DemonGT:
Yeah, you guessed correctly; anyone who is a parent won't agree with you because your attitude is absurd - from an adults point of view.
What you and your parents choose to do is your business but if I had a 15-year-old child who decided to tell me "what's up" I can guarantee you that he would be told 'what's up' by me.
At fifteen, a child is a minor and the parents are legally responsible for them as well as their actions. 'Staying out late and drinking' and who knows what else is something that I would not tolerate. It's dangerous and destructive behavior for someone not quite old enough to drive yet.
If my child persisted in such behavior, I would call DCS and have them take the child out of my home - legally - and I would have such a child declared either incorrigible by the court and remanded to a juvenile facility or declared emancipated (declared a legal adult) and let the child fend for itself in the real world, as I would consider myself having utterly failed in my duties as a parent.
The idea of some 15-year-old telling his/her parents what they are going to do and not do while they live in the parent-provided home and eat their food and basically live off the parents would be amusing of it didn't happen all too often. That doesn't make it right.
I don't care about being my child's 'friend' - I'm his father. I love him as no other person ever will (a wife is a different kind of love) and I feel it's my duty to give him everything I can offer, including moral guidance. That would include respect for his parents and authority figures (teachers, bosses, etc). Too many parents are too eager or just to intimidated by their teenage kids to exercise parental responsibility. It's easier to just let the kid do what they please while the parent works overtime or simply throws up their hands and say "Whattayagonnado?"
Any teenage child that thinks they are sooo independent usually has a lot to learn about how life works. Having a minimum-wage job while living rent-free in your parents home, often with the parents supplying a car and insurance is not living as an adult. Contrary to what many teens believe, having experienced puberty does not magically make you an adult, either.
Living on your own, working full-time and paying all your own expenses, from rent to food to utilities, to car payments and insurance and all the other expenses incurred in a normal adult life makes you an adult, because then you'll have taken on - and met - adult responsibilities.
Now, this is not what a lot of teens want to hear, but it's the way I see it because it's real life.
Many parents meet their kids halfway and help them become independent over time as the teen demonstrates responsibility in more and more areas. Telling the adults responsible for you where you are and what you are doing should not be the big burden most teens make it out to be.
It's simple common sense, something that a responsible teen and responsible parents should want to agree on. Of course, it doesn't always work out this way, I know, but it can and does for many.
I'm aware that every family situation is different and I have no interest in telling anyone else how to act or how another parent should raise their kids. I simply offer my opinion that teen independence should come with responsibility, just like in the real world, where Mommy and Daddy won't be around to pay the bills or otherwise fix anything you mess up because you made stupid mistakes or showed poor judgement, as often happens.
'Letting go' of parental responsibility is something that should not happen until the child is at least 18, and often later than that.
That doesn't mean the teen has to be monitored 24 hours a day, but this notion that a 16-year-old should just do as they please, whenever they please while living in the parental home is just a fantasy, in my opinion. Bad idea and irresponsible on the part of parents who allow it.
A balance can be reached but that takes mutual trust and communication between parents and child, something I realize is often missing - but that's another story.
That's 'What's Up'.
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