Is anyone more "straight laced" than their parents are/ were ?

[mom2scouts]

Yes, I'm definitely more "straight laced" than my parents, especially my mom. Seeing the effect of excessive alcohol convinced me to make very different choices.

[Frances]

It's just so foreign to me, Dawn. I was watching R rated, sex scene, horror movies in early elementary school. My kids are definitely not doing that.

I would venture to say that most parents who are not religious also do not allow this, at least not well educated parents. When I used to hang out with the local Christian homeschool group, I found that in general, I was much more conservative in terms of what type of media my son was exposed to and views regarding relationships. I found much more commonality with other faculty member parents at my husband's college, regardless of religion.

[mamaraby]

Did you read my last post? I am sorry to be offensive. I didn't mean it that way but it was poor word choices. One of the people closest to me who inspired this question has made some of the worst debauchery is politically conservative. So I guess I should have drank more coffee before I posted.

I think straight laced is a pretty good descriptor for what you're looking for, particularly since there's already the straightedge community who self-identifies accordingly. Plus, you avoid unintentionally painting a part of the membership in a negative light. :)

[Guest]

In many ways yes, my husband and I run our home and lives more straight than my parents - just because of the prevailing cultural ideals of SoCal in the 80's and 90's. We are less so than his parents were for the same reason - they were conservative Christians in the crunchy, Christian, small homeschooling community of Alaska circa early 80's, and were influenced accordingly.

[Artichoke]

nm

Edited March 7, 2017 by Artichoke

[gardenmom5]

My mother . . .

Was at the forefront of everything, latest fad. I'm not going into everything she did.

Her motto was, if it feels good, do it.

She'd lament, how everything she liked was illegal, fattening, or immoral.

Not exaggerating.

I'm the opposite. . . . Except for chocolate. . .

My kids take after me.

 

Eta, I felt like the adult when I was 15. She damaged her children. Even my uber challenging as a teen sister did a better job with her kids

Edited January 1, 2017 by gardenmom5

[Cecropia]

I am more conservative in religion than the rest of my immediate family, with the possible exception of my dad.  Faith has always been a big part of his life but he mostly keeps it to himself and doesn't rock any boats.  Politically I am more conservative with some issues and more liberal with others. (ETA: this is how I am now, but when I was young and rebellious I was definitely not straight-laced compared to them.)

 

Dh is more conservative than his family in all respects, I think.  They just don't communicate much beyond small-talk, so it is hard to know for sure.

Edited January 1, 2017 by Cecropia

[Melissa in Australia]

Dh is more straight laced than his parents were. I am about the same as my parents were. My parents are not as straight laced anymore.

[gardenmom5]

I think what I mean to say is not necessarily liberal in the sense of politics. I mean more parents who have drug, criminal, behavior in general issues. Not like hippie parents and you're Alex P.Keaton. But I guess that to would interest me.

 

Also I think people with parents who brought then up exposed to drug, neglect, poor adult choices etc are out there. But for some reason they end up the kind of person you don't find on a homeschool message board. Or in church usually.

Yes, we do.

 

I was five when I was with my mother when she was arrested for shoplifting. I later learned it was repeated behavior. My brother had a grow operation in our basement, and regular customers dropping by at all hours.

 

And it just keeps going, both what she did, and what she allowed. And partially expected we would do those things too.

[J-rap]

No, I'm not.  Probably about the same in fact.  My parents were kind of like Rob and Laura from the Dick Van Dyke show, same generation too.  They were great parents, stable, pretty middle of the road in everything.  

 

My dh and I are too.  I will say we take our faith to a deeper level than they did?  For them it was carried out more in traditions, though they still had a faith.  We do lean further left politically though.  We are Democrats and they are Republicans.  :)

 

 

 

[gardenmom5]

OTOH, some of the most devout Christians I have ever known had those types of beginnings.

 

We've seen the other side, and how utterly destructive it was. No theory, but in the trenches reality.

[rebcoola]

More in some ways and less than others.  My parents were strict about social norms but believed you couldn't stop a teen from doing things.   So I had no curfew and the only rule was don't be dumb enough to get arrested or pregnant.  

 

I couldn't careless how my children dress, wear their etc. but we will have rules about going out etc.

[Frances]

I'd say we are probably fairly similar in general, although we are not religious. My in-laws were both raised in very very conservative, Christian homes, but gradually became less and less religious, so my husband only has dim memories of the Assembly of God days and primarily grew up in the Methodist church. We are very close to them and his sister's family in terms of politics, child rearing, and values.

