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Original poster

Tell me my teens aren't the only ones lol

561 replies

Srepmum1984 · 21/02/2025 14:14

I am growing more and more gobsmacked with my teenagers common sense and I wanted to hear some other funny stories.

This week alone, son has toasted bread with butter already on it because he couldn't be bothered to wait and it smelt like the house was on fire.

Was feeling ill, so made him a Lemsip. He poured it (literally) straight into his mouth then screeched he didn't realise it was hot. He watched me make it from the kettle.

Today he is working with me over his college half term in the office for some extra cash. Blew his nose, then proceeded to try and open my free standing air conditioner fin part as he thought ' I had a fancy Japanese bin'

Please tell me I am not alone😂😂😂

OP posts:
user1498572889 · 24/02/2025 08:29

ShinySquirrel · 23/02/2025 21:15

All the perfect po-faced posters - off you fuck, this isn't the thread for you.

DS14 snapped a spindle on the bannister tonight. 'I didn't know you weren't supposed to swing on them'.

My DGD has done this. So have i.😮

GoldMoon · 24/02/2025 08:28

Not mine , but 15 year old neighbour had her friends around and decided to make cheese on toast by laying the toaster on it's side with the cheese already on the bread .
It caught on fire and the fire brigade were called out !

ToutesetBonne · 24/02/2025 08:28

NotDarkGothicMama · 23/02/2025 21:16

DS left for school one morning, completely oblivious to the fact that the electric switchboard next to the front door was on fire. Luckily DH and I noticed in time to intervene before there was serious damage. I questioned DS when he got home about how he'd managed to miss the hall full of smoke. He said he thought I was cooking bacon 🙄 We could have died!

Same DS complained about the "new shampoo" having bits in it. It was clearly labelled as body scrub.

Just picking this up for a serious comment: do please ask, if you have a wooden/flammable switch cupboard/fuse box like this, to have it changed to metal. A few years ago my friend's entire house burnt down, and her husband was killed, due to exactly this type of fire. They are really dangerous.

JemimaFlubberCluck · 24/02/2025 08:26

They will be running the the country in 20 years. It’s terrifying 😱🤣🤣

Sugargliderwombat · 24/02/2025 08:25

Tarkan · 23/02/2025 20:54

I went to see what the awful smell from our kitchen was yesterday. Found the 21yo about to make a quesadilla with the frying pan sitting on the highest setting on the hob with the oil smoking like crazy.

When I said it was way too hot and they were going to either burn their food or cause a fire I got a very dismissive "it's fine, I know what I'm doing" in response.

Ohhh I've got to agree with him! Oil needs to be hot hot hot for a nice quesadilla 😆. I would have opened a window though.

ToutesetBonne · 24/02/2025 08:25

ZebedeeDougalFlorence · 23/02/2025 21:07

I have to admit that I did the milk in the kettle thing in a hotel last year. If you catch it just as it boils you don't ruin the kettle. Just give it a good rinse out and it's fine. Lovely cup of hot chocolate. It is several decades since I was in my teens.

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Please don't do this people. It could be very dangerous for the next person using the room if they have a milk allergy.

Mydietstartstomorrow · 24/02/2025 08:22

Sugepaper · 23/02/2025 21:07

I’m sorry but a lot of these are just odd. Eating raw bacon, putting milk in a kettle, thinking you fry eggs with a shell on?

Either dreadful parenting or not very bright. My 10 yr old wouldn’t do any of this.

Oh go away

FinallyMrsT · 24/02/2025 08:19

Have a 15 year old and an 11month old

Went out for a meal with family last week and the big bsby took the little baby down to where he was sat, but hadn't made a space and little one swiped his plate and big one caught it between his legs full of coleslaw
He's wafting his free arm about mum help me om stuck...I went over and was like you havd a free hand you know and he was like I'm holding the baby so I can't, as I grab rhe plate and food, he grabs his drink and i just said I thought holding the baby was a 2 handed job. He was like it is that's why I have hold of him.... he couldn't realise he was literally using 1 arm to hold the baby and the other was not being used.

Newlittlerescue · 24/02/2025 08:17

Not quite at the level of some of these but my DS nearly killed my Mum this weekend by pouring her a big glass of neat lemon and elderflower cordial (the expensive glass bottled stuff, so practically syrup) without diluting it, and she chugged down a big mouthful as she was taking a tablet. The coughing and spluttering was quite something! (In his (slight) defense, he had been told to use the bottle in the fridge, and it was the only one in there; it was actually my DH who had unknowingly bought cordial rather than the fancy sparkling Schloer type drink he was sent out to buy)

Dontlletmedownbruce · 24/02/2025 08:16

I think @PyongyangKipperbang has hit the nail on the head. It's often seeking shortcuts that their old and outdated parents are too stupid to think of. My DS is very practical for a teen but still will always go for the lazy man's load.

Woodythewonderpony · 24/02/2025 08:09

I got my 17 yr old DS a new phone and for a year I couldn’t work out why he wasn’t responding quickly to texts etc. just assumed he was being a typical teenager🤷‍♀️. One day I needed to get hold of him quite urgently and when he got home I asked him why he didn’t respond. His answer was he could only pick them up on his old phone when he got home😵‍💫 - I then realised he hadn’t swapped the SIM card over and he didn’t realise he had to! He is currently studying computer science and AI at uni……..

Lovelysausagedogscrumpy · 24/02/2025 08:09

Izzabellasasperella · 24/02/2025 07:42

"by 18 I was half way across the world."

Did you travel there on your high horse?

