Replies to '11/27 Extreme Moms'

First off, It's not necessary to use all caps and basically yell your lungs out. Second, you might want to check your spelling and grammar if you want people to take you more seriously.

And I want to know what makes you think that parents need to have a responsibility over their daughters until they are 21, but only over their sons until 18. Either you think that girls can't handle themselves until three years AFTER they have already reached legal adult age, or you are sadly mistaken on how the law works, or you have been conditioned to think that men are more mature than women and that girls are perpetually childlike until the magic age of 21 and need to be watched over. Hate to break it to you, but mentally and physiologically, females develop faster than males and female bodies stop growing sooner than male bodies. Aside from that, the legal adult age for both males and females is 18.

Parenting should not entail following your kids to every location they ever set foot to, and it does not mean being involved in every thread and fiber of their growth.  Helecopter parenting DRIVES KIDS AWAY. It pushes them to be rebellious. The more you tell them they can't do something, the more they will want to do it. It makes things, including freedom, all the more enticing when parents seek nothing other than to prevent it from happening.

I believe that the woman should not have left her son in the middle of Bloomingdale's with only a map, a card, and $20. That, I agree, was a very unsafe choice. She is wrong when she assumes that New York subways are safe, because they are some of the most dangerous parts of that city. HOWEVER, I do believe had been OLDER, maybe 15 or so, it wouldn't have been as dangerous a move because he would be more mature, and more aware of what could happen to him. But you are incorrect in the assumption that she would be in jail for child abuse. She did not beat him, she did not physically abuse him, she did not starve him, she did not leave him alone for days on end, nor did she shove him out the door and tell him to fend for himself. and the boy was unharmed. Granted, she should not have let him go by himself through the subway, but she did not abuse him. Don't discredit the child's intelligence or abilities just because he is only 9. Physiologically, he is not developed enough to make decisions like that, BUT he did. Children are not all the same, and they don't always follow the same pattern of development.

I also believe that the other woman who was hovering over her daughter and made the first guy she brought home pee in a cup is in the wrong. That's the other end of the extreme parenting spectrum. Her daughter is correct in saying she needs to cut the cord. It's unhealthy for both mother and daughter. If my mom had been like that, I would have run away. Plain and simple. That is what I would have done. A mother like that is more abusive than the other mom, because in asking her daughter's first boyfriend to pee in a cup, she violated his rights, because there was no need for a drug test, and he did not consent to one before arriving at the house, nor did his parents, nor did he consent to DNA extration of any kind. She hampers her daughter's social life, and damages the relationship between her and her daughter, because her daughter refuses to talk to her about anything. That mother destroyed communication, probably damaged her daughter's reputaion at school (being in High School, I'd bet that everyone and their dog knew who "psycho mom" was, especially boys, and avoided that like the plauge.) and is making her daughter more rebellious every day.

There should be a medium between these two. Extremes are almost never the right answer. Not in politics, not in relationships, and especially not in parenting. Allowing a child freedom to think and be themselves, and progressively give them more freedoms and responsibilities as they grow and mature. Freedoms with responsibilities. Not free-of-rules, not hovering.

You're exactly right!  I remember the day when parents were held accountable for non-supervision or physical abuse  of their children.  I realize those are two example on complete opposite ends of the spectum.  But the fact remains, there were consequence for parents back in the day.  Now, if you were to report a situation to CPS you basically get laughed at.  Leaving your child on a NYC subway ALONE is a form of child abuse and I think that mother should have held legally responsible. Then agai, I guess I would think that because I'm from Texas and we don't have subways here where I live. She got her "15 minutes of fame" on Dr. Phil, though.