Iliftrocks

I never had a lock, but when my daughter gets old enough not to break her head on things jumpin around, I won't have a problem with locked doors. I can pick a lock if I really need to. Chicks need some privacy, I think.

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bill hicks - "I don't mean to sound bitter, cold, or cruel, but I am, so that's how it comes out."

JohnS72

I had a lock on mine but I don't rememer using it. I thik all the privacy could be had in the bathroom. I'm not sure if a lock on the room would be good especially with younger kids, but i know that if I ever become a parent I'd be pissed off if my little kids locked their doors on me.

chavos

had one since i was three. when i was young, not opening the door upon request was tried exactly once. never thought to do it again.

But other than that...its' been my best friend. wanking is just not the same with out it.

H12

That's my feeling about all of this, that you don't have to worry about the chance of parents walking in unexpectedly. I do nothing that really warrants being kept a secret, but I like to be ensured that I can have time to myself sometimes, time not to be shared with anybody else.

Oh, and I've never had a door that had a lock. Until the past 1 1/2 years, I lived in a bedroom with no doors at all. Now I have a door that's held shut by only a nail and a loop of string. However, the privacy isn't that bad to come by now; my bedroom is only obtainable by walking up the steep wooden stairs we have, so I can hear heavy footsteps coming slowly very easily. That's the redeeming quality of being upstairs here, I guess.

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"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit."
--Aristotle

vermin

To my son:
You live in my house, you live by my rules. Bathroom door is the only one that locks. Any and all rooms in the house are subject to search at any time with no warning. Anything I deem innappropriate may be seized and disposed of as I see fit, again, with no warning. Until you reach adulthood (18), everything you own is mine (I probably paid for it, anyway). Since I am responsible (morally and financially) for your actions, I have ultimate control of your privileges and possessions. If at any time you feel that this is unfair, tough shit. Life isn't fair. Get used to it.
Love, Dad

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If puns were sausages, this would be the wurst.

grumpyolddude

Exactly, Vermin!

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"Regret can be a harder pill to swallow than failure .With failure you at least know you gave it a chance..." David Howard

Mantus

Never had a lock on my door but never needed one. My parents always knocked first, and if my door was closed it meant that I wanted privacy and they respected that.

When/if I have children I hope that I will instill just as much trust in them as I had in my parents so that locks won’t be needed. When they start dating I will probably suggest getting a lock so they can feel secure when they are with their dates.

Cheers

Mantus

Sig Hail! Das Furer Vermin!

TheBrit

My brother has a big problem with leaving me alone. I am in my room, reading, no problem. I am sleeping, no problem. As soon as I get on the phone, he has to be in the room or in the doorway or outside the door listening. Bastard. I put a lock on the den type room door, he just busted it open when I was on the phone because "he couldn't hear me from outside." I got a new place now, the garage where I do all my tool work. Tons of spiders in there so he won't go in.

punx1325

I've had locks in some houses and other not. I diffently like the privacy, there's just something uncomfortable about knowing someone could walk into your room at any time.

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If something seems too good to be true, then it probably is....

Hard8s

Beautiful!!!!
The only difference is that I did get a lock (Bathroom type) for my stepdaughters room. Tired of hearing how her brother just walked into her room when she was changing. He insisted on everyone knocking on his door but he thought he was above doing that for everyone else. He wanted a lock on his door too. But he didn't get it. The only reason she got it was for pirvacy while changing. It seems to be the only time I've ever seen her use it.

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If ignorance is bliss, then wipe this smile off my face!

cj2112

I could not have said it better than vermin

Spinach_Indeed

Up until I moved out of my house, my parents would search my room on a regular basis. Whenever I'd go over to a friend's house or go to school or work, There would usually be a 70% chance that my room would be throughly searched. Of course, they never would come out and say it. They always had reasons, such as "I was going to see if you had any dirty clothes, and I found this pack of cigarettes in the bottom of your shelf, in a locked box." It was.. horrible. I took it to myself to not tell my parents anything, and become more secretive. The blatant invasion of my privacy at age 17 and 18 made me want to hide things from my parents. It made me go to great lengths to do so. They would even search my car when I had one.

