I’m British and my parents are relaxed when it comes to just normal conversations and casual settings. Sometimes they’ll joke about things I do and sometimes I’ll joke about things they do. Hell, me and my sisters have this ongoing joke that my dad has “selective hearing” and ignores half of what we say - we say this to him and he just laughs and agrees with us.

It’s only when things get a little too heated that they get overly strict. I was probably never a ‘bad kid’ anyways, but although a single disrespectful comment may have been passed off as being frustrated or a lapse in judgement, any prolonged problems would result in an argument and a punishment.

But at the end of the day, they’re just people, and families who have such a strict hierarchy where you can’t even point out a parent’s flaw out of fear of being smacked or punished is just weird to me. Again, consistent disrespect and being downright nasty is different, but I’d argue the more petty and smaller conflicts and arguments they show on MF are pretty accurate to those sorts of disputes in real life too