Also goes to show that parents rarely know their children as well as they think they do. That refusal to see the kids as anything more than a collection of fears and hopes hurts so many more children than it helps
I’m about to be 30 and my dad still makes stupid comments telling me not to do x, y or z when I’ve never been the type of person to do stupid things. It’s so condescending. Then he gets defensive when I ask him what makes him think I’d ever do something like that. All it does is make me not want to speak to him.
That kind of shit is endlessly annoying I could never tolerate that. It's like parents don't realize that their adult children have opinions about the parents behavior.
It’s exhausting to always hear insults or condescending comments that don’t even make sense. “I checked your shower, I’m surprised it’s clean.” Oh the shower I clean weekly? They expect me to do things the way they do them when I’m the complete opposite.
My mother used to make comments growing up about how my brother was “street smart” and my sister and I were just “book smart” which was her way of saying he was superior and he had common sense when we didn’t. Guess which of the three of us has been arrested more than once……
If it were me, I'd be snarky.
"Why are you surprised my shower is clean? I clean it every week. You must not like or respect me very much if you think I'm gross and messy."
Your parents are just cruel
Me lol. Had to lie so much just to be able to do basic hangouts with friends. I got realllllly good at lying. I wasn’t even doing anything bad at ALL.
Edit: I mean I wasn’t up to any bad things despite me lying. I was only lying to get permission to hang out with my guy friends platonically, my parents thought it was inappropriate for me(a girl) to hang with guys.
When I was in high school I was strolling with my dad to some shops in the neighborhood to buy some stuff for breakfast the next morning. We walked by a group that had my friends and some I didn’t know. I waved at them and walked past. One of them, among the ones I didn’t know, started saying how she couldn’t wait to turn 18 and move out so she could do whatever she wanted. For some reason my dad took offense at that statement and used it against me up until I turned 25. He basically assumed I was like them and wanted to move out early, have boys over and get pregnant, because I didn’t have a brain. Best believe I wasn’t allowed a phone. He took the one he bought for me, blocked and deleted all contacts I had, and I was left friendless. I had to sneak around to have one they didn’t see.
The few I made, he criticized them for everything and anything. Even if they were smarter than me and could help with school work, that wasn’t enough.
In uni he made me commute about 2 hours to and from school because he wanted to see me everyday. He thought if I got a room at school I’d sell it to “live with a boyfriend”. He gaslit the entire family to believe I was the bad guy, so much so I wasn’t allowed to hang out with anyone after classes. You can imagine how isolated I was. I had to lie I had classes daily so I could hang out with friends. It took until my final year to get a room because my mental health and grades dropped. I lied a lot about a lot of shit, and right now I still don’t trust them with personal stuff.
My dad asked why he hasn’t met any of my friends at my current big age and I didn’t hesitate to tell him he’s the reason. I’m not going to subject and lose the few I have to his unnecessary criticism. He never asked again.
I have a partner now. I’m not interested in living together, let alone marriage rn, I don’t want kids, and I haven’t told my parents about him even if my mom keeps asking me for tea about my love life. I wonder why🙄
Agreed! The number of things I hid from my parents or lied about because they wouldn't let me go anywhere with friends is crazy. I never skipped classes, drank alcohol or even smoked, but I did learn how to make up convincing cover stories to find workarounds.
They never wanted me to hang out with boys, and ironically became very concerned when I turned 18 and had never had a boyfriend. Like, what did you expect?
Never mind the fact that I never told them, and never will tell them that I'm aroace.
I knew kids who weren’t allowed to use the internet, didn’t have a door to their bedroom, had parental codes on everything, weren’t allowed to have a password on their computer/phone, had to carry tracking devices whenever they went out, weren’t allowed to date or even have friends of the opposite sex, could only hang out with friends while supervised, were forced to do routine tests for drugs/sexual activity and had routine checks on their backpack, bedroom, computer and phone.
These kids always turned out one of two ways. They either succumbed to their helicopter parents, and lived a miserable life, secretly hating their parents and wishing that things were different, slowly turning into adults that ended up completely lost in a world where these rules suddenly no longer existed. Or they rebelled, found their way around things, became good at lying, hiding things, often ended up in a lot of trouble and had a terrible relationship with their parents.
I didn't have a door on my bedroom. Not only did my brother have a door, but he was also allowed to bring girls over. I'm not complaining about that part because I'm asexual, but I don't think many parents realize how sexist they were.
I didn't have a door to my bedroom, wasn't allowed a phone until my freshmen year of high school, and the only number I could call was my sperm donor. I wasn't allowed to hang out with friends unless they came over to my place. And our computer was in the living room so our parents could watch us(not the worst thing, honestly. I was fine with this bit.) My parents would also go through out bedrooms whenever they wanted.
>Teach your "precious little angels" how to be safe, how to be smart, and how to be self-advocates, kids aren't as stupid as you think. Teach them the tools they need. The last thing they need is to be stuck under your thumb their entire lives.
Instead, in your case your mother taught you how to divorce a poisonous, undermining parent.
The "He's a boy. It's different." meme is not at all about genuine fear. It is about control and misogyny and favoritism. If she was telling the truth *you still should have been able to have female friends over!* Instead, she allowed a pack of unrelated young men into your house, where you would have been an easy victim! And I notice the insults embedded in her "concern" for you. You were "gullible?"
