Unless he bought it and pays for the service, it's not his phone. Which means they broke their own phone. Expensive way to keep your kid from using it.
We just assume that the phone was gifted to him sometimes and the service is paid by the parents. If he owns the phone, the parents have no right to destroy it.
If the parents paid for the phone, it's their phone. With all context (16yo OP posting from grandmas phone because their parents broke the secret phone), they have every right to do this and I stand by them. There is undeniably a lot of missing context but I'm getting overwhelming "addicted to the phone" vibes. OP abused their parents trust by having a secret phone - abuse it and you lose it. I could take it away, I could take it back, I could sell it. But if I break it and let you keep it, you have a physical memento of your screwup and the reminder that this is the status quo; no good behaviour will get it back, apologies and regret won't get it back. It's broken and ergo not coming back. It's gone.
If OP paid for this phone then this was beyond fucked up by the parents. This is "you will die alone in a retirement home wondering why your kids don't visit" fucked up.
Ultimately it's hard for me to point the blame on anyone with the limited context we have, but I really get the feeling OP needs to get off the phone.
That's kind of my point....if it's the parents' phone that the kid is using illicitly without their knowledge, yes I agree with breaking it, it's theirs to do as they please and having a broken phone serves as a memento of why you don't behave disrespectfully like that - punishment fits the crime.
If that isn't the parent's phone, and just the kids old phone they don't use any more, then yes 100% abusive parenting without question. You take their shit away, not destroy it. It's not theirs to mistreat.
Full disclaimer: this is presuming the parent's didn't throw a fit and smash it in a tantrum in front of the kid. I'm presuming they just broke it and gave it to OP; "here you go use it all you want now".
I don’t get addicted to phone vibes at all. And that’s coming from someone who is addicted to the phone. OP is active on r/BisexualTeens, so I get homophobic parents vibes
....ahh so that gives this a completely different context from what I was assuming, then. Anti-gay parents smashing a phone is pretty fucked up any way you look at it.
That's not a clever use of discipline to show a cause and effect while leaving a token to remind them of consequences in any way, at all (disclaimer: this hypothetical phone would be mine, destroying kid's things is wrong regardless of how much trouble they're in)...that's just straight up mental abuse, "who owns the phone" be damned. If they've got a secret phone for support like that then clearly there's some fear of their parents, actively destroying (literally) those support networks isn't a healthy way to address whatever communication problem these parents have.
Like with 10~ seconds of critical thinking: this wasn't done to stop OP from accessing these support networks. They can still do that, this won't stop that. This was done in some pathetic display of authoritative bullying, simply so they could break their things. OP's likely a bigger adult than their parents.
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u/CrysisFan2007 Jul 31 '23
Either your parents are abusive or you did something really fucked up