when i was a teenager, i wasnāt allowed to have a cellphone, so my father would hand me a little bag of change and force me to call home from a payphone every single time i left somewhere and again when i arrived at the next place. that means if i went to the mall, i called when i got there. then if i wanted to go across the street to the Walmart i had to call and tell him so. then i had to call again when i got to the Walmart! if i had a bunch of stuff to do, i could go through the entire bag of change in one weekend - if i could even find enough payphones to call him from. his explanation for this lunacy was that he wanted to be able to find me anytime, anywhere. he also liked to randomly show up at my job to make sure i was there, and the first time i spent the night at my best friendās after i got a car, he drove past the house no less than eight times, and called no less than four times. one of those calls was to ask where i was because my car wasnāt visible from the road - and when i explained the turnaround i was parked in was behind the house, he told me weād ābetter not go anywhere or have friends overā. like, what the hell were we going to do? have a drunken orgy while my friendās grandma was sitting in the next room? we ended up playing chess in the front parlor all night with all the lights on and the curtains open so he could see us if he drove by.
and what, exactly, did i do to deserve this? not a fucking thing. i didnāt drink, didnāt smoke, didnāt sneak out, didnāt do drugs, didnāt skip school, nothing. in 13 years of public school, i had one detention - for being late too many times. thatās it. i never did a single thing to make him think i was untrustworthy and i got stalked for it.
when i graduated high school, my father told me if i was going to go to art college on his dime, he was going to have a say in the classes i took and what i did with my free time - he even went so far as to tell me if he ever dropped by the campus, iād better be in my dorm doing homework or in class, and if i got a grade he didnāt like, he was going to pull me out of school, bring me home, and basically keep me a prisoner with no phone, no tv, no visits with friends until i graduated from the local community college. faced with another four years of stalking and abuse, i moved out and worked in a factory until i could be considered an independent student, then went to the art college iād always wanted to - on my terms.
my father died last May and i hadnāt talked to him for a year, hadnāt seen him for two, and before that i hadnāt had any communication with him at all for four.
the moral of the story for you āmy house, my rules, you donāt get any rightsā parents is: stop treating your children like shit or youāre going to die alone, and youāll deserve it.