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by ericmcer 424 days ago
So should we let people under 18 legally buy cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana? We definitely shouldn't monitor kids school attendance either. The parents should be the ones who regulate all those things right?

You probably don't have kids because if you did you would know that around age 13 you stop being able to just force them to not do things, you have to start to reason and compromise with them more. Without societal rules there will be many kids who drink, smoke, use social media and barely attend school. Those kids have bad parents but to a 13-17 year old they have "cool" parents, and now every other kids is gonna wonder why their parents are so lame.

You can't just raise a kid in a silo, and if you don't ban certain things at a higher level the other parents get to have a massive influence on your kids expectations.

1 comments

> So should we let people under 18 legally buy

People under 18 shouldn't be able to legally buy anything unsupervised except certain necessities such as clothes, food, etc. For the same reason they cannot legally enter into contracts.

> you have to start to reason and compromise with them more.

Ok, but if you catch 13 year old about to hurt someone, I hope you are pulling them away and not merely reasoning with them. If you can't keep a phone out of your 13 year old's hands, you failed as a parent or your child deserves to be institutionalized. You're still responsible.

If we are not going to have a communal model of childrearing, e.g. if we insist the optimum situation is that individual parents/families completely fund their own pregnancies, feeding children, educating children, etc., then the parents should own keeping the children out of trouble as well.

> Those kids have bad parents but to a 13-17 year old they have "cool" parents, and now every other kids is gonna wonder why their parents are so lame.

Part of controlling children is not caring about every opinion they have, such as this one.