Been a teenager is hard.

You’re at the point where you crave more independence, but you’re also still a kid and your parents make the rules.

See why this teen is struggling with his foster parents about his new iPhone.

It’s a little complicated.

AITA for not allowing my foster parents to put parental controls on the iphone my biological parents bought me?

I have lived with my current foster parents “Henry” and “Erin” since I was 9 years old.

I’ve been in foster care since I was 6.

I got an iPhone 16 Pro Max as an early Christmas present from my biological dad, which is the phone I wanted so I am very happy about it.

My previous phone was an iPhone 11 and it was bought by Henry and Erin.

But there is a problem.

On my old phone Henry and Erin had set up loads of parental controls on it, so I couldn’t download any apps without them approving it.

I couldn’t turn off share my location.

I couldn’t change my passcode.

It would lock everything except their contacts at 8pm every night until after school.

They also had a time limit on YouTube so I could only watch it for 30 mins within the time where my phone was unlocked anyway, and I could only go on websites that they manually approved.

These all really annoyed me, but whenever I asked for them to be turned off they told me that they bought the phone and so these were the rules.

Now I was given my new phone by my dad on Monday and I haven’t used it yet.

They’re telling me that I have to let them put the same restrictions on the new phone as they did my old phone.

And it’s not making sense to him.

I said no because that isn’t fair.

I should be allowed to use my phone as my dad says because he paid for it.

I said to them that my dad paid for the phone so it was his choice and that he doesn’t want me to have those restrictions on.

But now they’ve changed and said it doesn’t matter who bought the phone even though that was their whole point before.

Now they’re saying that because I am living with them I have to follow their rules and the rule for having a phone in this house is that they put restrictions on it.

I don’t think that is fair at all considering they didn’t buy the phone?

I don’t see how they can do this?

Before I got home from school on Monday they took the phone out of the box my dad sent it in and set up all the restrictions.

Now I’m trying to figure out a way to take them off.

I am thinking about complaining to my social worker because it is not fair that they put these restrictions on my phone even though they didn’t pay for it.

Here is what folks are saying.

You don’t want to teach a kid that undermining people gets results.

From child predators, scammers, hackers and bullies for sure.

Sounds fair. Why do teens need phones anyway?

Good idea. Keep everyone on the same page.

Excellent analogy.

This is a rough one if you’re 15.

It’s a no-brainer for the adults, though.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.