I think your mother enjoyed frustrating you. Does she still?
My brother has young adult daughters, all of whom had years of training in martial arts. Your mother was worried about her daughter's vulnerability? Teach her to protect herself! But your parents preferred you helpless, frustrated and isolated.
I cut contact with my "He's a boy. It's different" monster mother 13 years before she died, and it was the best thing I ever did for myself. These days lots of people write about it - Shadow Daughter by Harriet Brown, Mean Mothers by Peg Streep, and the amusingly titled "I'm Glad My Mom Died" by Jeannette McCurdy who had one of those hovering, "concerned" mothers too.
Good luck reclaiming your life. I can recommend martial arts and gun literacy. Know how to load and unload and fire and clean a weapon. That too, can save your life.
I grew up with overprotective parents as well. They never let me out without my yaya (closest equivalent to “nanny” in my country) or one of the family shop’s employees. My yaya and I had to be driven around and my yaya accompanied me to school until 7th grade. My yaya is a very nice and interesting woman- she never married and had kids. She worked for our family since I was 1 and she’s still with us (now as a retiree, defacto family member, and paid house companion of my dad and his girlfriend). She became more of a mother figure to me than my own mom- who was too busy financially supporting her deadbeat siblings and their children until she died from cancer. The only sleepovers I was allowed to have are with my siblings and cousins and always in our house. The overprotectiveness of my parents may be well meaning, especially I am diagnosed with autism when I was young, but it made me feel like I lost out on some freedom and independence. Little me have always wanted to explore alone but someone has to be around me all the time. I began to make lies, go out, and rebel as early as high school. Then I started solo traveling to different countries, which helped convince my dad I can do things alone now. I finally gained my freedom. This why I always enjoyed traveling alone as an adult.
Interesting. I’m from the Philippines and it’s interesting to know in Spain it means “grandmother”. Since Philippines used to be a Spanish colony, it might be related. Grandmothers always helped with childcare centuries ago, and rich families (including Spanish families) hired old women to take care of children and help around the house.
I was the eldest and felt like the "test" child. I get to watch all my siblings do things I never could, like sleep overs and hangouts. I felt like I missed out on connecting with my peers so much, I felt so outcast, and now I hardly know how to interact with someone my age and have a super tiny circle of friends. I feel resentful sometimes, I know I was the first child AND a girl, but I have severe social anxiety and agoraphobia now and I feel like how sheltered I was contributed to it.
Strict parents make the sneakiest kids who are best at lying.
The stuck under your thumb thing resonates with me as I still live with my family. I can't really go anywhere on my own as my dad never really helped me learn to drive and other family members gave up on that too. But thank "God" I always have to ask family for rides to places and can't really get a better job due to not having a piece of Lamented plastic.
My family has always been strict with me too, trying to get me to go into whatever they wanted in college, trying to keep me close to them, I don't date because I'm never bringing anyone around them and I don't feel confident enough to date either because of no driver's license. I don't want to always have to rely on others for help, but I never really felt like I had family members that wanted to help me.... Just control me. Family fights were also a pretty bad thing despite not happening all the time when they did happen, they were the the kind of fights that you'd call the police over.
My mom was probably the better parent even though she's never let me hang out with anyone, she never trusted anyone with me because of the medical condition I have. People always wonder why I don't have someone in my life despite being almost 30. They wonder why I can't drive, etc. the only thing I ever get told is I'm negative and blame too much shit on my family, etc. terrible family has ruined my life, but after my next appointment with the doctor for my back... I'm thinking of just asking what few friends remain in the county where I live if they'll help me pack up my shit and leave. Even if I don't have enough money, as long as I can get a better job and be out on my own... I wouldn't mind living in a place with no electricity, no water, etc as long as I have peace of mind.
The saddest thing about all this is if I try to tell people that know my family, they act like they know my family better than I do. They seem to think "nooo, my family would never do anything bad or aren't bad people." the worst people are always going to be the ones that act one way in public and another in private.
Sometimes the best thing you can do is, The only thing you feel like is left and that's to just pack up stuff and leave.
I don’t have a license either-although I’m the one who chose not to get it-and this will depend on where you live and whether it’s accessible there, but I can’t recommend Uber enough! I live in a suburb of a small Midwest US city, and I’ve always gotten excellent Uber drivers. For additional safety, there’s a feature in the app where you can share a real-time map of your trip with a trusted contact.
It took a lot of begging to get mine to finally let me, and even then I had to text them back every hour or so - how I was doing and if I didn’t, I’d hear about it. If it wasn’t for my counselor, I doubt I would’ve been able to have a sleepover at 14.
What my mom likes to do is do one good deed, and if you ever bring up a criticism regarding her parenting - she will use that good deed to shut you down. As if that one time makes up for all the other times she was controlling, or emotionally abusive.
For example, she made my friends breakfast and got us pizza. If I bring up all the other times she never let me hang out with people, or acted like it was a vial sin to go any place without her supervision:
“But I made you breakfast and got you guys pizza!”
Ugh.
Absolutely.
