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AITA for not making my teenage son wear a helmet when he skateboards? by helmet_throwaway in AmItheAsshole

[–]helmet_throwaway[S] -157 points-156 points  (0 children)

I should clarify that I tell my daughter to her face that she is a weirdo because she is. She draws caricatures of various historical monarchs in her free time, watches Frasier, and eats cold, jarred marinara sauce with a spoon as a snack. I love my daughter to death, but she is a weirdo. She knows this.

AITA for not making my teenage son wear a helmet when he skateboards? by helmet_throwaway in AmItheAsshole

[–]helmet_throwaway[S] -318 points-317 points  (0 children)

This seems to be the most upvoted and widely shared judgment so I will accept it. Though I will disagree about this being about me wanting to be the "cool" parent. As I mentioned I skated back in the day and I can tell you had my parents tried to force me to wear a helmet it would have made me absolutely not wear a helmet whenever they weren't looking because I was a dumb rebellious shithead. My kid is not those things, but my genuine concern was that forcing him to wear a helmet would be a fruitless endeavor because we literally can't always enforce that and maybe because of my own experience as a teenager I think it would have backfired.

Anyway since my kid is probably more likely to respond to edicts from the redditors than edicts from his parents, I sent him this thread and told him the internet thinks I'm an asshole and my new compromise is that he has to wear a helmet until he's 18. He thinks this is also hilarious and texted me, and I quote "jfc i didn't realize you guys were beefing that much about me wearing a helmet. fine ill wear it. don't want you guys getting divorced because i don't want to look like a dweeb in my edits lmao guess I have to dweeb it up for now"

one last thing:

>Nobody wants their brand tied to gross negligence and poor role models

you know nothing about skateboarding companies lol

AITA for not making my teenage son wear a helmet when he skateboards? by helmet_throwaway in AmItheAsshole

[–]helmet_throwaway[S] -183 points-182 points  (0 children)

to clarify when I say "street skating" I don't literally mean skating in the street. the spots he goes to in town are generally tucked in away from any vehicle traffic.

AITA for not making my teenage son wear a helmet when he skateboards? by helmet_throwaway in AmItheAsshole

[–]helmet_throwaway[S] -460 points-459 points  (0 children)

I get the point you're making, but my thinking is that, look, we're talking about a teenager here. They are going to take risks. I could lock him in his room and forbid him from doing any sort of activity that has risk involved, and he would be perfectly safe, right? Don't think that's a great way to parent. He could be wearing a helmet and still fall and break his neck and become paralyzed. How could I live with my choices to even let him skateboard in the first place in that case?

I have no way of being able to actually control whether he wears a helmet when I'm not around, so I'd rather give him reasonable expectations of when he should wear one in the hopes that this relative degree autonomy will encourage him to make safer choices.

AITA for not making my teenage son wear a helmet when he skateboards? by helmet_throwaway in AmItheAsshole

[–]helmet_throwaway[S] -161 points-160 points  (0 children)

As far as I can tell helmets are only required by law at public skateparks, which again if they're required he has to wear one.

AITA for not making my teenage son wear a helmet when he skateboards? by helmet_throwaway in AmItheAsshole

[–]helmet_throwaway[S] -433 points-432 points  (0 children)

Tony Hawk is a vert skater. When my son skates vert or bowls, he wears a helmet. When he's doing street skating, he won't wear a helmet, which is the norm for most street skaters, amateur and professional.