An Overprotected Kid (Conquering it. At 34)

It is totally hard to break habits based on fear! Go, girl, go! I’m proud of her for being so brave, too!

I had similar transport problems when I first moved out of home and into the city, but for different reasons.

I lived in a rural area with my parents. I never walked anywhere – night or otherwise – because there was nowhere to walk to. I did have a few friends in primary school that lived, say, half a kilometer away, but that’s half a kilometer along poorly sealed, narrow, twisty roads with no speed limit, lined on both sides by scrub which, this being australia, is full of extremely poisonous snakes, and mostly with no houses within yelling distance. So, yeah, too dangerous for a primary school kid to traverse.

I’d also never used public transport before – because there was none that actually went by within walking distance of where I lived, and next to none in the nearest town. Whenever I went anywhere, I had to be driven.

Happily, I managed to figure it all out by myself. I must say though, the public transport website for this city is not at all helpful if you’re actually trying to learn how to use public transport for the first time.

But, well, I came good, and so will you. Also, now that I can actually walk places where there are sidewalks, no real likelihood of being run over, and no brown snakes, I walk around the city all the time between the hours of midnight and dawn, and have never once been abducted, raped, robbed or murdered, despite my aunt who thinks that I will be (all of them, in that order) if I venture outside alone past about 3pm. I’ve never even been leered or jeered at (well, except that one time, but to be fair it was friday afternoon, I was walking past a crowded pub, and I was carrying a kilo of popcorn.)

Awesome! I think you will love your new-found freedom once you get accustomed to it.

Wow, so good she’s starting to find independence. This kind of story strikes me as very disturbing because my own stepmother is completely deaf in one ear and almost completely deaf in the other ear, and she has driven successfully for her entire adult life. She’s visited foreign countries on her own and done a lot of other things people wouldn’t expect from a woman who is almost completely deaf.

Shoot for the stars. There’s a lot more out there that you can do.

In 2004 I walked back from a resteraunt in Dahab at 11pm at night. As I was walking back I saw two young men sitting on the curb oppersite to me. One of them shouted “hey lady you want husband” which I found really funny. In 2005,6,7,9 I have traveled to Orlando to stay and travel round disney alone. Going to Bush Gardens Kennedy space station by car alone. In 2009 I traveled around Moscow using their subway sytem alone (try buying a big mac and fries when you don’t speak russian got the food didn’t manage to get a drink. If you take reasonable precautions you don’t have to be scared about travelling round the world alone. I did once do a group holiday and found that I hate the whole group trip bit I LIKE travelling alone. When my mother is better (probably next year) I want to spend my birthday in New York.

Dear Free-Range Kids:

I didn’t really know where else to direct this, so have a comment to a pretty much unrelated post! I am a 25-year-old woman who started her childhood more free-range than she ended it.

When I was small, we lived in a little residential area in Arizona. We knew most of our neighbours, at least in passing, and I got into plenty of scrapes. I climbed trees, fell out of trees, rode my bike on our (very painful to fall on) driveway, jumped on a large trampoline with no net (and launched myself off it accidentally more than once). When I was five, I was allowed to cross the street to my friend’s house by myself, and we spent many years running back and forth between our houses, and playing in the street on our bikes. When I was eight, I was allowed to be left home alone, and when I was eleven I was allowed to be left home (for short periods of time) with my six-year-old sister. When I was twelve, I started babysitting the little three-year-old that lived next door. I spent my childhood running barefoot on hot pavement, and making flying leaps into the swimming pool, and climbing any tree with low enough branches, and trying to climb onto the roof of my best friend’s three-story house. I got my fair share of bruises and scrapes, but it was fun and free and I never felt like I was in danger. Stray cats were potential friends (and I did befriend more than a few), and strangers were obviously not necessarily to be trusted, but they weren’t scary kidnappers or murderers, either. I was happy and had loads of fun.

As I got older, however, I started noticing my parents being more… controlling. While it was perfectly fine for the dad of the little girl next door to take me out for ice cream after babysitting on short notice when I was 12 or 13, being driven home by the husband of one of my mother’s church friends when I was 15 was “unsafe”. My sister wasn’t allowed the neighbourhood freedom that I was given, only allowed to go visit her best friend (whose house backed up to ours and therefore involved no street-crossing) at age 8 if I went to drop her off. By the time I was 18, I had to call my parents if there was the SLIGHTEST change in my plans when I went out – if I’d planned to go to a movie with my best friend, and we ended up inviting a boy or two, or even just another girl my parents didn’t know, to come along, I HAD to call home and make sure it was okay with my parents – even though I was a legal adult.

