What's wrong with this picture?

[CanuckAmok]

NPR story this morning: The "Black Box", which monitor's your teen's driving habits and travels.

Suburban Boston teen "Jessica" has been worrying her parents for years. By the age of 10, she was already smoking and experimenting with drinking, and constantly lying to her parents.

Of course, when she turned 16 and it came time for her to get her driver's license, her parents were very worried.

They installed the "Black Box" in Jessica's car, to monitor her movements, traffic violations, etc.

The device uses a GPS to monitor speed, location etc. The parents can remotely disable the car, honk the horn, flash the lights, etc, when the Black Box alerts them to traffic violations or Jessica being somewhere she shouldn't be.




Okay, in case you missed it, here's what's wrong with this picture:

Jessica has a car.

Why the fuck would a parent who doesn't/can't trust his teenager buy her a car?!

Yeah, yeah, someone here is bound to pipe up and offer "maybe they didn't buy her a car; maybe she bought it herself".

Maybe.

But not likely.

How many teenagers are able to buy, insure and maintain their own cars without some financial help? Not many. Even fewer are the number who are willing to do so, particularly when they're suburban, middle-class kids.

This is just another example of lazy parenting, and it pisses me off. God forbid they would actually discipline their daughter or punish/reward based on earned trust.

Also, note to Jessica'a parents: Jessica's still drinking, smoking and fucking, but now she's doing it in, and aided by, other people's cars, you dumb-asses.

[petronius]

1. But, but, ALL my friends have cars! And ALL my friends' parents

bought them cars! And everyone else gets to drink and smoke! Why are you so cruel and hateful?!? You're not cool parents at all - you're lame! :cry:

[spindrifter]

2. The other thing that bugged me about that

story was that the "black box" is another example of people putting the responsibility for discipline onto someone or something else. I spent a lot of years working with juvenile offenders and wanted to :nuke: or :puke: everytime I heard some ninny parent say they called the cops on their kid to discipline him or her.

[Tyler Durden]

3. My daughter was in the car with me when we heard that story....

She asked me, "If they can't trust her, WHY did they let her even have a LICENSE? They have to approve that, like you did for me, right?"

I said yes, that's true...

She said, "I may not always like the family, but it's good to be trusted."

She's so smart.