Dillards 66: Appropriate Spaces for Inappropriate People

[louisa05]

14 minutes ago, TheOneAndOnly said:

If someone nosy was tracking my phone I'd be tempted to let a shady friend borrow it for a while. That, or leave it home while I went out out to do shady things. 

I was saying that when they were in college. That they should get a burner phone to use and leave that one sitting in the dorm all week. 

Of course, they were not allowed to spend weekends on their campuses. Or have roommates. Or friends. Or off campus jobs. Or be involved in any activities or clubs. 

@Kelsey The nearly 27 year old does have his own phone that he pays for. He posted on social media not long ago about his mom throwing such a hysterical fit that he deleted the app recently that he put it back for the sake of keeping peace. These kids mostly have no idea that they can say no to her and when one of them tries, she loses it...hence, she tracks their whereabouts, chooses all their stuff, keeps them living at home, etc...

And kids who are being tracked at 17 and 18 by parents are not likely to find it odd enough to remove it at 19 or 20. Then when does it come off? In the online discussion (in response to a news article) that I saw recently, parents were justifying it for college students as a way to prevent them from being victims of crimes or "being in the wrong place". My HS friend was justifying it for an 18 year old as a way to prevent him from going out too late in college next year. Parents don't want to let go. That's the root of the problem. Not the apps. 

I also saw an add on Facebook awhile back about how to get a POA for your young adult child so that you could continue to make medical, financial and school decisions for them. Again...parents not letting go is the issue here. 

[feministxtian]

Tracking apps for the over 18 set? OH HELL FUCKING NO!!! Shit, you're 18, you know right from wrong. You fuck up, you deal with the consequences. I have a now 28 year old and honestly, he's grown, he lives in NO CAL. I don't give a damn what he's up to. If the kids want to get in touch with me, they can call or text. No, I don't have the time nor the inclination to give a damn about what my grown kids are doing. 

Utterly ridiculous. Somebody needs to find a hobby (parents). 

[SapphireSlytherin]

54 minutes ago, SassyPants said:

Your cousin's wife is tracking neurotypical adults? OM word, that should be illegal.

Eh. I still track my kid. And my husband. And my dad. And they all track me (and each other) too. It's an app we use called FindFriends, and we find it useful to know if someone's ghosting you, or just at work, or at a movie. lol

I don't use it all the time, but I will check it if I text my kid and she doesn't reply within a reasonable time to see if she's at work/busy. lol

FWIW, daughter and a bunch of her friends ALL track each other. They started using the app while they were in college and dating, just so others would know where they were at all times - for safety.

Edit:  And because it's location-based, any time you turn off your phone, you're not visible to those who use the app. And you HAVE TO ALLOW people to track you. So I think this may not be the same type of tracker mentioned above.

[Cheetah]

1 hour ago, SassyPants said:

But you know what is odd, in the earlier years of the Duggar's show, Jill was the spokesperson of the kids, and Jill did not seem as socially awkward  as she now appears. It's as if she, as she's aged, has majority regressed in her abilities and confidence levels ,and I find that both sad and troublesome. She really has had a hard time (and yes, her life as been rather helter skelter since she married) adapting to life outside of Duggarville. Her confidence seems really sapped.

I don't think this is all that weird... she is one of those people who is super comfortable around her own family to the point of being bossy, but that bossiness doesn't translate very well in the real world to people that have the option to not hang out with her or not obey her commands.  You see this also in enmeshed families where some of them, often the most domineering personalities, want all of the extended family members to get together all of the time, while the quieter/meeker ones would prefer to break away and socialize outside of the family. 

[Carm_88]

My friends and I have never tracked each other. We always did the "Text me when you get home." But, it wasn't exactly an option. We are all private people, so I don't think any of us would be good with it.

I was allowed out in the yard by myself at 4. However, my mother just wanted me out of the house and wasn't a great parent...so treat that with a dump truck full of salt.

[SassyPants]

57 minutes ago, Blessings of the Corn said:

Right?! If I was her children I'd be enraged. No way, no how.