It may be one of those stupid things people say when they're younger, and don't actually have children, but I will never search my child's room. I will give him a lock at the age of 10, and won't go into his room unless absolutely necessary. At certain times, a child's room needs to be an island, a shelter from the outside world.

It may be a young, ego-driven, stupid opinion, but I'll hold it until I know better.

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Spinach in Need is Spinach Indeed

Mantus

I can't believe that people are actually agreeing with what vermin posted.

That kind of attitude is just stupid “my parents did it to me so I will do it to you” playground bullshit. If one still has that kind of mentality then perhaps one should think twice about having children. When a person has a child it’s their responsibility to raise the child right. If a parent has to resort to searching their kids rooms and random check-ins then clearly the parent did not raise their child right. The ironic thing is that this sort of behavior prevents NOTHING. The kids will still do drugs, fuck, read whatever they want, listen to whatever music they want, they just wont do it when the parent is around. Most of the time they will do these things just to spite the parents. When they turn 18 and set loose on the world, any problems they may have from this upbringing is the PARENT’S FAULT. sigh…rant over…

shakran

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the prevailing attitude of parents today, and it is the primary reason our society's children are in the shitter.

When I was growing up, I rarely saw kids misbehaving in stores/restaurants. Now I rarely see them behaving. Why? Parents have decided it's too damn much work to raise their kids, and then they invent moronic excuses for why they won't raise them. The idea that "he'll do it anyway so why should I have to do anything about it" is complete and utter crap. Even if he will do it anyway, at least it won't be your fault if you actually do your job as a parent.

It is a parent's JOB to know what their kid is up to. It's the parent's JOB to make sure the kid isn't doing illegal/immoral things in his room. If you want to be a parent, be prepared to do your JOB. Otherwise, don't be a parent. I don't want your rotten kid corrupting mine

txgirl

I agree that children need a certain amount of privacy. But a lock or not, a parent can ALWAYS pick the lock if they feel they need to get in. If trust is an issue, there will be no lock that will remedy that. Also, a closed door is the first sign of PLEASE keep out...

Mantus

Shakran,

You are misunderstanding me. I am in no way advocating that parents should let their children be left to raise themselves. I am saying those random searches and other punitive and rather childish behavior on the part of the parent are the result of bad parenting. If these people bothered raising their kids right they would not have to resort to such desperate and in-effective actions.

Parents who have failed to do the job right for a certain part of their child’s upbringing usually resort to two options: either they use fear in an attempt to scare their child straight, or they become totally passive.

It is obvious that doing nothing doesn’t fix anything, but neither does instilling fear. It is common knowledge that a person who fears will not cross the one they fear. Yet the minute one becomes weak the fear dissipates and victim will takes advantage to have their revenge. Hence a child that fears the parent will behave in their presence. The moment the parent is not looking the child will do all those things their parents disallow to gain their revenge. Such actions are often discovered by the parent (often because the child wants to be discovered), which results in further punitive actions. As such the cycle often continues and escalates without solving the real problem, which is a poor parenting.

The only way to raise children is to gain their trust, respect and friendship. A person who is friends with another will not cross them when their friend is in a weakened position. Hence a child who respects their parent will not purposefully seek to disobey them.

Of course having a child’s respect and friendship is not enough. One still has to raise the child. Provide them with morals, wisdom, guidance and an education. This is what so many modern-day parent fail to realize. Gaining respect, friendship and trust of one’s child is just a small step in the real job of parenting.

I hope this clears up my point of view.

burnhm

Mantus
I think I'm gonna cry, now that was beautiful. I think I'm gonna write my parents a long e-mail right now telling them how much I love them...

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Stiltzkin

I don't know German, but I think Mantus meant to say "Sieg heil! Das feuer Vermin!", which kind of stranslates to "victorious welfare! The fire that is Vermin!", which is militaristic and makes reference to Hitler. Now if you're German or know German, don't bash on me because this info was the best I could gather without knowing a word of German.

Moving on... I think this thread uses the words "him" "he" and "his" too much, I've noticed. Not all children are male . Furthermore, it is hilarious how many of you think that there is a "one size fits all " type of solution for raising kids. News flash: kids are people too. They are different. Some of them will be little shits no matter how good of a parent you are.

