Were you allowed to go out a lot as a teen?

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

I guess that the wonderful thing about time and distance is that they allow you to put everything in perspective.

My older sister was never allowed to go out to party, despite being VERY popular and travelling everywhere with a huge group (something our parents were always drilling into us — "safety in numbers" and all that jazz).

(But of course she snuck out like the badass she was).

I always found that very odd, because, well, I was the exact opposite and got an equally flipped treatment.

I had always been very sedentary, but that got into overdrive once puberty hit — I could remain as motionless as furniture and only speak in monosyllables for days if need be. It drove our folks crazy.

As expected, my dad didn't take too kindly to this "vampire act" and started ambushing me whenever I would be returning from school (my one non-escapable "outing") — he'd allow only the bare minimum of bathroom breaks, hand me a water bottle, and tell me, in no uncertain terms, that I would not be allowed back "until moonlight or hypothermia".

At the time, I thought it was an extreme violation of my freedom and boundaries, but I eventually got used to it because I was blessed with living in a very walkable area full of great sights to experience.

Considering the fact that I now work outdoors all day AND am as happy as can be doing it, you can say that I have long started seeing the value in such "tough love" tactics.

But he could never get me into night clubs — that was my last stand and the hill I chose to die on.

What was your experience?

 

[DjQuick2008]

never told my parents if i was cycling miles away which i did lol.

 

[Aldia Aldia]

I was actually, but I never did that much. Most of my hangouts are planned, and I don't like to just mindlessly stroll across town.

 

[DjQuick2008]

I was actually, but I never did that much. Most of my hangouts are planned, and I don't like to just mindlessly stroll across town.

i was sheltered and still got up to mad shit

 

[LiberoVulpesLiberoVulpes's icon]

Yes, I just didn't like to.

Tinkering with things and reading at home was what I preferred.

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

never told my parents if i was cycling miles away which i did lol.

At one point, my dad forced a disgrace of a bike upon me — it was rusted through, the velocities wouldn't trigger and the chain fell off more than once.

I'm still not sure if incompetence or draconian punishment lol.

 

[Sheepy765]

I was allowed to go out, but I didn’t outside of going to friends’ houses for D&D.

 

[Burzuru Burzuru]

i never went out a whole lot back then, but im certain they wouldn't have been too concerned about it.

 

[lestagio]

Yeah, but mostly because I was too lame to get up to anything mischievous. I was either in town or in one my 2 friend's houses, lol. And I generally liked doing stuff at home, so I didn't leave much anyway

 

[ZEGA ZONICZEGA ZONIC's icon]

No. (No as in that's my answer.)

 

[shaggi]

I was allowed to go out as long as i returned before dark. I never said where i was going and my parents never asked where i had been.

 

[iamthemilkman]

I was always out skateboarding on the weekdays, then I'd be at the mall, concerts, parties, friends and girlfriends houses, etc., on the weekends. As long as I did my homework and got good grades, my parents didn't care.

 

[azurax]

I grew up very sheltered. I was monitored a LOT during my early teens
But by late teens, I would make plans and hang out with my friends. Any outing with friends required permission.
But outings with my siblings were/are very much encouraged by my parents.

 

[ArchienineZXAdventArchienineZXAdvent's icon]

I suppose so? I go outside if i have to buy something and they don't care too much.

 

[bombatomba77]

I grew up in the 80's and early 90's, but my parents were very much 1960's style "assuming you aren't doing bad things" people. We mostly did harmless stuff (hunting for returnables so we could play games/get crap at 7-11, playing the woods), but we also screwed around too (riding our bikes to stores forty minutes away to screw around, trying to sneak into the abandoned lunatic asylum through sewer systems).

 

[ArchienineZXAdventArchienineZXAdvent's icon]

I grew up in the 80's and early 90's, but my parents were very much 1960's style "assuming you aren't doing bad things" people. We mostly did harmless stuff (hunting for returnables so we could play games/get crap at 7-11, playing the woods), but we also screwed around too (riding our bikes to stores forty minutes away to screw around, trying to sneak into the abandoned lunatic asylum through sewer systems).

The asylum sneaking part is pretty fire man

 

[_Lorenzo_]

When I was barely a teenager, my parents split up. In the period leading up to the divorce, things were so tense that both of them couldn't care less about what I did or didn't do, my grades, or where I went out at night with kids my age... And let's just say that setup actually worked for me, especially since every single opportunity to get out of our house was an act of pure survival....let's put in this way...

 

[Bakuma1997]

Irrelevant, i was a introvert pickle as a teen, so the only reason i left home was to do grocery shopping

 

[Morgan Katarn]

Yeah in my day and age you went outside or home to friends allot even when I was 8-10 years old you just went outside and played no mobile phone no gps no nothing and when you came home you parents new you where safe. That´s how we lived and if you died you died.

 

[Graw]

I went pretty much anywhere I wanted any time I wanted when I was a teenager. I went to my first concert at 14 with my friends. We took a bus into the city to go see Death by Stereo and my friends ended up getting kicked out by bouncers for smoking weed in the moshpit. I was a good boy though and didn't get kicked out. I ended up staying alone at the show until I got too nervous about the busses ending so I left with no idea how to actually get home, found a random bus stop where some crazy guy was hanging out screaming in French. It was the wrong bus stop but the driver was nice and took me to the right bus stop. I ended up making it most of the way home but the bus I needed to take the rest of the way had stopped running so I ended up calling my parents from a pay phone at like 3am and they picked me up. I also had school the next day. I was sore and exhausted but I made fun of my friends mercilessly for being dumb and getting kicked out before the band we went to see even started.

 

[dr grim]

Were totally free but i was a " stay at home and playing videogames teenager " so... i think on the contrary, my parents encouraged me to go out

 

[InigoMontoya]

yeah i was, i preferred not to tho... which was probably WHY i was allowed to.

 

[Advil Lavs]

Yea, I guess. Not that I did go out late a lot. Usually, when I did, my mom would start asking me where I am at around 8PM or whenever it got dark. If I've gone out after dark, like one time I was just listening to music with a friend at the park, she would message me an hour or so before going to bed.
I'm happy they didn't force me to go outside though. There isn't much to be done in my town besides going to the park and back. If you don't have company, you don't really have a reason to be going out.

 

[random0nonsense]

I was allowed to go out and late and could more or less do as I please, provided I was being safe. Of course, I was a geek and rarely took advantage of my parents' leniency. Hell, most weekends I would get home before my folks.

 

[JoystickV2]

Okay so... I was, but being a massive nerd with not much interest in getting out of the house, I would usually stay in my room playing videogames, only going out with my friends to the mall or to the DVD store we would buy our anime DVDs.