Obviously, as I got older and ESPECIALLY after I turned 18, I didn’t give in to my parents’ frantic need to know everything I was doing, and personally vet every person I spent time with or gave my phone number or email address to. But it always made me wonder – why were they so willing to be content with “I’m going to Walter’s house!” when I was six and seven, never needing any more information about what we were going to do, but the addition of a single unknown entity into my life as an adult was cause for panic?

Looking at this blog, I’ve realised that what happened was that my parents – my mother especially – were pressured and guilted into being far more overprotective of my sister and I than they’d been in the 90’s, especially the early 90’s. I went from a little girl who was allowed to get scrapes and bumps and was allowed and encouraged to learn how to make pancakes on my own at age 8, to a grown woman whose parents thought was going to be murdered or raped just because she happened to participate in sci-fi/fantasy online forums and chat rooms. I feel bad for my poor sister – she didn’t get nearly the amount of freedom I did as a child.

My own childhood, and stuff like this, make me determined to let my kids grow up getting scraped knees and splinters, and to teach them how to use knives and climb trees, and not wrap them in cotton wool and teach them to fear anything that might even have a remote possibility of hurting them. My kids will learn to ride bikes without training wheels the same way I did – trial and error, and no special wheels to help them balance. They’ll fall out of trees and burn their fingers learning to cook and make messes and need bandaids and kisses and maybe the occasional trip to the ER. And I think they’ll be better-adjusted people for it.

Way to go!

@ Nicola – perhaps it’s appropriate for me to relate my experience in this matter.

I was 17 when I decided that I was ready to become sexually active with my boyfriend of the time. Having paid attention in sex ed, I decided to discuss the issue with my parents, specifically in relation to starting to take the contraceptive pill.

They didn’t “freak out” per se, but they were really, really apprehensive and certainly against the idea.

I found it incredibly insulting that they didn’t trust me, at 17, to a) be able to emotionally handle having sex, b) be able to intellectually handle all of the issues surrounding having sex, and c) be able to “know my own mind” in regards to the entire issue.

Two years (and one boyfriend) later, my dad expressed concern about my new relationship – because he didn’t like the fact that I was risking “getting hurt” (by a potential messy breakup). He still didn’t think that I was emotionally mature and resilient enough to handle having a relationship and potentially having it fall apart. Note that 17 + 2 = 19 at the time, with two previous breakups and no spectacular failure to cope.

Yeah. Insulting. They meant well, but, insulting.

Just one thing though is if our ancestors had had this fearful attitude to life we would not have moved over the entire planet and would be very cramped in one place!

As Mike said, it’s never too late to start living. Enjoy your new life as a Free Range Adult. I hope it works out for you to start taking driving lessons and getting your license.

Your attitude about conquering your fears is awesome.

FYI, deaf people drive all the time. No doctor’s note is required.

Wow, good luck. My son is profoundly deaf and is as free range as they come…I would never even consider treating him differently because he’s deaf. I do wonder, though, why you need a doctor’s note to learn to drive? As far as I know, unless you’re going for a CDL, there are no driving restrictions based on ability to hear.

@ pentamom – I agree that an adult old enough to have 17 or 19 year old children may (should) have life experience and knowledge that a teen lacks. That said, a 19 year old is an adult. Unsolicited romantic advice from parents IS insulting. A 19 year old has a right to her own heart break and to learn from her own mistakes, so unless there is a serious problem (abuse, criminal behavior, drugs), Mom and Dad need to butt out and let their off spring handle matters herself.

That they might be old enough to make their own mistakes doesn’t mean it’s insulting for people who *really do know better than they are* to give them advice. It’s not insulting, it’s *kind* to warn people that they might be making a mistake, especially when it’s someone you’re in the kind of relationship with where that is appropriate. Kids don’t suddenly become unrelated strangers with nothing to learn as soon as they’re old enough to make and live with their own mistakes — they’ll still your own kids, who can profit from the wisdom and experience of those who actually *have it.*

At 19 (not 17) you might be free to ignore adult advice, and I don’t disagree with that, but it is simply not insulting to be kind enough to care enough to share your wisdom with someone who could not possibly have it, due to their 100% lack of experience with the thing they think they know so much about.