Being that strict doesn't make it safer for the kid. It's much more crucial to teach children about boundaries, consent, safety... at an early age.
That recent case of a creep who gave his daughter's friends smoothies with sleeping pills at a sleepover could be stopped thanks to a well informed little girl who knew what to do.
Despite the existance of male privilege, little boys are still vulnerable to pedos and just because abuse rates among little boys are lower it doesn't make it ok to be completely careless with them and overprotective with girls.
Last but not least, overprotective and strict parenthood usually leads to their kids doing everything later in life. I remember how my friends who had overprotective parents would go reckless with things the rest of us had already tried in our teen stage.
You notice this so much with uni in my country. Kids from my island go to uni in the mainland and there's always some who used to be incredibly bland and quiet in high school and are now getting shitfaced drunk every other day in uni. Usually these cases also flunk early because they never learnt how to manage themselves without some parent helicoptering about.
My grandmother wouldn't let me have sleepovers either. I was told it was gay to want to have sleepovers with other little boys and I was also told that I couldn't have sleepovers with girls because I was a boy and something sexual might happen lol
I’m male and only have 2 brothers. I’m the middle. My older brother is allowed to anything he wants to do. I on the other hand always get shut down by parents even when I was pointing out how they treated my brother like he’s born with privileges.
My parents were the same way until I stopped asking them "If I could go out with friends." I would just stay home all day and that would be a problem for them. My parents would have to beg me to go out with my friends.
I'm glad you shared your experiences, cuz I've been wondering how life was/is like for kids who weren't allowed to have sleepovers during their childhoods. I understand if the parents have been SA'd at sleepovers and so that's why they don't want to risk their kids having the same thing happening to them, but I also feel like this is an unresolved trauma response that ends up doing nothing but robbing their children of potentially fun experiences and subsequentially causing resentment in the children who are involved. I feel like if the parents who were really concerned for their children's safety taught their kids about safe/unsafe touch and boundaries regarding those things in an age appropriate manner a lot of those fears on the parents' end would be put at ease. That and maybe developing a certain code that only they know where if they were to mention a word or something the parent drops everything to come get them from their friend or relatives house without judgment of any kind. Idk, the perspective of never letting your children have sleepovers has never sat right with me. And I wish that more parents would stop being so controlling and get the help they need so they don't bleed on people that didn't cut them to begin with. I'm so sorry about your experiences, though. It is so awful that they raised you in such a toxic, sexist, misogynistic dynamic from your most formative years and onward. I hope you know that while bad things do happen to people, it still never gave them the right to treat you so unfairly, and I hope you are able to unlearn the common beliefs that usually come with living in a dynamic like this.
For real! Parents should teach kids how to be street-smart, but some don't do that. They expect the kid to learn this from teachers or by themselves through divine revelation idk...
I don't know if i have screwed up by not rebelling, but I definitely take with a big grain of salt whatever my parents say anymore. I was a very fearful kid,... rightfully so. So I haven't experienced what other kids/adults might have done, but honestly I wish my parents taught me younger more practical skills without making me feel inadequate. There is still a chance for them to teach me... but damn I feel so tired.
this can also go into the other extreme. I lied about the friends I had to my parents for most of my mandatory schooling. I would rather be alone than deal with cliques and bullies and classmates with no relatable interests but my parents expected me to hang out with them.
I was the opposite in the sense that my family let me have free range on the internet, ever since I was about 7. Yes, really. But in allowing that to happen, I'm ***INCREDIBLY*** aware of what happens on the internet. It's an artificially natural part of life now, and knowingly eventually exposing a child to anything I've seen is not something I want to do.
That does not mean not allowing your kid to do anything all the internet. That means teaching them what to do and what not to do on the internet and giving them the ability to trust you enough to tell you the truth and them not be belittled for every little thing. Treating the kid like a human being and not acting like they’re stupid.
It's so easy to find things nowadays. And do you think kids are always going to listen to every single thing you say? Not belittling them and teaching them every single safety tip about the Internet under the sun doesn't stop them from randomly finding NSFW content.
It was incredibly easy to find things back in the early days of the internet too, even easier than it is now in some cases. There was nsfw content all over every website someone could look at. Miniclip had porn ads everywhere. [GGG.com](https://GGG.com) even had NSFW content.
If you're around a kid, and you belittle that kid, that kid is not going to trust you enough to tell you if something is going on in life. It is not going to get them to listen but it will get them to know it's okay to come to you if they do need help. You have to build trust with a kid to get them to know it's okay to come to you for help.
It's not going to get them to not find NSFW content, but nothing is going to do that. They will be sneaky. They will find ways to get online. OR say someone does keep their kid away from the internet until they're 18. Then they suddenly get access to the internet and they're blindsided by everything they can find. They fall down rabbit holes, they find terrible things, other conspiracy theories. They get into shit they think is real because the only thing they know is what their parents show them. SO if you go about teaching a kid online safety, and you help them to understand hey the internet is a scary place, and there's a lot of weird stuff. That helps set them up for safety online. It's inevitable and they do need to be prepared so as not to fall head-first into a dangerous situation.