I have a 28 YO son- he lives 2 hours away and has his own life. I cannot imagine tracking him at this age. My daughter (31) moved to So America at 23...I certainly did not and cannot track her. 

I just cannot imagine keeping track of neurotypical adults. It seems very intrusive.

[HarryPotterFan]

2 hours ago, patsymae said:

I'm a dinosaur Grandma who then nannied my twin granddaughters for their first six years. The helicopter mothers are not doing their kids a favor. And having to entertain parents you have nothing in common with because their kids are playing in our (fenced in, trampoline with net, visible from kitchen, dining room and deck) backyard was, shall we say, tedious.

If I had a nice grandma keeping an eye on my hypothetical kids I’d go take a nap or something, not awkwardly chill in her kitchen.

2 hours ago, PreciousPantsofDoom said:

MlnopThe not playing outside thing really bothers me.  I teach kids (elementary school age) all the time who have clearly been discouraged from playing outside.  Some of them is that thing of parents feeling freaked about letting them play unsupervised.  I can understand those fears better than the ones who plainly just don't want their kids to get dirty.  So inconvenient!  The result, of course, is that you get kids who are out of shape, have poor motor skills (other than game control finger skills), have poor social skills etc etc. 

I also wonder how people think their kids are going to learn how to handle life in general, when they have never had the chance.  They have always been either safe indoors, or had an adult nearby to fix any problems. 

I was talking to my 16 year old godddaughter this summer and realized just how different things are now for kids.  At 16 I was allowed to take the bus downtown (a 30 minute trip), either by myself to meet a friend, or with my younger sister.  We would go to a movie or go shopping in the mall (it was the 80's after all.)  We were expected to be home by dinner time, and trusted to find a payphone and call if we missed the bus and we're going to be late.  My godddaughter has yet to go anywhere on her own. She has not taken a bus by herself, has never been shopping without an adult, nothing. And this is someone who is of legal driving age.  Now, some of it is because her family are US expats living in China, so life has been a little different over the last 2 years for them, but even when they are back in North America for the summer months, she is accompanied everywhere.  In 2 years she will have to leave her family for dorm life in University here and I'm a little worried about how sheltered she is right now. 

We also took our other godddaughter (different family) out for her birthday last week.  She just turned 13 and was beyond excited to go for a meal with us on her own.  Afterwards, her mother told us that she said that she felt like she was having an adult conversation with us, I think because it wss just us two and her. She's a nice girl, but also pretty sheltered.  She too has never taken a bus on her own, or been anywhere unsupervised.  Every bike ride she has ever taken has been with her parents or another adult.  At dinner that night she griped a bit about the fact that her mother won't let her walk home from school on her own.  It's a 15 minute walk. She has a cell phone. She thinks her mother might let her do it if she had one of those tracker apps, but her mother doesn't trust the apps either.  We suggested seeing if there was another student she could walk home with. Might reassure her mother, but who knows.  

I do worry about how helpless some of these kids are going to be when they finally do venture out on their own. I predict a rocky start and a steep learning curve.

Some parents try not to let kids venture off on their own. I remember in college we were told at orientation and by from some professors that YOU should always be the one to contact professors about things like missing class, questions on homework, etc. They wanted to make sure that we knew as college students we were ADULTS, and no one wanted to hear from our parents and were responsible for ourselves and held accountable. Yeah it’s hard at first, but it’s better to have that awkwardness happen with a professor who is used to clueless 18-year-olds than to have your mom try to set up job interviews for you.

But some parents will try to control their kid’s life at college, then the kid is totally unprepared for work. And there are definitely parents out there who would try and intervene with their kid’s grad school or work. I wonder if those parents have ever considered what will happen to their kid when they die. There are parents who worry about what will happen to their kid when they’re gone because the kid has an intellectual disability or something that prevents them from being able to care and provide for themselves. They’d love to for their child to be able achieve that rather than having to worry. I don’t get purposely stunting your kid like that.