Now this is a true story. I have a friend who is known more commonly by his nickname than his real name (I'm sure you knew a few people like that too), so I will just go ahead and use his nickname.

Peeker literally raised himself. He has had his own room and a lock on it since he was born. He doesn't have a good relationship with his mother, father, or brother at all, and has always lived by his own rules. When he was in middle school, he got high about three times with his friends, heh, and that was it. He also went through the alcoholism thing for a while. His mother never snooped on him or anything. In highschool, the business computer programming teacher (bless Mr. Wright's heart, I wonder if he's still alive?) had some old clunkers (computers) lying around, and decided to give them away. Peeker got one, and from then on he went on to teach <i>himself</i> all about computers. He also obtained free internet access on his own from that one that K-mart used to have. What was it called? Bluelight? Anyways, yes he watched porn in his room and did pot and whatever else he wanted. Okay, so all you parents are getting really worried right about now, right? Well, no need. I had him for calculus and he was the only person worthy of checking my work with. I also had him for geometry and precalculus, and same thing there. It was actually good having him around because I was basically surrounded by morons in those classes who didn't know what was going on. He graduated #5 in his class, and earned a butt-load of college credit through taking AP courses and their associated AP tests. He was a far cry from being a loser, and is extremely independent. Why? Because he raised himself. He works part time at BestBuy as a computer technician (I know, whoop-dee-friggin-doo) but he does know a shitload about computer hardware. His mom (only lived with his mom, since his parents divorced, although he doesn't seem to like to talk about that) never had to step in to slap the shit out of him to keep him from being a loser. There is, of course, a downside to all of this. He's one serious prick and hard to get along with, and in fact I'm one of the few people I know that doesn't hate him. He's extremely arrogant, but I must admit that he kind of does have good reason to be that arrogant. He does kick ass, even though it is really hard for me to admit it becaues he can be such a damn asshole sometimes...

Point is, he was always allowed to make his own decisions and he turned out great, he's attending UT (maybe The_Dude knows him [if ya ever read this thread shoot me a PM, The_Dude]), and is on a fast track to success, I'd say. Sometimes I wish my dad had let me live the same way, but oh well.

Now I know that people like him are a semi-rare case, where one's own upbringing turns out successful. Anyone who doesn't fully believe me about Peeker, well, if you want to meet him that badly maybe I can arrange something for ya. I do realize that this may be impossible to believe for some of you, and you have good reason.

Some people-- since kids are people and many parents seem to forget this, I will call them people-- some people just need to be watched and slapped upside the head constantly to keep them in check, while others are perfectly capable of not growing up to be losers without divine intervertion (okay, sorry, bad joke on the "divine intervetion" bit) I feel a bit sorry for you if you can't find yourself agreeing with me, because are all the adults around you exactly the same? No. Neither are kids, you <b>cannot</b> raise them all exactly the same way. So what do you do? Just do whatever you think best, but also know that your solution does <b>not</b> work best in all situations.

So what is my stance on doorlocks for a kid's room? Well, that just depends. I have never in my whole entire life had a room to myself, I have always had to share with my brothers. Right now since we are insanely poor we live in these semi-decent apartments, except that there's no room for me anywhere (the rooms are fairly tiny) so I have to make the living room my bedroom. I actually have to put my mattress down on the floor (which is usually kept in my dad's room against the wall) when I want to go to sleep, and am expected to put it away every morning, so basically I'm the only one in the house that is forced to "make their bed" every single day. The living room has no doors, of course, so privacy is impossible. Since I've been living under these conditions for many, many years, I have been forced to master my stealth skills in order to get any privacy. My privacy is always extremely fast and efficient . I can't waste any time when I get privacy. So yeah, I grew up with almost no privacy for most of my life but I'd have to say I turned out pretty good. Okay, this is probably the longest post in this thread so far, but maybe it is just because I have too much to say on this. I think I'll stop now

EDIT: If you need privacy that badly for masturbating, there is always the bathroom I think when I have kids I'll just be outright honest with them and tell them that if they need to masturbate, just put a "masturbating" sign on their door. I don't see why this would be unhealthy. Good communication with your children is the healthiest thing possible.

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The most important thing in this world is love.