i'm sick of hearing teenagers bitch and moan about their parents being "strict" or having rules

[Ava]

as a fellow teenager who thank god will be leaving the "teen" category soon it pisses me off.

there are plenty of teens(dare i say most of the one i know are like this) who are nothing more than spoiled brats who might need a good dose of reality. a teen/young adult(whatever you prefer) who thinks that mom and dad are horrible for having rules and enforcing those rules is a spoiled brat. if they want independence then they can get a job, pay their own bills, buy their own food, pay for their own clothes, and be independent. otherwise they should be grateful for being able to live dependently on their parents as long as they follow their rules.

so, teens/young adults who bitch about their parent's rules.. get a job and move out, or deal with their rules and be grateful that you have a roof over your head, food to eat, clothes to wear, and if you're reading this you also have the joy of the internet bestowed upon you.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

1. i disagree. i had plenty of friends who had irrationaly strict parents

and had every reason to be upset by that fact.

its not always bratty to want some control over your own life.

i am sure some teens are bratty just as i am sure some parents are overbearing and controlling

[Ava]

4. i don't know a single teenager whose parents are overly strict or have absurd rules

yet almost every teenager i know bitches and moans about their parents whenever given the chance. it is absurd, annoying, and bratty.


what do you consider overbearing and controlling when it come to parenting? i'm just curious because i honestly don't know any teens who have parents that are overbearing and controlling. :shrug:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

8. parents who dont allow their children to date when the rest of their peer age are dating

parents who have a deadline hours before peer group

parents who except their children to wear clothes that their age group does not wear

parents who expect their gay children to be straight

paretns who expect their gender-bending childrent to be straight acting




it woudl be a bit useless for me to give you specific examples since you and i are a generation apart and grew up in different counties. however i find parents who have significantly different deadlines and rules from other parents in either a conservative/liberal way to be troublesome.

[Ava]

10. i honestly do not know parents who are that way

my one gay friend hasn't come out to hardly anyone, including his parents. if he were to come out to them i think they'd support him on it. his family is one of the few democratic families around here and they all are pretty open minded.

as for the dating, people around here start dating way to young in my opinion. 14 year olds shouldn't be going out with anyone let alone 16 year olds in my opinion.. and that happens around here. i think it is absurd, but maybe that is just me.

what i'm complaining about is kids that bitch and moan because their parents punish them over poor grades, or ground them when they violate their curfew. they complain because their parents only give them x amount for clothes shopping or because their parents don't let them do are certain thing that is for their own safety.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

13. yeah that does sound bratty. all i am saying is there are times when one tries

to control a teen as though they were a child and that frequently backfires

[wickerwoman]

35. It's hard to judge a family dynamic from the outside.

I would say my dad was overbearing and controlling. I wasn't allowed to have friends over, ever. I wasn't allowed to eat meals at other peoples' houses because it would be an "imposition". So it was basically impossible for me to socialize with friends outside of school. I wasn't allowed to choose my own clothes until I was 16 because I should just be grateful for whatever my mom picked out. My mom would have been happy to drive us places but it made my dad feel guilty because all he did was sit on his ass watching football, so if we ever did let our mom do something nice for us, he made our lives hell for it later. So we almost never went anywhere. If we went to visit family (maybe once a year), I was expected to serve drinks and shut up while the grown-ups talked (even when I was 19 or 20). I was basically expected to not exist and certainly not to overshadow my little brother. On the other hand, I probably wouldn't have achieved half of what I have achieved if I didn't get a perverse thrill from showing up people who try to control, underestimate or diminish me. Thanks dad!

If you don't know anyone with overbearing and controlling parents it's probably because they're not allowed to be friends with you.

[KitchenWitch]

2. Next you will be yelling at them to get off your lawn!

:P

:hi:

Some parents, not all, are WAAAAAAAAAAAY too permissive.

[Ava]

5. damn whippersnappers

:P

[HEyHEY]

3. Teens who don't mind rules have no balls.

[Ava]

6. especially canadian ones

:hide: :rofl:

[HEyHEY]

7. We don't really have rules here

Everyone is just kinda polite

[Lyric]

9. I disagree. A lot of teens aren't legally old enough

to move out, even if they ARE willing to get a job and support themselves. Teens under 18 who can't prove abuse or neglect really have very little choice--they're stuck living with their parents no matter how unreasonable, unfair, or cruel their parents might be.

Some parents have ridiculous, inhumane ideas about "rules." For example, one of my best friends as a teenager was a boy named Allen. He was gay, his parents were fundie Christians, and their "rules" included barring him from having any "strange" friends (guess what their definition of "strange" was,) joining any school clubs other than the Young Life Christian club, forcing him to go to a church that constantly ranted and raved about the evil, perverted gay people, etc. It was horrific for him.