 

My parents and siblings are all practicing Catholics and we are not. My brother is by far the most conservative, both in terms of politics and religion. But he is also by far the least straight laced on either side of the family. My sister and I are fairly close to my parents on politics, child rearing, and values, but fairly different from my brother.

[DawnM]

It's just so foreign to me, Dawn. I was watching R rated, sex scene, horror movies in early elementary school. My kids are definitely not doing that.

 

 

Oh gosh, my kids aren't doing that either!

 

But we do listen to secular music, I allow dancing, and we play cards, go to movies, etc.....

[Murphy101]

I think what I mean to say is not necessarily liberal in the sense of politics. I mean more parents who have drug, criminal, behavior in general issues. Not like hippie parents and you're Alex P.Keaton. But I guess that to would interest me.

 

Also I think people with parents who brought then up exposed to drug, neglect, poor adult choices etc are out there. But for some reason they end up the kind of person you don't find on a homeschool message board. Or in church usually.

Yes we do.

 

Me for example.

 

Eta: to answer the OP question. I am several degrees more straight laced than my parents. And entire foo for that matter.

 

Eta2:

I am not sure what straight laced means in this thread. If it means more religions or more "conservative" or more protective of my kids or not okay with recreational drugs or drunkenness and such similar things then yes I'm more straight laced.

Edited January 1, 2017 by Murphy101

[LucyStoner]

It's a mix.

 

I am less religious than I was raised to be or either of my parents.

 

I am slightly more politically conservative than them even though I am quite far to the left of center.

 

I am considerably more feminist in my world view than they were.

 

I am far more financially prudent/financially motivated than they were- I have worked hard to keep my kids out of the poverty that I was raised with.

 

I am more involved as a parent than either of them was. My mom's hands off approach was more a function of her traumatic background/depression/cocooning than it was a philosophical choice though. I am better able to parent the way that I do because my mom stopped the cycle of child abuse and family violence in our family.

 

Neither of my parents ever used drugs while I was growing up. My dad is an alcoholic though and I stayed totally str8 edge until my early 20s and now drink infrequently. I have never smoked or even sampled any illicit drugs.

 

I am less likely to make big life changes than my dad. We have lived less than 10 miles away from where our older son was born 13 years ago. In that time, I have had several employers but only two professional occupations, the second building off of the first and I am now self employed very part time. My husband has worked for just two different employers in the last 16 years. Since my older son was 3, we have lived at just two different addresses. When I was a child my dad had new jobs and career goals each year, and we moved nearly 2 dozen times between 5 states by the time I was 13 and all of the different addresses blur together.

 

So make of all that what you will.

Edited January 2, 2017 by LucyStoner

[scrapbookbuzz]

It's just so foreign to me, Dawn. I was watching R rated, sex scene, horror movies in early elementary school. My kids are definitely not doing that.

And thank you for setting boundaries for them! Seriously. They will thank you for that later, I promise! B-)

And if they don't, half the rest of the world will! 

[Pam in CT]

Yeah, I don't associate boundaries on such matters as horror / sexual movies or violent video games or curfews with any particular religious or political party affiliation.  Families of all sorts do set such boundaries, and families of all sorts don't.  That is a parenting dimension, not political or religious.

 

...and not IME particularly correlated with permitting such common middle-of-the-road things as Disney or pop music or Halloween or wine with dinner either.  Those cross religious and party lines.

 

I grew up with moderate parenting boundaries -- more when I was younger, scaling back in steps as I neared adulthood -- and that's pretty much how my husband and I have tried to do it too.  Some details differ but the broad principles have been pretty consistent.

[QueenCat]

I think what I mean to say is not necessarily liberal in the sense of politics. I mean more parents who have drug, criminal, behavior in general issues. Not like hippie parents and you're Alex P.Keaton. But I guess that to would interest me.

 

Also I think people with parents who brought then up exposed to drug, neglect, poor adult choices etc are out there. But for some reason they end up the kind of person you don't find on a homeschool message board. Or in church usually.

 

I think I get what you mean now. I guess I never looked at drugs, crime and such as liberal or conservative as I think of those things being more politically or religiously related. And for me, the people I know who've been involved in drugs or criminal behavior have run the gamut in their political leanings but all of the ones I know in OUR family, not a generalization, that have ended up in jail are really conservative politically. But not particularly religious. My parents and dh's parents are much like us in that we all drink socially but none of us are excessive drinkers. I don't think any of them do drugs and none of us have been to jail. However, both sets of our parents are very politically conservative while we are to moderate but to the left of center (just not far left).

[Jenny in Florida]

In terms of me, myself as a person, I wouldn't call myself more "straight laced" than my parents. However, my husband and I were definitely more conservative about parenting than my parents were and more hands-on/intentional than his were. 

