What say you...my boss' ex-wife just threw their daughter out of the car and drove off...

[Ms. Toad]

100. I'm replying to the OP rather than individual posts, because there are a couple of themes

that just make me incredibly sad: Most teens lie. Teenage girls treat their moms horribly.

I have to say, being just beyond being the mom of a teenaged girl (she's 21 now), neither matches my experience. Mine called me up yesterday morning just as I was starting a business meeting. I always have to take her calls since her health is fragile, and I never know whether she is calling with a health crisis. This time it was just a call to chatter - and even though she let me skip the conversation, she took the time to tell me she loved me and to give me an air kiss before letting me go. It has always been that way, and when we are physically in the same place, more often than not she is in physical contact with me. I would not have imagined going into parenting that I would have a snuggly 21 year old - after all, I had heard the same horror stories everyone is echoing here. She also talks to me about everything - sometimes more than I am comfortable knowing - but I listen because I want her to feel able to talk to me about anything. She knows that, whether I approve or disapprove, any decision she makes at this stage in her life is her own and she can confide in me without worrying that I will be crushed if she doesn't follow my advice.

I am grateful for how easy and filled with joy our path from infancy to adulthood has been, from a relationship standpoint.

That said, I know I got off really easy. When I was growing up, my siblings and I were occasionally put out of the car to walk home, or various other distances. The circumstances dictated my parents' behavior. If we were already off the highway on our the country roads where everyone knew us (no more than 2 miles from home), we'd be walking the rest of the way. If we were traveling down the highway, they would drop us off and drive a quarter mile or so ahead and wait for us to catch up to the car. If we were still not ready to ride like civilized people, they would drive ahead another quarter mile or so. In today's world, I expect the particulars of where they let us out and how closely they kept the car to us might be a bit different in order to be safe - but not in principle. And no, it was not child abuse. It was a far better "punishment" than what happened to friends in similar situations - in which civilized behavior was enforced using a belt, because my parents' solution addressed the problem (7 people cooped up in a station wagon) by letting us temporarily out to work off some of the excess energy that likely created the problem in the first place.