CharlieBravo92

Having grown up in the church, but allowed to attend public school, hang out with the "unwashed masses," ect, I think I'm a pretty well-adjusted person, and I've independently formed Christian beliefs of my own.

That being said, I knew lots of kids in my church or scout troop who had an upbringing similar to yours. Many of them are, much like you, very angry and resentful about their upbringing (and rightly so.)

If I were to speak to those parents, in an attempt to loosen their grip on their child, what would you recommend I say?

It's not done on AOL chat anymore but that's still basically how it works. Sometimes you can do it on Facebook, but I used meetme (formerly myyearbook.). It's still a social networking site (not EXCLUSIVELY for dating) but with a lot of flirtatious undertones.

IMHO, he doesn't mean the woman needs to defer and respect the man simply because he's male, but rather, he needs to truly earn her respect by generally being a good man

I'm not trying to talk them out of being Christians, but just convince them to let their kid out. Still hopeless?

It's amazing what you can do with semantics. "I can't afford it" sounds so much worse than "I don't wanna spend the money."