etc. The belt and the switch got a good workout on me.

21. Um, on a scale of one to ten, probably a 7. I see lots of kids doing things today that I would have gotten a paddling for. Not that I got a lot of those, but that’s because I learned to respect my parents. I ate whatever my mom cooked with a smile. I was respectful to other adults. I did my homework. I avoided questionable places and people. They weren’t crazy moralistic, but they had standards I was expected to toe, and they were not up for debate.

22. Mine were pretty strict. Stricter than a lot of my friends parents. A lot of it was being overprotective more than strict, I guess.

23. The strictness manifests in certain ways. There was no talking back, willfulness, or disrespectful behavior tolerated. I did not cuss in front of my mother or where she could hear.

    I was allowed to roam and play mostly as I chose. I got good grades on my own and wasn’t pushed to do better.

24. Mine were stricter than most but reasonably strict. I want allowed to play Rated M games or watch R rated movies until I was older, I had to let them know where I was if I ever went out, and they always pressed me about doing homework and studying. That said, nothing too overbearing but I couldn’t just run off and do whatever. I ended up turning out okay though.

25. They weren’t that strict but very helicoptery.

26. Cool with Halo and Call of Duty but drew the line at Far Cry and Grand Theft Auto.