[Bungleau]

Ah, but there *is* an innate imbalance of power and control.

As the parent of an 11-year-old daughter (not quite 13, but close), she does not have anywhere near the frame of reference that I do (at 42) for life and living. It is pathetically easy to manipulate a person of that age to get what you want, if you're so inclined.

That has nothing to do with the fact that there's a 17-year age difference being discussed. 17 years between 43 and 60 is nothing. Between 25 and 42 isn't much. Between 13 and 30? Yep... big. I think it has to do with the ratio of how many years you've lived to how big the difference is. The fewer years you've lived, the more significant the difference becomes.

As a parent, my job was *originally* to tell my kids what to do and what not to do. As they get older, it's increasingly changing from telling to training... training them to be able to make decisions on their own. When they hit 18 (and probably before then), they'll need to be making their own decisions in their lives... they don't need me making those decisions for them.

Laws are different. They exist to codify what's acceptable and spell out the punishments for not doing it. They don't plan on stepping out of the picture. Parents, if they're doing the job properly, are working themselves out of a job. They *shouldn't* be making their kids' significant decisions in the kids' 20s, 30s, and beyond. At some point, the kids need to live their own lives, and the parents are obligated to help them get there, painful though it may sometimes be.