 

Those decisions were not based on religion or political beliefs, but on lessons were felt we learned from being parented the way we were. 

 

Like you, I had very loose (one might say non-existent) boundaries with regard to what I watched/listened to/read. My parents had no qualms about taking me along to see whatever movies they wanted to see (and my mother, in particular, loved horror/suspence flicks). I don't remember ever being told "no." Consequently, I grew up with a whole head full of images and ideas that I wish I could erase. I was determined that we would be more careful with our kids, and I have no regrets about that decision.

[LucyStoner]

Regarding media consumption, my parents vacillated between way too many restrictions and no restrictions. Nothing we were interested in though was gory or too adult. My husband's father watched a lot of inappropriate movies (graphic violence and sex) with my husband and his brother around. I think we have a happy medium.

Edited January 1, 2017 by LucyStoner

[LMD]

I haven't read all the replies but...

 

Yes. Way more. And I was disowned for it. No more bongs at Christmas, no more driving home after a night of drinking, no more pot growing in the laundry cupboard. My children likely won't be having sex at 14.

I also became a Christian and they've never forgiven me.

 

I'm not as conservative as many christians I know, but it's a world away from my childhood.

[Rachel]

Yes, much more than my mom. However, my parents divorced when I was 7 and I was not really in contact with her after that. Part of that was because of struggles she was dealing with.

 

 

(Edited to replace political type words)

 

I'm just wondering. Because I've seen many people post over time about living/ believing differently, namely less strict than their parents.

 

I almost never meet anyone who is similar to me in that I ended up more "straight laced"/ stricter than my previous generations.

 

Granted I am a former drug addict who did lots of "premarital" stuff. But that's kind of how I was raised.

 

I'm a Christian now, which I take seriously. And by the way my family members think I'm weird because of it (reading the bible is extreme etc)

[MotherGoose]

My parents are very straight laced and it would be very difficult to find people who are more conservative morally unless you went Amish. They live with modern conveniences. So we are a bit more laid back than them (i.e. Not teetotalers....and ive never heard either of them say a curse word or miss church unless there was a serious reason...and they aren't hypocrites either. I'm very thankful for my upbringing). That said, dh parents were as far from them as possible, as well as fifteen years younger when he was born. They are now divorced. So we strike a medium between the two, leaning more towards mine.

[Janeway]

I parent my children and they didn't. I am a far better parent and they shouldn't have had kids at all. Those was no drugs, alcohol, or gambling, but there were other issues. Straight laced isn't really a word that would describe the differences though. Love and hate, involved vs neglect, etc.

[Janeway]

My inlaws though, yeah, we are more straight laced. There is drinking and drugs, sleeping around, affairs, and multiple marriages and divorces. And then they preech about religion a lot. They are just icky people.

[Crimson Wife]

I'm way more straight-laced than my parents. They are Baby Boomers who came of age in the late 60's and early 70's. By the standards of that era, they weren't especially wild but compared to DH and me, they were. I don't know the details (nor do I want to :ack2: ) but I do know they both had had multiple dating relationships prior to getting together and I wouldn't be at all surprised if they'd also had additional casual hookups.

 

I came of age pretty much at the height of the AIDS epidemic where it was drummed into my head that even having sex once could potentially be a death sentence if it was with the wrong individual. DH and I didn't wait all the way until our wedding night, but we had decided that we were going to marry after my college graduation. I've only ever been with him and AFAIK he's only ever been with me.

 

When we got formally engaged my junior year of college, my parents and I got into a fight about how I was "too young" and how I "needed to sow my wild oats" :ack2: :thumbdown:  They were convinced that marrying the guy I lost my virginity to would cause some sort of mid-life crisis later on where I'd suddenly regret not having been promiscuous as a young woman and go on some crazy "catch up" slutting around bender. :001_rolleyes:

 

If I ever do that, somebody would need to drag me in for a MRI brain scan because the totally uncharacteristic behavior probably means I've got a tumor in my frontal lobe.

[AngelaNYC]

I am definitely more conservative than my parents were.  My parents were hippies.  Mom was a Beatle-chasing, pot smoking, still-mad-she-couldn't-go-to-Woodstock-since-she-was-8-months-preg-with-me, party at our house every weekend, very laid back with us type of mom.  I was never home and always had the latest curfew of all my friends since I was 6.  Nothing was ever researched - just done because everyone else did it like that.  I figured everything out myself.

 

I raised my kids subconsciously (maybe consciously) doing almost everything my parents didn't.  

[Runningmom80]

Yes, that's me. I'm not more conservative per se, just a lot less selfish and a lot more educated.