Brainwashing Parents

Overly controlling parents have a negative effect on their kid’s well being, especially as they get older. Imagine being raised in a completely Republican family and being forced to think a certain way. That’s how my life has always been up until now. When I was little my parents taught me to always live up to their expectations and taught me to always follow what they said. My parents have forced their opinion on me ever since I was little, and now I am starting to see things in a different way but am not allowed to. Not being allowed to have your own thoughts can make things very difficult as you get older. Being raised with rules concerning freedom, grades and schooling, and friends, my life gets crazier the older I get.

Every year on my birthday I seem to ask my mom the same question. And that one question is always “How much freedom do I get now that I am a year older?” And the reply she gives me is always “You have no freedom until you’re eighteen years old, and a legal adult.” This statement is accurate because I legally don’t have any freedom until I am over the age of eighteen. I could at least use a little freedom, and have some trust. I find myself risking getting caught and pushing my parents limits everyday just to see how much I can actually get away with, and if my parents weren’t so controlling I probably wouldn’t want to push their limits as much as I do now. Some people may think that parents who don’t control their kid’s lives and let them make mistakes are bad parents. Though in reality, some of my closest friend’s parents are like that and they have done way less things than I have. Controlling parents usually have the worst kids, because their kids have so much pressure.
“Morgan, you have to get higher than a 3.75 GPA or you’re on restriction,” my dad said as he checked my edline. Grades are the thing I get most pressured about. If my grades don’t meet a certain expectation, I’m dead. “Sixty eight percent of kids who are stressed out have stress from school work, and fifty six percent of kids who are stressed out have stress from parents.”(www.teenhelp.com) My parents have brainwashed me to be so terrified of getting bad grades that I am constantly stressing myself out about school. “Dad, I plan on moving out when I’m eighteen,” I state to my dad, he replies with, “No you’re not Morgan, you’re going to live at home with us until you’re nineteen and have been in college for a year. Most kids slack off their first year of college, and we need to be able to keep a close eye on you your first year in college.” Legally, they can’t make me stay at home once I’m a legal adult. They can disown me, or make me pay for my rent and college myself though, and on a job paying minimum wage there is no way I could ever possibly pay for everything myself. This leaves me with only one option, staying at home an extra year. Most people will say that if you don’t keep a close eye on your kid’s grades and schooling they’ll slack off, but when you’re a teenager you want trust and freedom, and don’t want to be babied anymore. My parents hovering over me about grades is frustrating because not only do they stress me out, but with them having too much control I end up wanting to not do my best in high school because I get too fed up with them complaining about how my grades are never good enough.
August 2009, I found out my best friend was pregnant, and I was in a tough situation, because I knew when my parents found out they would want me to stop talking to her. Two months went by before I finally told my parents, and when they found out their response was exactly what I thought it would be, “You can no longer see her outside of school anymore. We don’t want you communicating with this girl.” Me and her are no longer close friends because of my parents and are now merely just acquaintances. Parents being too over controlling don’t just affect their kid’s lives, but they also affect the lives of people around their kids. Also, a year ago or so, when my parents found out one of my friends was bisexual they freaked out and made sure I never talked to her again. A thing like this is when being controlling crosses the line and affects the kid’s life majorly.
So as you can see, over-protective and over-controlling parents don’t get any further except further behind. Over controlling parents cause more issues and have worse teenagers than most parents that aren’t over controlling. One way we can fix this is by letting it be known that helicopter parents are not helping their kids succeed in any way. We can get this known by letting people read this and seeing the affects of how being over controlling pushes people’s kids away from their parents. Also, if the readers of this essay are a parent who knows a set of over controlling parents and they feel the same way as I do, they can talk to those over controlling parents and tell them about how being over controlling and trying to brainwash their kids will just make them want to rebel as a teenager and cause more issues than if they cared just a little bit less.