Living under someone else’s roof often means playing by their rules, especially when you’re a young and impressionable teen.

So when one foster kid received a new phone from his biological dad, he thought it would bring more freedom. That is, until his foster parents insisted on locking it down with a host of parental controls that he found way too strict.

Can he speak up and demand more, or is it all out of his hands?

You’ll want to read on — this story’s a thorny one.

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

I (15M) have lived with my current foster parents since I was 9 years old, but I’ve been in foster care since I was 6.

I will call my foster parents ‘Henry’ and ‘Erin’.

He soon received a gift that he was over the moon about.

I got a new phone as an early Christmas present from my biological dad. It is an iPhone 16 Pro Max, 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 the excitement didn’t last long.

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, and it would lock everything except their contacts at 8 pm every night until after school.

They also had a time limit on YouTube, so I could only watch it for 30 minutes within the time where my phone was unlocked anyway.

He found these rules completely draconion.

I could only go on websites that they approved of — there was a list that I could go on, and I couldn’t go on anything that they didn’t manually add to that list.

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

He tries to fight back, but they won’t budge.

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.

He continues to fight back, wracking his brain on how to find a solution.

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.

AITA?

He may not understand his foster parents’ decisions, but maybe understanding just isn’t possible at this age.

What did Reddit think?

This situation may be a bit more complex than this teen realizes right now.

If the teen wants to fight the decision, he’ll have to adapt his argument.

With enough perspective, he may come to one day appreciate that people were looking out for his wellbeing.

It may not feel fair right now, but 15-year-olds just aren’t able to make the call on how they’re parented.

It’s understandable for teens to want more freedom, but they often aren’t able to understand the dangers that lurk around them.

Maybe with time, he’ll understand where his foster parents are coming from.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.