Have you ever run away from your parents while underage? If not, have you ever considered it? Why? (member, holidays)

[gouligann]

I was about 15 and had a fight with my mother. I don't remember why.

I headed off down the street with just my purse. I was going to the highway to hitch-hike to my cousin's house in the country, about 30 miles away.

My mother chased me down with her car and we fought again in a parking lot. She won. I got in the car and we drove home.

She was strict and a wonderful mother. She taught me many values, that I still use today.
I like to believe and think I did teach our boys the same values.

[Sonic_Spork]

During my parents' divorce, when I briefly still lived with my Dad and my stepmom, I thought about it.

I had a friend when I was 10, who I had my first crush on (which he seemed rather stubbornly oblivious to, but he was the same age)...and my friend moved away. First he moved just to another part of the state. We sent letters back and forth. Planned for both of us to run away from home, meet in a town in the middle, and go on from there. I'd read a lot of fiction written for tweens about "survival" in the wilderness alone, and I had fantasies of living out in the forest.

But we never did it, and eventually his family sent him to a military school far away. He ended up becoming a fighter pilot in the Air Force.

As a child, I spent a lot of time roaming the woods by myself. There were large tracts of forest around the tributary creeks that fed into the Potomac river, and I would follow them for hours, but I never thought of that as running away, I always went home. It is unimaginable now, but most weekends and afternoons, my family had no idea where I was. No one had a cell phone. I was supposed to be home before dark, and usually I was. Maybe without my shoes, I often seemed to lose them.

Years later when I was 16 or 17...I disappeared for three days. My family had moved to the Eastern Shore of VA, which is the peninsula out around the Chesapeake. Miserable place for a "city girl" (which I was by that time.) I went with some of my pothead friends and stayed in the house of a boy I was sleeping with, we went to Ocean City one night and walked around on the boardwalk. When I returned home, I was sure I would be in a lot of trouble, my Mom worried about me. She was very nonchalant about it, said that she just figured I was off somewhere getting laid or getting high or both. She wasn't wrong, but it hurt that she didn't seem to care.

[BOS2IAD]

I once tried when I was about 7 or 8 but didn't get far.

I grew up in an abusive household. Things got worse when I was a teen. At that time we were living on an island outside the mainland. I often thought about running away but never did because I realized that there was no way I would have been able to survive on my own. Since we were on an island, I knew I couldn't get too far. The only place I could think of going to was to an aunt who also lived on the island. However, I knew she would have just brought me back home which would have made things even worse for me.

I used to wish that there was someone who could have taken me in, but, alas there was no one in my life who would have done that.

[jencam]

I left before I finished high school and went back right about time to get ready for college.

[DubbleT]

As a child, no. At sixteen, yes, and it was permanent.

[unlabeled]

I intended to run away if my mother died and one of my much-older brothers wouldn't take custody of me (she needed a biopsy for a big tumor). My father was psychotic and I feared for my life if left alone in his minimal care.

[theatergypsy]

I never thought about running away when I was a child. I was living in a different place every few months - with my Father - with my Mother and her new husband - with my paternal grandparents - with my father and his new wife - and a random aunt and uncle here and there.

I confess to wanting to run away when I was older. And married. And mother to three teen age boys. But I didn't. Guess I knew that if I ran away, I'd have to take out the garbage myself!

[blueherons]

No because my dad would have beat my butt.

[coschristi]

Multiple times & moved out at age 16.

I was a 'milk-carton kid' for a while. Eventually my mom was afraid to report me 'found' because they knew I'd disappear again eventually. The longest was when I was 14. Told my mom I was going out to the backyard, hopped the fence & they didn't see me for 3 months.

I now regret what an awful & ungrateful child I was.

[ChessieMom]

Umm...if you aren't underage, how would it be "running away"??