45 minutes ago, justoneoftwo said:

To be fair if your parents were like this probably have no idea how to do that

 

And probably wouldn’t be allowed to get a job...

43 minutes ago, louisa05 said:

I was saying that when they were in college. That they should get a burner phone to use and leave that one sitting in the dorm all week. 

Of course, they were not allowed to spend weekends on their campuses. Or have roommates. Or friends. Or off campus jobs. Or be involved in any activities or clubs. 

@Kelsey The nearly 27 year old does have his own phone that he pays for. He posted on social media not long ago about his mom throwing such a hysterical fit that he deleted the app recently that he put it back for the sake of keeping peace. These kids mostly have no idea that they can say no to her and when one of them tries, she loses it...hence, she tracks their whereabouts, chooses all their stuff, keeps them living at home, etc...

And kids who are being tracked at 17 and 18 by parents are not likely to find it odd enough to remove it at 19 or 20. Then when does it come off? In the online discussion (in response to a news article) that I saw recently, parents were justifying it for college students as a way to prevent them from being victims of crimes or "being in the wrong place". My HS friend was justifying it for an 18 year old as a way to prevent him from going out too late in college next year. Parents don't want to let go. That's the root of the problem. Not the apps. 

I also saw an add on Facebook awhile back about how to get a POA for your young adult child so that you could continue to make medical, financial and school decisions for them. Again...parents not letting go is the issue here. 

Well that’s fucked up. Why did those parents get to enjoy college but their kids can’t? And wow, POA.  That’s extreme. I’d still ask for my parents for advice at that age (and still do at times), but damn. They don’t force me to make any decision.

[louisa05]

3 minutes ago, HarryPotterFan said:

 

And probably wouldn’t be allowed to get a job...

Well that’s fucked up. Why did those parents get to enjoy college but their kids can’t? And wow, POA.  That’s extreme. I’d still ask for my parents for advice at that age (and still do at times), but damn. They don’t force me to make any decision.

My cousin went to an 18 month tech program (diesel mechanics--he does quite well) and his wife never went to any post secondary education. They are both convinced that four year colleges are nothing but sex, drugs and alcohol. The single rooms were to prevent their kids from "making the wrong friends" due to a roommate's influence. The tracking was to make sure they only went to class or were in the dorm. The ban on clubs and activities was to make sure that they didn't make friends. It was downright sad. 

The 23 year old is student teaching at her own high school across the street from their house right now. Still not sure how that happened as you usually can't go to your own high school as a traditional aged student. The 27 year old is working in the produce department of the grocery store his mother works at. She got him the job in high school. He did it on weekends and summers through college then went back to it with an expensive meteorology degree. Because there are no jobs in meteorology in their town and he is not allowed to leave home lest he make a friend, go on a date, encounter a beer, etc...

 

[nst]

50 minutes ago, justoneoftwo said:

To be fair if your parents were like this probably have no idea how to do that

 

actually it's easy 

16 minutes ago, SassyPants said:

I have a 28 YO son- he lives 2 hours away and has his own life. I cannot imagine tracking him at this age. My daughter (31) moved to So America at 23...I certainly did not and cannot track her. 

I just cannot imagine keeping track of neurotypical adults. It seems very intrusive.

So America is far away - she could be in the jungle 

[justoneoftwo]

Sure it sounds easy, not if you have never spoken to an adult on your own, or gone to a store on your own, or paid a bill on your own, its not that easy.

[feministxtian]

15 minutes ago, louisa05 said:

Because there are no jobs in meteorology in their town and he is not allowed to leave home lest he make a friend, go on a date, encounter a beer, etc...

That's some Arndt level shit right there. 

 

[PreciousPantsofDoom]

@louisa05, while I might not feel comfortable with a tracking app for a minor child (I'm a little cautious about giving the Internet more information than necessary), I do get that others feel differently about that.  What  I absolutely do not get is tracking your adult neurotypical children. 

