Raise your hand if your mother told you at least once a day "I make rules because I love you," "it would be easier to say yes, but I'm saying no because I care," or, my favorite, "it's not you that I'm worried about, it's the other people out there."

While back then, nothing made me angrier than not being able to talk about The Jersey Shore with the 7th grade cool girls because I wasn't allowed to watch it, I can now thank my parents for giving me rules that saved me from any future embarrassment.

Exhibit A: Almost no social media means no awkward selfies that are way too heavily edited with neon phrases or song lyrics on them to be used now as blackmail. When someone scrolls through my Facebook, they will not find any pictures of me in a Hollister shirt and shorts that are way too short or an awkward mirror picture of me in a random clothing store trying on prom dresses just for fun.

(However, I was a rebellious child and I am now being punished with this photo as the first thing you see when you google my name. Sorry, future employers.)

If I had the more lenient, "cool parents" I wanted in middle school who would let me cake make-up on my face and way too heavy eyeliner (the way I thought looked "natural" enough to get away with wearing to school), then I wouldn't be thankful that I do not have to spend hundreds of dollars on dermatologist-recommended face wash to fix years of cheap foundation clogging my young pores.

Today's middle schoolers all expect to find their first phone (which is always an iPhone, of course) under the Christmas tree in the second grade. My happiest memory, to this day, is getting my slide phone in the 6th grade. The closest I would come to an iPhone would be an iPod Touch, which was mostly used for AIM, Doodle Jump and Temple Run. If both your phone and your iPod Touch weren't protected with a zebra print case then what were you even doing with your life? Bonus points if your phone case was glittery, and double bonus points if you were a rebel who didn't have a phone case but put nail polish on your phone.

There was something a little bit special about remembering your best friend's landline and their pesky little brother listening to your conversation. My mom and dad listened in on my first break up in 7th grade and while it was devastating, I should have seen it coming when he gave another girl his Axe Body Spray at a football game (she seduced him with her eyeliner). But, nevertheless when I got off the phone my mom was waiting for me with a steak-umm sandwich, as I cried to her about how heartbroken I was that he wasn't my first kiss (relax, you're 12.. you'll have your first kiss in a pool while on vacation with your friend and he'll swim away right after it happens, it'll be magical).

All hopes of getting another boyfriend were lost after I realized that I had to step up my game, and the only way to do that was to get a push-up bra because my chest did not exactly catch up to the rest of my body until well beyond middle school. If I wasn't allowed to even get underwear from Pink so I didn't get ridiculed for my Wal-Mart granny panties when changing for gym class, then a push-up bra was definitely out of the question.

Naturally, the modesty didn't stop with my underwear. Any time I even thought about leaving the house for a school function in a shirt that either had spaghetti straps or (heaven forbid) no straps my shoulders had to be covered, which would not be that bad if my only option wasn't a cropped sweater.

Even now, I still feel like I am unable to ever buy jeans with holes in them at the risk of disappointing my parents. I also wholeheartedly believed that "crap" was a bad word until high school when I heard a teacher say it and the whole class didn't look at each other wide-eyed in shock like I did.

Now, years later I look back at my middle school days thankful that I didn't have everything then because it makes me appreciate what I have now. I would have destroyed the Coach tennis shoes that were unnecessarily expensive and tacky, and my knock-off Ugg Boots lasted me so much longer than the real pair I eventually got. No, I don't think that I would have ended up being a bad person if I were allowed to watch maybe one episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians and I would not have fried all of my brain cells if I watched Spongebob-- but because I grew up with such strict rules and guidelines I now have self discipline and clear skin, so thank you!