This was an answer over on Quora.
Mom sat us both down when we turned 16.
“If you’re old enough to drive, you’re old enough to get yourself out of trouble.”
What she meant was: we were out of the house, on our own, at least as far as getting to school or jobs were concerned. (I don’t drive, but the conversation was largely the same.) We each knew – to a certainty – that our mother meant it when she said, starting at about age 13, “if you get yourself in trouble, I will not bail you out. If you drive drunk, you’re spending the night in jail, or until your hearing. If you get someone pregnant, you will support your child, under your roof. If you steal or do drugs, and you get caught, I will not bail you out. I will visit you in jail.”
We didn’t test her. We’d been raised from infancy that that particular tone of voice meant she wasn’t kidding around, and she meant *every last word *of what she was telling us.
Neither of us were stupid enough to call her bluff, because we *knew *she wasn’t bluffing.
Now: bedtimes and curfews. Once we were old enough to drive, or get ourselves around, hard curfews ended. We could work until 10, hang around with friends until 11 or midnight (or later) but we weren’t to wake her or cause a disturbance coming home. We were expected to maintain our grades, and hold a job such that we could continue paying room and board.
If we screwed around with either of those, she might have instituted a curfew, but I doubt it. She was pretty much set on the idea that we were either responsible teenagers, or not, but it was up to us to manage our time, keep our grades up and keep a job.
When J. blew off his first job and lost it, mom kept a running tally, and he was to pay back rent when he had a paycheck again. (And again, she wasn’t kidding around.)
At 17 your ability to parent her like a six year old has ceased. Your daughter is nearly an adult, and will be one inside of a year.
You need to start preparing her to be one. You need to have started years earlier, but if you expect to keep her following rules that might make sense for younger children, you’re not doing that. She needs some adult expectations and with those, some adult consequences for failing to meet them. If she isn’t waking up for school, that is *her problem. *Make sure your 17 old is prepared to move out, or she never will.
babble 