I am not a parent, and a lot of this post deals not directly with the OP, but more with the issue of parent-teen relations in general.
One thing I’d like to refute is the idea that your children will some day understand why you didn’t trust them as teenagers, or why you went throught their things, or whatever. I don’t think that is guaranteed. My mother did a lot of things that made me mad as a teenager, and I still don’t understand them.
Reading all the postcards I got. She said they were just postcards, so it was okay to read them - which does not even begin to explain why she chose to do so.
Opening my mail. My father and I have the same name, which means, technically it was ambiguous whether it was sent to him or me. But a lot of times it was far from ambiguous - I had an American Express account, my father never did … who do you think the mail from American Express was addressed to? Why not just ask if it’s mine.
Coming into my bedroom without knocking, or claiming to have knocked and that I just hadn’t heard. Do you really want to see me naked, picking my nose, flicking a booger? What’s going on in that little brain, mom?
Cigarettes? Do you really think your little moral messages are going to affect your kid’s nicotine addiction? Sure, it is possible that your kid isn’t addicted to nicotine yet, in which case they are smoking to rebel against you. So what affect does putting the cigarrettes on the pillow have?
There’s a simplistic little school of thought known as “reverse psychology”. Take it with a grain of salt if you must, but listen up. I know very few people who didn’t use drugs or alcohol as teenagers. I am one of them; another is a friend of mine whose father is a self-identified anarchist and whose mother claims without a trace of irony to be pro-drug (that’s right, she advocates the use of street drugs because they are fun and educational). Which lecture did we never hear as teenagers? The Don’t Take Drugs lecture. My parents just figured I would never try them and they happened to be right.
The lecture I did hear all the time was Wake Up Early and Go To Sleep Early. Guess which Bad Teenager Thing I was always Guilty of? Guess what my mom and I got into screaming fights over? This one didn’t involve any substance addiction, but it has lasted somewhat into adulthood. I still have trouble getting up more than half an hour before work, and I still find myself up way past my self-appointed bedtime way too often. Sure, it’s my fault, but I can’t help wondering how different my life would be if this particular aspect of my teenage life had been better tolerated.
I’m not saying “Don’t give your children any moral teaching.” I’m saying, try a little tact for a change. Teenagers already know the basic moral lessons people learn, or they will never know them at all. Toddler know not to play with fire. Teenagers play with fire on purpose. I just don’t want to live next door to the teenager whose parents give him the Don’t Shoot The Howitzer At The Neighbor’s House lecture every day.
There are some interesting legal questions here. Sure, you are not required to give your children any privacy (or any respect, or any trust) but there are a lot of things you legally can’t do, like kick them out. I only bring this up because my parents (and undoubtedly others) used to threaten this all the time. Sure, it happened over a decade ago but it still burns (which is a telling point in its own right).
All I’m saying is, it does not stand a parent in good stead to say “If you’re going to live under my roof you are going to live under my rules.” Rules, schmules. I get to live under your roof until I’m 18 or until you give me up for adoption. You can report me to the police if you want, just as you could get reported to the police if you shut your children out.
The point is, the law is very little help in parent-child relations. Druggy kids will end up in jail; child neglecters will end up in jail; the rest of us just had/have to live with each other. Anybody want to pour dad’s liquor cabinet down the sink for a few laughs?
In my second to last post, I didn’t mean to imply that toddlers have some inherent knowledge that they shouldn’t play with fire. I mean to say that toddlers can be taught not to play with fire, and that many are even at an early age.
I used to hate it when my parent’s snooped in my room, but then I usually gave them a good reason to do it.
I think like any of the great “should a parent be allowed to do this…” arguments there are good reasons and bad reasons. Some parents are just nosy bastards and have good kids and no good reason to do this sort of thing. On the other hand, there are parents of kids like I was who have damned good reasons to go looking in their kids stuff. I will have to say that if you do suspect your kids and you have smart kids you might want to do more than search the room. I knew my parents searched my room and therefore never hid anything in there. I carried a shoulder rig more often than not and had a “dope bag” in plain sight, most people even parent may search a bedroom while you are at a friends or at school but they stop short of frisking the kids.
