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Teenagers Being Forced to Live with Their Legal Parents

I often say that teens are “forced” to live with their legal parents. And I talk about "teen prison". I am afraid some people will think I am being overly-dramatic, so I want to explain.

In many countries, I suspect most English-speaking countries, there are laws which say that a person must live with their legal parents until they reach some arbitrary age. In some countries, such as Australia, Canada and England, if I am not mistaken, this age is 16. In others, such as the USA (although it may depend on the particular state), it is 18.

From my chats with teens I have heard many instances of teenagers being picked up by the police and being returned to their legal parents before they reach the legal age of freedom.

Ocean told me that while she was in the mental hospital, at age 17, she asked a police officer what he would do if she had walked out of her house against her father's wishes and he had called the police. She asked if he would put her in handcuffs and take her back to her father's house. She said the police officer nodded yes.

She also told me of a 13 year old girl she was in the mental hospital with. In this case her legal parents were so dysfunctional she was already living with her grandmother. Then one day she got into an argument with her grandmother and walked out of the house. The grandmother called the police and the police followed the girl as she walked down the street. They told her she had to go back. She resisted and they tackled her. In other words they used physical force, they did not try to reach an agreement with her. They did not respect her wishes. They did not get her consent. (see note below on force and consent)

So I believe it is fair to say that teens are forced to live in their parents' homes. Of course some live there voluntarily, which is the way it should be. But there are many teens who do not want to live with their legal parents, yet they are literally taken back by force if they try to live somewhere else, and sometimes even if they just leave for a while because they need a break.

S. Hein
Aug 10, 2006

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Teenagers and Abuse

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A note on force and consent

I really do not understand how lawmakers treat the idea of "consent." For example, many things can legally be done to a teenager without their consent, such as forcing them to live with their legal parents or in mental hospitals. Yet if a "minor" teenager voluntarily has sex with someone above some arbitrary age which the laws call the "age of consent", they say the teen is too young to "consent".

It doesn't matter at all what the teen says or how the teen feels. The only thing that matters is the law. In Ocean's case she and I were not even having sex. We had never even met. Nor did we ever even have cyber sex. Yet at age 17, according to the laws the USA, she was too young to have a voice in the legal process which affected her so much, in fact the laws nearly cost Ocean her life. Though she was obviously the most central person to the case, she was never allowed to give any input whatsoever into the judges decision.

I also wonder if there can be any mistake that when a teenager is being tackled to the ground because she is resisting going back to her legal parents (or guardian's) house, that she is not going under her "consent." Ocean's father, by the way, tackled her one night when she was trying to get out of the house so she could call 911. He actually forced her to the ground. And evidently, this was perfectly legal although she was definitely not staying in his house under her own consent. She was staying there under physical force.

Now let's say that I am a 20 year old police officer. Let's say that one day I can tackle a 17 year old female who is screaming for me to let her go. Yet I can put her in handcuffs and forcibly take her back to a place she doesn't want to be. And this is perfectly legal. But let's say that on another day I meet a different 17 year old and we fall in love. Then we make love. And then her parents find out and protest. Now I can be put in jail because I did something without her "consent."

Something seems a bit inconsistent here.

One more thing about the age of consent. Ocean also told me there was a 16 year old girl in the mental hospital with her. This girls "mental problem" was that her parents told he she couldn't see her boyfriend till she was 18. This is perfectly legal for parents to do. They didn't care how she felt about it, which automatically takes them out of the running for best parents of the year and puts them into the competition for "worst parents of the year." Anyhow, so how did the girl feel? She felt suicidal.

She sat in her bathroom for hours with a gun trying to decide whether to kill herself. That is how she got in the mental hospital. My questions are "Why don't we lock up parents who steal love from other human beings known as their children? Why do we lock up people up for stealing cell phones but not for robbing someone of love? Why do we lock up the teenagers and not parents? Why don't we force the parents get "treatment"?

Or better yet, why don't we educate people on how to be parents so someday we don't have people who steal either cell phones or love, and so we don't need all the laws, mental hospitals and prisons?

...and so we don't need to go to anymore funerals of teens who have killed themselves?