I know it’s a controversial idea around these parts, but a parent cannot and should not have complete control over their children’s lives. It’s just a fact of life that, as the title says,the umbilical cord is cut at birth, so deal with it. You child is going to hear things you don’t agree with, say things you don’t agree with, and even think things you don’t agree with, just because she is NOT you. I hear parents demanding the craziest things from the goverment, like denouncing the public library’s policy of keeping a minor’s borrowing records confidential as infringing on “parent rights”. How is that a right? If you were supposed to know everything your child knows, you would be born with the ability to read your child’s mind. You can’t legislate against reality, and reality dictates that a child is a completely seperate entity from its parents.
Lemme guess, you are 14, want to have a peek at some porn at the library, but due to unbounded tyranny, you cannot do so discretely?
Well, I think that at the least this statement is open for scrutiny, but, as long as your parents are legally responsible for you, I’d say that they have the right to pretty much run your life assuming they don’t run afoul of the law (read: if you’re under 18 you’re pretty much S.O.L.). That’s not to say that I don’t agree with you, but if you don’t have a job, don’t pay taxes, and can’t vote, then your parents are given the job of not only representing your best interests but also of taking responsibility should you screw up.
Case in point: A local University is considering enacting a law that would fine parents for their (minor) child’s indescretion resulting in the breaking of school rules. Sorry I don’t have more information, but the idea is that the parents and the taxpayers are the ones footing the bills, and the parents should not be allowed to just foist their young’uns off on the college unless the kid is really there to get an education. Can’t say as I agree with it, but I can certainly understand what they’re trying to do.
It sounds to me like you’re going through a rough spot. I can assure you (although you’ll have to take my word for it) that it will pass. When you move out and start your own life you’ll realize either A) my parents were right or B) my parents were wrong – but I don’t give a f*ck because I can live my own life now.
So, either way, you’re going to have to learn to live the next few years of your life suppressing the urge to scream “IT ISN’T FAIR!” about a thousand times a day until you get into the real world and realize, “IT STILL ISN’T FAIR!”.
Once you leave home, you’ve still got people who will try to tell you what to think, what to wear, what you should and shouldn’t do, what you can and can’t see, where you can and can’t go. The difference is that you can at least try and vote them out of office.
Good luck.
Oh, boy. Where to begin.
I’m the mom of a four-and-a-half-month-old. Yes, I know it’s going to take some time for this to develop, but I know full well that he’s going to be independent from me in terms of his thoughts and opinions. And that’s fine; encouraging this is part of my job as a parent.
I am legally and morally responsible for him and his actions until he turns 18. I can agree with a certain amount of privacy on what he’s checking out, but if he’s checking out The Anarchist’s Cookbook, you’re damn right I want to know about it, preferably before he learns how to build a bomb.
[sub]At least, I think that’s what this rant was about. If I’m wrong, please enlighten me.[/sub]
Robin
It has never occured to me even ONCE to check my children’s borrowing histories at the public library - is this something parents routinely do?
If your kid has to go to the library to learn how to build a bomb, the terrorists have already won…
I don’t know how routine it is for most parents, but I don’t think I’d concern myself with it all that much unless I found potentially dangerous reading material in Aaron’s possession (e.g. Neo-Nazi literature or literature on how to make a weapon). If I did, I’d be asking a lot of questions about his reading habits. Of course, I like to think I’d be raising him not to read that stuff.
Robin
I agree with the OP. My parents trusted me and never felt the need to snoop around my privacy or censor the things I watched or read, up to and including watching Scarface and reading the Anarchist Cookbook. I never wanted to build a bomb or sell cocaine and I think their acceptance of me knowing about these things are part of the reason why. They just weren’t taboo things to me, I accepted them as the pure entertainment (Scarface) and idiocy (the Anarchists Cookbook) that they are.
I am extremely grateful for this and I feel terrible for kids who have to find pleasure in secrecy from the ones they should trust the most and be the most open with.
I was wondering what kind of parent needs the library to tell them what their kids are reading, but then I remembered that while my oldest isn’t yet 5, other people’s kids are old enough to go to the library solo.
I have to agree with those who point out that a child is the responsibility of his or her parents – how the heck are we supposed to be responsible for you if we aren’t allowed any control? People say, “if you raised your kids right, they could be exposed to things you disagree with and it wouldn’t kill them,” but how are we supposed to raise them “right” with no control?
Frankly, if you don’t think your parents should have any control over your life, feel free to move out at the age of 10 and raise your fucking self. We’ll see how well that works out.
Sadly, Cisco, we live in the post-Columbine age, in which parents are held responsible for their kids’ actions even more than they were before. We no longer have the luxury of not questioning what they do.
As I said, I’d like to think that I’d be raising Aaron to be an independent thinker, capable of filtering the good stuff from the bullshit. However, that may not be the case. I doubt that I’d really pay that close attention to his taste in reading, and would give him a pretty broad latitude with respect to that. However, I’d also really rather not get a phone call from the police that a bomb was found in my son’s locker, and did I have any idea what he was up to?
