Well wtf? My parents raised me, divorced when I was 7, or in that range, and I would down 2 soda's a day (remember Surge? supposedly had twice the caffeine of Mountain Dew

). Of course this was a time in which I was outside most of the time playing so I didn't have time to screw around with the house. At one time my mom said we had $10 to live off one week, it wasn't hard to understand. Punishment was nearly non existant when I was at my dad's or my mom's, same when they were together. I think I was grounded once, for about 10 minutes. I'm 16, my sister is 18, neither of us have ever been in any trouble.
I'm never against a good paddling though, my cousin has had the experience of a 12 inch pine paddle striking his hind quarters a few times.