We have all become too sensitive

[fistor!@#]

I thinks it's a great idea to try to control everything my kids say and do. What they wear, what they watch, and how they talk, too. I will start ruling over them with an iron fist immediately. Surely they will never rebel against my hardline dictatorship, like I did with my parents. As long as I don't let them ever live their own lives or have any freedom whatsover, I think everything will turn out great.

Surely me controlling every aspect of their lives is perfect training for them to live in the real world.

There is a happy meduim between controlling and turning a blind eye. What i was referring to, was the kids I see walking the streets of West Nashville, and Springfield(TN) and various other communities I frequent. When there are 5 police just to keep the peace at a JR High School football game somebody has to recognize there is a problem with the youth today. Not the lil' Fistor's or anybody else's children on this board. It's always somebody else's kids...

There are cops walking around our high school football games, too. Not dismissing the idea that you may have a much more serious gang problem there than we have here, I don't know. Just saying cops at football games isn't an uncommon sight.

There definitely is a happy medium between controlling and turning a blind eye, and I think the vast majority of parents fall in that happy medium. I was concerned about Queenie's comments about her kids being under a microscope while they're under her roof. That seemed a bit on the controlling side of the spectrum. I have experience, unfortuntately, in this area. My mother and father tried to control my every move (strangely, they did allow me to dress like an idiot, though), and I haven't spoken to either of them in onver 2 years. I can honestly tell you that I do not like my parents, in the least. Kids rebel, some sooner than later, when a parent tries to take away their freedom on a grand scale. You may think that you're trying to protect them, but you can't smother them.

I'm sure I read Queenie's post wrong, and that she really didn't mean to say she fully intends to control every aspect of her kids lives, but that's really how it came across.

What also came across was the idea that if a parent doesn't adopt this iron-fisted approach, he or she is turning a blind eye. Absolutely untrue, of course. Happy medium words.

Oh, and also - apparently several of you think that a kid who dresses in baggy clothes and wears tilted ball caps is somehow trying to emulate a gang member. I don't see that. I see a kid dressing in the Hip Hop fashion. Believe it or not, Hip Hop is not all about gangbangin' and hos. To believe that is sheer ignorance. It's like saying every kid who listens to Heavy Metal has a bent toward Satanism. Equally ridiculous.