Wait, wait wait wait.
I have a ton ot things to say, but i think the school debate was the most compelling.
Yes, school educate. And better than an house.
Your parent can teach you when you are a toddler, when you need direction and when you need how society works, but school is the first society. It teaches you how you should behave on a workplace or outside because it places you in a world where you have peers and a sheriff (the teacher) which is the legal authority who keeps you all in check. In a house you do not have peers, brothers are either a responsabilità cause they are younger or people who knows best cause they are older. School is the reflection of the world.
It is like going to the sea with a life belt. Of course there are people who prefer to chill safe, but it prevents you a little from learning how to swim. Like never taking off small wheels from your bike. It means forcing someone to never really face risks and challenges learning to deal with them.
Emphasis on "forces". Of course people who just want to chill safely in water are free to do it, but if a parent fails to give you teaching about how to deal in life, preventing you to learn it, that means he has failed.
And whenever asking "is it a thing we should keep secret?" the answer is "let police never find it" then you have a nice situation in your hand.
Society can scoff at you and that would be fine, but when you threaten and control with literal shackles your underage kids that falls under law management and this is the line.
I will point to you Adelphoe, that comedy from Terenzio. Terenzio wasa Roman who was active around 160 year before christ coming.
He wrote this theatrical piece where two brothers educated two sons. Both sons of Micione, but one of them was given in custody to his brother Demea. Both rich nobles.
Micione was the typical ancient father, as you can imagine him: conservative, he demanded utter respect, he was a strong leader in family, he punished every whim of the son.
The opera starts with the son of Demea, which was a modern father even for nowadays standards, accused of breaking into the house of a girl, beating servitude and kidnapping her. Of course, Micione accuses Demea of ruining his son because he never punishes him, he trusts him too much, he gives him too much freedom.
Demea, then, answered something I will never forget and that made my then 15 years old hands tremble.
"if a son trusts and loves his father, he will always go out of his way to do something that can make his father be at ease. He will never hide anything and will do everything with respect. If you raises him only controlling him and punishing him then he will do like any criminal: as soon as he thinks he cannot be caught, he will do whatever he wants. As soon as you do not control him, your education would amount to nothing. ".
And that was true. Damn, a guy who lived 2160 years ago just taught me how a parent should do things.
The secret is not being coercitive and I positive, but making the son or the daughter understand that both are working together to build him or her into a proper human being.
The mechanism of "not telling the truth" or "they do it for my good but others will recriminate" are just two sentences that everyone can hear in the mouth of a beaten wife coerced from her husband or family into silence. We created laws for a reason.
Joh said the most brilliant thing about it. Parents should not be the threat, they should be the shield.
Edit: that is why I support strongly those who are consensual users. Those who do it while not forced, just because they agreed with their parents that a conduct is positive. It is still that Micione and Demea thing. Reluctance creates repulsion, agreement creates harmony.
