THE WORLD'S MEANEST PARENTS.....

My family..at least most of them...it gets harder and harder to get everyone together at the same time!

My Mom at age seventeen

My Dad, at about 26 years of age

Mom and Dad

Me, at one year old

Me, sitting on the couch by my Mom

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I need to just get this off my chest....vent a little!
I had the worlds meanest parents. Oh, they did a good job of covering for themselves, with all of their smiles and hugs and "I love you's" and stuff. But they couldn't fool me. No sir, they were mean alright, clear through to the heart!

You wouldn't believe some of the stuff they made us do. Like work, for example.

You would have thought we were indentured servants or something, the way they made us work around the house. And not just normal things like just making our own beds and keeping our rooms tidy. We had to help clean the rest of the house, too. And we had to do the dishes almost every night. My poor brother was the only boy in sixth grade with dishpan hands!

Then there was all of the outside work...they garden to weed, the lawn to mow. Cows to milk...everyday! I had to even drive the tractor while my Dad and brothers threw hay up onto the trailer. While they unloaded it, I had to go to the house and fix lunch for six people. Then toward evening, because Mom had to work, I was the one who had to fix dinner for all they family.

I had to do the laundry and ironing too and I had to learn to make 8 loaves of homemade bread each week, and clean the house. I don't know how many times I planned my escape while I was cleaning house.
Mentally, I ran away from home about 50 times each summer.

When miniskirts were the in thing in the 60's, I had to wear my dresses all the way down to my knees! I was never allowed to call boys and when I was finally allowed to date at age 16, the boys had to come to my door to pick me up and meet mom and dad...I wasn't allowed to just run out when a boy honked his horn...I was a lady!

And that isn't the half of it, these people were into total control. We had to ask permission to do anything...to go get a soda with friends, if we could stay up late and watch Johnny Carson, if we could have a sleepover. None of us could date until we were 16, we had curfews as long as we lived at home and we weren't allowed to buy a car with our own money until we had saved up for college, none of that 60's peace and love stuff for us.

We tried to convince our parents that all the other kids in the neighborhood had a lot more freedom than we did, but do you think they cared? I wondered if they had even heard of the U.S. Constitution or the Bill of Rights.

On top of it all, they seemed to function under the impression that a parent is, first and foremost, a teacher. They thought it was their job to teach us the things they considered important, like... how to get along with others, how to cooperate, how to obey rules, how to uphold out values, how to respect the rights of others, how to find validation and satisfaction through service. And they thought that the best way we could learn those lessons was to live them...every day of our lives. No matter what.

And what do they have to show for it? Not much...just 7 devoted children who loved them and grew to adulthood reasonably happy and well-adjusted. Don't get me wrong...we have each had our share of problems, some more than others. But for whatever it's worth, we all make our living honestly. We all pay our taxes. We are all active in our church and civic affairs.

And we are all trying to do our part for the future by being just as "mean" to our children as our parents were to us!

(P.S.) I don't know how I could have ever got through raising my 8 children without my mean parents, who taught me all the lessons I would need to know, to get me through my years of being the "Mean Parent." Thank You Mom and Dad for being Mean parents...I wouldn't trade you for anything!
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