I am much older and was once in your situation. I grew up and really understood what it meant to be an anarchist. And is has not much to do with the “obey” but rather with the “obey blindly and accept it”.

I believe the fact that they do not trust you with a computer arise from the fact that you are not mature enough — or at least the fact that you don’t show them enough maturity. And I think, by the tone of your post, that you are not mature enough.

That is not a bad thing, at all! You need to take your time to grow up. And if you want to have more rights, in their home, try to understand their side of things. Ask them why they won’t trust you, where does the need to restrict you come, how can you act to have more freedom.

Anarchy isn’t about blindly disobeing. That’s just disobeissance. It’s about understanding what rights you don’t have and the reason behind it.

One last thing : please don’t forget that even if you think you are ready for the outside world, at 15 you are not. Some fifteen years old are, but they are not the ones to come on an internet forum to sort things out — they already have it all figured out. For the while, communicate with your parents and try to understand their point of view. And remember that as long as you live under their roof, you have to abide by their rules. You can also choose to continue breaking them as you are doing right now. But be smart about it.

Not an anarchist but you can’t hope to achieve any sort of liberation unless you are self-sufficient financially or at least are living on your own for example for something like college/university. Best you can do is talk to them and negotiate for some recreational time on the computer or, if worse comes to worst keep it doing in secret like right now but this always runs the risk of being found out so you need to assess this option carefully according to your situation.

Lol what the fuck are these comments here. Literally just ageism and not really any youth liberation perspective at all. I feel like restricting access to a ressource like a computer or the internet is just fucked up and is more about control than genuine guidance.

Also this is 3 years old btw.

How did this end up in hot? Also OP is 18 now

Love this question <3

Welcome! might answer in depth when i have more sleep. (sleep is important!)

This is a difficult question. Anarchism is not against all types of authority, but against hierarchy specifically (unjustified and unwanted authority). The question is whenever we can consider this as a hierarchy.

recently with computer privacy and security.

What do you mean? I don’t understand the link between this and the fact you cannot go on your computer.

PS: I am 15 too.

hello young friend, first of all, only you can tell if your relationship with computers is healthy or not. as a rule of thumb when living with other people, when using the computer stops us from taking care of other responsibilities we might change how we spend time on computers. However I say this based on having being a teenager when there was no curfews/quarantines so I could actually go out, play ball, meet new people in real life. I would respect my parents for they cared about me, but again this is about me so I reiterate, only you can tell if you are obsessed with computers, and even if it’s the case, you are the one who would be able to tell if that’s a problem to you. Some people might argue that our urges are conditioned reflexes, which I interpret as, doing what we feel like doing doesn’t always mean being free. TL,DR: only you can know what you should do ;)

Hello!

first of all i think it is kind of normal to not always do what parents say. I have done that and many other childs also did not do everything what parents say. in this case, for instance, your desire to explore the internet and other opinions that are different to your parents opinions is very natural to get to know what your real opinion on things is.

However, as an adult person thinking about my youth, i can say that my parents were sometimes correct in saying things but their strong opinion felt smothering. As a parent, trying to protect their children is also natural and they probably try to do best. for instance, in my youth and also now as an adult i have spend many many hours in front of an computer and it is definitely not healthy, but not using modern technology (like the internet and computers for private stuff) is probably also bad.

I guess your parents have included in their argumentation things like “life experience” by saying school is important and you should learn more or something? In part this is correct, your life will be probably easier with good grades and good education. However, the education in many states is also not that great (except when you have great teachers, that can sometimes change things), but still you need to make your own experiences. But even when the education system is bad, it still can be a useful lesson to take. Because when you are an adult your life will also consist of some things which you cannot avoid so training that skill is useful.

So in essence, i completely feel you. Breaking the trust of parents doesn’t feel good when you like your parents and like being trusted. And the anarchist perspective would be for me that trust has two sides. Your parents obviously trust you but i think your parents miss that they have to earn your trust. In typical parent-child relationships, i think most parents completely miss the points that the childs loose trust of too much authority is used. Because sometimes parents have good reasons for their thinking but they force their thinking onto their childs without explaining carefully the reasons. However, i think parents also have in many cases not the time or the will power to explain those things because they have to work a lot.

Basically, my question involves to what extent I should obey my parents as an anarchist

I want this as a tattoo. Also, OP, now that you’re 18, did things ever improve?

I recall some anarchist graffiti from Spain I saw when I was around 15 around 7 years ago. ‘Against all authority - except my mom!’ (in spanish.)