Sputnik sweetheart has written a new article called, "My Terrible Parents." Read it here: http://www.thechildfreelife.com/index.p ... le-parents

Excellent and funny article. Reminds me a lot of my own childhood. How did we ever survive with rules? It's absolutely hilarious watching my mom try to enforce the same rules with my nieces and nephews. They look at her like she's from another planet or something, and so do their moms.

Excellent article! It also reminds me of my own childhood.

That was awesome! I love the tone of the article and it made me smile.

Thanks, guys.

My upbringing was very different than the way moms and dads bring up their kids. One time my exH's parent friends came over to our house with their four kids, and they started RUNNING IN THE HOUSE. I was simply gobsmacked and was forced to correct them. Know what back-talk I got?

"We can run inside at our home!"

I had to explain that different households had different rules, and that MY rules were that they could not run inside, scream, yell or be loud, and if they did, that their parents would punish them appropriately. Then I looked at mom and dad sternly to make dead sure they understood that I expected them to enforce the rules of MY home.

But ... I shouldn't have ever had to correct these kids to begin with. I mean, can you imagine ... running inside of the house? Or screaming/yelling indoors? OMG, I would have gotten killed dead if I tried that when I was a little girl.

I deal with that with my bro's kids. The only time I ever see my sister's is when we spend Thanksgiving at my mom and dad's, so it's not so bad. They come over and start jumping on the furniture, the boys go straight for my video games and start opening every case and carrying the discs around with their dirty hands for no reason other than to look at them while deciding which one to tell me that they are going to play I guess.

If they're there for an evening, I can count on my SIL giving them at least a couple snacks that drop crumbs everywhere to haul around the house and put down on every piece of furniture while they eat them over the course of a couple hours.

If we had done any of that as kids, we wouldn't have been able to sit down for a week and my brother knows it. Instead my SIL gets an attitude any time we get on to the kids about any of this.

Love the killed dead line BTW. Reminds me of Hot Shots Part Deux. "I'm going to kill you until you die from it"

ETA: And this is going to come as a surprise, but SIL is a way overprotective SAHM and their house looks like they've just been nuked at all times. So if they were never taught to take of their own house, why in the world would they care about mine.

I laughed. My upbringing was the same. I loved the last paragraph - if I had kids, I'd raise them the same way I was raised, and I can only imagine what the rest of the world would think of THAT.

Great article!

I really enjoyed reading your reminiscences of childhood! Your descriptions really brought back many memories of the way I was raised as well. Great Job!

That's what it was like when I was growing up - I just don't understand how lax parents are these days. I don't know if I was just friends with a lot of other "good" kids, but it seemed like NOBODY acted the way kids today act. Except the "bad kids" in class, the ones who were always getting in trouble with the teacher, but there were literally 3 or 4 of them, and all boys. Of course, when I got to junior high it was different, but still - when I was a CHILD that's how it was.

Were these people not raised the same way?!?

When we lived with my grandma, the only place my toys were allowed was my bedroom. I remember being SO EXCITED when I was given a playroom in the basement - which was originally my aunt's darkroom. It was a tiny room under the stairs like in Harry Potter - I could touch both walls at the same time! And all of my aunt's photography chemicals were still in it, I just had to not put my toys in that general area ... and gosh, can you believe I was never so stupid as to try to drink it or play with it? Amazing ...