"These are the rules!" But you didn't understand....

[Sciencewoman]

Originally Posted by Low D Flat

What you describe is reasonable, but none of my friends' parents must have been using this logic, because the curfew got later as they got older, and I doubt their parents were going to bed later and later.

I think it's a case of "reasonable limits" that the older "kid" can live with, while the parent has reassurance that the the kid will be safely home at a reasonable hour.

Our family had a tragedy which influenced the family psyche regarding curfews, and led to several rules/family idioms. This happened a couple years before I was born, but it influenced my parents and some of the "rules" they shared. My aunt's first husband died in a motorcycle accident...he'd been working on refurbishing a wooden sailboat with his brother, and he wanted to try out his brother's new motocycle and drive it home for the night. They'd had a couple beers, and he wasn't an experienced motorcyclist. He went off the road and hit a tree. A passing motorist discovered him early the next morning and called police. My aunt had gone to bed, and his brother had assumed he'd gotten home safely. The police knocked on her door that morning to tell her the news.

The rules this led to were:

1. Always call to let my parents know when I'd arrived somewhere after a long trip, back to college, etc. They do this, too...they always call to tell me when they've arrived somewhere...I know the source of this, and it's understandable.
2. Don't ever rely on someone else to support you...get a good education, and don't ever give up your career.
3. Buy life insurance. My uncle was an orthopedic surgeon, and he'd bought a lot of life insurance to help out a buddy who was just starting his own insurance practice...he had mortgage insurance, college funds, everything. They had 4 young children; my parents stressed that at least she didn't have to worry about finances, on top of everything else.
4. While they never said, "don't ride motorcycles," no one in my family has since that day, and I took this as an uspoken rule.