From what you are saying, there are some really fucked up reasons why these "kids" are permitting it and that is very sad.  It can be very difficult to leave a situation like that, but I hope thise kids do get out and learn how to set some real boundaries with the parents.  It sounds like the parents are needy and controlling, so they have infantilised the kids. The kids have been manipulated into accepting the situation and the whole thing is all kinds of wrong. It's sounds like the whole bunch of them could use some family therapy. 

Ugh. Why do people do this to their kids? 

 

[louisa05]

30 minutes ago, feministxtian said:

That's some Arndt level shit right there. 

 

Yep. And they are mainline Protestants who skip church more often than they attend. 

Unfortunately, this behavior is not confined to fundamentalism. My nephew is "engaged"** to a 23 year old woman whose parents picked out her post-college rental housing (in another city) without her input and completely control her finances--direct deposit pay check goes into an account with parents's names on it also and they pay her bills out of it, then withdraw and send her spending money. She thinks this is perfectly normal. She doesn't have a smartphone and I have wondered if it is because she knows they would be tracking her with one if she did and not having it at least gives her some independence from them. 

They are not church goers at all. 

In my last three years of full time teaching, I started to notice that a lot my teenage students had no sense of soon being on their own or desire to be. I taught the play A Raisin in the Sun to tenth graders and in the last few years (2007-2010 roughly), students could not relate at all to Walter's anguish over still effectively living in his mother's house as an adult with a wife and child. In my earlier years teaching it, students would respond with empathy and how they wanted to move out when they graduated and be independent. In those last three years, most of them would say, to quote one from the class of 2010, "why would I want to leave home and not have my mom taking care of me?". Obviously, that's not all of them, so if you graduated in 2010 and own your own house and business and haven't communicated with your mother for 14 years and made your own lunches to take to daycare when you were 2.5 years old, I'm not talking to you. But there was, in that time frame, an increasingly weird number of them who expressed the notion that staying at home with parents indefinitely was a good thing. And the one thing those kids had in common was helicopter parents, especially mothers. 

**She wears the ring on her right hand. They have no real plan to get married other than "probably next October" and that they want to have a full dinner and dance. They currently have $1700 to pay for it all. But that money has to also pay for a honeymoon and deposits on their first apartment together or perhaps a down payment on a house. And they think this is a realistic financial plan. But her parents haven't decided if they can get married next October or not and they need to wait until they decide. Because they are both closer to 24 than 23, so clearly they can't get married until her mommy and daddy say they can. 

[feministxtian]

Utterly insane. I can't imagine spending that much energy on controlling anyone. Hell, I have enough trouble controlling ME! 

But then again, I sorta, kinda booted the baby birds from the nest. One tried to tell me he was "an adult" when he was 19, living at home and unemployed. I sorta made his life miserable so he'd get a job, save up money and move out. He's the one who ended up in the Army. #1 moved in with her boyfriend just after her 18th b-day (not a great idea but...). #3 needed more help so I told him to get a job and get the hell out. He did. Then he found out that his friend wasn't going to put up with his unemployed ass either. Something about sleeping in a park turned him around. 

Now? No. Just no. DO NOT come home. Well, if something horribly catastrophic happened, yes. Tired of supporting yourself? Fuck that noise. 

[SassyPants]

1 hour ago, nst said:

actually it's easy 

So America is far away - she could be in the jungle 

At one time, I'm sure that she was. Now, with a little one and a professional, FT job, husband, dog and house, I tend to doubt it. LOL! 

[Iamtheway]

3 hours ago, VelociRapture said:

I think others have mentioned this previously, but I do think Jill did better when she was on someone else’s “script” as opposed to her own. Some of what was shown on tv was reality, but some of it was scripted or planned out by the filming company as well. I think Jill did fine parroting back whatever they asked for and she’s struggling now because she has no “script” to follow. All the content she’s generating is stuff she has to think of on her own and her parents did their best to squash her critical thinking skills. 

I’m curious about this as well. My daughter is almost 22 months and is never unsupervised outside because she’s simply too young. There’s also the fact that we live on a busy main road and we have no fenced areas because we live in a condo complex. Izzy isn’t much older than my daughter is and I could understand if his parents are hesitant to allow him outside - even in a fenced area - alone due to his age. 

