The Queen of No

This probably won't surprise any of my biological children or those I have been to girls camp with but last week when I was visiting Matt and Erin in St. Louis he told me that as a mom I was the "Queen of No."

The Queen of No in the making. Chris is 2 weeks old and Matt is 18 months old

There are as many different parenting styles as there are parents and as Matt so bluntly put it saying no was  my parenting style.  Part of this was due to budget restraints and part due to my basic child rearing instincts. I didn't start out by crowning myself Queen. But was saying no such a bad thing?  I think not.  Here are my top ten parenting nos in no particular order.

Queen of No's Top Ten Parenting Nos.

1. No hitting, biting, name calling or hair pulling. Chris tried to get around this one by just holding Annie's hair until she turned her head.  He claimed she pulled her own hair. Unfortunately this means I raised three boys who can't hold their own in a bar fight, it's a good thing they don't go to bars.
2. No bad mouthing anyone: mom, dad, or each other. "If you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all."  Thumper's mom was right.
3. No whining. Or "you can be happy out here with the family, or you can cry, whine, or throw a temper tantrum in your room." Or "everybody look at Thomas and smile." 
4. No coddling at dinner time. If you don't like it, there's always peanut butter. To this day, none of my kids like peanut butter.
5. No junk food or fast food. We didn't have chips, candy and soda (believe it or not, John and I didn't start drinking a lot of Coke until the kids were older) around the house. Thomas didn't go to McDonalds until he was invited to a birthday party when he was 5.)
6. No potty humor. Why do boys age 3 - 99 think this is funny? Chris just put a fart app on John's iphone.
7. No TV. Twice while the kids were growing up our TV broke and we didn't fix it for a while. When Chris and Matt were in junior high, they were the only kids in school who didn't know who Homer Simpson was.
8. No maid service. The kids had jobs to do around the house. Dishes, bathrooms, dusting, vacuuming. They didn't get paid to do these jobs, it was just part of being in the family. Our home wasn't spotless, but no one ever called to board of health. I tried, but did not spend a lot of effort making them keep their rooms clean. I figured my room was not always clean, why should theirs be?
9. No slacking in school. The kids were expected to do their best in school. A's were nice but weren't required if they tried hard, but we knew and they knew they could do better than C's and D's. 
10. No rescuing. The children had to learn their choices had consequences. As John put it,we live by "The Law of Unintended Consequences." 

I might be biased, but so far I think my children have turned out pretty well, nos and all.  So you may call me QueeneJeanne.