(no subject)

[conuly]

Dear Care and Feeding,

I am a 17-year-old girl who likes to go on walks and bike rides. Normally, I would go on walks with my parents, but they’ve been busy. At my age, I think I should be allowed to go on walks a couple of miles away from home. I live in a safe, suburban city and most of the people I’ve encountered on my walks are dog walkers and young families. My parents, however, refuse to let me go anywhere on my own. My mom thinks that because I am a quiet person, I’d be “easily abducted” and incapable of defending myself. I think she is being paranoid. I’m honestly kind of offended that she thinks I’m so helpless and stupid. While I understand my parents’ concerns, I think they’re being too overprotective. How do I convince them I’ll be fine?

—Stuck at Home and Bored

Dear Signoff,

You are nearly a grown adult, so given your age and (I assume) previously demonstrated sense of responsibility, I would expect your parents to give you some increased freedom. To me, what you’re asking for sounds reasonable. Still, for some parents, it can feel monumental to let your kid—yes, even at 17—out into the world without a safety net. (And if you haven’t been responsible in the past, it’s understandable why they would balk at any free-ranging now.)

Ask them to meet you halfway by compromising on a few criteria. Maybe you can’t walk wherever and whenever you want, but could you agree on specific areas of town or times of day? Maybe you can carry pepper spray and let them track your phone; you could offer to enroll in a women’s self-defense class. As gently as you can, point out that their no-walks rule feels like overkill, considering in less than a year you will be a legal adult who will be “allowed” to walk just about anywhere. You might even point out that by letting you walk with these safeguards now, they’re helping you develop habits that will likely stick as you move into college and adulthood.

You can’t convince them you’ll be fine, but hopefully, you can guide them along the pathway of acceptable risk. Good luck!

https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/07/attraction-mothers-wife-care-and-feeding-advice.html

Comments

[conuly]

Every once in a while I see a letter like this - or a post at AITA - and I just can never quite wrap my head around it.

A 17 year old is too big to physically manhandle, so unless the parents are quite abusive, to the point where the kid knows they have a valid reason to fear for their well-being, I've never understood why the kid asks for help "convincing Mom and Dad" of shit. Why not just disobey?

I can't imagine my mother trying to enforce that sort of rule on us when we were in our teens, and not just because that wasn't how she did things, but also because - no? She was not capable of keeping us in the house if we didn't want to stay anyway?

Advice columnists never say that the fastest way to show that nothing bad will happen is by laughing at the parents and walking out the door, but they're probably worried about liability or something.

[dissectionist]

Some kids aren’t inherently comfortable with rulebreaking. Others have good relationships with their parents and don’t want to cause their parents distress. Others find it distressing to themselves to upset people they care about. Others may be under rules where they’ll lose privileges (allowance, access to drive the family car, etc) if they are disobedient. There are a lot of reasons why kids might not go the “toodaloo, mothaf*a” route and sail out the door.

[mildred_of_midgard]

This was my childhood. My dad never physically manhandled me, but I absolutely feel like when he showed up with the car and told me to get in and I was in trouble, he could have and would have.

Besides, parents have a *lot* of nonphysical power over their children, and starting a war you cannot win is why the phrases "pick your battles" and "is this the hill you want to die on" were coined.

Which is not to say no child would have a good outcome from asking forgiveness rather than permission, but their calculations may be different than yours.

And that's leaving aside the fact, mentioned by others, that some people are rule-abiding, and/or conflict-avoidant. (I was rule abiding but not conflict avoidant.)

[ashbet]

People who parent by fear and control can do some pretty awful things.

I don’t blame her for not wanting to risk direct confrontation.

[shanaqui]

A 17 year old is too big to physically manhandle, so unless the parents are quite abusive, to the point where the kid knows they have a valid reason to fear for their well-being, I've never understood why the kid asks for help "convincing Mom and Dad" of shit. Why not just disobey?

Because... if I'd disobeyed my parents on a topic we disagreed on, I would've jeopardised their trust in me and all the ways they were letting me explore my independence? Because it's better to discuss things and come to an agreement than just insist on one's own way, especially when one still needs to live with the people one is disagreeing with? Because parents are people and thus reasoned arguments can work and there's no point in instantly writing them off and damaging your relationship with people who probably still have a good amount of say over your future and well-being?

And yes (and simultaneously), absolutely because my parents could, in their rages, be terrifying in a way that I think a lot of people cannot imagine: growing up with an unpredictable, raging parent like that shapes your brain from the outset in very specific, lifelong ways that perhaps make no sense when you lack that perspective. But honestly, that wasn't why I obeyed them on the deals we struck together about what I was allowed to do. It was for my reasons above: we negotiated stuff, and each time I stuck to my end of it, the trust between us about my ability to handle things like an adult grew, and I got more independence.

