This Young Adult Shared How She Turned Out From Her Parents' Laid-Back Parenting Style

Parenting “styles” have really taken off in the last couple of years — gentle, permissive, eggshell, etc. There are about a million ways to classify a parenting strategy, and trust that they’ll be judged in some sort of way. This was the case for one set of parents who let their daughter pretty much have free rein of her teen life, but she made a video to share with her followers that her parents’ “controversial” parenting style was actually really beneficial.

“I never once I got in trouble as a kid,” Abby begins.

“I was never grounded. I never got my phone taken away. My parents really never yelled at me, and I feel like they had a pretty controversial parenting style, but it's also the exact way that I would raise my kids if I were to have them. I was allowed to do whatever I wanted to do. I was allowed to go to parties. I was allowed to drink. I told my mom before I smoked weed for the first time.”

In her house, Abby’s parents gave her two rules: No lying about where she was going, and no lying about what she was doing. She joked that her mom was like an “earthy version” of Amy Poehler’s character in Mean Girls. She had that "If you're gonna drink, I'd rather have you do it in the house" mentality.

Her mom knew that kids smoke, drink, have sex, etc., and the only thing that she felt like she was in control of was how much she knew about it and how safe Abby was being about it.

“Their goal was, ‘If they are going to go drink, we want them to get home safe.’ For example, my mom never gave us a curfew, and she was unwilling to give us a curfew because she said that it was so hypocritical. That if you're out late and you're with your friends and you've maybe been drinking or whatever, or even if you haven't been drinking, the last thing that I want you to do is to be speeding home to get home on time. Penalizing them for being two minutes late to their curfew is only gonna encourage them to speed,” she explained.

“I would have never questioned in a million years calling them and asking for a ride, but I usually knew what I needed to do to get home or had a plan beforehand.”

Abby also shared that her house was a “safe space” with “super involved” parents.

“I could bring home any friends that had been drinking or needed help in any way. Every single friend that I had, whose parents didn't let them drink were still at the party. They were just lying to their parents about it. What is that achieving for you? I can tell you for a fact that if my parents would have said that I couldn't go, I probably would have snuck out and gone anyway. This only works if you're a super-involved parent,” she explained.

“My parents knew all of my friends. My house was like the hangout spot. My parents were at every sporting event. They were super involved in everything in my life.”

Her parents always explained to Abby and her siblings that they all had their trust until they broke it. This is a mantra Abby plans to carry into her own family traditions when she has kids.

“And so yes, if I have kids, I'm not gonna encourage them to drink, but I'm not gonna punish them for it either. Also, never went through our phones, computers, or rooms. They believe that even though we were children, we were entitled to privacy. Probably would have changed if they discovered that we were talking to some older man on the internet or something crazy where safety was at risk,” she said.

“They never went through my text messages with my friends or boyfriends. They were never trying to see me doing sexual things. They were like, ‘You're gonna do it. We're gonna teach you how to be safe about it, or you're not gonna do it ... you're in charge of your own body.”

At the end of the day, Abby’s parents' only job was to make sure that whatever their kids were doing, they were doing safely.

Several Instagram users commented on the video, praising Abby’s parents' “lax” parenting style.

“This is exactly how kids should be raised. The more you try and control them, the more rebellious they will be. Period,” one user wrote.

Another said, “Authoritarian (strict) parents think they’re strong for the kids but I think they’re lazy. These types of parents command and avoid. They don’t teach their kids anything.”

One user pointed out, “Really depends on the kid too. Sounds like you were a good teen.”

Another mom shared, “This is how I parent my daughter. In her tween years she thought she needed to hide things. I managed to break through the secrecy and create a safe space, now she always shares what she and all of her friends are doing so she can get good advice from a knowledgeable adult. I love the relationship we have!”