To throw my 16 yr old son out after he squared up to me

The problem here is that OP’s son reacted with aggression. He could just as easily have asked his mother what she meant by the comment - a comment made in response to him taking clothes out of the drier five minutes after she had told him to leave them in to dry. Not hard to link the sarcasm, but also not hard to see that it may have been lost on a 16 year old. But that doesn’t give him the right to react the way he did and the number of posters trying to excuse it at OP’s expense is shocking.

In the rush to blame OP most posters are not picking up on the fact that he made an aggressive and misogynistic remark about the drier being OP’s responsibility. Also missed is the fact that OP says this is not the first time he has displayed this behaviour.

He’s displaying a misogynistic attitude and aggression towards women. These are the kids who grow up to be wife beaters if it’s not nipped in the bud - not to mention the immediate threat he poses to OP. It’s really concerning that so many posters here don’t see a pattern emerging here and are advocating for OP to actually apologise to him, when it should be other way around.

Maybe sending him to his dad’s wasn’t ideal but they clearly still have contact with him or it wouldn’t have been an option. The priority was getting him up of the house so that he was no longer a threat to OP. Something which the majority of posters would have been advocating had he been a partner or husband. An aggressive 16 year old with so little control over his temper is no less a threat and the suggestion that OP is in some way responsible for that is utterly misogynistic and doesn’t help OP one bit.

And this is why we have so many agressive young men, because of awful parenting as suggested here. She should apologise for 'startling' him after he squared up to her and shouted bitch in her face? Do you really think that's how women should responded to male aggression?

This. And what “shirts and skirts” said.

Id get him home or meet somewhere neutral in public if you’re scared of him. I don’t think he will kickoff again though, it was in the moment.

All the time he is there dad is twisting him against you in a power game because dad likes the power and is probably a misogynistic bully. You want him away from that.

Id apologise first and explain you meant “do you have a death wish as your brother will kill you ha ha”.
Explain what went wrong with the washing and supervise next time in a helpful not know it all way so he gets it right. Tell him you love him but you felt threatened and that should never happen between a man and a woman at home and that you expect him to not jump from being pissed off to name calling and violence and ask if some help managing that would be helpful and youre happy to attend too if he would like.

Whose choice was this?

Why are you giving parenting advice about teenager when you think they are ‘generally horrible’? Maybe yours are horrible because you aren’t good at it.

I notice you missed out the part where the son said that his mother was to blame as she is responsible for the dryer. What excuse will you conjure up for that I wonder?

* You need to choose your words more carefully*

That's actually quite chilling. Choose your words more carefully, woman, or it will be your fault that this bigger, stronger male in your home threatens or assaults you.

You and your sons have experienced abuse. You need to choose your words more carefully. Saying do you want to die is not nice for anyone to hear, let alone someone who’s experienced abuse. He may have genuinely feared that before as a child

Sounds like victim blaming to me.
The op said something that 'wasnt nice' (i'm calling bullshit, it was a light hearted ) so the answer is to puff his chest out, square up and call her a bitch?

So she has to watch every single thing she says so as not to provoke him. Sounds like walking on egg shells in her own home not to upset an abuser.

Context and tone of voice is everything.
The lad is old enough to understand a joke.
Is he going to react violently to everything he sees as a threat, even when there is non there? Is he going to threaten people outside the home because 'he doesn't like what they’ve said'

Even if son didn't take it as a joke the reaction was a threat and never gave op the opportunity to explain what she meant.

I know when Ive had a joke backfire on me , my kids have said ' Did you really mean......? Or ' i can't believe youve just said..........' and I said, no, what i meant was.... and explain what I was trying to say.
In this family the boy is very quick to anger and threaten.

I do agree though, he will be better off back with you in the long term, with clear rules about future aggression. Perhaps he needs to understand that you are within your rights to call the Police if he is being physically aggressive to you in the future. It may not be pleasant for people to hear but often it is a serious wake up call to young men who think being abusive to their parents is okay and justified. It’s something that is often discussed with the YP we work with, re boundaries and expectations about home behaviour.

It's just such a dramatic household on exhausted reading this. The amount of teenagers you read on here that live in slums and their parents not only.enable it but aren't allowed in their bedrooms.And they leave dirty crockery all over the place with filthy clothes...

You have a 16-year-old who's clearly got some sense of responsibility as he brings down two bags of washing to do it himself. He stuffs up a bit with a dryer, but that's only because his other brother came back and started messing around with his washing, or he forgot to do the cycle correctly.

His mother makes a weak attempt to the death threat joke for his lack of use of the drier correctly and then throws him out the house when he told her to fuck off.

Is the household always this bloody dramatic

Also re this being the behaviour of a boy who has himself experienced DV/DA…this may well be the case. Unfortunately, he’s not far off adulthood and without some learning about how his triggers are not his fault but they ARE his responsibility , he is potentially going to fall foul of real life.
Cant excuse this sort of behaviour, and whilst in social work/therapy we’d be educating parents on the root causes and function of the behaviour/supporting regulation, we would absolutely be addressing this behaviour with the young person as well!

So many posts telling a woman and mother to essentially walk on eggshells when she's making a joke. Fuck off with it. I dare say she had enough of that with her ex.

Honestly. You pushed his buttons by saying "do you want to die?". He has lived with abuse as a role model and you did nothing by saying that but reinforce shitty behaviour. Of course he shouldn't square up to you ..but sending him to his room would have been a better option than calling his dad, reinforcing that noone cares about him
Added to the fact that teenagers are generally horrible.
He made an error with the washing when the thought he was doing the right thing and you made his feel stupid.

The dads behaviour is a different thing, but you send him there knowing he's abusive and now he is justifying your son's actions. How confusing for your son .

My advice is. Call your son , tell him you want to talk to him.

