OK. I just got home. It’s about 2 AM. I was out with a friend that my mother trusts, blah blah. She told us to take our time, so we decided to go to the beach. We get back home 1:30 ish and my mother completely fucking flips out. Where were you…it’s too late for you to be out…blah blah fucking blah. So now I’m grounded for like 2 weeks and I don’t think it’s fair. Please tell me she was over reacting.
The EXACT same thing happened to me.
I go out with two VERY trusted friends, and my mom says “have a good time, don’t worry about getting back at a certain time”, so I come back at 1:30 and get grounded for a week.
Not fair at ALL.
If no curfew is specified, then we are NOT at fault for coming home late.
I dunno… it sounds like she was kinda overreacting, but I would have called around 12 or so to let her know where I was and about when I’d be home. It’s really not that hard to just call and check in to put their mind at ease.
(BTW, this is my 100th post. Yay for me)
Did your mother have an expectation about when you’d be home? Say that you normally come home by midnight, regardless of whether this is a set curfew, this has ended up being a comfortable time–or if it is the curfew, you’ve stuck to it enough so if you’re a few minutes late, it’s no big deal. And if she said you could take your time, her intent may have been that the midnight time was more flexible than usual–but an hour and a half is out of her comfort zone. You should understand that even the most rational mothers are prone to imagine devestatingly detailed horror stories to explain a child’s lateness-especially after midnight, and even more so when they trust the child. You would never intentionally cause your mother grief (your mother’s thinking goes as she waits for you to get home), you’d never worry her like this–therefore you must be lying dead in a ditch, or that nice friend of yours is really a serial killer with good manners, or wild animals have escaped from the zoo and eaten you. Or else you certainly would have called. Given this thought process, it is not unreasonable for her to slap a 2 week grounding on you the minute you walk in the door. Perhaps in the morning, without whining and with a real apology for giving her gray hair, you may be able to talk with her and explain why you thought you could be out so late–complete with examples of credible trustworthy behaviors (parents love that stuff), and a willingness to be a bit more explicit about saying when you’ll be home. Or you could just hope that it all blows over and she forgets about it in the Holiday rush.
Per your sig line I would imagine this is great for you!
Put away the teenage angst for a sec and consider her position. As the father of a teenage girl if I gave her some “you’re a responsible girl” slack with a comment like “take your time” and she “took her time” until
!!1:30AM in the morning!! I would be pretty pissed off and truth be told so would you if you were in your mother’s position.
You were testing limits and you pushed the envelope too far.
Suck it up and get on with life.
HG,
A lot of parents aren’t rational about this. They worry because they love you. They don’t mean to be oppressive, but they are just trying to be protective. I still remember coming home for Thanksgiving my freshman year, saying I was going out, and my mom trying to impose a curfew. I said "You trust me away at college, you should be able to trust me back home. My mom wigged. My dad ceded the point, but gave me one of those “I’m trusting you here, don’t screw with me.” looks. I didn’t get in any trouble that night, and rarely get in trouble anyway. Didn’t even stay out late, just did it to keep my options open. See if you can’t talk to your mom after the tempers cool off.
Geez! Sometimes they go off on you for not being specific enough, then they turn around and say something wildly unspecific like “come home any time” and expect their minds to be read!
I used to watch a lot of daytime TV shows when they first came to the sad little country I was living in a few years back, and it seemed to me that Americans have pretty different views on parenting than the rest of the world. Bearing that in mind, maybe it was a “right” call for your parents. In my oppinion, they screwed up and are blaming you for it.
It happens all the time but because some people view parents as being totally above any criticism from their children, no one speaks out.
Then again, I did ruin the already shitty relationships I had with both my parents, so if getting along in the longterm is your goal, just let 'em be unfair. After all, I’m assuming you are getting plenty back in return.
My case was a little different, since I can probably never forgive my parents, nor they me. But in my oppinion, many parent/child relationships are mentally distressing for both parties.
Do keep in mind that this post was influenced by a general lack of faith in life, and I am probably on my way to an early grave. That doesn’t mean that I can’t try to spread a little blackness before I go 
—G. Dead Raven
Hey, hypergirl, it’s not just parents. My husband is convinced I’m lying bleeding in a ditch somewhere if I come back from shopping later than expected. (Of course, I immediately assume that any ambulance or fire engine headed west is going to my children’s elementary school, so I don’t have much to complain about.)
This was just a matter of miscommunication. You and your mother obviously had very different ideas of what “take your time” meant. I suggest you sit down with her today and, after you apologize for worrying her, set out some guidelines that you both can live with. She needs to be clearer about her expectations. You need to be more understanding about her fears, as irrational as they might be. I’m sure you can work it out.
And, speaking as a mother, if you calmly assert that you believe that the punishment is overly harsh, considering that the whole mess stemmed from a misunderstanding, you will be much more likely to have it rescinded than if you whine and complain about it. You might even wait and see if she takes it back on her own. I have done just that, explaining to my child that I overreacted in the heat of the moment. But listening to whining and complaining is not likely to put me in the frame of mind to come to that conclusion. I know, we’re not always fair. We are fallible, just like you.
hypergirl, I bet there are a lot of kids who wished their folks cared that much about them.
Morning update: I’m not really grounded, but not allowed to go to a friend’s surprise birthday party (which I may be able to work around anyway). And it’s really not like I do that every day or every weekend. My friend is down from college and I don’t even see him once a month anymore. I had even asked if I could sleep over. She would have known where I was and not worried, but she just said no before I even got the sentence out. And before you ask, I have slept at his house before and there is nothing romantic between us at all.
Do you have a cell phone or another way that your mother could’ve gotten ahold of you?
Personally, I think they overreacted, since I never had a curfew. But, I always did let my parents know what time I’d be home, and if I was going to be late (2am instead of 1am), I always called. My mother refused to go to bed until I got home, so I always got the silent guilt trip on Sunday morning when she’d be yawning and struggling to stay awake, while she made me breakfast. I got over it. 
I hope you’re not grounded on 20 January!