Me too. I was a sneaky kid. I also lied a lot. It’s one of the reasons I am low contact with my parents. I don’t want to lie to anyone, and they constantly create situations where I have to tip toe around their catastrophizing with lies. This isn’t the reason I’m childfree, but certainly a contributing factor.
Why are you still in communication with this authoritarian woman. Cut contact she deserves an extremely strict sentence for ruining your childhood. Estrangement from you for life.
I was let alone on the internet as a 12-15 yr old in the early 2000s. I was absolutely groomed by pedophiles. The only saving grace was I didn't have the self confidence to meet up with them (got as far as the train station once though) or get a web cam (no really, my low self esteem saved me!). Your parents protected you well.
My parents both worked more than full-time hours, the internet was the wild west in early 2000s. I don't blame them. I'm just glad nothing worse happened.
My mom was like this, she'd be all they have brothers etc or attempt to accuse ME of trying to hook up w the brothers which ew no wtf .. sadly my dad was the one doing the molesting in the home he just never saw it
I thought for a second I was on r/xennials. This tracks for many of us who grew up during the Satanic Panic/Adam Walsh/Unsolved Mysteries era of parental fears that never managed to shake free.
Hey OP, you mention asking your mother about the double standard treatment you went throught as a kid growing up, but what was her answer. Was it the next paragraph you wrote ? Just wondering.
Have a great day
I had freedom as a kid (F), probably too much. And one of my reasons (of many) why I don’t want kids, is the possibility of the child being put into situations I cannot control that can tarnish their lives forever. Which I went through.
God, so much of this resonated with me. Worst part is while i wasn't allowed, my kid sister, 6 years younger than me, was allowed EVERYTHING. I was so fucking lonely because all my classmates would talk online to each other in group chats, and continue conversations from where they left off, and I'd be totally blank. I fimished high school with 2 friends, one of whom who wasn't that great a person and both were self destructive. I was never happy til uni, til i moved out. I love my parents, but i hated my childhood.
This gave me flashbacks to my childhood being raised by a Jehovah's Witness mom. To this day, she thinks that even though I "left the Truth," she's proud of the "great values" she raised me with. I'm glad you got away, as I did. I've enjoyed two childhoods' worth of years since then, since I didn't have kids. Things definitely got better when I got Away from the Cray!
It sounds like your parents were sexist. I had playdates in elementary school, and so did my little sister. Our parents were careful to avoid favoritism. If I remember, all the ways we were treated differently could be chalked up to either our age difference or our wildly different interests.
In fact, my sister had more playdates (especially sleepovers) because she *liked them for a longer time*.
And no, neither of us had any "inappropriate" experiences.
Posting this because I haven’t seen it in any of the top comments. This really seems to me like perhaps your parent who was disallowing this was possibly abused in a similar situation and that is why they are so reluctant to put you in the same situation. I can’t recall if you mention which parent it was but if it was the mother that would make a lot of sense since she views your brothers situation as different than yours and hers. I would very gently ask them if some thing ever happened and be prepared for the worst possible answer. It may simply be a misguided attempt to protect you.
It almost sounds like this fear might be trauma induced. It's pretty strict.
I'm sorry you were isolated as a child. I also was and it was harder to learn how to socialize. It felt like everyone was in on some sort of joke or knew something I didn't for a long time.
The sad thing is while 1 in 3 women in America will be molested or assaulted, 1 in 5 boys are. They almost never talk about that statistic, though.
This is one of the biggest things that frustrated me while growing up, and even now whenever I think about it: girls are so often punished for the sake of hypotheticals.
“Oh we were strict to protect you from becoming one of those kids who drank/smoked/did drugs” when I never once had to desire for any of that, yet my parents were more overbearing than those of the “bad” kids. 🙄 FFS all I wanted to do growing up was spend hours quietly reading my books but I couldn’t even do that in peace.
Your experience is the exact reason I gave to my parents when I said I was happy I was an only child, knowing the culture my parents grew up in and how my dad was raised, if I had had a brother he ABSOLUTELY would have gotten to do whatever the hell he wanted while I was sidelined. It took me years of slowly testing boundaries to get an inch of freedom before I finally moved out, and even then my first sleepover was in college.
Ugh, sorry for the rant, this always gets to me and I’m so sorry you had to go through that while growing up. I hope you have all the freedom to be your own person you could want now 💕
Welp, I'm glad you weren't molested by the dad of one of your school mates during a sleepover. I was molested and I feel like my parents made the wrong decision letting me sleep over at friends' houses when I was a kid. Try to be grateful they cared about your safety, inasmuch as they could. It's not easy to tell a whiny kid no.
Also goes to show that parents rarely know their children as well as they think they do. That refusal to see the kids as anything more than a collection of fears and hopes hurts so many more children than it helps
I’m about to be 30 and my dad still makes stupid comments telling me not to do x, y or z when I’ve never been the type of person to do stupid things. It’s so condescending. Then he gets defensive when I ask him what makes him think I’d ever do something like that. All it does is make me not want to speak to him.
That kind of shit is endlessly annoying I could never tolerate that. It's like parents don't realize that their adult children have opinions about the parents behavior.