I ride the bus all the time and it amazes me the comments I get about it. I don’t know how many times I’ve had people tell me they would be afraid to ride the bus at night or to wait at the bus stops at night. Funny, the ONE time I’ve been at all uncomfortable (in 3 years) was in the middle of the day, and even at that, while I was uncomfortable, I didn’t feel even remotely in danger.

Sera, sorry, but it’s not insulting for an adult old enough to have a 17 or 19 year old child to believe that they might have life experience and knowledge about the pitfalls and realities of sexual relationships that the teen lacks. It’s reality. Anyone 17 or 19 year old who believes that 17 is old enough not to need parental advice about such a complicated matter is only proving she REALLY needs it.

Did you read what I wrote thoroughly?

I went to my parents for advice when I decided to become sexually active. What I got was essentially a dismissal of my ability to handle such matters at that age. Advice is what I wanted. The implication that I wasn’t savvy enough to, you know, not let myself be used by men and/or use appropriate precautions, was insulting.

(I didn’t go to them and say “Mum, Dad, I’m going to start having sex now, ok? Ok.” That appears to be the impression you picked up.)

What was extremely insulting was my dad telling me he was “concerned” about me starting a new relationship at 19 because I could get hurt. That was also not advice. Again, that was a dismissal of my ability to cope with having a relationship at all. He was “concerned” about me having a relationship at all. Not “you need to be careful with relationships, you could get hurt”, but, rather, “you need to avoid having relationships because you could get hurt and then you won’t be able to handle it”.

That having been said – at 17 I knew all about various forms of contraception and their failure rates, how STDs and pregnancy work… which is why I wanted to talk about going on the pill before I ever had sex (pill + condom = win). However, I’ve met plenty of 18+ year olds while at uni who have absolutely no idea. I’ve met grown men who actually think that the pull-out method is a viable form of contraception, or who push for using no condom – despite the fact that they have no idea I’m also on the pill (and never thought about if every man who picked up a woman didn’t use a condom…). The woman who used to be my babysitter had a long series of unprotected sexual relationships while in her early 20s… which ultimately ended in a son she still can’t handle having. Just because someone is not legally an adult does not mean that they can’t intellectually and emotionally handle a sexual relationship, just as being a legal adult doesn’t mean you can. Bear in mind that the age of consent in most places in the world (including here) is 16.

In my opinion, it is always insulting to give other adults unsolicited advice under the purview “I’m older so I know better.” If the person asks your advice, then advize away, but inserting yourself into a situation is, at nest annoying.

My mother frequently tells me that she thinks that being a parent of an adult is harder than being the parent of a child. You have to let them make their own mistakes, even if that means that you bite your tongue when they are doing something that you believe is not going to go well. There are limits for things that are serious but otherwise parents need to let their adult children lead their own lives.

Sera, I see what you’re saying. I went to my dad at 12 to ask about sex – not because I wanted to have it or anything like that – but because I saw how my friend was able to talk to her parents about it and wanted my father’s perspective. My mother had passed away when I was 8, so he was the only one. What I got was a very red-faced, angry man shouting at me, “DO YOU WANT TO END UP A PROSTITUTE ON THE CORNER?” Literally. That was the last time I asked him anything having to do with my anatomy. (I think he had his own skeletons in the closet to fly off like that, but I digress…)

I can see how you’d say it was insulting to have your dad talk to you that way. I see what some of the others are saying too. I think what we should all see is that even the most well meaning of talks can be perceived badly if it’s delivered in the wrong way.

I do think your dad was just trying to be helpful, but I also know at that age, I felt my dad was the biggest hypocrite on earth and much of his “advice” went by the wayside as I trudged my own path. I don’t regret that choice, either, I should say. I don’t balk at your choice of words simply because, I don’t know your situation personally and knowing mine, I can easily come up with a whole host of words to describe what I thought of my dad, none of which would nab me a “Daughter of the Year” award.

All the best to you. 🙂