We are developing a reward system in our household for the children’s behavior. They have a material item they want and we told them they had to work towards

earning

that item rather than being given the item. With this, we are developing a new reward system.

Of course, we need established rules for our reward system and it got me thinking of some of the crazy ass rules I had when growing up…

No dating until I was 16.

Growing up, I was boy crazy and I hated this rule, but I can see the reasoning. It’s not like I wanted my parents driving me around on dates anyway so waiting until I was 16 and driving myself, I guess that’s okay.

No dating until I was 16 also meant

no phone calls from boys until I was 16

.

That

was horrible! (I mentioned above that I was boy crazy, right?)

Phone calls have a 5 minute limit

. No longer or she just might hang up the call on you.

Every Saturday


was cleaning day

. No joke. Every Saturday we were woken up early (there is no sleeping in at my mother’s house) to clean the house top to bottom before we were allowed to do anything else. And if you perhaps got the chance to spend the night at a friend’s house on Friday night (a rare occurrence anyway) you had to be home by 8-9am so you could help clean (and trust you me, pushing that time to 10am was not something you got away with!)

Every Sunday


was family day

. Yep, every Sunday. Unless of course the grandparents were out of town. Again, if you got the chance to spend the night at a friend’s house on Saturday night (another rare occurrence) you had to be home early to go out to the grandparents house. Every Sunday morning for two to three hours minimum. Every. Sunday.

As an adult and mother myself, I look back and chuckle at some of these.

I do not know how I feel about the dating at 16. I’m not there yet (thank God) so I’m not sure how I feel.

Talking to boys on the phone? I’m open to that. What’s the harm, right?

Five minute phone limits? I have two words – call waiting.

The cleaning every Saturday morning? Not a fan. (A) I hate cleaning. (B) I’m not so anal that it has to be done every Saturday. We do usually have a cleaning day every couple of weeks where everything gets cleaned thoroughly and I’m happy with that. So long as my house is presentable at other times, I don’t care.

Personally, I’d like to keep Sunday as family day, but it’s not feasible for our family for several reasons, but that is one thing I miss about being back home!

What crazy ass rules did you have growing up? If you’re a parent now, have you kept those same rules or abandoned them?