I'm nearly 20 and still not allowed to move out for uni! :(

You can't just live your life locking yourself in your parents house being told how to live you life because someone doesn't trust you to grow up and be independent. What's your definition of throwing away a life? She's not 13, my friend, she's a women in her twenties who has survived 2 years of university. She's not learning the values of living independently, what happens when she has her own family? Some people who have strict parents go the complete opposite with their own children, who does that help? No one.

Maybe you just know a lot of dickheads.

I'm 26 and live what you would consider to be an immoral lifestyle (drugs and sex and rock and roll) but I also have an extremely high paying job, a loving fiance and I own my own flat in a trendy part of central london.

Who exactly is throwing their life away? I can guarantee I'm having a ****load more fun than you at any given moment.

So why isn't the government doing anything about it? They've made it easier for people to divorce, they've increased helping single parents so many people don't both trying to seek a partner or stay with a partner because they'll get more money on their own. The highest rate of teenage pregnancy because they're teaching younger children how to have sex, exposing them to sexual content at an earlier age through the TV, internet and paper press. Why aren't the government clamping down on porn, the content on TV before the watershed or fining companies advertising stuff like that? Crime, alcohol and drugs are down to the police, the powers they hold and how the police don't do anything sensible with their time "we live in a society where pizza arrives faster than the police" why aren't the government doing more about that? The worst school system because the national curriculum doesn't raise a high enough standard, the bad kids don't get harsh punishments and there are schemes to help children who have been bad, what kind of a system is that? Helping the children because they messed up their own lives deliberately? You are tarring everyone with the same brush, just face it.

You can't just live your life locking yourself in your parents house being told how to live you life because someone doesn't trust you to grow up and be independent. What's your definition of throwing away a life? She's not 13, my friend, she's a women in her twenties who has survived 2 years of university. She's not learning the values of living independently, what happens when she has her own family? Some people who have strict parents go the complete opposite with their own children, who does that help? No one.

I have very strict unbearable parents. They go through my draws, wardrobes and my things in order to find something against me. I have to hide things like photo's of me and my guy friends because otherwise I'd get in trouble..

Because of them, I think i'm not the bubbly person that I should be. Instead, i've become quiet, and 'boring' because I feel like I'm so depressed. I'm in uni (haven't been allowed to move out for 2 years now) and I lie about having late practicals just so they are forced to let me stay the night at a friend as they don't want me taking the journey home on a train at that time of night.

They are beginning to suspect all these 'late practicals' now but my uni does not give out any details of students so they have no way of knowing that they are not true. I mean in my course, we do have late practicals but only one a semester, I've exaggerated it to one every two weeks so I can spend time with friends etc...

Seeing as I'm not allowed out any other time, I've lost many friends and don't have very many now. But the ones that I do have, I love.

I need to move out but they are against it saying that I don't need my own indepedence etc. Does any one have any advice? What shall i do?

The OP is being disingenuous and hiding something. Claims by some that she is being oppressed are absolute nonsense. Oppression? Being denied an education, as millions are around the world, that's oppression. Parents not happy with their daughter staying out late, parents suspicious of their daughter because she lies to them so she can go clubbing, parents not wanting their daughter to move into University accommodation when living in the same town, that's not oppression.

At twenty what were you doing? Being held back from developing your independence by parents who don't trust you?

How long do you believe her parents should keep her prisoner? You can't just work 24/7 "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" as the old saying goes. Parents should grow up and accept they have had their chance at protecting their child and now should sit back and just be there for their child, not continue to trap her in a place she obviously doesn't want to be. Also she's a student, what's she going to say to her kids when they go to uni and ask her what her experiences of clubbing was?

Or ask her for advice about the best places to go for fancy dress or advice about being safe? All she'll be able to do is turn to them and say, 'I'm sorry hun but your grandparents didn't allow me to go out because they didn't think I was mature enough to cope with the responsibilities of it'?! And lying isn't that big a deal,

otherwise why hasn't Tony Blair's parents kept him in their house all his life?

The point of living at uni accommodation is for the students to learn to budget, to learn to pay rent on time, to gradually learn about tenancy agreements, cooking for herself, cleaning up after herself and organising her time effectively to pass the degree. Now I'm not saying she's not learning how to cook and clean at home, but she cannot gain the experience of my other points whilst staying at home. I don't understand why her parents don't see this will help her.

