Mom calls out other mom for not keeping track of her 14-year-old daughter despite telling her she'd be in touch

When you're taking care of someone else's teen, are you responsible for keeping in touch with their parents?

Every parent has a different approach to parenting. There are as many different ways to parent as there are parents in the world. And one of the hard parts about it is negotiating each other's take on it. You don't want to step on anyone's toes, but you also sometimes have to make decisions independently and ask for forgiveness later. When your kid is hanging out with another kid, you probably feel some sort of responsibility for them. And you should. You're the nearest responsible adult, so you're on the hook if anything goes awry. But after a certain age, shouldn't that responsibility diminish at least a little bit?

Every child is different and takes maturity at a different pace. Some parents might trust their kids to go on errands by themselves at an early age, while others might take longer to come around. It's all up to the dynamic between parent and child, and what level of trust is in play. And this can be a larger discussion, but it's important to take it at its own pace. But this can get easily complicated when other parents start to get involved. Do they have a say over their whereabouts and in making sure they're keeping up communication? Or is that up to the kids to do for themselves?

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Those are the questions that came up in this story, where a simple outing with a friend turned into a difficult situation for all. The mom caught in between wasn't quite sure what to do, and didn't want to end up harming her daughter's relationship with her friend. Friendship is so important (at all ages, but especially that age), and she didn't want to jeopardize something that key. But she also trusted her own parenting instincts in the moment. When things started to go wrong, she wasn't sure who to blame for it. So she reached out to the internet for other opinions. Keep scrolling to read what transpired between them and see what you think about it.
Am I in the wrong for not double checking a plan my teen daughter and her friend made?

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via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

_{Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.}
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Commenters wondered if there might be more going on here.

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