Counterproductive Limits

The digital clock display in my living room fuels my dad’s impatience as he waits up for me on a Friday night. Green LED lights glow as I belligerently stroll through the front door and greet my peevish parent – two glorious, symbolic minutes after midnight. I at least pretty much made curfew. My ever-so-slight tardiness satisfies the caged rebel inherent to my teenage years. I’m burdened by being told that I can’t stay out after midnight and, in defiance, I return home promptly at 12:02. What, are virtues thrown by the wayside when the clock strikes twelve and Cinderella’s carriage is turned back into a pumpkin?

I’m not the only teenager for whom labelling something as forbidden is an enticement. As any MIP recipient, any underclassman seen sneaking out to open lunch or anyone caught walking back from the bathroom during class time could tell you, breaking the rules is a rush. Rules have value in that they create order, but having them forced upon us makes entropy more and more appealing.

The trim of perforated notebook paper can be found across every desk and classroom floor in the building, silently protesting every collected math assignment and every hand-written essay.

Prohibition nationally banned the production, transportation and sale of alcohol between 1920 and 1933 but instead reduced tax income, increased government spending and caused many drinkers to switch to other illicit recreations such as opium or marijuana. While it effectively cut drinking during its initial years, alcohol’s popularity quickly rebounded with the aide of organized crime.

Every September, librarians celebrate freedom from censorship with Banned Book Week. Each printed inappropriateness says, “Don’t tell me what to do, concerned parents of America! I read what I want!”

Thirty miles per hour? Yeah right. My speedometer on the drive home up Mission Road regularly pushes a much higher number. An few extra miles per hour gives me the freedom to determine my own limitations.

In short, telling us we can’t only makes us want to more.

Parents, school administrators, teachers, lawmakers: authority figures seem to be caught up in quantifiable restrictions. Objectively, they serve reasonable purposes: my parents, who wait up for me until I get home, want to go to bed themselves, young kids who drink regularly are more likely to develop a dependence, students wandering the hallways aren’t learning and could be a distraction to others.

However, speaking as a teenage high school student, I feel compelled to argue that excessively imposing rules encourages a power struggle between independence from Mom and Dad and the security of following a structure.

We spend all of our childhood following the will of adult authority figures. Now that we’re making the sloppy transition into adulthood, making decisions for myself feels like it means rejecting the suggestions of others. There’s a common misconception that breaking Mom and Dad’s rules are the gateway to independence, but the real problem is a question of trust.

Would I time out eight minute bathroom breaks to roam the hallways legally if I was trusted to do so without that plastic blue pass?

We’re suppressed, so we act out. Excessive rules are hung over our heads, but we have to pick our battles. We can either obey objectively logical rules or we can break them blindly–sometimes in ways more harmful than coming home two minutes after curfew.

Being forbidden from creates an entirely different reaction than being trusted to not do something. Eventually, if my parents want me to come home at a reasonable time, they’re going to have to trust my judgment rather than enforce theirs.