Say you shouldn't have reacted in that way but intimidating you the way he did is unacceptable , but you understand how your words and actions upset him, and you are very sorry for that.
Take it from there

This is a really relevant post OP, weighing in from a social work and therapist perspective.

Parents make mistakes, children make mistakes.

His behaviour was undoubtedly WRONG , however he’s a teenage boy who needed a way to not lose face.
So hard to do this in the moment but 3 R’s - Regulate Relate Reason in that order.
You will have both been triggered- you by his aggression and for whatever reason, he by your comment (who knows, maybe dad used to say this to him and it’s landed badly or maybe something has happened online or at school).

Ignore your ex who has used the opportunity to try and get son on side to his behaviour. Give him a day, and try get in touch. Maybe get older brother to explain about violence and aggression etc.

That’s not a poor delicate icckle boy who’s so traumatised he immediately has to defend himself from big scary bad mummy. It’s an angry, violent little shit trying his abuse on for size and getting rightful consequences. It’s now even the first time he’s done it

You think sending a disregulated aggression adolescent male to a violently abusive adult Father is rightful consequences? Dear God!

And where do you think his ‘aggressive violent little shit ness came from? You appear to be arguing it’s not a result of anything he has experienced, so it’s just innately who he is. In which case nothing can be done about it.

Whereas if he has been, like all of us, formed in good part by his experiences, then that explains his reaction and means there is a constructive path open to helping to more constructively reshape him. Which can not happen by sending him off to live with his abusive Dad.

No comment at all, poorly phrased joke or no, makes it ok for a sixteen year old (so mostly physically mature) to square up, fists clenched and chest bump someone while screaming in their face. Nothing.

No woman that has suffered DV should have to stand being physically intimidated in her home either. He wasn’t feeling threatened ffs, he was embarrassed, angry, and reacted defensively. He was pissed off before the comment and escalated it after.

He’d messed up the wash, got defensive and blamed Op immediately rather than accepting he’d done something wrong. Despite it having been explained to him why it’s important to get the clothes to dry in the dryer properly (yes they will stick of taken out to dry on a clothes horse if they’ve been sitting there), he tries to open the door 5 mins later. She goes to sort out the washing and makes a poorly phrased joke out of exasperation at him not listening to her, and he physically lashes out and screams in her face. He absolutely was using anger and physical intimidation to put her in her place, and at 16 is old enough to do serious harm to Op.

Something else is clearly going on because it is such an extreme reaction. If that had been a partner, no one would be jumping to defend him, or saying that Op deserved it because of a turn of phrase he possibly took literally when it quite clearly wasn’t intended to be (or just maybe he’s grabbing onto anything he can to DARVO his way out of it, just like abusive men tend to do). Op wasn’t an aggressor at all, and given her ex seems to think physical violence and intimidation is an acceptable way to control people in your life and that words mean you deserve that treatment, it’s bloody obvious where he’s picked it up, and it isn’t Op.

what your son did was not ok - but you sound very threatening yourself so perhaps there is a back story. Do you want to die or do you have a death wish does not make any sense in the context of clothes in a dryer. Just how this has escalated is unbelievable.

Oh my god, what she said isn't strange or odd, she was joking around with him when she was exasperated. Stop. He has overreacted and your ex is a dickhead. Abuse or not, it's a normal reaction to try to involve the other parent when a kid is playing up, and this goes beyond 'playing up'. Ultimately you're right not to want violence in your home. I hope you manage to resolve it but unfortunately your ex is fuelling your son.

You’re not wrong for feeling upset and threatened but I don’t understand why you packed him off to his dad of all people if your ex has a history of dv. And then asking him to talk to your teenager about not being abusive in the home.

I wouldn't waste your time with that sort of person. I see it as trollin. People determined to only ever see their side of things and insult people who don't.

Selfish, unempathic people often use sarcasm and other passive aggressive behaviour to veil their intentions. And they either enjoy riling others or they enjoy dismissing them as idiots - either way unless someone totally agrees with everything they say their stupid.

The irony in the fact that sarcasm is often used by verbal/emotional abusers in their inconsistent behaviour. Also by saying it's sarcasm gives them an excuse should they be called out on it.

I’ve had things thrown back at me to make them sound polar opposite meaning wise- it seems nuts your son heard what he did but he must have s as md he must have been convinced and convincing with your ex. Screaming bitch in your face and squaring up is horrific but the fact he walked out with a cheery ‘bye’ is a bit worse as he didn’t see his behaviour as a bad thing. Saying that throwing a 16yo out is a huge thing. I think you all need to have a big talk. Hope it all gets figured out op

I didn’t really follow the unnecessary laundry details, but you weren’t being unreasonable AT ALL for wanting your son out of the house. And I don’t blame you for getting your ex involved; you gave him the benefit of the doubt because you thought he’d changed.
You must feel incredibly betrayed 💐

But it's not about how people on this thread take it that we are talking about, it's how the op's son took it. And as several of us have explained, teens are not always best at interpreting that kind of tone, or teenage boys (or those with abusive fathers) may well have people around them who genuinely threaten them, eg boys at school trying to be the alpha, confusing the issue further.

Also I think OPs phrasing was a little unusual..not blaming her for that but I've never heard someone say 'do you want to die' jokingly, whereas I have heard 'do you have a death wish' or 'not if you value your life' or similar. Obviously the meaning is no different but the tone might be more recognisable.

I agree.

What you said was absolutely fine and normal. As if he thought you were actually threatening him, it’s ridiculous.

This.

Squaring up to your mum, whatever she's said, is not understandable behaviour. OP's question was obviously a fairly typical joke that people are pretending not to be familiar with - I'm autistic and even I can see that. You don't get to threaten violence (to your MUM FFS) for not liking a joke.