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Absolutely not! as I used to tell my kids when they did not agree with one of my or my husband's decision"When you live under your own roof and pay your own bills, THEN you can decide what you want to do with your life." Do I sound like a Martinet,? you bet! I probably was! but I was raised with tough love, and I saw the results for myself, I am today a better self assured person, unnafraid to face the world - knowing that every consequences good or bad- in my life is the direct results of my decisions and no one elses!

And I wanted my children to grow up the same way -to be self assured, confident in their abilites to make their own decisions; and this they could only do, if they saw for themselves the results that having being raised the way they were, with tough love, brought them as adults. It may seem a paradox, but it's really not, how would they learn to be parent unless they saw the examples at home? I was raised in a European home, in a Meditteranean culture where children were often seen but not heard..In fact I can still remember the first grown up who adressed me when I was about eight and talked to me as an adult! He was a nice Arab truck driver, who worked next door to my parent's Cafe' in Algiers, and he so impressed me I still remember his name! it was Ali.

I must also say, that I was a homemaker in the old fashioned sense, (I would never have made it into the "women's liber!) I did nothing else .. My whole time was entirely devoted to the raising and caring of my six children; and in turn I taught every one of them,my five girls ( including our own and only son,) to cook, to dress well, to keep a gracious and clean home; all the attributes that would make for a well adjusted happy person once they got married.

And in order to stay home and care for them all, without having to get a job on the side, I used to buy run down homes "Lemons" they were called, that mostly needed nothing but loving care and decoration! I would live in the homes with my family while I redid them, and when I resold them down the road three or four years later... I made a pile of money, that I would never have saved had I gone to work outside... and let a stranger watch over and care for my kids.

Today I have to say they are all, as I had hoped they would be ,self assured adults..affectionate and generous to me, and in no way resentful of the way they were raised...except for the time once, when telling my son Jay ,( now Dr Jay) that I was always so proud of he and his sisters whenever we were out, traveling or visiting people's home, and he replied: "Sure ma, otherwise you'd have killed us when we got home!" he did have a point ha ha..I realize this may not work for everyone, but it certainly worked for me and my family.

Learn more about this author, Pierrette Komarek.
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