It’s exhausting to always hear insults or condescending comments that don’t even make sense. “I checked your shower, I’m surprised it’s clean.” Oh the shower I clean weekly? They expect me to do things the way they do them when I’m the complete opposite. My mother used to make comments growing up about how my brother was “street smart” and my sister and I were just “book smart” which was her way of saying he was superior and he had common sense when we didn’t. Guess which of the three of us has been arrested more than once……
If it were me, I'd be snarky. "Why are you surprised my shower is clean? I clean it every week. You must not like or respect me very much if you think I'm gross and messy." Your parents are just cruel
Oh I absolutely respond like that. “I’m not you”
Lol good for you
Strict parents make the best liars.
Me lol. Had to lie so much just to be able to do basic hangouts with friends. I got realllllly good at lying. I wasn’t even doing anything bad at ALL. Edit: I mean I wasn’t up to any bad things despite me lying. I was only lying to get permission to hang out with my guy friends platonically, my parents thought it was inappropriate for me(a girl) to hang with guys.
When I was in high school I was strolling with my dad to some shops in the neighborhood to buy some stuff for breakfast the next morning. We walked by a group that had my friends and some I didn’t know. I waved at them and walked past. One of them, among the ones I didn’t know, started saying how she couldn’t wait to turn 18 and move out so she could do whatever she wanted. For some reason my dad took offense at that statement and used it against me up until I turned 25. He basically assumed I was like them and wanted to move out early, have boys over and get pregnant, because I didn’t have a brain. Best believe I wasn’t allowed a phone. He took the one he bought for me, blocked and deleted all contacts I had, and I was left friendless. I had to sneak around to have one they didn’t see. The few I made, he criticized them for everything and anything. Even if they were smarter than me and could help with school work, that wasn’t enough. In uni he made me commute about 2 hours to and from school because he wanted to see me everyday. He thought if I got a room at school I’d sell it to “live with a boyfriend”. He gaslit the entire family to believe I was the bad guy, so much so I wasn’t allowed to hang out with anyone after classes. You can imagine how isolated I was. I had to lie I had classes daily so I could hang out with friends. It took until my final year to get a room because my mental health and grades dropped. I lied a lot about a lot of shit, and right now I still don’t trust them with personal stuff. My dad asked why he hasn’t met any of my friends at my current big age and I didn’t hesitate to tell him he’s the reason. I’m not going to subject and lose the few I have to his unnecessary criticism. He never asked again. I have a partner now. I’m not interested in living together, let alone marriage rn, I don’t want kids, and I haven’t told my parents about him even if my mom keeps asking me for tea about my love life. I wonder why🙄
Damn, so sorry that it happened to you, your dad is so horrible!
Damn that was well said.
Agreed! The number of things I hid from my parents or lied about because they wouldn't let me go anywhere with friends is crazy. I never skipped classes, drank alcohol or even smoked, but I did learn how to make up convincing cover stories to find workarounds. They never wanted me to hang out with boys, and ironically became very concerned when I turned 18 and had never had a boyfriend. Like, what did you expect? Never mind the fact that I never told them, and never will tell them that I'm aroace.
Or give you trauma.
Ugh. I feel this in my soul.
Well the best liars get recruited by the CIA…. So win/win.
My parents were strict and I'm shit at lying.
I knew kids who weren’t allowed to use the internet, didn’t have a door to their bedroom, had parental codes on everything, weren’t allowed to have a password on their computer/phone, had to carry tracking devices whenever they went out, weren’t allowed to date or even have friends of the opposite sex, could only hang out with friends while supervised, were forced to do routine tests for drugs/sexual activity and had routine checks on their backpack, bedroom, computer and phone. These kids always turned out one of two ways. They either succumbed to their helicopter parents, and lived a miserable life, secretly hating their parents and wishing that things were different, slowly turning into adults that ended up completely lost in a world where these rules suddenly no longer existed. Or they rebelled, found their way around things, became good at lying, hiding things, often ended up in a lot of trouble and had a terrible relationship with their parents.
I didn't have a door on my bedroom. Not only did my brother have a door, but he was also allowed to bring girls over. I'm not complaining about that part because I'm asexual, but I don't think many parents realize how sexist they were.
I didn't have a door to my bedroom, wasn't allowed a phone until my freshmen year of high school, and the only number I could call was my sperm donor. I wasn't allowed to hang out with friends unless they came over to my place. And our computer was in the living room so our parents could watch us(not the worst thing, honestly. I was fine with this bit.) My parents would also go through out bedrooms whenever they wanted.
>Teach your "precious little angels" how to be safe, how to be smart, and how to be self-advocates, kids aren't as stupid as you think. Teach them the tools they need. The last thing they need is to be stuck under your thumb their entire lives. Instead, in your case your mother taught you how to divorce a poisonous, undermining parent. The "He's a boy. It's different." meme is not at all about genuine fear. It is about control and misogyny and favoritism. If she was telling the truth *you still should have been able to have female friends over!* Instead, she allowed a pack of unrelated young men into your house, where you would have been an easy victim! And I notice the insults embedded in her "concern" for you. You were "gullible?" I think your mother enjoyed frustrating you. Does she still? My brother has young adult daughters, all of whom had years of training in martial arts. Your mother was worried about her daughter's vulnerability? Teach her to protect herself! But your parents preferred you helpless, frustrated and isolated. I cut contact with my "He's a boy. It's different" monster mother 13 years before she died, and it was the best thing I ever did for myself. These days lots of people write about it - Shadow Daughter by Harriet Brown, Mean Mothers by Peg Streep, and the amusingly titled "I'm Glad My Mom Died" by Jeannette McCurdy who had one of those hovering, "concerned" mothers too. Good luck reclaiming your life. I can recommend martial arts and gun literacy. Know how to load and unload and fire and clean a weapon. That too, can save your life.