All in all this comes down to the same kind of argument people have about spanking: Is it abuse or is it corrective action? It can be either. Same thing with searching your kids rooms. On the one hand you have the people who are against it who seem to be from two major groups: People who were good kids and had nosy parents and therefore the searching of their rooms was unwarranted and people who seem to still be kids and frankly that makes their judgement suspect. I said a lot of shit my parents did I was never going to do when I was an adult/parent. Everyone does that and everyone looks back at it later on and feels foolish. I bet Ghengis Khan did it when he was a kid. It’s universal.
Then you have people who are marginally in support of the right to search the kids room: Of this group they all seem to be of one mind and in agreement that while it is a parents right and often a parent’s responsibility to do this it should only be with good reason. No proponent of searching a kids room has said it’s a good idea to do so on GP and all in all they seem to be fairly logical about it. I have never searched my daughter’s room but thankfully she isn’t the little demon shit shild I was when I was her age. Of course I keep her locked in the basement so she dosen’t get out much.
One final thought: While I can certainly sympathize with Hypergrrl and her frustration with her mother’s ways, I cannot begin to think we know the whole story here. True one person has posted as a close friend of hers but then again I would assume that all of us would say the same for any close friend. If she were the mother’s close friend she may well have another story to tell. And speaking as a parent and as a bad bad kid that mother may not know about Hyper’s cutting but she may suspect something and be trying to find out wtf is going on.
I would hate for my parents to search through my room. I don’t drink (well…not often), I definitely don’t do drugs…in fact I’m pretty clean in most respects. Since I started having sex, the only incident with my parents has involved my Mum emptying my bin before I could get to it, and finding some very surprising stuff. Since then, they’ve operated on a ‘the less they know the better’ system, and settle for making it as difficult as possible, i.e. “if you hav a girl in your room, the door must be open”. Not that this actually stops much, as I inhabit a whole seperate floor to my parents. It makes them feel better though. The whole point is that they don’t mind. Why? Because I don’t just have sex, with random people, all the time. I have relationships. In fact, in the past three years I have had two long term, serious relationships with two great girls. I’m with someone really special now though, because she’s this really lovely person. We’ve been together for quite a while now, and sex may or may not happen, but I feel secure in the knowledge that my parents won’t actively try to catch us out my searching my room or whatever, because they know that we take care of each other.
Hmm…wandered off the subject a bit.
Oh, and by the way…I’m Manx. We have a lower age of consent. I’m vaguely aware that America tends towards a high age of consent. But don’t even get me started on that.
I’m a newbie. I have one burning qusetion. HOW DO YOU DO SMILIES???
Children for which I am responsible would not make the mistake of thinking that they have the upper hand in this situation. I know lots of ways of making it more pleasant than not that you obey my rules while you are living in my house. And it is more a question of ‘you have to live under my roof’ than ‘you get to live under my roof’.
On the other hand, I have been proactive in making sure that it does not occur to my children to take that attitude with me or their mother. Ever.
If you confront your child, tell them that you dismissed their privacy and rummaged through their wastebasket and closet, do you really think they’ll come to trust and love you?
Is it more efficient to yell at children about drugs and alcohol after they’ve started using it, or is it better to teach them not to do such things before they can start?
Do your children rummage through your room and search your e-mail?
How can it be said there is a relationship between parent and child when they don’t trust each other?
Will diminishing a child’s privacy make them more or less taciturn?
Did you not teach your children to knock before entering your room or the bathroom?
If your child smokes marijuana and/or drinks, is the only way you can figure this out by searching their room?
Another question, directed at you, Shodan. Do you order your children, when passing by you in the hall, to stop, stand straight, outstretch their arm in front of them, and say “Hail, mein Fuhrer”?
You are not correct. I am stating a fact that rights are ensured by law. Thankfully, because I want that right. I’m not sure why you think I’m not interested in having that right simply becuase I’m stating that the law guarantees it.
Back to children: they are not of an age of legal consent, therefore, their rights and liberties are granted and revoked by their parents. (and please, people, let’s not get into pointless arguments about abuse and neglect, where the personal safety of the children is paramount over a parent’s right to exercize a behavior not condusive to the child’s well being, m’kay?). The OP is in regards to privacy; while I agree on the neccessity of an individual’s desire for privacy, a minor who is in your care must be made to understand the limits of that privacy. And, s/he must understand that the liberty can and will be revoked if the limits are broken, be they what they may, as set by the parents, and as a child gets older, reached upon fairly with the child. I’m sure all the teens posting here will agree that such a thing is just, is it not?