I'm 33, I'd still rather walk into a bonfire than lose that bond of trust with my dad. My end of the bargain is now pretty much down to not dying before him, calling him if I need him, and not being a dickhead to my sister... so maybe not the bonfire-walking, he'd disapprove pretty strongly of me hurting myself. Point is, the relationship between parent and child does not have to be adversarial, even when parent and child disagree, even as the child becomes an adult and the boundaries have to change. Talking and convincing each other is an option that is on the table (depending on relationships and people involved, of course). Even with my dad, who was permissive in many ways, sometimes there was stuff we didn't agree on. The answer was not "do it anyway", not if I wanted him to keep trusting me; it was "convince him this is safe/sensible/something I'm old enough to handle".

And like... returning to the theme of abuse, it's not just about violence. My wife's parents were abusive. Physically, yes, but also in a bunch of other ways. Even when my wife was in their twenties, their parents were very controlling. Like preventing us from speaking to each other by just unplugging the wifi router and taking it to bed with them (no, we couldn't just text/call, I was in the UK and they were in Belgium and this was, shit, 15 years ago -- no phone data). And with words, cutting into their self-esteem and shaping their whole world-view in awful patterns that they still struggle with every day, half the world away from their parents and two decades on from most of it. So many other patterns of control and cutting people down exist, beyond just physical abuse. And I know that in theory you can say "Well, you're 17, just walk away" -- but that's not how it seems from inside it, and I'm a little envious, honestly, of people who think it's that easy all the time.

(It is possible, even likely, that in this specific letter the parents are too irrational in this situation to be reasoned with. I'm more addressing the general point of whether a 17-year-old can/should always just walk away and do whatever they want.)

[ysobel]

I mean, a few years back my mom threatened to call the police if I walked home (from a place 5 minutes' walk through a park, late afternoon but before twilight) rather than letting me drive me, and I'm more than twice 17. The police would eventually have laughed at her but I didn't want to deal with it. There's no way that I as a rule-following probably-AuDHD 17-year-old would have dared directly disobey.

Plus there are people that would respond to disobedience with "ok since you're an Adult now, pay for your own college",

[cora]

LW will be a legal adult in less than a year. What are her parents going to do when she's 18? Unless she has a disability of some kind, the rest of the world is going to expect her to know how to handle her own affairs/go places/work late without having to stop and ask mom & dad first.

[tamsin]

Why on earth did Care and Feeding act as if this was in any way a reasonable way for the parents to behave?

[dissectionist]

As a parent to two teens, I agree 100%. Parents who are stifling their kids learning independence and autonomy are not doing their kids any favors.

[cimorene]

+1.

[mommy]

+1

[ysobel]

Maybe because compromise is more likely to work than just flat-out saying "you're being unreasonable", so C&F wanted to give them tools? I agree with you though (and it wouldn't have hurt for C&F to affirm that the parents are way OTT)

[torachan]

I didn't get the sense that they were agreeing that it was reasonable, more like offering suggestions for things that might work when trying to negotiate with unreasonable people.

[shanaqui]

So the parents sound a little beyond negotiating something reasonable, to me, but maybe it's worth a try.

I'd start with, "I acknowledge that you're worried something bad will happen if I go for walks on my own. Let's agree a safe location, and a reasonable way for me to check in. How about [local area they've walked together in before that they all know well], and I call you halfway through the walk at [time], and get home/to a pick-up point by [time]? Then you know I'm in a pretty safe location and we get to test this out. When I leave home I'll have to walk places on my own all the time, and I'd like to get used to that while I know I have you to support me in the unlikely event something does go wrong."

Or "I won't go alone, how about if me and [friend] walk together and check in with you by text message after half an hour"?

(I'd probably have written myself a script on the subject.) Something like that. I wouldn't personally go for the option of allowing one's parents to track their phone, at least not unless it's turned on completely at the owner of the phone's own volition and never, ever the parents'.

If the parents won't go for it, then... honestly the rest of my advice would depend on a ton more context about the family and the options the LW sees on the table. Personally, if I couldn't convince my parents, I'd have found an alternative we could agree on, or just ridden it out until I left for university.

[mommy]

Poor kid. It's really stressful having to manage your parents' anxiety, especially when it pops up over something as minor as going for walks in familiar areas.

[ysobel]

It's really stressful having to manage your parents' anxiety

WORD. This is beautifully succinct <3

[ethelmay]

"if you haven't been responsible in the past" really gets under my skin. There's literally no reason to blame LW that we can see, and it doesn't sound as though she's been given a chance to demonstrate responsibility or otherwise.

Sometimes I think I was an overprotective mother (though what I worried about was mostly things like the kids getting lost, losing their money and/or phone, walking into traffic while reading - this was all well before they hit 17), and in fact I'm nearly sure I was, but at least I was nowhere near this bad. My kids had to ride city buses to high school (up to eight miles away), so there was no way I was going to completely control their movements at that age.

[p_cocincinus]

I read that as not having been given responsibility in the past, not necessarily that the kid has proven herself untrustworthy. That said, it's also possible the kid mentioned some past issue that was cut out of the published letter, but the advice giver was still aware of.

