Author: Rosío Sánchez, Alejandra Nolasco

“No you can’t go out tonight! It’s too dark.” “Mom!!! 
It’s only five. C’mon, the sun is still shining; I’ll 
be home by 10.” “Do you understand what NO means? You 
are too young to go out—something might happen to 
you.” “Mom, I’m 16 years old. I’m not a little kid 
anymore. Please mom, qué antiquada eres! Why can’t you 
let me go out and have some fun with my friends? 
Yesterday you let Luis go out ’til midnight and he is 
barely 14 years old!!! I don’t think it’s fair, I’m a 
teenager and I deserve to have some fun.” 
“Mija, just go to your room and do your homework, when 
you’re older you’ll be able to go out.” At this point 
you are probably thinking of a way to sneak out as you 
go to your room and blast music that you know your 
parents will hate. 
Why do parents have to be so strict? Why can’t they 
understand teenagers? Many teens complain about boring 
weekends stuck with parents who won’t even let them go 
to the store down the block. I know how you feel. We 
are teenagers who want to enjoy our life with our 
friends. Well, from my point of view parents are 
really overprotective; they don’t trust us, and they 
don’t let us go out. I don’t think it’s fair! 
Teenagers need to learn about the real world. 
Teens need to learn to be more responsible, and if our 
parents don’t let us go out and make our own mistakes 
and learn from them, then we won’t have the 
opportunity to know the “real world.” We are growing 
up and in a blink of an eye we will be heading to 
college. If we are always dependent on our
parents, then we will be most likely to fail when we 
move away from them. Our parents are not always going 
to be with us our whole lives.
Many teens agree with me. I asked 26 girls and 26 guys 
if their parents were overprotective, either not 
letting them go out or worrying too much. Well, 21 
girls said their parents were overprotective but only 
sixteen guys said yes. 
Why is that? Is it me, or do parents trust guys more 
than girls? “I’m afraid my daughter can end up being 
pregnant at a young age and may ruin her future, I 
want her to finish her education and be someone 
successful in the future,” said Norma Sánchez, a 
Watsonville resident. 
It’s good that parents worry about their children, but 
some of them exaggerate a little. For example, a 
fifteen-year-old girl went to a friend’s house that 
lives five minutes away from hers, and was there for 
about three hours, and her parents were freaking out. 
Her parents went to look for her and as a result she 
got grounded. Teens deserve to have some fun, parents 
need to learn to trust their teen and have more 
communication between each other. 
“I hate it,” one girl said, “they don’t let me do 
certain things so I have to do it when they’re not 
looking.” 
Others don’t agree with her. One WHS student said, “I 
think that the ones that aren’t overprotective don’t 
really care about what happens to their  kids.” 
Teens, we are going through this “Overprotective 
Parent Thing” and it’s no fun at all. We are going 
through our teen-age years and we want to have fun. I 
recommend speaking with your parents, if you can. 
Maybe they do have their reasons, so ask them what 
they are. For example, Johnny, a 22 years old 
said, “Parents who are overprotective were trouble 
makers when they were young; therefore, parents are 
overprotective for that  reason.” We hope you can 
solve your problem and have the freedom you deserve.