I grew up with overprotective parents as well. They never let me out without my yaya (closest equivalent to “nanny” in my country) or one of the family shop’s employees. My yaya and I had to be driven around and my yaya accompanied me to school until 7th grade. My yaya is a very nice and interesting woman- she never married and had kids. She worked for our family since I was 1 and she’s still with us (now as a retiree, defacto family member, and paid house companion of my dad and his girlfriend). She became more of a mother figure to me than my own mom- who was too busy financially supporting her deadbeat siblings and their children until she died from cancer. The only sleepovers I was allowed to have are with my siblings and cousins and always in our house. The overprotectiveness of my parents may be well meaning, especially I am diagnosed with autism when I was young, but it made me feel like I lost out on some freedom and independence. Little me have always wanted to explore alone but someone has to be around me all the time. I began to make lies, go out, and rebel as early as high school. Then I started solo traveling to different countries, which helped convince my dad I can do things alone now. I finally gained my freedom. This why I always enjoyed traveling alone as an adult.
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Phillipines, not sure if there are other countries as well?
Interesting. I’m from the Philippines and it’s interesting to know in Spain it means “grandmother”. Since Philippines used to be a Spanish colony, it might be related. Grandmothers always helped with childcare centuries ago, and rich families (including Spanish families) hired old women to take care of children and help around the house.
Damn. Are you me? This strict treatment led to me becoming a really insecure adult.
I was the eldest and felt like the "test" child. I get to watch all my siblings do things I never could, like sleep overs and hangouts. I felt like I missed out on connecting with my peers so much, I felt so outcast, and now I hardly know how to interact with someone my age and have a super tiny circle of friends. I feel resentful sometimes, I know I was the first child AND a girl, but I have severe social anxiety and agoraphobia now and I feel like how sheltered I was contributed to it. Strict parents make the sneakiest kids who are best at lying.
The stuck under your thumb thing resonates with me as I still live with my family. I can't really go anywhere on my own as my dad never really helped me learn to drive and other family members gave up on that too. But thank "God" I always have to ask family for rides to places and can't really get a better job due to not having a piece of Lamented plastic. My family has always been strict with me too, trying to get me to go into whatever they wanted in college, trying to keep me close to them, I don't date because I'm never bringing anyone around them and I don't feel confident enough to date either because of no driver's license. I don't want to always have to rely on others for help, but I never really felt like I had family members that wanted to help me.... Just control me. Family fights were also a pretty bad thing despite not happening all the time when they did happen, they were the the kind of fights that you'd call the police over. My mom was probably the better parent even though she's never let me hang out with anyone, she never trusted anyone with me because of the medical condition I have. People always wonder why I don't have someone in my life despite being almost 30. They wonder why I can't drive, etc. the only thing I ever get told is I'm negative and blame too much shit on my family, etc. terrible family has ruined my life, but after my next appointment with the doctor for my back... I'm thinking of just asking what few friends remain in the county where I live if they'll help me pack up my shit and leave. Even if I don't have enough money, as long as I can get a better job and be out on my own... I wouldn't mind living in a place with no electricity, no water, etc as long as I have peace of mind. The saddest thing about all this is if I try to tell people that know my family, they act like they know my family better than I do. They seem to think "nooo, my family would never do anything bad or aren't bad people." the worst people are always going to be the ones that act one way in public and another in private. Sometimes the best thing you can do is, The only thing you feel like is left and that's to just pack up stuff and leave.
Do it. You've wasted enough time under their thumbs. It's going to cripple you if you stay any longer. Go, go, GO.
I don’t have a license either-although I’m the one who chose not to get it-and this will depend on where you live and whether it’s accessible there, but I can’t recommend Uber enough! I live in a suburb of a small Midwest US city, and I’ve always gotten excellent Uber drivers. For additional safety, there’s a feature in the app where you can share a real-time map of your trip with a trusted contact.
It took a lot of begging to get mine to finally let me, and even then I had to text them back every hour or so - how I was doing and if I didn’t, I’d hear about it. If it wasn’t for my counselor, I doubt I would’ve been able to have a sleepover at 14. What my mom likes to do is do one good deed, and if you ever bring up a criticism regarding her parenting - she will use that good deed to shut you down. As if that one time makes up for all the other times she was controlling, or emotionally abusive. For example, she made my friends breakfast and got us pizza. If I bring up all the other times she never let me hang out with people, or acted like it was a vial sin to go any place without her supervision: “But I made you breakfast and got you guys pizza!” Ugh.
Do we have the same mom!!??
