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Get off my lawn!

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calenlass:
Edit: Ok this was mostly a response to Wet Helmet's original couple of posts, but the internet shat out and I had to go do stuff and it's been a few hours. I haven't read the interim replies or changed what I was going to say.


I find more and more that my upbringing was rather singular. The "it's MY [whatever]" thing actually did work in my house, but only because my sisters and I used it as well (only on each other, though, because my parents were careful not to misuse or abuse things that were specifically ours). This might have something to do with how my parents taught us to think about money, and how it is a means to an end (if you want something, you will probably have to pay money for it) and how the saving of it is security for future freedom from want or need.

I went to a pretentious rich kid school from age 7 until 17 when I graduated, and throughout high school all of my friends got cars for their birthdays. Granted, not all of them drove to school every day, but that was because they just didn't want to pay for gas or couldn't be arsed. I didn't get my own car until I got a job the summer after my senior year, and that was only because I bought it and was making monthly payments to my dad, who was the actual title owner. I am expected to pay for maintenance and repairs too. Basically, except for the title, which my dad still owns as a favour to me to save money on the insurance, it is MY car. When it got totalled, the insurance money went to ME, and I picked out the new car myself. No one has any say over what I do with my car except me. It was this way with both of my sisters, as well, although neither of them have had to replace theirs yet.

It was the same way with books or movies or whatever: you asked permission to borrow it, and the other person had every right to refuse for whatever reason they wanted. With the TV, it was a case of priority or seniority; i.e., whoever was watching something first had control of the remote at least until the particular program was over, or if someone watched, say, The Muppet Show (yeah that was me) every week, it was understood that for that half hour or hour I would watch the show and it was at the least exceedingly dickish for someone to try and change that.

I cannot remember or even think of any potential situations wherein my parents would not treat any of their children as individuals with opinions and rights to those opinions and choices. The issue of "it's MY house" has never even arisen, and in fact I do not think that phrase has ever left either of their mouths. They have always given me advice and related their own experiences when relevant to try and give me some perspective and then let me make my own choices. This is, of course, relative; for instance, if I were going to try and buy drugs or something with the money in my savings account, before I turned 18 my mother would've just locked me out of the account, or taken the keys to my car away for driving 130 miles down to Statesboro on a school night or something. But since I never saw drugs as a good potential return for the investment of my money, I never had to bother with that, and I suffered "grounding" (nothing outside school or extracurriculars for a few weeks) for the Statesboro trip.

I suppose it has to do with the fact that my parents have complete faith in the fact that they have done their absolute best to raise thoughtful, reasonable kids, and they realise that beyond that they cannot ultimately control the actions of another being. I have always appreciated the fact that they made this clear to us as their children, as well, because it reinforced that if they made mistakes, they were only humans and mortals doing the best they knew how, not some sort of irreproachable gods who handed down mandates and privileges from on high to their offspring. I think ultimately it has caused me to have a great deal of respect, rather than fear, for both my parents, and it has only grown as I come to realise how much good they have done me.



Also:

--- Quote from: A Wet Helmet on 09 Mar 2008, 11:27 ---If I have succeeded as a parent, then they will do that without b) getting a sexually transmitted disease

--- End quote ---

Sometimes accidents happen, or your kid might get lied to. A friend of mine (well, I haven't talked to her in like a year, but I guess she still counts) was with her significant other for two years and he never told her he had the herpes, but now she does too and she had no idea until she got a breakout and thought she was dying or had the plague or something. She was going to sue him, but he got a job overseas and can't be reached anymore. So I guess what I am saying is that sometimes you can teach your kids to be responsible and shit can still blow up in their face.


Double Edit: Linds basically said what I did.

EditEditEdit: Guys what the fuck? I have never in my life asked for ice cream for dinner. I do not even do that now that I am feeding myself. I do not like being ridiculously sick and I never have. What the hell, dudes?

calenlass:
With regards to the OP, I am pretty good friends with my mom, especially now that I have moved out. Unfortunately, I cannot be as free with my lifestyle as I would like, because my parents are my money source right now, and I cannot afford to have them withdraw that support (which they would do if I did something horrendous, like move in with a BOY or have a BABY or something) SINCE I CANNOT GET A GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING JOB HGABUALGUHAUGHABULH. But mostly we don't fight very much anymore and I value her advice and her experience and while our beliefs, mostly about moral stuff, are not the same, I think that if she was not my mom we would pretty much be peers and still pretty good friends. She is really fun to geek out over fish with, which I had never suspected until I said I was going into marine science. That was when I found out that she used to be a science teacher and she pulled out all her old marine science textbooks and we started talking about all the squishy gooey things that live under the sea.

Basically my belief that she is the best mom ever was cemented when she surprised me with the I Feel Pretty shirt for christmas "because I know you like that site, and I didn't know if you had seen the shirt but I saw it and thought you would be tickled by it".

Patrick:
Something to consider:

Do you really want your son or daughter to go around their entire adult life saying "Well, my momma said" to everything?

Humans are social beings. That is how we survive, by interacting and communicating with one another to find the best way of doing things. Respect is a huge issue in any society, and for damn good reason: if you earn and maintain people's respect, you can get things going your way and you are more likely to be successful in life. The ability to earn and maintain respect is a survival skill, and by refusing to allow your child to learn how to gain respect, you're pretty much damning them to a life of paper-pushing and shitty pay.

Telling your child that nothing they think will ever matter is just asking for them to fail at life.

Nodaisho:
That is a good point, dismissing their thoughts and opinions is a good way to cause self-esteem issues, I should know, but that is thanks to our oh-so-wonderful school system which I can (and have) go on about for a few pages MLA-formatted.

idiolect:

--- Quote from: Patrick on 09 Mar 2008, 16:34 ---Something to consider:

Do you really want your son or daughter to go around their entire adult life saying "Well, my momma said" to everything?

Humans are social beings. That is how we survive, by interacting and communicating with one another to find the best way of doing things. Respect is a huge issue in any society, and for damn good reason: if you earn and maintain people's respect, you can get things going your way and you are more likely to be successful in life. The ability to earn and maintain respect is a survival skill, and by refusing to allow your child to learn how to gain respect, you're pretty much damning them to a life of paper-pushing and shitty pay.

Telling your child that nothing they think will ever matter is just asking for them to fail at life.

--- End quote ---


Is this a response to what Wet Helmet said??  I mean, it's not like every household must choose one of two options, those being total equality of decision-making power or complete and utter disregard.  None of what you're saying follows from simply stating that a household is not a democracy in which a child has an "equal" voice to a parent.  I think it's pretty obvious why that is a terribly bad idea, for all the reasons Wet Helmet has already stated.  None of those prevent a parent from treating their child with respect, letting them earn their trust, etc etc, all it means is that it's not OMG TOTALLY UNJUST when a parent makes a child do (or not do) something they don't want to, just by virtue of the child's disagreement. 

Anyway, the guy was obviously being a jerk though, especially if the other adult wanted him to turn it off -- that seems like much more of an issue to me.

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