Kitchen

[Beebee2]

I hear the word 'rules' and get quite uptight. My mom was wise and didn't use that word. But there was definitely the way we did things; beds were made as soon as possible. We ate in the kitchen or the dining room; I never wanted to eat anywhere else in the house. We could have eaten off our kitchen floor because she kept it so clean; likewise everything else until her health prevented it.

Mom was big on nutrition and so we had carbs, fat and protein with every meal, usually a 'root' vegetable as well as a green one with meat and carbs. We only had a really sweet dessert, ice cream, cake, etc., on the weekends, but we did have fruit and pudding during the week.

But now that I've been in my own world for so long, I find that I do have a 'best way' to do everything, but the 'best way' is for me and for our home, not for everyone else. It isn't that there aren't other things I could do better, but that there are some things I want done in a particular way. My 'best way' isn't unbreakable, however, and I don't have emotional attachments to it. If something happens and the bed doesn't get made, no harm done - but it seldom happens.

Thank you, mom, for making it easy for me.

[Sooner]

The only "rule" we had was

1. Someone makes a cake every weekend.

None of the ones OP mentioned applied to us. We did have basically no fried food and lots of veggies and few carbs, but that was just the way we ate at least one meal a day, and that was lunch (dinner was what we called it). For supper, it might be sandwiches, cereal, or soup.

[brewhaha]

She wouldn't let us smoke pot inside the house.

[ChicagoHeather]

On 4/21/2014 brewhaha said:

She wouldn't let us smoke pot inside the house.

Ha! Sounds reasonable.

[TheDebster]

On 4/21/2014 brewhaha said:

She wouldn't let us smoke pot inside the house.

My mom had this rule too!

[jubilant]

Mom didn't have a ton of rules but I do remember there was always a fruit and vegetable and a protein on the table and also the "elbow off the table" thing. Oh, and you never took the last piece of anything!

[lovesrecess]

I think my mom was forced to be ahead of her time because she had to work full-time and was too tired to enforce a bunch of rules.

She was very flexible regarding the house but it was always clean; we all had our part to do; I am the only girl so I started dinner after I was about 10 yrs old....sometimes it was just picking some tomatoes or starting water to boil, and she finished when she got home. She did buy soft drinks once a week....that was all so if we drank them all as soon as she brought them home...that was fine....but then we had to do without the rest of the week. We eventually figured it out.

We always had some type of bread with dinner; we called it supper during the week; dinner on weekends.

[Sooner]

It's funny because I think RULES? No, we just pitched in and got things done--my mom worked so it was what it was. I did a lot of the cooking from 7th grade on, washed clothes, etc. Just because. Mom never left the house without the bed made. My bed? Well, we need to define "made" to talk about that! LOL! We just cleaned as we went and the house stayed pretty nice! I just grew up as part of the household and we all had things we did, but nobody ever particularly talked about it or set up rules. You saw something that needed doing? We just did it!

[FastDogWalker2]

We also had to scrub the bathroom sink with comet each am.

[Annabellethecat66]

No. I guess I'm lucky. I pretty much raised myself (for real). When my husband and I got married, we made up our own rules (family and otherwise).

Our children were lucky. They got to do everything we had dreamed about.

The only rule that was one we both followed was when one asked where the children were and were they OK, the other would always know. Other than that, no rules on manners (just com mon sense), etc.