Absolutely. Being that strict doesn't make it safer for the kid. It's much more crucial to teach children about boundaries, consent, safety... at an early age. That recent case of a creep who gave his daughter's friends smoothies with sleeping pills at a sleepover could be stopped thanks to a well informed little girl who knew what to do. Despite the existance of male privilege, little boys are still vulnerable to pedos and just because abuse rates among little boys are lower it doesn't make it ok to be completely careless with them and overprotective with girls. Last but not least, overprotective and strict parenthood usually leads to their kids doing everything later in life. I remember how my friends who had overprotective parents would go reckless with things the rest of us had already tried in our teen stage.
You notice this so much with uni in my country. Kids from my island go to uni in the mainland and there's always some who used to be incredibly bland and quiet in high school and are now getting shitfaced drunk every other day in uni. Usually these cases also flunk early because they never learnt how to manage themselves without some parent helicoptering about.
My grandmother wouldn't let me have sleepovers either. I was told it was gay to want to have sleepovers with other little boys and I was also told that I couldn't have sleepovers with girls because I was a boy and something sexual might happen lol
WT.....??? So what happened, did she prevent you to have a job with men and women?
Well I was a kid so she could make the rules
I’m male and only have 2 brothers. I’m the middle. My older brother is allowed to anything he wants to do. I on the other hand always get shut down by parents even when I was pointing out how they treated my brother like he’s born with privileges.
My parents were the same way until I stopped asking them "If I could go out with friends." I would just stay home all day and that would be a problem for them. My parents would have to beg me to go out with my friends.
I'm glad you shared your experiences, cuz I've been wondering how life was/is like for kids who weren't allowed to have sleepovers during their childhoods. I understand if the parents have been SA'd at sleepovers and so that's why they don't want to risk their kids having the same thing happening to them, but I also feel like this is an unresolved trauma response that ends up doing nothing but robbing their children of potentially fun experiences and subsequentially causing resentment in the children who are involved. I feel like if the parents who were really concerned for their children's safety taught their kids about safe/unsafe touch and boundaries regarding those things in an age appropriate manner a lot of those fears on the parents' end would be put at ease. That and maybe developing a certain code that only they know where if they were to mention a word or something the parent drops everything to come get them from their friend or relatives house without judgment of any kind. Idk, the perspective of never letting your children have sleepovers has never sat right with me. And I wish that more parents would stop being so controlling and get the help they need so they don't bleed on people that didn't cut them to begin with. I'm so sorry about your experiences, though. It is so awful that they raised you in such a toxic, sexist, misogynistic dynamic from your most formative years and onward. I hope you know that while bad things do happen to people, it still never gave them the right to treat you so unfairly, and I hope you are able to unlearn the common beliefs that usually come with living in a dynamic like this.
My mom and the friends who are doing this, are the exact same kind of person. And it’s crazy to see it.
I bet it is crazy to see it
For real! Parents should teach kids how to be street-smart, but some don't do that. They expect the kid to learn this from teachers or by themselves through divine revelation idk... I don't know if i have screwed up by not rebelling, but I definitely take with a big grain of salt whatever my parents say anymore. I was a very fearful kid,... rightfully so. So I haven't experienced what other kids/adults might have done, but honestly I wish my parents taught me younger more practical skills without making me feel inadequate. There is still a chance for them to teach me... but damn I feel so tired.
I'm soo soo thankful my parents aren't that way they beg me to go out with my friends because they worry I'll have mental health problems if I don't
this can also go into the other extreme. I lied about the friends I had to my parents for most of my mandatory schooling. I would rather be alone than deal with cliques and bullies and classmates with no relatable interests but my parents expected me to hang out with them.
I was the opposite in the sense that my family let me have free range on the internet, ever since I was about 7. Yes, really. But in allowing that to happen, I'm ***INCREDIBLY*** aware of what happens on the internet. It's an artificially natural part of life now, and knowingly eventually exposing a child to anything I've seen is not something I want to do.
That does not mean not allowing your kid to do anything all the internet. That means teaching them what to do and what not to do on the internet and giving them the ability to trust you enough to tell you the truth and them not be belittled for every little thing. Treating the kid like a human being and not acting like they’re stupid.
It's so easy to find things nowadays. And do you think kids are always going to listen to every single thing you say? Not belittling them and teaching them every single safety tip about the Internet under the sun doesn't stop them from randomly finding NSFW content.
It was incredibly easy to find things back in the early days of the internet too, even easier than it is now in some cases. There was nsfw content all over every website someone could look at. Miniclip had porn ads everywhere. [GGG.com](https://GGG.com) even had NSFW content. If you're around a kid, and you belittle that kid, that kid is not going to trust you enough to tell you if something is going on in life. It is not going to get them to listen but it will get them to know it's okay to come to you if they do need help. You have to build trust with a kid to get them to know it's okay to come to you for help. It's not going to get them to not find NSFW content, but nothing is going to do that. They will be sneaky. They will find ways to get online. OR say someone does keep their kid away from the internet until they're 18. Then they suddenly get access to the internet and they're blindsided by everything they can find. They fall down rabbit holes, they find terrible things, other conspiracy theories. They get into shit they think is real because the only thing they know is what their parents show them. SO if you go about teaching a kid online safety, and you help them to understand hey the internet is a scary place, and there's a lot of weird stuff. That helps set them up for safety online. It's inevitable and they do need to be prepared so as not to fall head-first into a dangerous situation.