(Or maybe they’re hesitant because they’re public figures and have concerns about random fans stopping by? They did have a random person show up on their doorstep when Jill was heavily pregnant with Izzy. They were still living in the big mansion at that point, but still. That would likely be a concern for me if I were in their shoes.)

I am really curious about what age posters here feel is a good age for kids to be unsupervised outside. It’s a conversation I haven’t had to have with my husband yet, but I have a feeling we may have different answers and will have to compromise.  

Miniway is 4,5 and I don’t want him playing outside on his own. He’s so impulsive and has no sense of danger at all. 

At my sister’s house he and my niece play outside alone though. She is a little older then him and they both know they are not allowed to leave the yard. (Their yard is also way more fun then ours.) And there’s two of them if something happens. We live in a small town that feels safe. 

We try to give him more freedom as he grows. Let him help out with things and do things by himself. When we were on holiday he got cash in the toystore and walked up to the counter and paid his toy by himself. We stood a bit back so we could see him the whole time. He was very proud and that was super cute. 

[cascarones]

I remember playing by myself quite a bit in the backyard at certain house we moved away from, so 3-4. I'm also the youngest, so the siblings were probably there too, just playing something different.

I'm 30 and have tracking on my phone, it's for if I get a migraine and get disoriented/ can't get home before my window closes. I also travel often, so I can't always recognize where I'm at if an aura hits. It's there because as in pain as I was I knew my taxi needed to be heading for Brooklyn, not Harlem and it scared me badly. I got out and a Good Samaritan got me where I needed to be safely.  Sometimes it's just there for worst case scenarios, not for controlling your kids.

 

[Four is Enough]

When my darling Four came home screaming today that *I* had not had "her" ( The car we bought for her to use so we wouldn't have to drive her to school) car fixed... and now the Air Bag Light Was On and *I* have to have it fixed Right Away....

 

I told her that she'd had the summer to get the car in for service (which, BTW, we pay for) and didn't, and I didn't see any emergency. She threw a fit and said that *I* would have to drive her to school, to which I said,

 

Histrionics will get you nowhere. You can take the bus. (Which stops about a quarter mile from our house across two major roads, but she could walk to the stop, her brother used to) to which she replied,

 

I'll tell Dad and he'll pay for me to take an Uber..

 

Somewhere I have failed as a mother to have such an entitled little bitch in my house. If she dared try to take an Uber to school, I'll turn her phone off. I used to track their phone use periodically during school days (high school) and if they used them, I'd turn them off till the next day. They hated that.... I haven't done that for a long time, but maybe they need a taste of that again.

[SassyPants]

1 minute ago, Iamtheway said:

Miniway is 4,5 and I don’t want him playing outside on his own. He’s so impulsive and has no sense of danger at all. 

At my sister’s house he and my niece play outside alone though. She is a little older then him and they both know they are not allowed to leave the yard. (Their yard is also way more fun then ours.) And there’s two of them if something happens. We live in a small town that feels safe. 

We try to give him more freedom as he grows. Let him help out with things and do things by himself. When we were on holiday he got cash in the toystore and walked up to the counter and paid his toy by himself. We stood a bit back so we could see him the whole time. He was very proud and that was super cute. 

When my kids were little someone once told me that NO ONE kidnaps 2 kids together...no one is that insane. Yes, I LOL'd until I realized that it's probably true for a different reason. 2 kids are harder to control than 1-

We had a nice enclosed yard with locks on the inside of the gates - I could see the yard from the kitchen, family room, laundry room and my bedroom- From the ages of 4 and 1, they were outside on my days off. 

[Iamtheway]

My husband and I have trackers on eachother’s phones. Mainly because he goes for long runs and I want to find him if he falls over somewhere and breaks his leg. 

Sometimes I check if he’s on his way home. One time when I did the phone said he was in the middle of a lake. He was on a train next to the lake. Obviously not a great tracker ...