Ya get what I mean?
Robin
Probably would have freaked someone out if they got ahold of my library reading list in high school. I was reading a whole lot on how to make projectile weapons at home. And I built one. Earned me an A in Physics class.
Reading about how to build a weapon is not necessarily bad. Building it is not necessarily bad. The purpose behind it matters.
My mom flipped out when she found ‘Rubyfruit Jungle’ on my bookshelf in my room as a teenager, but my dad sat down with me and we had a great discussion about the book. I’m not lesbian or bi, but I had a lot of friends who were, and it was something that intrigued me at the time. I’m glad that my parents let me indulge some of my curiosities about some ‘taboo’ subjects, but I’m also glad that they cared enough to intervene at times.
I think that parents absolutely have to know what it going on in their kids’ lives. It’s a different matter, though, to try and force a particular viewpoint or opinion on them. My parents are both what you might consider your baisc 50’s style nuclear family advocates, however I’m lucky that my parents raised me with the ability to make rational judgements. I don’t think that keeping tabs on your kids is by any means wrong. I hope to be a great detective of a mom myself, as I know that teens are usually reticent to let mom & dad know where their curiosities lay. And I also think that parents should be allowed to impose a value structure on their children, and teach them what is and is not acceptable, but I also think that parents should impart to their children more than what is right and wrong. They should instill them with a sense of why something is right and another thing is wrong. Then the kid can decide for themselves if it holds true to them.
I tend to think that the level of maintenance varies with the kid involved. IANAParent, but a son or daughter who has never given you difficulty should be on a longer leash than, say, the one who snuck the car out at night or has fertilizer in his room IMHO.
Then again, I was a responsible high schooler who got her privacy violated multiple times by my parents, so I might have a bias.
I bought my copy of the Anarchists’ Cookbook because I found it in the bargain bin of a Barnes and Noble in a large mall. I still think it’s funny, philosophically, to find it there.
Dangerous book. Lot of really risky, and/or wrong stuff.
I learned how to make explosives through army training manuals, not some silly unprofessional cookbook.
Those were the days. I was the FX guy for this kid who was going to be the next Spielberg. He had the 8MM, I had the matchbox cars and GI Joes. We blowed 'em up real good.
Frankly, kids will be dangerous, stupid, and irresponsible, no matter how ‘good’ they are, or how much you watch them. Best you can do is bring them up with good morals and proper respect for danger. Train them on how to respect tools and electricty, and you’ll have someone who’ll bring the same care and caution to other matters in life.
As far as personal privacy goes, my parents searched my room weekly. Which just made me more creative in hiding things.
You can view porn at the library? How did I not know this?
Exactly. In the days following Columbine, look how many fingers were pointed at the parents of the two shooters, saying this exact same thing.
Weren’t there even some lawsuits filed against the parents?
Reality dictates no such thing. A child is dependent upon its parents for food, shelter, guidance, instruction, care, and spending money. Until said child is capable of holding a job, paying rent, and not going back to Mom and Dad with a big bag of dirty laundry, the child is not completely separate.
As a parent, I will do my best to be aware of everything going on in my kid’s life. I’ve had no need of rummaging through her closet to see if anything’s hidden, but I know where she goes, who she goes with, when she’ll be home, what’s going to be happening, and so on. She has earned my trust and she’s smart enough to maintain it. But if I had the slightest suspicion that she was doing something illegal or dangerous, you can bet I’d be checking every cubic inch of her room and her car, calling her friends’ parents, and whatever else would be necessary. When she has her own life, when she is truly independent of her parents, then she will be a separate entity and my parental rights will dwindle. Her bad choices will be her own, but I’m making sure it won’t be from lack of instruction on my part.
It’s not an umbilical cord - it’s love. Don’t be too quick to cut that tie.
I was reading the Anarchist’s Cookbook when I was first getting online in high school. I doubt very much that my parents knew, and the main reason for that is that I was at boarding school, some 500 miles from them. Exactly one faculty member knew about it, and he saw the kind of shit I had to put up with and knew me well enough to know that, while I wasn’t going to do any of the stuff detailed therein, I needed to feel like I had some answer to all the bullshit I got dealt. The only time he ever interfered with my reading was when I left a disk with the thing on it in the lab. He tossed it and let me know when I asked. I didn’t bookmark anything on it, didn’t highlight or otherwise change it (my “copy” was written by someone who knew how to remove carriage returns and the like), just read it and thought to myself, among other things, “how funny it would be to do this pointless, minimally-destructive-but-annoying-as-hell, activity!”
Just to set some minds at ease, when I was in the library I was reading, among other things, The Glory of Their Times and the OED.
Don’t give me this Columbine Age crap. Two stupid kids go on a rampage, and they get to spoil it for the rest of us? Screw that. As for me, I’d rather take the risk that my school get shot up than have tyrannical parents monitor my every move for the one in ten million chance that I’d become a mass murderer.
He can download that and other books of that nature off the Internet.
:eek: