Word just came in that Montana was recently voted the fourth-strictest state in the nation. That’s according to the highly unscientific poll available at CMT’s World’s Strictest Parents Online Parenting Survival Guide.

The poll placed Montana squarely among the nearly half of U.S. states in which parents are “ridiculously rigid.” Our neighbors in Idaho and South Dakota, on the other hand, are among the “biggest push-over” states, while neighboring states Wyoming and North Dakota were deemed “average joe’s.”

They based this ranking, apparently, on such indicators as whether Montana parents view family dinners as an expression of love, and how we would deal with a child’s surprise body-piercing.

Too bad they didn’t take in account the age at which many parents in Montana let children drive four-wheelers and shoot guns. That might have changed the results a little, don’t you think?

What say you, Montanans? Are we really that strict?

- MM