World’s Strictest Parents Have To Be Latino

World’s Strictest Parents, a television show in its second season in Australia, is sure to catch on in Latin America where the real, strict parents are. The show is holding a casting call for the 7 worst teenagers in Australia to live with these so-called World’s Strictest Parents, but we’d put our parents, our grandparents, or even our great-grandparents up against these pansy-assed Australians. Our grandfather, (and no, that’s not him, we found these two by googling “strict latino parents”) is fond of telling the tale of courting our grandmother. He was allowed to see her for one hour, ONE HOUR, on Sundays, and that was it. In the presence of our great-grandfather, of course. This strictness was handed down to our parents who often waited in the driveway to see if we were a minute late for our curfew. If we didn’t show, a round of phone calls went out all over town, to our embarrassment. Or, worse, our mom would come out to the car when our friends were dropping us off. The mention of dating was prohibited until we were in high school and we weren’t allowed to visit friends who lived in apartment complexes because our mom wasn’t comfortable with the proximity of the neighbors. (Ha.) If a boy called the house he got the third, the fourth and the fifth degree from mom, dad and our older brother. We weren’t allowed to wear make-up, not nail polish or lip gloss, until we were in high school. Mind you, everyone was wearing it in junior high. Then there were the times our dad made us stay in the corner on our knees if we misbehaved, no sitting on our heels allowed, either. This went on all the way through high school. Also, it was their house, not us kids’. We were not allowed to choose the color of paint or the furniture in our bedrooms. We were not consulted on big, family decisions. Conversations went on about us as if we were not in the room. In this old-school way of looking at kids, children are kind of like furniture themselves. (Furniture that is expected to bring home A’s.) In our experience Latino culture can be quite strict. The Catholic influence and emphasis on family values likely has something to do with it. What were your parents like?