I think a lot of teens have good reason to be pissed about their parents' rules, because some parents are narrow-minded assholes or control-freak authoritarians who find joy in smothering every bit of independence and spirit that they can find. That being said, if you're OVER 18 and complaining, then yes, you can leave and go take care of yourself.

[Ava]

11. if they get their parents consent then they can move out

and no, i'm not talking about kids that are physically or mentally abused. i assumed that it was known that i wasn't talking about those kids.

and while i have found a lot of resentment on DU towards parents, that isn't what i'm talking about here either. i know that there are parents out there that are horrible. luckily i have an amazing mom and stepdad. what i'm talking about specific bratty kids who bitch about parents they are lucky to have.

[supernova]

14. Moving out and working

their first job will cure them of a lot of the brattiness. :-)

Managing your own checkbook, paying your own bills, tends to wake a lot a people up to how good they had it at Mom and Pop's. (That said, this only works if M&P don't continue to bail them out when they get into trouble because they couldn't' balance their checkbook.)

I knew a few unreasonable parents, and I did feel sorry for my friends. There was a genuine mismatch between the teen's maturity level and their parents' perception of their maturity level. And I honestly don't know what you can do about that from the kid's POV. The parent will always win that argument.

My parents were average as far as rules and so on. But they were hard on me in other ways. I sometimes found myself *wishing* they were more strict so I'd have something to rebel against. :P But they were fairly reasonable. They were hard on us in that they did expect us to often times "tough something out" or suck it up when we felt bad. This prevented me from often talking about my feelings, either good or bad. But that's OK, it turned me into a writer. ;-)

[Lyric]

15. Yeah, but the "abuse" line can be pretty arbitrary

when actual physical abuse isn't the case. Is it abusive to force a gay teen to attend an anti-gay church? I would say yes, but just as many people would say no. Is it abusive to force your daughter to wear long dresses, clunky shoes, and to never, ever cut or style her hair--all against her will? I would say yes, but lots and lots of other people would say no.

I say that the truth of the matter is closely related to the individual situation. Therefore it's really difficult to make broad, judgmental statements about it. Every family's situation is unique, and what is cruel and emotionally painful to one teen might be just fine and dandy to another. I can agree that IF it's a situation where the teen's idea of "strict" is "No mixed-gender sleepovers, no staying out 'til 2:00 am, no blasting music with explicit lyrics, no ridiculously expensive $300 jeans for school, etc." then you have a point. But if the parents are forbidding their daughter to wear jeans *at all*, or forbidding their son from dating a girl whose race they don't happen to like, well that's a different matter altogether.

[billyskank]

16. She clearly wasn't talking about that.

Obviously she was talking about totally mundane rules like being home before ten o'clock, that sort of shit, there was totally no need for you both to jump on her like this.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

17. asking someone to see an issue from a different perspective isnt really

jumping on them...

jumping would be if someone randomly insulted her for no good reason.

ava is a very bright girl who i think can see things from diff perspectives

[Lyric]

18. I wasn't "jumping" on anyone.

Politely disagreeing with what was a pretty broad post in order to clarify a few points is not even in the same zip code as "jumping" on someone, and I rather resent the implication.

It's hard to be a liberal teen in a red-state, right-wing family. Some people go through hell growing up, in ways that aren't traditionally identified as abuse; there's nothing wrong with validating the hard time those teens had during a discussion about "strict" parents.

[Ava]

19. did i not say physical AND mental/emotional abuse?

:shrug:

i thought it was pretty obvious in my OP and in my responses in the thread that i was referring to the petty things that teenagers bitch about.. such as curfews and rules regarding grades. if you thought i was talking about something else then i apologize.

[LanternWaste]

12. My pals and I still laugh...

My pals and I still laugh at how we used to toss the words "fascist" and "nazi" around like so much popcorn (kind like DU :P ) when talking about our parents way back when. (I have the same circle of friends I had in 1983-- we're worse than a dysfunctional married couple)

"Dad won't let me smoke pot. He's a NAZI!"

"Mom took the keys to my car 'cause hers is broken and needs mine to get to work. What a fascist!"

"Did you hear that Brett's dad won't let him get a tattoo of Springsteen on his face? What a control freak!"







Brett never did get the Springsteen tattoo on his face in case your wondering.... :)

[Ava]

20. lol!

springsteen on the face? yowch! i'm sure he's glad he didn't get that done :P

[Critters2]

21. I always suspected, and this proves it!

Ava is the sock puppet of a 45 year old soccer mom! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!

[Ava]

22. lol, yes.. that's it

:rofl:

[DarkTirade]

23. Hate to break it to ya... but MOST teens are spoiled brats.

Which can be a problem, because then it's hard to figure out which ones are just complaining because they're spoiled brats, and which ones actually have something to complain about.

