Why are parents so controlling nowdays? (long)

[2FastLX]

I am now 30 years old and this topic has me reflecting back on my youth. When I was 15 if I told my father I was going to stay out late, party, and miss school I'd have seen the back of his hand before I finished the sentence. Don't get me wrong, my parents never "abused" me in any way, and I myself don't see anything wrong with a good whippin' every now and then. I feel I turned out better than many of the kids I see today. I have strong morals, and most kids I see today don't even know the meaning of the word.

Times, yes they are a changing. Kids are becoming more independant before they should be. They know now their parents can't lay a hand on them because they can legally have their parents thrown in jail for doing so. My guess is if I ever have kids I'll finally get to see what the inside of a jail looks like the first time my kid tells me they're going to stay out all night drinking. But I have to agree with Mr 5 0, juvenile detention would probably solve this problem.

Look at it this way Demon... If you were 15 and went out and got yourself all sh!tfaced, then decided to go to a local school and vandalize the hell out of it who do you think has to pay for your mess? I use this story because this happeneed to some kids in our school. The parents of three kids ended up paying over $100,000 in damages.

Until you turn 18, you and your actions are your parents responsibility. Parents go to work every day, bust their @sses to try to give a child a good home, and for what?? Only to be treated like they shouldn't be able to tell their children how to live their lives??! That's their responsibility to do so as parents, and their right until you turn 18.

If your parents tell you that they don't want you staying out late you should show them the respect they deserve. Even if you are 19, 20, or even 30. If you're living in there house you should live by their rules.

[7000rpmisheaven]

I was thinking. Everyone has alot of good advice. Demon are you still around, are we talking amongst ourselves. I hope we didn't scare him away.

[Crazy Horse GT]

Look, let me tell you a little story that's true, I'm not going to flame you, but maybe give you something to think about.

When I was 16-21 years old I used to stay out all night just living it up. I didn't listen to my parents, I thought they were stupid. To make a long story short; while I was being Mr. B.A. I thought it was soooo cool.

Well, years later I apoligized to my parents for being a know-it-all idiot. After my mom died, my aunt told me about the nights my mom spent going out looking for me, wondering if I was dead or in jail. Think about that!!!
Do you know how bad I feel about that? I still feel bad about it & always will.

[MidNiteBlu 5.0]

I have something to say to you DEMONGT.

If you're 20 and don't go to school and act the way you say you do, why haven't your parents kicked you out yet? Seems like something I would have done when you turned 18.

I'm 17 and I don't feel any of this rebellious s**t you do. Sure, maybe I get mad when my parents tell me to come home from a party at like 12 but its probably better for me anyways.
Hell the last party I was at, I left at 11:45 and the cops came at 12 and busted a lot of people for drinking.

If you don't want anymore of your parent's restrictions than MOVE OUT! If you're 20 and work full time I would think you would have the money to do it. I know people who work part time and go to San Diego State and live by themselves!!

Later

[Mr 5 0]

MidNiteBlu:

He wants to pay off his car. Priorities.

[Fox Body]

I really don't mean to beat this down into the ground, but I too think there is a lot of good advice here.

DemonGT, I hope you don't think we're all in a grand conspiracy against you. Most of us here at MW are not too far from your age (whether a little older or younger) and we're just trying to lend out some good advice (from our personal experiences-- not just heresay or conjecture) to a fellow Mustanger -- that's one of the main reasons this msgboard is here.

It just really ******* annoys me though when the 'younger' crowd insists on having a bad, MTV-dictated, rebellious, know-it-all attitude.
Yeah, and they're getting younger and younger. Really pisses me off (not pissed at you though).

Like it's been mentioned b4, many are gonna just have to learn the hard way that they don't know everything and just maybe the parents actually DO know what the heck they are talking about (at least 95% of the time).

The thing that sucks even more though is that as these teens grow with their rebellious attitudes they soon become parents . Then their stupid influence has more bearing...it all snowballs from there.

Makes me think about the direction this world is going....

[DemonGT]

no no im still here and every one dose have good advise i was just pissed at the time and i understand every thing every one is saying...and i dont want you to think im maken paying off my car a priority over education..it will just be alot easyer to go to school with out a car payment and loan payment for my vehicals(stang/ranger) and i know at this time i WILL go to school cause i work full time at a dairy factory and i KNOW i dont want to be doing that the rest of my life(cringges thinken of the 50-100lbs bags at work wednesday)...so if anyone else has an opinion fell free to post it...but for now..MERRY CHRISTMAS

[MidNiteBlu 5.0]

Hey Im sorry about the thing about not going to school and everything. I see now that you have two cars to pay off first. Well now that you don't seem to be as pissed you seem like a pretty good guy. I guess I was just pissed before.

[MidNiteBlu 5.0]

Hey Im sorry about the thing about not going to school and everything. I see now that you have two cars to pay off first. Well now that you don't seem to be as pissed you seem like a pretty good guy. I guess I was just in a bad mood before.