Now, no where in this or my other posts is a moratorium on communication, fairness, love, respect, teaching, caring, morals, etc. Just because you are the parent, with all the duties and privileges pertaining thereto does not mean that there isn’t room to have a frank, caring, loving relationship with your children.
To the teenagers posting here, I will read with interest when we revisit this discussion after you have become parents yourselves. Perhaps then you will understand the morality of not allowing children (not teens) to lock the bathroom door while taking a bath. I know this: your posts here have all been very insightful, and I pray that you remember and learn so you will be just and fair when the day comes that you become a parent
Shodan, I also don’t understand why some people like lenin believe that prarental rules = naziism. As a parent trying my best to keep my children alive and instill a little bit of values along the way, I find lenin’s (interesting name, BTW) sort of ungrateful attitude quite offensive. And to Boris B, parents have some interesting tools available to help with the problem children who subscribe to the “it’s my right to exist in your house wheather you like it or not” mantra: among them is Military Academy. My suggestion is that you work with your parents and come to some agreements so it does not come to that extreme.
Civ…these are SIX and EIGHT year old children. A kid that little can slip in the bathtub and bash his head open. For the kid’s safety they should not be allowed to lock the door. You’re really arguing that a six year old should be able to lock his parents out of the bathroom? “Suppressive” behavior? Um, children need restrictions. The fact that I wouldn’t allow my six year old to drive does not mean that in all fairness I should not drive. Wrath did say that his 14 year old is allowed to lock the door. What’s your point? Can’t you understand that a six year old operates under different rules than a teen-ager? I bet the six year old isn’t allowed to cross the street either. Does that make him “suppressive”? What about the kid’s right to travel? Come on!
Wrath, I was merely making a point about Shodan’s thread. It is quite disturbing how Shodan portrays his children as his property, and not as human beings who were brought into the world for a reason.
The more a parent tries to squelsh a child’s freedom, the more the child is going to distrust and dislike the parent. With this distrust and dislike comes a need for the child to be radically different from the parent. As they start trying to become different from their parents, that’s when marijuana and alcohol enter their life. And that’s when you find the drugs hidden behind their desk.
Another point I’d like to bring up. It saddens me that some parents feel the need to show their child how they have power over them. Did you decide to have a child just to have someone to order around like a dictator?
You didn’t get it. He meant not that our rights to privacy are GRANTED by the laws, but that they are GUARANTEED by the laws. See the distinction? Just like the 1st amendment doesn’t give us freedom of speech, we have freedom of speech. The 1st amendment merely prohibits the gov’t from taking away our pre-existing right to free speech. Landlord-tenant laws don’t give us the right to privacy, they protect our right to privacy.
And anyway, children are not covered under landlord-tenant laws, any more than you would be if you spent the night in my house. I could come in to the room you’re using, vacuum, dust, rearrange the furniture etc, and I wouldn’t be violating your privacy either as a matter of law or a matter of ethics. Children operate under the same rules as guests.
It is perfectly reasonable, both ethically and legally, for parents to make financial decisions for their children, medical decisions, cosmetic decisions, travel decisions, education decisions, and yes, privacy decisions.
After all, if a child’s privacy is morally sancrosanct, what about families where children don’t have their own room? What if the entire family shares sleeping quarters? What if grandma loses her house and has to stay with Betty in her room? Or the kids sleep on the couch in the living room? A child can’t have a guarantee of privacy in “their” room if they can’t even be guaranteed a room.
Ahh, maybe that’s where these parents started to go wrong…giving children rooms of their own! Damn, I’m not gonna make that mistake with my kids…I’ve decided that they’re gonna have to sleep in a hammock in the garage…
Lenin, I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure GD folks are not militant bastards when it comes to parenting.
Now, I ask you, put yourself in the role of the parent of a child (teenager) who simply will not do anything you ask of him/her, or worse, does whatever s/he feel like doing without regard to his/her own safety, nor that of others in the house. This can include silly little illegal things like selling crack to minors, or simple tests of will, like staying out after midnight when bedtime is set at 10pm. Let’s put aside any mistakes that might have been made regarding the upbringing of the kid, and deal with the here and now… What do you do? Enlighten those of us who are parents and impart some wisdom as to how to cope with and perhaps correct the problem.
