This mom gave her son an 18-point contract with his iPhone

I disagree with this. By virtue of the market, most porn online is targeted towards men. The majority of pornography thus fulfils masculine desires, which is not necessarily what women want.

One Swedish study (abstract here[1], but you can find the stats I use cited elsewhere in full) of 4,000 high school students found that a much larger proportion of girls described pornography as "sexually off-putting" (it is worth noting that Sweden has an extremely progressive sex education policy in its schools). Pornography re-enforces masculine stereotypes - someone viewing pornography at a young age may take that to be 'how it is done', rather than illustrating a fantasy.

Now that doesn't mean there isn't healthy pornography: as other people have pointed out, there's something for everyone when it comes to porn online. But a 13 year old boy (or girl) looking for porn is almost certainly going to start at the lowest common denominator, and that's porn that's often denigrating to women at best.

Before I'm flamed into oblivion, I am not against pornography: I am merely suggesting that typical porn - the kind that you may run across as a teenager, on the more accessible sites - is not "one of the few 'safe' ways for young people to figure their junk out".

This is why I think if you are a parent it is important not to ban, or discourage, your children from watching pornography, but to make sure they understand that porn fundamentally is about fulfilling fantasies, and is not always an accurate portrayal of reality. Those first encountering porn may not necessarily be aware of that.

[1]: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140197110...

No calls after 7:30pm? Mom reading my emails? Don't say anything to a friend that you wouldn't say in front of their parents? No porn? Seriously?

Adolescence is a period of growth and discovery. Let the kid grow up with his generation. Encourage responsible behavior--not inane rules you yourself wouldn't follow. The bit about the music taste was especially rich. Should I apologize for preferring Lady Gaga to Bach? My playlist is unabashedly top 100.

Late night AIM convos and talking to my friends until we fell asleep were some of my fondest high school memories. They kept me going and helped me process the world as it opened up to me. I forged friendships then that are sanctuaries to me today.

To the kid: Let loose. Explore. Engage in activities that interest you. Don't be afraid to fail. Don't fear the judgment of others. Don't be different for the sake of being different. Don't be overwhelmingly goal oriented. Don't focus your life on padding your resume for some college.

You're probably not the introspective, reserved gentleman that your mother wishes you were. Learn to be comfortable with who you are.

Presumably, in the case of first children, this is what parents have been doing since the dawn of time.

For #1, I see it as trying to preempt the "but it's my iPhone, I don't have to follow your rules!" argument. The last sentence I read as self-deprecating humor: read it with ;) at the end.

#2, this is doesn't seem unreasonable to me. Same as I wouldn't allow my son to have a lock on the door to his room that I didn't have a key to, I need to have access to his phone as well. Hopefully she'd only use that access in a serious situation (suspected bullying, suspected drug-use, etc). It could be she's always going through his things and never allows him any privacy, but this rule doesn't necessarily mean that.

#4: I see this as setting a strong boundary around when phone calls can be made. When I was growing up, it was very common to see calling late at night as being rude. I don't see this as not trusting his opinion but more as saying don't be on the phone late at night. 7:30 pm doesn't seem very late, but that's hard to say without knowing when they have to be up in the morning.

#5: Many schools ban phones or disallow their use in school, so not taking the phone to school seems reasonable.

#18: I don't see anything in here that says the rules are set in stone. In fact I'd read the last part as saying the opposite. The first part I read as trying to defuse anxiety around breaking the rules. My son often gets anxious when we set a new rule and worries that he'll break it. Letting him know that breaking the rules won't be the end of the world helps.

Presumably #11 trumps number #3. I assume they'd expect a common sense approach.

#1 and #6 don't contradict each other. If I let you borrow something from me and it was broken or lost, I'd expect you to pay for it. I think that's pretty normal.

Finally, 13-17 seem to be more aspirational than actual rules. 13, 14, and 17 could be replaced by: don't become so obsessed with your iPhone you ignore everything else. I didn't read 15 as an exclusion of the son's peer's music. More a suggestion to take advantage of the wide range of music available.

I don't see this as insane, but it's very hard to judge from the outside. We don't know the kid or the mom. It could be she's crazy overbearing or it could be she's just setting up reasonable rules for he son. Being a parent of a high-strung 10 year-old, I tend to read it as reasonable rules for a very smart, very obsessive young teen.