[Ava]

26. i've found that around here the ones that have something to complain about don't complain

and the ones who have nothing to complain about bitch and moan whenever given the chance.

[DarkTirade]

29. Pretty much how it works.

And it doesn't stop with teenagers. :P

[lightningandsnow]

30. Yeah. I tend to do that.

I kind of stopped complaining about my parents, though.

I'm a bit of a bratty teenager sometimes.

[Unvanguard]

24. That's a weak argument.

Children are by nature dependent on their parents, and with our educational system this dependence continues well into the teenage years. The fact of this natural, necessary dependence is not a basis for arbitrary parental authority.

The mere fact that parents provide for their children does not give them the right to exercise their authority without limit.

[Ava]

25. without limit? no.. i never said that

but to bitch and moan over petty things when their parents provide for them is bratty.

sadly, most of the people my age that i know don't even have jobs, don't get the grade they could get if they applied themselves, and spend their teen years getting drunk, wasted, high, and laid.. then they want to bitch and moan about their parents. that annoys me to no end, and is part of the reason why i get along best with people a few years older than myself.

[Unvanguard]

31. I'm not sure why you're so convinced it's "bratty."

Because it's "petty"? But we're all petty to one degree or another; we are concerned with the things that are immediately affecting us, because we're living our own lives, not someone else's. What of it?

Because teenagers can generally comply with their parents' expectations? Sure... but that doesn't address why they should. Why shouldn't they object to parental control? Why should their capacity to fulfill their parents' value system mean they should adopt that value system for themselves?

[sakabatou]

27. I stopped bitching when I went to martial arts

[Orsino]

28. It's hormones.

During adolescence, our bodies scream at us that not only are our parents overly strict, but they act that way just to mess with us. It's fruitless to argue with or to lecture some kids, because chemicals dumped into their bloodstreams 24/7 will drown you out.

[mokawanis]

32. Teens are tough to raise

and I am damn glad all 3 of mine (2 girls, 1 boy) are adults now. My strategy was always to hear them out, keep my cool in the face of drama/troubles, and I tried to compromise on some of the rules they protested against. On some of the rules I absolutely would not compromise and in those instances I was ok with being seen as an asshole, because I was trying to keep them safe.

[skygazer]

33. It is one of the cardinal rules of teendom to bitch about your parents

Whether you have grounds to or not. What's wrong with you, anyway? :wtf:

:P

[Danger Mouse]

34. All teenagers do that. It's like...required.

[hippywife]

36. See, now...

if I had been guaranteed to have a kid like you, I'd have signed up to be a mom. I was too afeared I'm have a kid like me. :hi:

[ismnotwasm]

37. I dunno

I ran away and hit the streets at 15. I wasn't bitching. I was getting the fuck out. At the time, any roof was better than the one I was under. Just saying.

(Many, many many moons ago that was, I'm not recommending it exactly)

[progressivebydesign]

38. Love it! You sound like my stepdaughter! She gets irritated at her friends for that..

She understands that it goes both ways, and that we're just strict enough to have made a difference in her teen years, but not so strict that it kept her from living her life. Her friends want to do bonehead things, and get angry that their parents catch them.

My stepdaughter is 17 and is just as happy going to shop at a Goodwill as A&F. She has never talked back to us.. ever. No skipping classes, no drugs or alcohol (thinks that's a waste of time.) Now.. she's also very very liberal, has a wicked sense of humor, and is far from geeky. She just sees things from an adults perspective.

You two sound a lot alike!

Regarding other parents.. I can't figure them out! They are strict on the shit that doesn't matter (like having a friend spend the night on a schoolnight), but then are totally loose when their kid is caught drinking ("kids will be kids" they say)

[Radical Activist]

39. Spoiled brats usually got that way for a reason.

And its probably their parents. I would guess that a spoiled brat also hasn't been taught how to be independent enough to get a job and live on their own. That will be kind of a problem when they turn 18. Control, control, control does not teach someone how to be a mature, responsible adult on their own.

The point of teen years is to learn how to make choices on your own instead of being directed constantly like a child. If a parent still has to make all of a teenager's decisions for them, it suggests there's a problem.

[Ellen Forradalom]

40. You have your act together

and mind your own business..that's why the folks trust you enough to let you traipse off to the DNC :-)

I was out of the house and supporting myself by 16. Don't regret it a bit.

[southlandshari]

41. Well said, Ava

Thank you from your neighbor in Alabama and a mom doing her best to raise a strong, independent AND respectful and thoughtful daughter. A daughter who doesn't always like the rules but who does understand them and - thankfully - is as far from a spoiled brat (and there ARE a lot of them out there these days) as a girl can be.

:hi: