Captain Steak's Padded Room

Don’t like it?

Too bad.

being overprotective of your kid is NOT going to help them. it’s fucking savage.

my mom let my sisters and i do whatever we wanted [obvs within reason] and punished us when we did bad shit and we came out just fine. we’re honest people and nothing fucked us up. my friend with overprotective and invasive parents? she sneaks out for a social life. she can’t let people touch her things without almost crying because her dad would confiscate her things as she was using them to make sure she wasn’t selling drugs or sexting. sometimes she compulsively lies about small things and admits to lying later because she knows it’s was stupid to do it in the first place and she developed OCD from her father reprimanding her for not being clean enough [even though she’s a spotless person] she will have anxiety attacks over being in a messy environment because of the panic her dad put into her while growing up. she’s almost twenty and you know what she did? she asked me to cover for her so she could go on a date. SHE IS TWENTY NEXT MONTH AND ASKED ME TO LIE TO HER PARENTS IF THEY ASKED ME WHERE SHE WAS. she was on a date!! dating! because she was afraid her dad would fucking ground her. the sad part is, he probably would have if he found out! they created an environment of distrust and she has to fight it to be able to hang out with people who weren’t even gonna get her in trouble.

yall wanna be like “privacy doesn’t exist for children and teens. no teens can be trusted.” but fact is, you’re gonna force your kid into being untrustworthy because you think it’s healthy to be controlling.

and what, exactly, did i do to deserve this? not a fucking thing. i didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, didn’t sneak out, didn’t do drugs, didn’t skip school, nothing. in 13 years of public school, i had one detention - for being late too many times. that’s 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, i’d better be in my dorm doing homework or in class, and if i got a grade he didn’t 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 i’d always wanted to - on my terms.

my father died last May and i hadn’t talked to him for a year, hadn’t seen him for two, and before that i hadn’t had any communication with him at all for four.

Guess what parents?

Most kids that got constantly accused of bullshit that I KNEW? INCLUDING MYSELF? Ended up doing those things because “Fuck it, might as well if they’re not going to believe me!”

For me, I had sex way before I planned to (19. I was planning on waiting til marriage). Why? Because fuck it, he acted like I was trying to be a whore all the damn time, I was going to do whatever I damn well pleased.

I moved out at age 19. I have never moved back in. I barely talk to him. I talk almost exclusively to my mom.

When I moved out he said I’d be pregnant by the end of the year.

I’m 30. I have no kids. I don’t plan on having kids. Ever. Because I watched every other person in my family have kids when they couldn’t afford them and I’m not doing that to a child.

When I lived with my parents I had nearly all A’s, I had an 8pm curfew at the age of 19, I was never allowed to leave town, leave state, anything like that for school trips or what have you. When I was in college I wasn’t allowed to go to any colleges more than 30 minutes away. My parents didn’t trust others and they instilled that in me and it took me YEARS to fix it.

My therapist pinned down exactly what that does to it a kid too. It’s isolating. You’re isolating your kid. You’re telling them you don’t trust them. You’re telling them you inherently think they’re bad.

And that has huge ramifications on your bond with them.

Preventing a child from having privacy is a punishable offense in the United States (many countries actually) and you can be penalized for it.

What is that?

Rejecting or ignoring: telling a child he or she is unwanted or unloved, showing little interest in child, not initiating or returning affection, not listening to the child, not validating the child’s feelings, breaking promises, cutting child off in conversation

Shaming or humiliating: calling a child names, criticizing, belittling, demeaning, berating, mocking, using language or taking action that takes aim at child’s feelings of self-worth

Terrorizing: accusing, blaming, insulting, punishing with or threatening abandonment, harm or death, setting a child up for failure, manipulating, taking advantage of a child’s weakness or reliance on adults, slandering; screaming; yelling

Isolating: keeping child from peers and positive activities, confining child to small area, forbidding play or other stimulating experiences

Corrupting: engaging child in criminal acts, telling lies to justify actions or ideas, encouraging misbehavior

If you are an abusive parent, you probably have one of these (if not all) of these red flags:

Routinely ignores, criticizes, yells at or blames child

Plays favorites with one sibling over another

Poor anger management or emotional self-regulation

Stormy relationships with other adults, disrespect for authority

History of violence or abuse

Untreated mental illness, alcoholism or substance abuse

Children who suffer from your abuse, experience these emotional and behavioral issues:

Habits like sucking, biting, rocking

Learning disabilities and developmental delays

Overly compliant or defensive

Extreme emotions, aggression, withdrawal

Anxieties, phobias, sleep disorders

Destructive or anti-social behaviors (violence, cruelty, vandalism, stealing, cheating, lying)

Behavior that is inappropriate for age (too adult, too infantile)

Suicidal thoughts and behaviors

In summary, there is no “my house, my rules”. If you actively promote this type of behavior as parents, you are committing a crime, and you can be fined and imprisoned for it, as well as having your kids taken away, which, if they are experiencing this behavior from you, shouldn’t be your kids to begin with.

Children are not your property, regardless of relation.

If you want to guarantee your children never consider you a part of their life or interact with you ever again, continuing these behaviors will absolutely do that. 

As someone who has a support group of nearly 80 kids ranging from the ages of 14 to 27, I can tell you so many horror stories of parental abuse and the shit it fucks up the kids with as a result. My wife experienced and survived her own form of parental abuse, as have I. 

okay so back when I was 12 (? i think. 7th grade for sure) I started experiencing symptoms of depression. So of course, because I thought it would help, I told my mom. She told me I was just “a hormonal teenager” and that I just needed to get over it. At this point I was suicidal and had expressed that, even at that age I knew that it wasn’t normal. not at all.

So I started isolating myself from my family. I’d only text my friends. That’s when they started going through my ipod because they believed I was “doing bad things”. So I set up a passcode because they were just unlocking and going through it every time I left the room. It stayed in my pocket until I got home, then under the bed. I wasn’t allowed to unlock it myself, they had to know the passcode. I’d go through 20 different passcodes a month because I didn’t want them looking through it. I didn’t even have anything to hide! They made me feel guilty, like I was doing something wrong for texting my friends. The most prominent memory of this is sitting in the chair next to the couch, crying from the anxiety they were forcing me through as they looked through everything. I had no privacy. I wasn’t allowed to have privacy. I no longer texted my friends. The little social interaction I got was from tumblr messages every so often.

My parents created instagram, tumblr etc. accounts so they could watch what i posted and when I posted it. I blocked them. This was he only place I had left to express myself and they were trying to take that away too. They found some app (no idea why this even exists) that allows you to fucking track what your kids do online. I changed the email on all of my social media. I stopped using it if they were in the room. I did everything I possibly could because I just wanted to have 1 fucking place I could express myself without them.

They’ve (as far as I know) stopped forcing their way into my shit. They still go through my texts if I leave it unlocked. They hover over me whenever I use the computer. They still threaten to take away my door.

And I just don’t care anymore. About anything. I skip class, I send nudes, I smoke etc. They’re gonna assume I’m doing it anyway, why shouldn’t I?

Children are not your property