My mother was always very strict, however never extreme! She had grown up while I was in a depression, struggling for every dollar.
She was entirely big on being self sufficient as much as possible! Before I could drive a car, I had to learn about the car, plus actually know how to repair several of the little complications that would come up. Even though she had never been homeless (to my knowledge) she was also insistent on showing me various outdoor survival skills, in case I had to survive outside for a long period of time. Her point was that I relied a great deal on Heating plus A/C devices plus other oil heating systems for surviving in the extreme cold seasons, plus I needed to actually know other ways. As it turns out, I had to be a fast learner, because before I was ready there was a major malfunction with my central gas furnace. It was just under 20 degrees outside, plus it would be sub-zero by daybreak. So the two of us needed a fire in the fireplace. With the fireplace blazing the two of us could easily sleep in that room, close to it, plus the two of us wouldn’t even care about the lack of central heating. The pressure was honestly on me to get it going, plus even though my hands were trembling, within 15 minutes I had the fireplace ablaze. It felt nice to be able to do that for my family, plus to do it by myself. My mother was honestly right about depending on oil heating devices too much. Later that evening, when the fire was winding down, my mother got up plus replaced the batteries in the thermostat. The heating device never had been broken after all!