We had the normal rules, bedtime, clean your room and eat all of your dinner. The rule that drove me crazy growing up was Mom would not let us go on outings on Saturday with Dad (who happened to be home very rarely) unless the house was spotless. There were times as children that Marianne and I made more work for ourselves than we had to but there were also times when Mom was just plain too picky for anyone to pass inspection and we would spend the day in misery trying to clean to her ridiculous specifications. I now realize that she was heading out of remission but at the time it just seemed downright unfair to what she was doing to us. We missed out on a lot of family time because of that. On the other hand - in truth she probably was not up to an outing and didn't realize it herself.
When we were stateside there was no TV on school nights. I was a big Monkee's (a 60's rock and roll band for anyone that doesn't know) fan and knew their show was switching from Saturday nights to Monday. I somehow got Mom to PROMISE that I could watch the Monkees every week no matter what - knowing full well that it was on a school night AND family home evening to boot. That is probably one of the sneakiest things that I ever did. I was very careful to remind my mother that she promised - every Monday. Because of that I was VERY careful not to promise anything to my daughters.
My parents were not terribly hard on us with rules. When I first started to date - Mom wanted my home by 10:00 because she was home by 10 when she dated but Dad changed that. Funny thing is that I really ever stayed out late anyway - so that was a moot point. The worst rule was not going out until the chores were done as a child. But then 80% of the time Marianne and I sabotaged ourselves in that and it was no one's fault but ours. (By the way, my mother hated the word chores. She said only poor people used that word. So there was a time I used the word every chance I got around her!).
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