My mother always made my bed. I don't make my bed.

Hmm.

I refuse too allow myself to become overweight or sit on the couch.

I won't lay a finger on my wife or my daughter/child when I am angry(my father did-too my horror finding my mother on the floor in the kitchen comes to mind.

I'm spending quality time with my child/children. :)

I don't patch bike tubes.

And we have cats and a dog.

I never hit my kid, I try to never play guilt trips, and I tell her I love her all the time. I also hug her lots, which as a teen she is can be a bit resistant to, but I don't care. :D

I don't buy a garage's worth of paper towels because they're on sale, nor do I buy the cheapest version of the thing I like because "it's the same thing."

I don't go camping, and I wish I did.

- I don't drink and drive - largely because I've seen what it's like from the passenger's seat.

- I rarely drink at all when I'm out and around as I don't want it to become the social crutch that it was for my dad. We're both very shy and introverted but I'm trying to work my way out of the shell without having to lubricate it.

- I don't get involved with many things that don't also involve my wife. My parents frequently seemed to go weeks without seeing each other much (and their kids less.)

- I won't have kids. My mother once told me that if she had it to do all over again she wouldn't either. Uplifting message for your son.

- I don't treat my house as just a place to crash between work and other commitments. I love my home and I want it to show in how it's maintaned.

- I don't smoke. My mom actually helped out here as she offered me one of her brother's cigarettes some years before she took up the habit. There was a Calvin and Hobbes strip that illustrated the same approach :)

- I refuse to make my life one series of commitments after another. My wife and our cats are more important than any of those other things that I might be doing so they get the bulk of my time.

My parents did/do, but I do not:

• believe in imaginary friends (like God, for instance)
• deliberately hang out with other people once a week for the express purpose of believing in imaginary friends (like church, for example)
• get skeeved at the thought of two people of the same gender loving each other
• enjoy camping
• vote Republican or Democrat
• consistently arrive an hour or more late to pretty much everything
• become psychotic if guests are coming over and the house is not immaculately clean (that's a mom thing)
• yell at people (unless it is a life or death situation)
• try to convince my grandmother that OJ really did kill his wife (another mom thing)
• spank my children's bare ass with a 2x4 (well, if I had kids...)
• throw things away (I am a total packrat--not proud of this fact though)
• make my bed (there is no point in this daily ritual)
• enjoy driving long distances
• become stymied when sitting in front of a computer
• have a VCR that flashes 12:00 all the time
• like to drive a stick shift
• work out (my dad burned me on this by making it torturous)
• especially enjoy playing sports
• enjoy watching sports on TV (with a couple exceptions, most notably the Olympics)
• enjoy Westerns and/or Old West culture