That's fine and I don't dispute it's important to learn these lessons BUT that's not the reason the OP gave for wanting to move out. If you read her posts the reason she gives is because she's losing friends and wants to go clubbing. That's far from being a valid reason to move out, it's an incredibly naive reason to say the least. Also what's this obsession with living alone anyway? Surely the objective should be to get married and share those responsibilities with a husband unless she wants to end up like thousands of Asian girls who are still single well into their 30s because they thought they'd spend their early years having fun only to realise the men they want to marry are looking at 20 somethings not 30 somethings. She has two choices. If having fun and friends means more to her than her parents by all means leave home. I personally think you're giving the OP way too much credit. You maybe mature for your age but others aren't.

Maybe but somehow if the OP was as innocent as she claimed she wouldn't need to lie to her parents. You only lie when you're hiding something.

I have a teenage son and he does not go our and hang around on street corners nor asks. He stays with friends, whose parents are known to my parents, and vice verse. I don't know what's going to happen when he gets older, I don't know what happens when he goes to University but so far so good.

Like my siblings I was given total freedom to come and go as I pleased by my parents because they knew we could be trusted because of the company we kept. You don't have to wrap you kids in cotton wool, you have to teach them right from wrong, you have to teach them morality, you have to teach them people give into their desires because they're weak and weakness is not something to aspire to, you have to teach them the celebrities they see on TV represent the worst of mankind

It's not as easy as that. Unless you own a business you can only get into Saudi Arabia if you've got a degree. Getting your children schooled is very expensive unless you work for an academic institution.

The UK has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe, the highest divorce rate in Europe, the highest rate of violent crime rate in Europe, the highest rate of alcoholism in Western Europe, the highest drug addiction rate in Europe, the worst schooling system in Europe, I'm sure there's some I have missed. ALL of this is backed up with statistics so it's not a generalisation or a case of tarring everyone with the same brush.

This was a GREAT country over 20 years ago. It isn't anymore.

Baybars, we are both adults. You know as well as I do that if you want something that badly, you will make the effort to get out there and get it. Had you have wanted to bring your children up on an Islamic country, you would've made it happen. I'm not asking you to explain why you haven't, you could have a myriad of reasons for not doing so, and I don't ask for them, but Saudi isn't the only Muslim country you could've gone to.

Baybars, I'm now going to type something that will possibly incense you so much, smoke will billow out of all your orifices.

Do you think only white teenagers get pregnant? Muslim teenagers don't? You're deluding myself my friend. I remember being at school and a girl I knew from Mosque got pregnant by her boyfriend (who was black). At the time, there was so much uproar. I can remember my dad saying to me that she was type of the girl who got taken on holiday to Pakistan, then buried out there in a field somewhere, and obviously, at the time, being young and naive etc., I didn't know what honour killings were - who did back then? Especially considering how cloistered we were growing up and shielded from "real" life. I admit I was naive but anyway, I digress. I will leave my childhood reminiscing for my memoirs lol.

Point 2 - divorce. I know Muslims who are divorced and actually, the guy round the corner is Muslim, divorced, living with a white woman in sin (shock horror lol) and they have a baby .

Point 3 - crime, violent or otherwise. Every Muslim should hang their head in shame over the recent news stories, that have been well publicised about "gangs" of Muslim men, raping and prostituting young girls. THAT is a violent crime, rape, against the most vulnerable members of society - children. Muslims are brought up to believe in community. Are non-Muslims not worthy of the same protection as our own children now? Should we only care about the welfare of the Muslim child and the rest can go to Hell? NO BAYBARS. As Muslims and parents, we should be standing up and saying that we don't care what colour, creed, religion you are. We don't want this in our society and we aren't discriminating - what's wrong is wrong.

Point 4 - I have alcoholics in my wider family - they are Muslim. Every man (and woman) has their weakness. It's called being human. Yes, ideally we overcome these but not everyone has the strength too. It's not my place to judge, it's my place to support and help where it's needed, to encourage and to pray that they find the strength to turn away from something so destructive. Have you seen what someone with last stage cirrhosis looks like? Seen your family member dying because they NEED that drink? If you haven't then you don't know and you shouldn't judge Baybars.

Point 5 - drugs - prevalent in most societies across the world in one form or other. Show me a society where there aren't drugs. It's more publicised in Europe than anywhere else.

Point 6 - schooling. Now, this is where I get really controversial!! Schooling has gone down the drain, you're right, but what do you really think is to blame? One could make a good argument for mass immigration being blamed not only for the state of the education system but all the points above too. The truth is that the school system can't cope with that amount of children in it and there aren't the funds to keep paying for quality teachers on top of additional support staff for the amount of children who don't speak English adequately enough to cope in the classroom without a translator.