🤣🤣

Wish I’d said that !! 😁

gannett · 24/02/2025 08:09

I also had real phone anxiety when I first started working and I still hate talking on the phone. Solved that by getting a job where I didn't need to talk to anyone on the phone. Problem was solved further by the world becoming 99% digital which is what I call good progress. The hundred years or so where something as unnaturally intrusive as the telephone was commonplace will be seen as an aberration, rightly.

ClockingOffers · 24/02/2025 08:06

HolyPeaches · 23/02/2025 21:19

Yes!

I also think these teens are the ‘TikTok generation’ that are so consumed with screens and social media that they genuinely have no idea how to cope in the real world.

I also saw on (I think it was ITV) news that some schools are running “telephone call anxiety classes” as teens these days have grown up with instant messaging/texting that they’re terrified of making phone calls and speaking to people via the telephone. Incredibly unequipped for independent life.

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Ah, feck off with that simplistic nonsense. Nothing to do with TikTok or instant messaging.

I’m 60, managed a dept. of more than 100 staff before retiring and I still hate making phone calls to people I don’t know.

IsitaHatOrACat · 24/02/2025 08:02

HolyPeaches · 23/02/2025 21:19

Yes!

I also think these teens are the ‘TikTok generation’ that are so consumed with screens and social media that they genuinely have no idea how to cope in the real world.

I also saw on (I think it was ITV) news that some schools are running “telephone call anxiety classes” as teens these days have grown up with instant messaging/texting that they’re terrified of making phone calls and speaking to people via the telephone. Incredibly unequipped for independent life.

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Due to lack of confidence, I had this problem in my first job in 2000 so it's not a new thing. Plus phones were just used to play snake in those days...

hookiewookie29 · 24/02/2025 07:56

My son stuck his thumb on the end if the cigarette lighter in our old car because it didn't look hot...
My daughter tried to make ready brek in the microwave but didn't put any milk in it. The ready burnt, turned the inside of the microwave permanently yellow, and stank the house out for days!

gannett · 24/02/2025 07:54

Bleachbum · 24/02/2025 01:09

This has just reminded me of a recent convo with my teen DD. We are going away at Easter to a country with poor wifi so I’ve said it’s the perfect opportunity to go phone/tech free for the week. We’re doing a bit of a road trip.

Anyway, she asks how will we know where we’re going without Google maps. I say, we’ll get a map. She says but we can’t without our phone (looking at me like I’m stupid).

I say, no we’ll buy a hard copy map. You know, like paper?? She is incredulous… “you can’t get a paper map of the world mum with all the roads on it, that would be huge, think about it…” still looking and talking to me like I’m stupid!

I then explain that obviously it won’t have the world on it, just the country we’re visiting.

She rolls her eyes, says whatever and walks off, giving up. She still thinks I’m being stupid and there’s no way I’ll be able to buy a paper map.

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I really want an update on this one when you get the map. Her mind will be blown.

gannett · 24/02/2025 07:53

My 14 yo went to put a metal bowl in microwave as nobody told him so how was he supposed to know.

Well this is the thing, the reason so many of these funny stories are "obvious" things teenagers got wrong is... they're so obvious to adults that no one thought to actively say "you can't put metal in a microwave". My parents did actively equip me with a lot of life skills but I'm sure they never told me that one.

Also sometimes you think that they know because they watch you - my daughter has been around me doing the laundry since she was about 3 - but the first time she used a washing machine - I had to take her through it step by step.

And yes sometimes you think that because someone is around you they're watching you but that's not necessarily the case. My mother was also surprised when she needed to show me how to use a washing machine because I'd watched her do it so many times. I was like... I was in the room but I wasn't watching you or paying much attention!

Millymoonshine · 24/02/2025 07:49

My dm is very intelligent.
When she retired from her professional career she decided to get a pt job in a supermarket staff canteen.
The canteen manager asked dm to make sandwiches, half brown, half white.
Dm literally used 1 brown and 1 white slice of bread for each sandwich.
She was 60 years old!
I had more common sense as a teen than my dm ever had.

ThePartyArtist · 24/02/2025 07:49

OP I had to laugh at the Japanese bin!

We asked a teen babysitter to do our son some toast. She chopped a new loaf in half and cut a slice from and middle!

Izzabellasasperella · 24/02/2025 07:42

"by 18 I was half way across the world."

Did you travel there on your high horse?

🤣🤣

GoldenLegend · 24/02/2025 07:40

I had a friend at uni who was as gormless as these teenagers. I do wonder if she ever grew out of it.

storminabuttercup · 24/02/2025 07:35

What's that saying ? You don't know what you don't know?

I've tried to teach DS to not do dumb shit but he'd have no idea how to make a pot noodle or a lemsip as he's never had either or seen me do them

Since he was teeny tiny we've don't the 'don't touch hot stuff thing' didn't stop him putting his hands on the electric heater last week (thank god they don't get too hot it was only a small burn) he even said 'don't know what possessed me' but we all do dumb shit it's how we learn

I don't agree it's generational either, no boy/man can do less shit than my DH, father and grandfather could when they left home as they'd never had to touch a cooker/washer etc

MellowCritic · 24/02/2025 07:26

Sugepaper · 23/02/2025 21:07

I’m sorry but a lot of these are just odd. Eating raw bacon, putting milk in a kettle, thinking you fry eggs with a shell on?

Either dreadful parenting or not very bright. My 10 yr old wouldn’t do any of this.

Hahaha there's still time , i wouldn't talk big if I were you 🤣

WhoWhereWhatWhy · 24/02/2025 07:19

I asked then 16yo DS to change his bedding. He took the divert units over, pillows and fitted sheet off, put them on the floor and dragged them to the landing. Then looked at the replacement fitted sheet, pillowcases and duvet cover that I’d left out for him and asked where the duvet and pillows were to go inside them. Tina put that he thought that pillows and duvets were washed fortnightly too.