Later

[MidNiteBlu 5.0]

oooooops I dont know why that happened.

[DemonGT]

midnight ..nice avatar...i used to be in the club but never renewed...

besides paying off my two vehicals..i want to get the heads and cam done to the stang also this winter..kinda hard to spend that kinda money when in school...nice excuse huh LOL

[MidNiteBlu 5.0]

Yea I hear ya. I would love to have those heads too. I just don't really agree with the idea about parents letting thier kids do whatever they want when they're like 15 or 16 but to each thier own. Metallica kicks a**. They were supposed to come out with a new album but then Jason quit I have every album but I've never been a member of thier club. I've been listening to system of a down and disturbed more lately.

Later

[DemonGT]

i have exactly 40 metallica cd's..that include singles odviously..ill rejoin the club some time..and they are working on a new album now there geting every thing done EXCEPT the bass stuff till they get there new bassest...jason stated in a interview if they all wanted him back for the album recording he would do it if they asked him

Well I do finally have a few things to say to you.

You say you have 2 car payments. Whats up with that?

Is that more important than how a parent should feel about their child and if he or she is going to make it home O.K? And the Metallica CD's; I love them too but is that more important than what this whole subject was about? ... PARENTS.

Come on, give us a break, we might be getting older but so are you. When you have children please make sure you post about how hard it is to take care of them and make sure they are safe, or at least as safe as you can keep them.

Sorry to be a bit crude, but man, you've turned this whole thing around. I'm a parent of 3 and also raised a bunch of nieces and nephews and its a hard job! So give the PARENTS a break until you become one, O.K.?.
I'm glad that you've stopped going out and getting drunk but look at the whole perspective of being a parent.

Sorry but I'm having a hard time understanding where you're coming from. First it's parents then it's about cars and CD's Help me understand and maybe a few others here might too. No disrepect meant on my part.

Just hard to understand where you're coming from - or where you are heading, which I hope is for the best.

[Crazy Horse GT]

no more flames, i have listened to metallica since they started,im 43 remember?haha do you have garage day's, i cant find it i had a recorded cassette of it ,but one of my ,uhm ,friend's borrowed it & i aint seen it since,go figure,everyone says that they suck since the black album,i dont agree they are just getting older, you can't keep up that pace forever,see ya.

[Mr 5 0]

gt lee/odie

Demon can speak for himself of course, but as I see it, you probably expect a bit too much from him. I suspect he posted his original statement expecting to receive high-fives from others about how 'controlling' parents are and isn't it awful?
No doubt, the negative responses he got back (which he handled well, BTW) probably cooled his desire to pursue the subject so the change of topic in mid-stream is predictable and understandable, although a tad disconcerting.

DemonGT is 20, has always lived at home, obviously has indulgent parents and if he's like I was at his age, makes girls, cars and music his priorities. He also has a short attention span.

He hasn't a clue as what parenting entails and what having the responsibility for another person really means. How could he? Look at his background: He lives home, carouses around with no real parental supervision and puts education on a back burner in favor of paying off and modiifing his cars. He's a typical young guy. I've seen (and supervised) worse. I've seen better, too, but Demon is pretty average. His world revolves around himself and what he wants at the moment. No real life goals.

This is what parents are supposed to do for their children. Give direction, set some reasonable expectations and see that they are met. When this doesn't happen, you get, well, the all-too-typical young man or women who does whatever seems like fun at the moment, doesn't really plan for a future and gets angry at the slightest hint of authority. It's simple self-absorption and very common, unfortunately. Hopefully, Demon will mature into a responsible young adult in a few more years, but who knows? With little guidance except his own desires and an attitude based on self absorption, it could go either way.

We all hope for the best for our members and friends but ultimately, they'll decide their own future and some will fail, others succeed and some will just get along and wonder, at 40, why they couldn't have done a lot better than they did in life. Some of those will blame parents, friends, teachers, the boss, society - anybody but themselves. A few will face the truth; they made stupid choices at a young age, rejected parental authority and advice and did as they pleased.
Those kinds of choices eventually have consequences, often bad ones. Sometimes things can be reversed before one gets too far along to change...but not always.

As I said; we can only hope for the best for everyone and who knows, maybe someone actually learned something by reading the replies on this thread. We can hope.

