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Sigh...
17/f. I'm a nice, mature girl and I graduated a year early this year. I've been dating the same guy for about a year now. I have a car, I have a job, and I'm very stable and independent. My boyfriend is one year older than me and he's stable and mature also. You think I'd be trustable right? Well, my mom still makes me be home by midnight. She treats me like I'm a child. I'm the one that watches how I word things around her, tries not to fight, etc., but she freaks out over a simple question. She still thinks she can ground me and take away my things. I'm getting really tired of being treated this way. All of my friends spend the night at their boyfriend's houses but she thinks that's just horrible. She's not really religious and she's not strict about other things. She cusses around me and talks about crazy things so I don't know why she won't let me be normal. She makes me leave my bedroom door open when my boyfriend is over. She won't let me go to his house unless his parents are there (she doesn't know that I go when they're not home anyway). I don't know what to do. I really hate living like this because all of my friends think I'm a weird goodie goodie, and that's not who I am. It's who my mom is forcing me to be. She won't listen to a single thing I have to say. What can I do?
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Your friends parents are doing your friends a big disservice by allowing them to spend the night at their boyfriend's houses.
With the responsibility of raising a child, a parent has to ensure their child is safe. And giving you ample opportunity to get pregnant when you're 17 is foolhardy. Your mom is doing the right thing.
You're a minor. When you move out and live alone, you can make these choices for yourself. But since you're still a teen and living with your mom, you have to abide her decisions for you, which frankly seem very reasonable. They probably only seem unreasonable to you because your friends have irresponsible parents who let them get away with inappropriate behaviour.
If you want freedom from your mother's rules, you have to pay for it, in the form of your own place. That's just the way it works.
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You are a minor living in her house. So, she is still THE PARENT. She can ground you and take away your things. Legally, morally, ethically, she can still that do that. The only thing she couldn't touch would be a car or cellphone where your name is the only one on the contract, other then that, you are pretty much at her disposal.
Your choices here are simple enough:
Break her rules, and accept her 'punishments'. There isn't much she can actually punish you with anymore except emotional bullshit and yelling if you choose to simply ignore being 'grounded'. If you can stand up to her and endure that emotional stuff, then do as you will. The worst that could happen is that she'll kick you out, or lock you out.
Or you can respect her rules because you are her child living in her house. You aren't her tenant or a renter. You are her child, that means following her rules under her roof.
I'm 24 years old now, and when I go home to visit my mother and father, I'm not allowed to have a boy behind a closed door with me. Doesn't matter if we've been together for three years, and share a bed at our apparent... It's their rule, and I'm not even a guest really, I'm their daughter in their home. It's a dumb rule! It doesn't matter that I've done EVERYTHING they are afraid of me doing, and probably a whole bunch of crazy shit they've never imagined in my own home. Their rules aren't about 'rational' or 'fair'. Their rules are about what they are willing to live with, and in their home, they get to make those rules.
If you are as capable and mature as you say: Move out. There are parts of adulthood which simply will NOT happen for you until you do.
If, for many reasons, you aren't able to move out yet, then you need to find a way to live as your mother's child in her house.
Whatever you choice is in regards to respecting her rules, you are going to have to develop a bit more a thick skin and stop allowing her unhappiness to become your unhappiness. Often, as adults, we have to learn to agree to disagree, and rather then trying to convince our parents to see it our way, we have to quietly shrug our shoulders and say “Nope. I don't see it that way.” and leave the room. If your parent is unhappy about something you've done, that you feel was perfectly right, you don't need to feel upset or argue with them. Just agree to disagree, and find out where that leaves the discussion.
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