To all the people claiming “my house my rules” is acceptable when taken to this extreme, please hear me.
My parents did the exact same thing. I was, literally, never allowed out of the house other than to attend school and church, or accompany my mother to the grocery store. Summer vacation was a dreaded experience. I hated days off from school. I literally had no idea that high school parties actually existed, as I never attended one. Since I couldn’t go to kids’ parties in elementary and junior high, they stopped asking long before high school started. By the time I was a teenager, I had no friends. None. Sure, I knew how to clean a house and cook a gourmet dinner, but I never had any fun. On top of all of that, even inside the house the rules were insanely restrictive: I couldn’t close my bedroom door at any time. If the whole family was watching a movie, I had to as well, regardless of whether I was interested. They even had a problem if I went to bed early, because they thought I was “trying to avoid spending time with the family” (as if I ever did anything else).
Now, I’m an adult, married and free for several years. I no longer have contact with my family (having filed a restraining order after a particularly physically abusive episode).
I still do not know how to communicate with my peers. I feel uncomfortable in all social situations. I cannot start a conversation with someone. I am on eggshells at all times with other people – lest they find something unacceptable with something I do or say, and shun me. I am a smart girl – always took advanced classes in school, always had good grades – but the sheer idea of filling out a college application puts me in a cold sweat.
There is nothing “protective” about this kind of “overprotectiveness”. All these parents are doing is robbing their children of the appropriate social contact that will drive their ability to network as adults. We are social animals – we need the contact of people outside our clan.