[srv1]

i think most people really didnt understand where DEMON was coming from. i ad to read it twice before i knew what he was talking about.
DEMON , i have been in your shoes, like the most of us here. my father is an old fashioned Italian, so i know what it means to "report" home. i moved out when i was 16. my father says, "MY WAY, OR THE HIGHWAY" , so i chose the "highway". he should of said my way or the HARD way. and boy was it hard! i got to admit it made a man out of me. im now 27 and i havent lived with my father since. i get along fine with my father now than when i was 16. i took the least traveled path, and now i know why it was the least traveled. to this day, my father still wants to know "whats up" and what i am doing. that is just the part of parenthood. i dont think now what he was asking for back then was too much. i see where he is coming from. at 20, your still young, yet a little older to do adult things. my father try to put a leash on me here and there. no big deal. my opinion to you is just suck it up and listen to you parents, regaurdless if they are 100% wrong and do what they tell you. or get out and get your own place with all of the bills to pay and then it is your roof over your head. but even if you do that, you still will get the "leash" a little. its just part of being a parent that wont ever stop. you will have it your whole life. as it would seem a burden to you know, later it will just seem more like caring and love from you parents. my father says, "when you have kids of your own, you will understand and say, dad your right". i dont have kids of my own, but i know he is right.
my father always reminds me of this saying: "YOUR ATTITUDE WILL DETERMINE YOU ALTITUDE IN LIFE". to this day he has never been so right.......
good luck on the decisions you make.

Thank you Mr. 5.0 and SRV1 for answering my question and for both of you to know that you are both probably younger than me and I truly respect what your output was to my question. You're both very intelligent men.

Again thanks, and hope you had a wonderful Christmas and will talk later,

[Unit 5302]

I think the most overlooked part of this attack on DemonGT is the fact that kids are self-indulgent because we can be. I see nothing wrong with being self indulgent when you don't have a family to feed, or a house payment, etc. You're not locked down as a young man at the age of 20 so you can feel free to enjoy that time.

Would any of you feel a little robbed of your youth had you skipped the years from 18-25 or 30? Those were great years too, weren't they? Would you give them up? I know I'm enjoying it now.

It seems as though some kind of bandwagon attack has ensued, which I feel is a little unnecessary. While almost all of us can agree to disagree with his feelings toward parents being over controlling in his case, and point out why, I really don't think a ongoing direct personal attack is warranted.

[Mr 5 0]

Unit 5302

I think you're confusing considered opinions with attacks.

DemonGT made a statement basically stating that parents should let teenagers do as they please and he added that he told his parents 'What's Up' when he was 15, and so they allowed him to live as he pleased since then and everyone gets along fine.
Correct me if I'm wrong here.

I don't speak for others but my general response to the post was that this was absurd and that as a 20-year-old, he has little conception of what adult life is like, as he's never lived by himself, much less had to parent and support a child. I also condemned the general attitude of teenagers who reject reasonable parental guidance, dis parents and 'put off' an education in favor of cars and/or whatever else seems more important but don't accept any real responsibility, except to complain. I pointed out that this 'screw you' MTV-gangsta attitude has negative consequences in the real, adult world where lots of people will tell you what to do, like it or not.

I know 20-year-olds who are getting an education, have some goals for the near-future, work part-time, have a decent car and do their share of parties and dating but they don't believe parents are too controlling or that a 15-year-old knows what's best for his/her life. They respect parents. They too would disagree with DemonGT.

What Demon GT did was arouse a lot of negative feedback with his rather skewed views of parental responsibility and teen 'independence'. I note that a lot of the negative remarks come from folks who have been there/done that and know that he's wrong, from their own experience.

I'm sure on another forum somewhere he might have received a ton of positive replies, telling him he was 100% right and what a cool guy he is for not letting any adult 'run' his life. That didn't happen here. Surprise!

It depends on perspective, as always.
Of course a 19 or 20 year-old living with his parents his whole life can't really comprehend the difficulties in just supporting yourself, getting the things you want, dealing with bosses, bills etc, then being married and fathering a child, totally dependent on you. That is what I stated in my last reply (to gt lee). It isn't a personal attack, it's just factual.

Many of us (myself included) lived with our parents, were party animals and/or spent most of our money on our cars. That isn't the problem, Unit. It's when that teen or early 20-something person states how parents should supervise their children and expresses irresponsible opinions that then generates negative feedback from people a bit older and more experienced who disagree.

I don't believe anyone wishes to 'attack' DemonGT.
He has a right to his opinions and I stated early on that he's free to do as he pleases (as we all are) and that his relationship with his parents is not my personal concern; I'm speaking generally here, as I clearly stated.

I share the concern for his immediate future that anyone who sees a friend or aquaintance going the wrong direction and attempts to suggest another track, as it were. We don't know each other personally but our members do want the best for each other and when we see a negative trend, we try to at least have enough sense to say it's wrong. DemonGT is free to ignore all of this, as he well might.

Unfortunately, Demon GT's attitude is quite common within the high-school/college-age crowd. It concerns a lot of us who know it's not a healthy trend to dis parents and reject 'authority' while carrying an 'attitude' into adult life.
People who are worried about it responded to his post. They didn't attack him, but questioned his general concept of teen-parental relations.

It's been a good discussion.
DemonGT is free to respond to any member or post, publically or with a PM. He'll be heard. Personal attacks won't be tolerated but opinions that are relevant, will be.