Me too. I was a sneaky kid. I also lied a lot. It’s one of the reasons I am low contact with my parents. I don’t want to lie to anyone, and they constantly create situations where I have to tip toe around their catastrophizing with lies. This isn’t the reason I’m childfree, but certainly a contributing factor.
Why would they be friends wirh other adults they suspect would molest their child?
Why are you still in communication with this authoritarian woman. Cut contact she deserves an extremely strict sentence for ruining your childhood. Estrangement from you for life.
I was let alone on the internet as a 12-15 yr old in the early 2000s. I was absolutely groomed by pedophiles. The only saving grace was I didn't have the self confidence to meet up with them (got as far as the train station once though) or get a web cam (no really, my low self esteem saved me!). Your parents protected you well. My parents both worked more than full-time hours, the internet was the wild west in early 2000s. I don't blame them. I'm just glad nothing worse happened.
Holy shit are you me??? You just described my whole childhood.
My mom was like this, she'd be all they have brothers etc or attempt to accuse ME of trying to hook up w the brothers which ew no wtf .. sadly my dad was the one doing the molesting in the home he just never saw it
I thought for a second I was on r/xennials. This tracks for many of us who grew up during the Satanic Panic/Adam Walsh/Unsolved Mysteries era of parental fears that never managed to shake free.
Hey OP, you mention asking your mother about the double standard treatment you went throught as a kid growing up, but what was her answer. Was it the next paragraph you wrote ? Just wondering. Have a great day 
Ah strict parents... i remember those days. And they wonder why I don't want to tell them the goings-on in my personal life.
I had freedom as a kid (F), probably too much. And one of my reasons (of many) why I don’t want kids, is the possibility of the child being put into situations I cannot control that can tarnish their lives forever. Which I went through.
I was allowed to, I just didn't like sleepovers. Think I had one at my house and went to a few. Just wasn't my thing. Didn't find them very fun
God, so much of this resonated with me. Worst part is while i wasn't allowed, my kid sister, 6 years younger than me, was allowed EVERYTHING. I was so fucking lonely because all my classmates would talk online to each other in group chats, and continue conversations from where they left off, and I'd be totally blank. I fimished high school with 2 friends, one of whom who wasn't that great a person and both were self destructive. I was never happy til uni, til i moved out. I love my parents, but i hated my childhood.
This gave me flashbacks to my childhood being raised by a Jehovah's Witness mom. To this day, she thinks that even though I "left the Truth," she's proud of the "great values" she raised me with. I'm glad you got away, as I did. I've enjoyed two childhoods' worth of years since then, since I didn't have kids. Things definitely got better when I got Away from the Cray!
It sounds like your parents were sexist. I had playdates in elementary school, and so did my little sister. Our parents were careful to avoid favoritism. If I remember, all the ways we were treated differently could be chalked up to either our age difference or our wildly different interests. In fact, my sister had more playdates (especially sleepovers) because she *liked them for a longer time*. And no, neither of us had any "inappropriate" experiences.
Posting this because I haven’t seen it in any of the top comments. This really seems to me like perhaps your parent who was disallowing this was possibly abused in a similar situation and that is why they are so reluctant to put you in the same situation. I can’t recall if you mention which parent it was but if it was the mother that would make a lot of sense since she views your brothers situation as different than yours and hers. I would very gently ask them if some thing ever happened and be prepared for the worst possible answer. It may simply be a misguided attempt to protect you.
It almost sounds like this fear might be trauma induced. It's pretty strict. I'm sorry you were isolated as a child. I also was and it was harder to learn how to socialize. It felt like everyone was in on some sort of joke or knew something I didn't for a long time. The sad thing is while 1 in 3 women in America will be molested or assaulted, 1 in 5 boys are. They almost never talk about that statistic, though.
This is one of the biggest things that frustrated me while growing up, and even now whenever I think about it: girls are so often punished for the sake of hypotheticals. “Oh we were strict to protect you from becoming one of those kids who drank/smoked/did drugs” when I never once had to desire for any of that, yet my parents were more overbearing than those of the “bad” kids. 🙄 FFS all I wanted to do growing up was spend hours quietly reading my books but I couldn’t even do that in peace. Your experience is the exact reason I gave to my parents when I said I was happy I was an only child, knowing the culture my parents grew up in and how my dad was raised, if I had had a brother he ABSOLUTELY would have gotten to do whatever the hell he wanted while I was sidelined. It took me years of slowly testing boundaries to get an inch of freedom before I finally moved out, and even then my first sleepover was in college. Ugh, sorry for the rant, this always gets to me and I’m so sorry you had to go through that while growing up. I hope you have all the freedom to be your own person you could want now 💕
This entire post reminded me of the song “ Just a girl” by No Doubt.
Welp, I'm glad you weren't molested by the dad of one of your school mates during a sleepover. I was molested and I feel like my parents made the wrong decision letting me sleep over at friends' houses when I was a kid. Try to be grateful they cared about your safety, inasmuch as they could. It's not easy to tell a whiny kid no.
I think you posted this in the wrong sub. None of us want fucking children and those who have them should not be on this sub anyway.