Previously, telephones were all hard-wired and (like the family television) were located in the family room or kitchen. Today, many children and nearly all adolescents have their own cellular phones that enable them to maintain much more privacy from their parents than their parents ever enjoyed at home.

In previous generations, parents were often the main source of financial support for their children's extracurricular interests; typically, parents paid children an allowance to do household chores. Today, many more adolescents have the opportunity to hold part-time jobs close to home. Likewise, whereas in previous generations relatively few adolescents had their own cars, many contemporary adolescents start driving while still in high school. This combination of reduced financial dependence on parents and increased ability to pursue their own interests outside the home at an earlier age have altered many aspects of...

In general, many parents now allow a degree of autonomy that would have been unheard of when they wee children. Very often, parents today are not at all acquainted with many of their children's friends because friendships are more often established and maintained privately, such as online and via cell phone instead of face-to-face within a smaller network of the immediate neighborhood or local community. Ultimately, some of the changes in parenting may reflect different social values, but probably much more is the direct result of technology that greatly facilitates elements of social privacy even within the family.