We live on an island. We have a finite amount of space and finite resources. The population is expanding at an faster and faster pace. Society can't cope with it. This terrible Europe that you portray, a seething mass of immorality and iniquity. People can't wait to flood over here. And not only other Europeans, but Muslims too (and Africans, Australians, Americans etc etc). The same people that want to denigrate our society want to live here! Amazing really isn't it? When it's so bad here?

Don't get me wrong Baybars, I am Muslim and proud to be but I am also British and proud to be and it makes my blood boil when people - anyone - wants to put Britain down yet still choose to live here. If someone doesn't like the country, the politics, the laws or anything else, they should leave.
If it's so bad here, I don't mind giving anyone a lift to the airport and a one way ticket out of here.

Now the OP's main reason maybe to go clubbing and hang out with friends and be social...she can't get the experience to deal with different types of people (which she will definitely need when she starts working) if all her parents do is keep her away from possible trouble. Yeah, you keep reaffirming the point of her lying to her parents...what child doesn't? Other than a severely spoiled one (entirely my opinion). If she doesn't move out she can't show her parents that she's mature enough to handle being out and about, therefore she won't be able to earn her parents trust that she won't end up like many other young women. I believe in this case her parents are at fault because the reason she wants to move out is because she doesn't have the freedom to be like her friends, to hang out, go clubbing, late night shopping, etc.

If her parents compromised with her and allowed her to go out, have the house key and come home and ungodly hours of the morning she wouldn't have the desire to move out for those reasons. I will say this may allow for more lies being told and about nastier things, but that's up to the OP, but I believe once you have the freedom you seek then you shouldn't push for more.

The main reasons why people move out is so that they can learn independence and gain self-sufficiency, not so that they can sleep with boys. I am the same age as the OP and if I was the OP I'd feel frustrated too.

I haven't read all the OP's posts in a long time so I can't remember what she lied about (if she ever did say she lied about anything.) We all tell lies once in a while or have told lies at some point in our lives so that isn't new, - unless the OP was doing so on a regular basis. Then something's wrong there.

But to be honest, if my parents were constantly oppressing me, I'd lie too. The more you oppress someone, the more passive they become, or the more likely they are to rebel. I have seen it happen with so many people - those from very strict families tend to rebel more and they tend to have bad relationships with their families, because their families are often to narrow-minded to look past their beliefs, and so they are usually unreasonable.

Sometimes parents don't see the wisdom of their own decisions and are incredibly selfish. Ask this, the OP is an adult. She is not a child, so why are they so desperate to keep her at home and carry on oppressing her?

Being 20 may make you an adult but it doesn't necessarily mean you behave like one. As I recall the OP objects to not being allowed to stay out at night. What other reason would there be to stay out at night other than to spend time with boys or go clubbing? What's stopping the OP from inviting friends home? No one knows a child better than it's parents. If they're suspicious it's probably for good reason. Something doesn't sit right with the OPs story.

Ok OP, just to reiterate...

Why do you really want to move out?

And why are your parents against you moving out?

I want to stay out late to spend time with my friends. Yes, it does mean clubbing cos I do enjoy it. Our uni club is on campus which means it's very safe. Yes, to spend time with my guy friends. But also to spend time with my girl friends. To watch movies, to eat pizza - like I said, to do things uni students do. For example, my mates build a massive snowman last night, I would have loved to join them - anything wrong with that?

I want to move out to gain independance. I want a feel of how it is to live on my own. I've never been popular or had many friends because I'd turn down invites so it would be a great opportunity to make new friends. It's just an experience and a learning curve I think.

Thank you for understading me!



I want to stay out late to spend time with my friends. Yes, it does mean clubbing cos I do enjoy it. Our uni club is on campus which means it's very safe. Yes, to spend time with my guy friends. But also to spend time with my girl friends. To watch movies, to eat pizza - like I said, to do things uni students do. For example, my mates build a massive snowman last night, I would have loved to join them - anything wrong with that?





I want to move out to gain independance. I want a feel of how it is to live on my own. I've never been popular or had many friends because I'd turn down invites so it would be a great opportunity to make new friends. It's just an experience and a learning curve I think.

Because they just think I'm the type to get laid, get pregnant and quit my course. They don't even know they're own daughter that well.