...Things

[Hobbs]

Sometimes I think I just signed up for the months/years I'll be away from home. Take today, for instance. I went on a run to keep in shape over the break and the imminent feasting we'll be enjoying soon. So what happens? My parents freak out and think I ran off or something, piling into the car to look for me. I had to call their cell once I got back home to tell them. I'm 24 bloody years old...I think that entitles me to going somewhere on my own without a fucking escort.

Sorry for the language, but I'm smoldering atm[/rant]

[Amina516]

Control isues? Have your parents always been this way? That just sounds odd.

[TheSHAD0W]

Sound like you ought to run away for real!

[Jester]

Run, Forrest! RUN!

[NightWatch]

Yeeeahhh, I have parents call all the damn time to report their children have disappeared and something horrible must have happened. It's always the same story of "My son/daughter went to a party last night and they haven't come home or called and their phone is off!" Come to find out, their pwecious baby is like 25, they don't even live at home and are probably too hungover to want to talk to their helicopter mom. Seriously, there are periods of time where I don't even so much as email my parents for weeks at a time. And they never flip out and call the cops. I think this means they're normal?

[Supermarket Slave Girl]

When I was 18, my mum expected me to call home at least once if I was pulling an all nighter with friends just to let her know I was alive and ok.

I moved out of home at 19 with the boyfriend (now husband). She wouldn't even think to worry if I went out at 24 and didn't call home, you're an adult you can do what you want.

[Bloodsoul]

That reminds me, I haven't called my folks in awhile. I always mean't to write my mom letters using the lyrics from that one Green Day song... uh.. it was on Dookie.. eh, whatever. I guess since I live with my grandmother, I'm not "technically" on my own.

[lupo pazzesco]

Ok, I'm 26. I still call my mom when I'm out and about, even in Houston, but not always. Generally, it's just so she knows what's going on those nights we were supposed to either talk or webcam together.

That said, even when I'm visiting home, while I obey the house rules my mom lays down, she knows I still take time for me. Example. Yesterday I decided to go for a 3 mile walk. My sister threw a shit fit, but my mom just sorta shrugged and said to call her if I changed my mind and got tired/wanted a lift home.

You're an adult, hun. But she is your mom. Sticky situation, and I've no advice whatsoever, so...yeah. Still, we're here if you need to vent, it's a good sounding board (I should know, I've used it a LOT in the past.) You also know how to get ahold of me, if you need to.

[Summerfly413]

My mom is way overprotective.
She thinks if I'm out past 1am I'm going to die or be raped or kidnapped...Even though I'm just chilling at my friend's house.

When I'm in school she has to know my schedule every day(I'm in college!), and when exactly I work. If I don't come home within a half hour of being done with school or work, she calls me.

I had to stay at the shcool library for like five hours writing a paper and she called twice asking where I was.

I NEVER do anything bad. I don't even go to parties, they aren't my thing. Our city isn't that big, and there isn't a lot to do.

I live at home, with her and my older 35 year old sister. And she apparently can't go to sleep until I'm home. She has before, but more often than not, I HAVE TO come home because it's late and she wants to sleep.
And I'm usually at a friend's hous ethat's less than 10 minutes away.

--I'm not one of those people who gets homesick...wonder why..

[AdminAssistant]

I call my parents once a day, and usually the conversation is "Hey, I'm alive, are you alive? The weather is fine, my car is still running, yes, I have enough money. Love you, talk to you tomorrow"

It's 5 minutes of my day and peace of mind for Mama.

[Greenday]

My sister set the tone for what I'm stuck doing. When my sister went to college, she used to call home 50 thousand times a day. She was always telling my mom everything she did every minute of every day.

I got to college and didn't call my mom at all and three days later I get a call from my sister telling me to call my mom cause she's worried. Ugh. Then I just HAD to give her my schedule, which turned out to be nice cause my first semester of college she called me as I was walking in late to a calculus exam.

I finally just resigned myself to it and generally called her sometime in the middle of the day between classes. This previous semester I'd just call her while waiting for the bus to the other campus.

It's when I'm home that's annoying. Where am I going? Who am I going with? What time am I going to be back? And friends isn't a good enough answer to who am I going to be with. She claims she's just interested in what I'm doing but I think it's just nosey. I feel like I can't go anywhere without being interrogated.

[Jester]

These mothers who have to know where their child is at all times, and call them if their schedule varies even slightly....what would they do without cell phones?

Ah, make fun of me as an old fart all you want, but know this, young whippersnappers....in my college days, when I left my dorm room, my mother had no way to get a hold of me AT ALL.

Of course, the fact that Mom is not at all like the mothers being described probably helped my situation, but that's another story....and one that would probably curl some of those other mothers' hair!

