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Mom is pissed because of what happened on a weekend trip
Last week, I [F/15] went away with a friend [F/15] and her family to their weekend home. It's out by this beautiful lake in this small, middle-of-nowhere type town.
We arrived around noon and me, my friend, and her little brother spent the first couple hours fishing on the pier in their backyard. We went inside afterward and her brother then showed us a pair of handcuffs his uncle had given him as a birthday present. He'd left them behind the last time they were there. My friend and I took them and decided to handcuff ourselves together as a joke. Only problem was her brother then realized he didn't remember where he'd put the keys.
We searched the house but couldn't find them. Finally he remembered that they were in his room back home, four hours away. Like I said before, we were in a small town, so there was no local locksmith. These weren't police issue cuffs, so we couldn't call the cops and ask them for a key. Our only options were to cut them off or stay handcuffed until the next night.
Since we didn't want to destroy her brother's present and since it was our own fault we hadn't located the key before putting them on, we decided to own our bone-headed move and stay cuffed together.
We had a blast the rest of the time we were there. We carried on as planned and didn't let the fact that we were stuck together get in the way. We fished some more. We hiked in the woods. We even went into town for ice cream. We made smores around a campfire in the backyard. It was awesome.
We arrived back at her usual house around 8 pm the next day. We were finally uncuffed after a little more than 24 hours like that.
When my mom found out about what happened, she blew her top. She couldn't believe my friend's parents left us stuck like that and even called them up to chew them out. Like it wasn't our decision and it's not like we had any problems. I'm scared my mom won't let me go away on another trip with my friend because of this. What should I do?
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Want to answer more questions in the Relationships category?
Maybe give some free advice about: Families?
If you still live with your mother and she pays for the bills and all of your basic needs, and since you're underage, you have to respect your mother's decision, even if you think she's overreacting. I wouldn't have lasted long handcuffed to a friend because I do prefer to go to the restroom and shower in privacy. Like you mentioned before, sometimes you just have to accept the consequences.
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I have heard it is becoming a trend for teens and kids to handcuff themselves to someone for a day to see what the others life is like. Of course, they have the keys. There was no way to know that the keys were not there but back home. I can see any young person from little kids to teens getting stuck by trying on cuffs. I am pretty sure there are even some adults who might have tried them as a joke asking if there were keys, then snapping them shut but upon searching for keys, finding themselves stuck.
I am glad you found a way to have fun despite the fact. I also understand that the family decided not to destroy the cuffs because they were a gift and belonged to the brother. I am a parent and though my kids are grown, my girls each got a turn to invite a friend camping. We did lots of vacations like that. I can easily picture perhaps a friend bringing the cuffs and my daughter cuffing herself to her friend only for the friend to have forgotten the keys back at home. We once had a girlfriend who didn't feel well and wanted to go home but home was a bit too far for us to drive her back and go back to camp so we talked to her parents, they told us which greyhound bus to put her on and they were okay with that. Sometimes things don't go as planned. Sure it interrupted a part of our vacation to sit around and wait for her to board a bus. I dont see how this inconvinienced your mom. IT was the other parents who had to put up with it. They sound like pretty good parents for not freaking out. Your moms reaction doesnt seem to have any rhyme or reason. Perhaps something happened to her in childhood where she got stuck, not with handcuffs but the effect on her emotions being the same and so she just reacted. So you could ask her if anything like that happened to her as a kid, getting stuck in not the best scenerio due to an impulse decision but it not being harmful physically to her, only emotionally. Then remind her that you were not hurt physically nor emotionally but actually still had a blast. She sounds like the kind of person though who won't talk about this, just react with her mouth going and spewing out what ever words come to mind. So it would be best to write her an old fashioned letter and put it in an envelope with her name. When she is reading it and you are not there at the time, she can not instantly react with you but has some time to think. Her reaction to the other parents is sad. It wasn't their fault and they still made sure you worked things out to enjoy the rest of the vacation. I'll bet even if you told her the details of it being a small town, she probably stopped listening to the details after she heard the first part of you being cuffed together.
Now if the friend were male and you were cuffed together, I can see a parent being concerned because their daughter was cuffed to a male, so how did you negotiate, privacy for use of bathroom or sleeping arrangememts. Yep, that could make parents blow their lid after the fact. But that was not the case thankfully and should not be a reason for Your mom to be upset because of a possibility like that she can picture in her mind.
Other than trying a letter to her, If you have a dad, I'd get him to listen. Guys are not as emotional and more logic based than females so men would likely chuckle and ask how you felt about it and if you said you were fine, then he'd feel fine. And he might ask if you learned anything from it...but that's about it. If you do not have a dad, hopefully you have adult relatives you are close enough to and see often enough who are involved in the lives of you, mom and siblings if any. These adults need to hear your story, hear of moms reaction and ask them to be the go between to speak up for you and get her to see reason, that no harm was done, and it won't happen again the next time you go on vacation with a friends family. In a case when a parent is angry and over reacts, its best for them to hear reasoning from another adult rather than their child. It is hard as a parent to receive any correction of anything, even just facts. Parents tend to feel they have to be perfect and don't like how it feels to realize they are in the wrong or could have handled something better and that their child was right. Its more about losing face with your child and not being able to humble oneself and say you are sorry. After all, one day, you will be a adult child of hers and she will need to be treating you as another adult. If Mom is having these issues now, if will probably be very hard on her and she may try to continue to run your life after age 18.
Parenting classes could help but you can't tell her that. It would be rejected and you'd have a major fight with her. I still vote on talking to Dad or any other adult like grandma or aunts or uncles who are close already with her so they can try to soothe things over for you.
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