I've always had a love/hate relationship with my parents' parenting style. Well, until I moved off to college anyway. See, I was raised in a household that had higher standards of behavior than those of many of the children I know of today. Some of that is the advances in technology, other parts may be that the parents are raising their children in what could be called a "non-traditional" way or something far from how they were raised. The benefits of having strict parents are sometimes overlooked when it seems that your parents' rules restrict your fun, but over the years I've come to appreciate their point of view. There are several home rules that I followed, that I may or may not still follow today. These are just a few.

1. Mom needs to know the parents of the friends before a sleepover/party/hanging out

Always. I've only ever had 3 sleepovers where the parents and other children weren't family or family friends.

2. The babysitter is almost always family- or the oldest kid in the family

The only time it wasn't me or a grandparent, the woman was a neighbor with the same name as my mom (which was a complete coincidence).

3. You act your age, or older, in public

and beware the consequences later if you don't. Mom wouldn't yell at you in public. She'd give you that look and you knew you were in for it once you got to the car.

4. You knew how to do chores and not expect to be paid an allowance for it

The laundry, the dishes, the kitty litter, the trash, etc. You took turns and folded your own laundry.

5. "Dinner is fend-for-yourself tonight."

Translates to either make your own cereal/eggs/ spaghetti/pizza rolls or figure out a way to share what dad is making.

6. Going on family trips means best behavior

Occupy yourself. Grab a bag of books and a coloring book and some CDs. It's a long drive and nobody wants to play I Spy with you for the entire trip through Ohio.

7. Occupy yourself

You read that right. I repeated it. No bugging mom while she's talking to a friend at the store, no nagging her about being bored. She'll be unsympathetic. Find something to do that won't get you in trouble, like reading or watching a movie.

8. No internet or phones means that we talked - to each other

Actually, not really because most of us were reading actual paper books, and sometimes we actually owned them. The public library was a favorite place to go.

9. Getting in trouble...

With dad, it was a spanking or grounded from a fun activity. With mom, it was standing in the corner or doing extra chores for a while and not going somewhere fun.

10. Using social media was frowned upon

Well, until mom discovered Facebook, and even then there were several rules about using it and what to say/do with it.