[Retail Associate]

I grew up with a mother like this. Even if I got up to go to the bathroom she'd ask, "Where you going???"

And it wasn't because she cared. She was a control freak!

So I was pretty much the opposite with my son once he turned 18. So long as he treated me with respect and proved he was a pretty good guy, he was given quite a lot of freedom. Now that he's older and on his own we usually speak to or see each other every 2 weeks or so.

[Jester]

I don't know how much of a control freak either of my grandmothers were (I barely know Dad's mom at all), but from what I gathered from my parents, neither one of them were exactly liberal or casual in their parenting, if you know what I mean.

Which may have a lot to do with the freedom my parents gave us. Today it might be considered borderline criminal, but in grade school, I would come home from school, get on my bike, and tool around the neighborhood, exploring. And without a helmet.* And as long as I was home when I was supposed to be, or reasonably so, the 'rents were fine with it. And on weekends I would explore more, either on foot with my friends, or alone on my bike. (I was attached to my bike almost nonstop from the moment I learned to ride without training wheels.)

And it wasn't just the neighborhood I explored. As I got older, I got more adventurous, and would ride all around the town. Before I finished grade school, I had literally ridden all over town...and this was a town of about 35,000
people, a half hour's drive from a major city! And not only did my parents have no problem with this, no other adult who saw me tooling around did either. Of course, this was all a matter of the times as much as my parents' leniency with us.

But they continued to be lenient for the very simple reason that we gave them very little reason not to be. The first major trouble any of us got in was after my father died, when my older sister was caught with pot at the summer camp she worked at, which naturally didn't help Mom's attempt to give up her 30-year habit of smoking! But by then, our patterns were set, and it would have been nigh on impossible for Mom to reign us in.

I am not saying that this is the way things should be with every family, or even any family. I think the three of us turned out decently alright, but by the beer gods, none of us is perfect, or even close, and we all have our problems, to be sure.

But as I went through high school, I started to notice something that had been evident for years, but I had just not picked up on....generally speaking, the kids who did the worst shit, and pushed the envelope the furthest, and tried some of the stupidest stuff, were the kids who had had very strict upbringings and very rigid rules growing up. I found it amusing that those who had gone to Catholic school but were now in public schools were easily the wildest among us. (Something today's parents might want to consider when making such decision, by the way.)

I believe my parents were the way they were with us because their parents were so restrictive, much the same way as my parents ran from the Jewish religion after having it crammed down their throats growing up. It shouldn't surprise anyone that, having had no religious education growing up but having watched my cousins receive it, this child of atheists who had run from the Synagogue expressed some interest in Hebrew School as a child. Nothing ever came of it, but now that I write this, I am rather surprised that my sisters never rebelled against my parents' non-teaching as I did briefly. After all, of the three of us, I was always the calm and quiet one. Still am.

Yes, I'm serious. Yes, I know what that says about my sisters. Haven't you been paying attention? Those women are fucking NUTS!!!

*(If you wore a helmet on a bike as a kid in the Seventies, you either (a) got your ass kicked, (b) had to ride really fast to avoid getting your ass kicked, but still got made fun of, or (c) had some kind of motorbike, which all the other kids wanted and were envious of you for, and the only reason they didn't kick your ass was because they thought you were cool for having the motorbike, and they hoped you would let them ride it at some point.)

[Tanasi]

My Mom was and still is a controll freak and had to know where we were at every moment. Having grown up with that I didn't think much of it until I was drafted and went off to war. After returning 4 years later I was back in my old room but this time I had it to myself working full time and dreading weekend reserve drills. My Mom tried that under-her-thumb routine and I didn't play along and she'd preach, yell, jump-up-and-down, just generally throw a fit that I didn't tell where I was going, who I was going to see and give a minute by minute report of what I did. After the third or fourth tirade I was packing to leave when Dad told her that I've seen the elephant and was a man and didn't need my Mommy to run my life. After that she was fine.
When I was a dorm director I had a mother call me real early on a Sunday morning freaking out because she couldn't get her son on the phone. I told her I had seen him yesterday afternoon and he was OK then. She demanded that I go check on him. I refused and hung up. Campus police called and relayed the same story to me, I told them no and hung up, then an hour later the director of housing called. So I got up went to check on the boy and he was shacked up with a girl and hungover. Dear Mom called me back and I told her he last I saw of him 10 minutes ago he was hip deep in some girl and said he'd call when he finished. He hated me for that and still won't speak to me to this day and that's been nearly 30 years ago.
My Mom calls once a week on Friday at 7:00pm and only on my phone. My MIL has a live line attached to my wife and monitors her entire bodily functions. I only call my moved out kids once a week to check on them otherwise I'll text or email them to call when I need to talk to them. My at home kids are subject to my pourous thumb.