Mom venting post....

I took my 17 year old daughter to the Pediatrician today for this coughing up a lung issue that is hitting every other person with a vengeance right now, which is not the reason for this post. 

Here is my encounter when checking her in:

Me: "Checking in Elizabeth"
Lady verifying our records: "I see that we don't have a cell phone for Elizabeth, can we have that?  I see we have yours but we want to add hers as well and we would still call you"
Me: "Then why do you need hers?"
Lady: "In case the Dr ever felt like they needed to talk to her directly about anything"
Me: "No, she is under 18, as a parent we are being stripped of too many things when it comes to our children, so no"
Lady: "ok"

So.... I have to tell you that this annoyed the life out of me.  What the crap!!!

I have a friend who is an OBGYN and we've had conversations on this and I do get that there are kids who won't say something if their parent is in the room, etc.  While I don't like it, I step out. I know that I'm fortunate in that my girls talk to me.  I get that not all kids feel they can talk to their parents.  I TOTALLY GET THAT!!  I've even had a situation where one of my children said, "oh she can stay" and they asked me to leave anyway... so I guess my question is, have we fallen so far in society and is the family unit so drastically dysfunctional that it is the majority of middle school/high school kids that are doing things their parents a) Aren't aware of b) Have not talked to them about c) that clueless??

I get that there are some pretty bad situations out there but I find it hard to believe that those are so great that we now assume every single family is like that... really?

So once your child turn 18, they are on their own, medically, Mom/Dad don't have to be told anything!  But they can stay on our insurance until they are 26. And the bonus? We are still expected to pay!!  Wow.... if that doesn't give you warm fuzzies, I don't know what else could! 

So in our house, if you are over 18 and we are paying for your insurance, you will give them permission to talk to us. Now in all fairness, this is really a no brainer in our home, our girls have no desire to pay for it themselves until forced to!  And here is what you don't want to have happen, dear 18 year olds that think they are smarter than their parents.... End up having to use the insurance, not tell your parents and then your parents get a fun statement from the insurance company... ouch....

So that's my rant. As a parent, I feel like there is becoming more of a wedge between parents and children in regards to medical issues. It makes me sad really......  

Ok, I'm done.