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I’m sorry for not going through your blog to see if you’ve mentioned something like this before, but what is your opinion on “my house, my rules?” My father uses this argument a lot, and I’m too afraid my therapist would agree with him to bring it up. I am autistic, and thus have a horrible time explaining things in words. If you could help, it would be very much appreciated.
I believe that everything should be explained and justified once a child is old enough to understand. “My house, my rules,” boils down to “You will do as I say because you are dependent on me for food, shelter, and survival in general.” It’s not about order, discipline, respect, or any other excuse that parents might come up with. It’s about maintaining power and authority without any justification for it. Instead of saying “You have to be in by 10:30 PM because we, your parents, go to bed at 10:45 PM so that we can get up and go to work, and if you’re home later than that, we worry about your safety,” they simply say “It’s my house, you’ll do what I say.”
Often, this is because there is no good justification. “My house, my rules” is regularly trotted out to enforce rather arbitrary rules. It’ll be used, for example, to dictate what a child wears or how a child styles their hair, for example. It’s a repackaging of “You can’t cut your hair short I don’t want you to!” or “You’re going to get your ears pierced because I don’t think you should!”
So those are my thoughts. “My house, my rules,” typically boils down at least one of the following
1) Parents who don’t think their child deserves an explanation for their rules.
2) Parents who don’t even have a reasonable justification for their rules.
3) Parents who believe themselves to be entitled to perfect obedience in exchange for providing the basic living necessities to a child they opted to raise.
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