[p_cocincinus]

I wish every parent could be reminded on a regular basis that their job is to produce a capable, independent adult person at the end of 18 years, because it's astonishingly easy to internalize that your job as a parent is to keep your kid safe, healthy, and happy. It's entirely possible that LW's parents are abusive and controlling, but it's also possible that they've just... forgotten their actual job? As the parent of a 9-year-old, I have more than once been shocked that I've somehow let my kid reach [x age] without knowing how to [do a basic task]. It's incredibly easy to keep doing the things you're doing without stopping to reassess whether it's reasonable, which is how you end up realizing that your child made it to first grade without ever owning shoes that tie and therefore cannot tie her shoes, or you've been cutting her food in the kitchen before you give her the plate and now she's 8 and doesn't know how to use a table knife. You know. Hypothetically speaking. And I have worked hard to give my kid as much freedom as possible as soon as possible, and "the end goal is adulthood" is one of my parenting mantras; considering how parents are actively encouraged to focus on safety and control and how easy it is to have uncontrolled anxiety AS a parent, I think it's entirely possible that LW's parents have not actually considered that she's about to be an actual adult and they need to start letting go before she rips the band-aid off herself.

[beable]

My parents were shocked that as a teenager I didn’t magically know how to light matches comfortably but they never taught me as a child. How would I have learned?


And I remember a friend who had an anxious kid who for grade 9 was not only going to be bussing to school by herself for the first time but where said bus trip crossed the city and required 2-3 transfers depending on route chosen (3 transfers for less walking and more frequent buses). She was surprised when I suggested that her kid wouldn’t automatically understand how to read bus maps and schedules and suggested that she give her some practice opportunities in the summer before school started so that bussing to school wasn’t the straw breaking the camels back in “new grade, new school, new transportation, new friends, new everything”

[sathari]

I wish every parent could be reminded on a regular basis that their job is to produce a capable, independent adult person at the end of 18 years....

Cosigned and can we somehow embed this into the "meme pool" of humanity?

[oursin]

I am honestly surprised that therapy for the parents is not suggested, because this seems a pathological level of anxiety about what could happen if she went down to the end of the town, if she didn't go down with them. Wonder whether the pressure is wailing and wringing of hands rather than harsh forbidding.

Grant that I am writing from perspective of generation who was being sent on errands on my tiny tod from the age of 7 or 8, as mother's little helper, and to best of my recollection, my parents positively encouraged - in those days when we were not permanently trackable and in touch - independent exploration of our immediate environment.

So this seems to me particularly bizarre in days of smart phones, trackers - maybe they could have a drone keep watch over her walks?

[melannen]

1. Your parents are being unreasonable. 17 years old is more than old enough to go all sorts of places on your own and by yourself.

2. However, if you haven't ever gone places on your own and by yourself, there may be skills you haven't had an opportunity to learn. This may be a chance to talk to your parents about how you know there will come a time when you'll *have* to do things on your own, and you want to work through the skills you need in order to be confident. What do they think you need to know in order to be safe? How can you practice it with them? Can you research on your own and come up with a plan? (To reiterate. You shouldn't have to. But also you should have been allowed to walk around the neighborhood on your own starting at, about, oh, 12, and already been practiced and confident at it by now.

3. If you also enjoy biking, maybe compromise on biking? I was allowed to go out alone starting at age 8 as long as I was on my bike, on the assumption that on a bike I could outride an attacker on foot and was unlikely to face one willing to chase me down on a bike. You could try that argument.

[purlewe]

LW you need to make a plan and then break it down with your folks. I like the idea of calling them halfway. Walking at specific times with a preplanned route. even letting them track your phone so they can see you on your walk (I find this personally creepy but I know it gives anxious people a way to feel better about their loved ones whereabouts.) If you show them that you are being level headed and adult about this they might start to feel like this is a plan they can allow.

Should you be doing all this? no. but then I find that more and more kids I know have not been allowed to walk around their neighborhood by themselves let alone use public transportation unless they live in a city.

I think the response was garbage. And I really thought this was total trash: Maybe you can carry pepper spray UM. in many states giving a child under a certain age (some states 18, others 21) pepper spray is illegal. I have a 17 yr old niece who is coming to the city for college next year. My sister asked "how do you think an teenager will do in the city" and I said "fine. as long as they are aware of their surroundings they won't see much trouble." My sister's eyes became saucers. Apparently she doesn't think her kid is "aware of her surroundings" and they never have walked alone. A few days later their grandmother said "I gave her the "talk" about being in the city" OH? what did that entail? "Carry pepper spray and a whistle" When I told the grandmother that pepper spray is a weapon and not allowed on campus she was shocked. (sidenote: it is also not allowed in my work building in the city for the same reason.) Pepper spray in the hands of a 17 yr old who doesn't know how to use it sounds terrible. frankly pepper spray in anyone's hands who doesn't really know how to use it sounds terrible. And I am not pleased that this was the choice that C&F made.

[nocowardsoul]

I wonder how these parents would feel about their 17-year-old son walking and biking around a safe, suburban city.

[cimorene]

Yuuuuuup!