@ Everyone arguing with my first post
that came directly from life experience and it looks like a lot of your arguments do too. i don't really feel like explaining it, and i doubt any of our minds are gonna change, so let's just drop it. I will say though I have dealt with parents who act like that all the time.
EDIT: if prp is on drugs or something her parents are gonna find out sooner or later, an addiction is just way too hard to hide. assuming she's not though i do not see a problem at all. what i see is a mother who needs to communicate more and learn to trust her child that way, not barge in and go through her stuff out of paranoia. that just breeds stress and anger.
Outside of Prpl's particular situation, which supervision is probably within her best interest and even life-saving potentially.. Your mindset is that of someone who has never had to care for another person. Maybe temporary care, but you've never been charged with directly being responsible for someone else's life. It is extremely hard to do the right thing, or attempt it to the best of your ability, and also be the 'good guy'. There are no points, and there are no wins or victories.. You 'win' when the person you're charged with is safe, and getting along well, and getting healthier. It has nothing to do with you, or personal gratification. But in the process of that, you seldom are the good guy.. You're seldom the friend, the confidant, or the anything like that.
The problem isn't that she isn't being open enough and communicative.. The problem may merely be that she is unable to budge on certain issues. Without acceptance and understanding of what the bigger picture is entailing, all the communication in the world is fruitless.
When I was younger, and feeling particularly trodden on by my overzealous father.. I was angry because I wasn't allowed to do ANY of the things my brother was, although my grades, behavior, and attitude were stellar in comparison to his, and I was at an age similar of when he was allowed to do those activities. My father simply could not allow me to partake in those activities.. I was a female, and he was protective of me. He could not budge on that, he felt too strongly about it and my safety, and myself being his responsibility, it didn't matter if I felt discriminated against, lied to, betrayed.. None of my anger mattered because the issue could not budge. So, angry I was, and his way he got, and that was about the end of it. Reflecting back, it didn't destroy my life to not attend those events, and it didn't cripple me socially or anything like that.. it didn't hurt me for him to make those decisions. It may even have helped me, who knows, but I was unwilling to see things from his perspective, so communication was fruitless.
It really isn't communication if you're just convincing someone to get your way. Communication is a two-way lane, a statement of understanding. You don't always 'win' those.. in fact, very often you 'lose' them when you see things in another's shoes and truly understand where they are coming from.
If I were a mother where my daughter could not, and would not, come to me even for medical emergencies (such as Prpl has had before, and was too nervous to approach her mother for the help) I don't think I would give her much privacy at all because... if her anger and feelings towards me got in the way of serious medical issues where normally emotions are set aside for priority, then I'd need another way to find them out and ensure her safety. In this case, being overbearing is a simple and efficient answer for that.
you said it yourself that parents are looking for assurance that their kids are on the right track, if they sit down, talk, listen and actually say everything that's on their mind, they actually might get that reassurance. if things keep going the way they're going, all that's gonna happen is more resentment. if you were still living with your parents and they were doing this, how soon would you decide to cave and "give them reasons to trust you" without them letting up at all?
And when you do all of that and your children still refuse to go to you openly and freely? Many parents offer their kids the world, and have given up theirs, and it is thankless work. You're very quick to put blame on parents, which is why I think you've never had to truly take care of a person entirely over a lengthy span of time. You really are always the bad guy somehow, someway. Appreciation later on in life sometimes occurs, but even then less and less of that is happening.
Well, here's the whole "parents vs. non-parents" thing again.
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What reasons does she give you? How does she phrase them?
Sure, she has your best interests at heart, but she may or may not be taking the right approach--intent isn't everything. She could be overly coddling or dishonest, or she could be pretty reasonable.
It makes a huge difference with respect to proper boundaries--both where the boundaries should be and how to set them.
For example, a good friend of mine grew up in an environment where there was no personal privacy. She'd buy, say, perfume and clothes, and her sister and even her mother would 'borrow' them. Her new clothes would be all stretched out and her perfume would be nearly empty. Even when she locked her possessions up, they'd find ways to get to them.
With her parents, it extended to intangible stuff, too, like trying to choose her career and whom she should date and marry. Of course, 'they had her best interests at heart.' Mother knew best.
That's not cool. She had no personal space or a world of her own. It's not a good feeling.
I agree, being overbearing when the situation does not even call for it can cause a lot of resentment that doesn't diminish over time. (I lived in a household full of girls, and one was close to my age... We shared everything whether we wanted to or not. Establishing privacy was a systematic course of one act and trial after another until I got a balance I could manage.. It took years and a lot of diligent work on my behalf, and lots of picking and choosing my battles.)
But in this particular case, I'd say the mother is sort of going back to the way she would care for a teenager until she gets to a point where she is more comfortable with the situation. If I were Prpl's mom, I wouldn't even know where to begin. Overbearing and privacy invasion is teenager care.. and although Prpl is well past that stage of life, her mother might have reverted to that until trial and error shows otherwise. I'm not saying all of her actions are right.. but I am saying that so far as I can tell she is trying her best, and that she has Prpl's best interests in mind. I think she just wants to see her daughter swim instead of sink. So a degree of understanding should be made for that.