I'm going to repost this in case you didn't read it already:

I apologize about my initial remark. With all due respect, I browsed through your post history and took notice of the posts you had made regarding situations that you and your children are in. I don't think that your authoritarian-Christian style of parenting necessarily applies to my family, but I understand that you've encountered circumstances that would be challenging to any parent.

My mother grew up as a very poor tomboy in a family with too many kids to feed. She, like your 16 year old, also had a "rebellious" streak and would skip school to ride her motocycle around town. She's also from an area that devalues women (to the point of sexual harassment being borderline acceptable and acid-throwing not uncommon). She even had an uncle send her a father a letter telling him how sorry he felt for his having not one, but two female children. Her parents were extremely liberal for their time and didnt see/treat their sons and daughters differently regardless of society's expectations. She managed to get her shit together and became a doctor and is now quite wealthy, but I can see the effects that years of going "without property" have had on her.

My sister and I are not "ruined youth", at least not in my opinion. My sister is at a very prestigious magnet school for middle schoolers, makes perfect grades, plays an instrument competitively and does well, and goes to state math competitions regularly. I myself am an honor student at an elite university poised to graduate with a STEM degree. We've had our arguments with our parents, but we help with dinner, say please and thank you for transportation, respect and appreciate people who were different from us, havent asked for christmas presents for years, and know the value of a dollar.

Despite all of this, my parents' initial military-parent style has left me and my sister with anxiety, stress, and some degree of depression. This is true for many high-achieving immigrant children. It wasn't until I reached my mid teens or so that my parents began to somewhat treat me like a person rather than someone they had to put up with. Once this happened, I began to see my academics and personal achievement as less than something I had to do to satisfy an ominous authority, and more about the steps I needed to take to fulfill my personal goals and potential. These days, my father an I have a very healthy relationship. He and I regularly talk about everything. I'm very grateful that my parents are supporting me, and if we disagree now, he takes the time to listen to me even if he is vehemently opposed to my decisions. This doesn't mean that I'm going to call him tomorrow and tell him about my White partner, the fact that I'm not heterosexual, or that I'm planning on chopping my hair off, but these are things I can trust him to be (hopefully) more comfortable with as time passes.

So when I see this recurring attitude of "I can do whatever I want because I'm the parent and I said so" from my mom, I just think back to all of those times that my parents made me feel like my feelings didn't matter or that they just didn't care. Even worse, I knew even at that age that a lot of their rules were "preventative", as they assumed that I was going to fuck up in ways that they did when they were young, further implying that they don't trust me. This isn't about the sunscreen or the room or "privacy"-- this is about my sister being told that she doesn't deserve to be acknowledged because she's a kid. I definitely think they are less hard on her than they are on me, but I want to spare her the frustration I dealt with. I don't want to offend or hurt my mom in the process and I have no reason to believe that they won't "relax" in the coming years like they did with me, but I still feel like a discussion may be a good thing.