[BachelorToTheRapture]

I know quite a few people my age who live at home with their parents, the rest of us can't imagine! (I'm 25). My brother and I both moved home for a couple months after college to start a job and get money for a car and a deposit on an apartment. I believe my parents said we had 6 months before they'd charge rent, we were each out in 3-4 because we wanted our independence back as soon as we could afford it. They helped out as much as they could with (mostly used) furniture, dishes, etc. as did some of our extended family. Now that I'm older I'm doing the same and giving my college aged siblings first dibs on anything I'm replacing, they can store it in my parents' basement until they need it. 

If one of my siblings were to study abroad or travel for an extended time I would have them look into a tracking app or a cell phone with internet connectivity abroad because I was lost and had to call for help, and if my dad had been able to track me instead of trying to find me based on street names that night would have been a lot easier. But, I probably wouldn't have let him have a tracker on my phone (he does have access to the find your phone feature, but that makes my phone make obnoxious noises and I know he would only use it in an emergency. We weren't aware of that feature at the time of that incident or I'd have asked him to use it). To continue my ramble, I know my parents don't have the time or desire to track me or my siblings, they can hardly remember the dates I'm out of town if I ask for rides to the airport (parking is crazy expensive, and public transit sucks).

[Peaches-n-Beans]

3 hours ago, PreciousPantsofDoom said:

  Now, some of it is because her family are US expats living in China, so life has been a little different over the last 2 years for them, but even when they are back in North America for the summer months, she is accompanied everywhere. 

Honestly this is weird to me. I grew up in Korea, and by 11 I was taking the subway to meet my mom and sister after school for my sister's gymnastics lessons. Let me start by saying we moved to Korea when I was 11, I did not read or speak Korean at the time and my mom was pretty much like 'here's a subway card, a flip phone and this is the stop you get off on' before school and then after school I'd travel 20-30 minutes to meet her and my sister. 

I can't speak for China specifically, but Korea at least is extremely safe.  The old women who sit on every corner are in everyone's business. I'd let my hypothetical kid go around on their own in Korea before I'd do it in the US

[PreciousPantsofDoom]

1 minute ago, Peaches-n-Beans said:

Honestly this is weird to me. I grew up in Korea, and by 11 I was taking the subway to meet my mom and sister after school for my sister's gymnastics lessons. Let me start by saying we moved to Korea when I was 11, I did not read or speak Korean at the time and my mom was pretty much like 'here's a subway card, a flip phone and this is the stop you get off on' before school and then after school I'd travel 20-30 minutes to meet her and my sister. 

I can't speak for China specifically, but Korea at least is extremely safe.  The old women who sit on every corner are in everyone's business. I'd let my hypothetical kid go around on their own in Korea before I'd do it in the US

I'm not saying that China is or isn't safe for a 16 year old to walk around/navigate transit/shop/do whatever 16 year olds do in her home town in N. A., just that her parents perceive it as more unsafe. 

I wouldn't know one way or the other.

 

 

[Iamtheway]

My mum actully seem to worry less about me the further away I get. Staying at their house in the summer between semesters she would not let me ride my bike home at night. She’d force my dad to come pick me up. They live in a town with 20.000 people that is very safe.

Me trying to tell her I lived alone in a much bigger city all semester and walked home alone late at night all the time did nothing to change her mind. 

Me backpacking in Bangkok alone didn’t seem to worry her as much.  

I’m almost 40 now and my dad still picks me up when I have to travel for work and arrive home late with the train. I happily take the ride. Not because I’m scared for my safety. I’m just lazy. And I do return the favour whenever they travel by train. 

[HarryPotterFan]

49 minutes ago, Iamtheway said:

My husband and I have trackers on eachother’s phones. Mainly because he goes for long runs and I want to find him if he falls over somewhere and breaks his leg. 

Sometimes I check if he’s on his way home. One time when I did the phone said he was in the middle of a lake. He was on a train next to the lake. Obviously not a great tracker ...

I’d be tempted to text and say, “Are you on a boat or are you dead and somebody dumped your body in the lake?”