Getting back to the OP, would you reserve the right, as a parent, to take a look at your child’s room, even if perhaps to gain some insight as to what’s going on if you suspect something is amiss? Even if you don’t touch anything, just to look around? Do you not believe that you would have every right to inspect the room of a child in your charge?
With this sort of thinking, it should be required for every American to hold a political office before being allowed to vote. The problem with parents who think “hell, I don’t have to listen because this is just some punk kid who doesn’t know what the hell they’re talking about” is that they’re ignorant. We are aware of much more than you apparently think.
And to both of you, I was more referring to the concept of using the toilet rather than bathing. Perhaps young children require more supervision in this area, but children who are 6 and 8 should well know at this age how to use the toilet without injuring themselves. I’m sure you’re afraid of “what if” scenarios, but the fact of the matter is, “what if” your 14 year old has a nasty slip in the bathroom with the door locked?
Having some shred of integrity (however small it may be), I have restrained myself from responding the way I had intended originally to your line above. Not only does it disgust me, but generalizations such as the ones above are just one of the many ignorant lines of the uninformed that lead to horrible parenting and miscommunication in the first place.
I wrote, “All I’m saying is, it does not stand a parent in good stead to say “If you’re going to live under my roof you are going to live under my rules.” Rules, schmules. I get to live under your roof until I’m 18 or until you give me up for adoption.”
To which Shodan replied,
No.
Define “children”. If you think you can control the thinking of a teenager that precisely, you will learn differently soon enough.
Hey, do what you want. Parents shift radically from the “I’ll make your life as unpleasant as I need to” thinking (when kids are aged 4-18) to the “What did I ever do to make you hate me” thinking (when the kids have grown up). The tools my parents chose to make my life unpleasant were lying, ignoring most of what I said and distorting what they didn’t ignore, putting me down and telling me I would never amount to anything. Pick whatever tools you want, but don’t think for an instant that your children will forget.
Okay. I’m not sure if you are just trying to pare excess words from your writing or if you are intentially trying to sound ominous.
It’s not a mantra, it is a legal fact - your children have a right to food, clothing, and shelter at your expense. If you can afford sending them to a military academy, well then you have an expensive threat at your disposal. I suspect a military academy would have driven me to suicide relatively quickly. If unsuccessful, of course, I would have been confined to a mental institution - another expensive threat you could always try. My parents never tried either of these on me. The threat they did use - the threat of kicking me out on the street - made them just look pathetic and weak because I knew it was legally incorrect. It was that threat that I was referring to. We’ve already established on this and other threads that many parents are willing to use all legal means to force their children to act like them; we’ve covered psychological abuse, threats of confinement, objectification, dishonesty, interrogation and the like. I was trying to move on.
I think my “I get to live under your roof until I’m 18 or until you give me up for adoption” quip was taken a little too literally. I didn’t mean to give the impression that I am still a teenager. I have (some) gray hair.
And a good memory. My mother’s memory, apparently, is not so good. She is now deep into the aforementioned “What did I ever do to make you hate me???” stage of parental thinking. For the record, I do not hate my mother. I merely dislike her, both for things she did when I lived under her roof and for things she has done more recently. She always claims that she did everything for my own good, which gives me a perhaps unreasoning skepticism of similar claims from all the parents on this thread. Should I have “gotten over it” by now? Hell yes. I haven’t. So sue me. If you think you can do whatever is barely legal to your kids, and that they’ll “get over it” just because they should, well, I can’t stop you from taking that risk.
Ya know, my six yr old doesnt have any rules prohibiting him from locking the bathroom door… he just doesnt feel the need to. Its not like we just walk in on him or anything. Of course… getting him to actually SHUT the door is a whole different story.
Boys.
I’ve said this before to my children, and I’ll say it for the benefit of this board.
By law, by custom, by society, by religion, by whatever standard you wish to employ, I am held responsible for your well-being and for your actions.
If you’re involved in a car accident, I’m responsible for the damage you cause. If you’re caught selling dope, I’ll be hauled into court along with you.
I am responsible for your health, for your education, for your food and shelter. For that matter, I am legally and financially responsible for what goes on in my house and on my property, even if one of your friends gets drunk, comes over, then falls down the stairs.
Along with that legal, financial and moral responsibility, I am given certain authority to enforce the decisions made on your behalf.
If you are not comfortable with this, you have the right to declare yourself emancipated and move out.
