Simpleton parents say, "We didn't raise them that way!"

Parents who have kids they're disappointed in may use the expression "we didn't raise them that way!" to communicate that the behaviour and habits of the kids were learned outside of the household, having nothing to do with the parents themselves.

It's a statement that can be both correct and very misleading. Let's take a lying teenager, for example, while his parents didn't teach him that lying is good, the parents may engage in lying themselves or be such helicopter parents that the teenager decided that lying about their whereabouts or what they're going to be doing is the better strategy.

Teenagers don't just wake up one day and decide, for absolutely no reason, that they're going to live their lives in a complicated manner. Teenagers, like everyone else, want to pick the easiest path, and if that path is having to lie so that they can do normal teenage activities like going out with friends, they will do that. Teenagers want their parents' approval, but if they learn that they're never going to get that because they dared to be themselves, they will flip the table and do 100% of what they want to do.

Being "stricter" isn't going to resolve the problem, trust is imperative in a relationship and if your teenager doesn't trust you, then whatever negotiating power you have will be eradicated completely, so that even reasonable requests of yours like "don't stay past 11pm" or "don't hang out with that gang, they're bad people" will seem like tyranny, because that's what they've come to expect from you.

Your kid isn't an idiot. You might not directly deny them their freedom, you might blame it on "society" or "evil criminals" or "you have all these chores to do!" but your child will know you're just making excuses to cover the real reason, you personally just don't want them to do that, and your child is simply going to wonder, where does the line end? At one point, will they finally be treated like adults?

Either two things will happen. Either they'll become completely dead on the inside, and you'll be complaining, "why are they at home all day playing video games? why do they dress like slobs!? Why don't they have a girlfriend?! I DIDN'T RAISE THEM LIKE THAT!" or, they'll go the complete opposite, and you'll go "why do they hang out outside late at night!? Why did they get a tattoo!? Why do they smoke and drink!? Why do they hang out with bad people! I DIDN'T RAISE THEM LIKE THAT!"

If you keep moving past the goalpost, if you keep delaying giving them permission because every year it's "wait until next year", then at some point, they'll take the initiative for themselves and do as they please. They do this because they lose trust in you, and they might hurt themselves or ruin their lives in the process, and then you'll go "SEE! SEE! I TOLD YOU SO!" but the problem wasn't that they didn't listen to you, but you had shielded them so much that they didn't know how to efficiently do something.

For example, if you want to avoid teenage pregnancy, teach your kids about contraception, safe sex, being intimate with someone that respects them, not "DONT BE A WHORE! DON'T TALK TO BOYS! I DIDNT RAISE YOU LIKE THAT!" because what will happen is your daughter won't know what healthy boundaries look like, what it means to be ready, a bad man can just say to her "babe, of course it's normal to do XYZ on the first date, you wouldn't know, you're clearly sexually repressed!"

Another example, if you want your kids to have good friends, then rather than dictating who can and cannot be their friend, teach them to stand up for themselves and be confident, so that they don't be insecure and targetted by bad people who can take advantage of them, "bro, of course there's nothing wrong with smoking, everyone does it, what would you know? Your parents think staying past 4pm is too late!" Yes, raising confident children means that they will stand up to you, too, but unless you rely on your children for emotional and identity support (which you shouldn't do, obviously), you should be happy for them, not terrified.

Ultimately, this post won't change anybody's mind. Good parents, whether future or current, already know this because it just requires a bit of reflection, a bit of remembering what it was like when they were teenagers. Bad parents will justify their actions, think they're the exception to this, or that somehow their child is "just different". Despite this, I still felt like typing down my thoughts here, for the children raised in abusive and over controlling households.