Question

[velvetpage]

I came across this link twice in the space of five minutes yesterday, and most reactions to it were comments like, "This mom is my new hero."

Except for one, who claimed the mom was being abusive with her zero-proof attitude and willingness to publicly humiliate her son.

So, dear readers, which is it? Is she a reasonable mom enforcing a reasonable restriction on the use of a vehicle still in her name, or is she a tyrant and abusive parent?

Comments

[kisekileia.livejournal.com]

The relationship doesn't stop...the authority does, in my view.

You are really in a minority, I think. Most young adults I know have not gotten along with their parents if they live at home, unless the parents treat the young adults as essentially autonomous fellow adults. It's not that the personal connection is lost...but the young adult's life should be his or her own.

[kesmun.livejournal.com]

I didn't have a specific curfew, but I did know that my parents wanted to know where I was and at least have a general idea of who I was with. The thing about parents is that whether you like it or not, for good or ill, their influence over you never stops. That influence will, of course, wane with age and distance, but the closer you are, the closer that influence is to authority. And regardless of the eyes of the law, especially with the maturity levels shown by many "young adults" (me included - I wasn't the smartest cookie in the box at 23, I did some rather dumb stuff) that authority needs to extend beyond the eighteenth birthday. Personally, I'd rather see parents err on the side of authoritativeness than on the side of permissiveness.

[kisekileia.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't have a huge objection to the knowing where you are/who you're with thing if it goes both ways. With my parents, when I lived at home, it generally did.

I don't agree with you on the authority needing to extend beyond the eighteenth birthday. By the eighteenth birthday, most people have been physically adult for several years (except for some aspects of brain development), and I think that some independence is usually necessary for them to start acting like adults.

[kesmun.livejournal.com]

The best parents walk a fine line between authoritative and permissive. When good parents err, in my opinion, they do so on the side of authoritative, at least early on. Much of it depends on the individual kid, of course, but a 19-year-old needs a little more authority than a 23 y/o. When you're an "adult" but still young, your relationship with your parents isn't going to be an equal relationship. It just isn't. Especially if you're living under their roof. Most especially if they're still doing the bulk of the providing for you (buying the kid a car seems like they're still doing most of the providing).

Permissiveness can come as the kid shows more maturity. One of the best ways to show maturity, I think, is to actually show independence (getting a job or going to school or both, maybe offering to help with some of the bills, generally showing an awareness that there's more to life than being a kid) within the strictures of authority rather than trying to rebel against that authority. I don't think that treating your 19-year-old kid like you would a 30-year-old unrelated adult living with you is necessary for them to start acting like an adult.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I think maybe the two of you are operating under different definitions of authority. Kesmun sees it as one step up from influence, and you're seeing it as the right to order a kid around.

It seems to me that parenting a teen, especially an older teen, requires a gradual release of responsibility. Too sudden, and the kid has no mooring and is set adrift to mess up; too gradual, and the kid feels trapped and untrusted. A good parent is walking that line, gradually releasing more authority to the kid. When it comes to big items, like a potentially lethal vehicle in the parent's name, the authority can and should be released a lot more gradually than authority over, say, how the kid spends her allowance. In this case, since the car was such a new acquisition, the mom was checking up to see if the kid was following her rules, which were not at all unreasonable for a car that she owned and a son still in his teens.

Authority should shift to influence so gradually that neither one notices the difference most of the time. Depending on the family in question and the personality of the kid, that gradual release of authority can go past legal adulthood and still be good parenting.