We are off to Spain tomorrow, DS has gone out tonight with our blessing... he has a shock coming when he gets home....

[EllenWaiteourkid]

He isn't coming home (staying at a friends) which makes our leaving the house early in the morning easier, we can make as much noise as we like. Anyhoo.....

I have stripped out the pedal bin, (DH placing bets on whether he knows where the fresh bin liners are) 😁

I have put the food bin contents outside but failed to reline the bin.

The dishwasher is full to capacity but whoops I appear to have forgotten to run it before we leave.

None of it major, but all the invisible parts of how a house runs....

Of course it’s poor parenting to have an almost adult child who doesn’t know bare minimum tasks that should have been taught to him a decade ago, if not longer.

Anyone else confused that he's old enough to be left at home for the holiday but still needs the OP's blessing to go out?

I can't help but wonder why he's reached adulthood without learning how to use a binbag or run a dishwasher.

OP yes, he has a shock coming, and one every child gets if a good patent allows it

Why does he need a shock? Why does any child?

You just make them take responsibility as they grow up. No need for silly tricks.

Yeah i noticed that.

Its the infantilisation on the one hand and then expecting them to be an adult 5 seconds later. And wondering why they never learnt to put a bin bag in during the process.

Love it, let us know how things are when you get back ( nice teaching/learning opportunity.

🙄

'Teaching moment' - nope, that happens when they are 6 & you point them to the roll of bin liners.

I'm confused. Why didn't you leave the bin near full to see if he'd empty it? That makes more sense in the world of "house things that just happen" than leaving a job half done and risk him not noticing the lack of a liner.

The shock is that while a mum has shown a child how to do something, asked , begged, ECT, most children still let the parent do it all and shy away from Adulting.
This holiday the child has no choice as their on their own.
Having had several of my child go through UNI, the stories that come back about just how useless the list givers offspring are when a surprise task arrives , because they were coddled, could fill a book.
One child cried because the supermarket his family used was not available in the Uni town.

There are many rose tinted glasses on this thread about the MN of old. Except it never existed like that. And threads did just disappear never to be seen again and remembered wistfully as being hilariously funny.

There were ultra earnest threads about feminism even then.

Not to mention that MN reflects society as a whole. We can not go back to the golden era of 2008 to 2012 anymore than we can go back to the weird nostalgia of the 1970s which strangely misses all the stuff about strikes, unemployment and power blackouts because its 2022 and the world has changed. (well apart from the bit about strikes and potential power blackouts...)

The OP thinks its funny to set her son a domestic trap because she hasn't housetrained him as a child. And we are all supposed to laugh and applaud her as being funny and being a smart parent teaching him a lesson the hard way. As was the case in 2008 not everyone thinks thats funny. They are allowed to think this. We are allowed on MN to react in whatever way we like and not be a hive mind where we just agree with an OP.

This thread may in fact kick a few people up the backside and remind them that they don't have to be the sole user of the washing machine and that teenagers in years 9 and 10 are capable of operating it if necessary and should probably be taught this as a life skill. Id joke that maybe they should teach this is school because many parents have this weird attitude that education is restricted to classrooms and to teachers and not to parents.

Great post!

Its the faux laughing at it that annoys me.

No one actually gives a fuck @EllenWaiteourkid ,least of all your son.

Seconded!

These days some people are glued to their phones or tablets etc if they want to learn something they can also use Google or YouTube

Of course this manchild knows how to empty a bin, Dad wondered if he would know where the bag was for it.
OP wondered not if he could put the dish washer on, BUT IF he would/could be bothered to.
People must be really stupid if they think a late teen male won't feed themselves if mummy isn't around to hold his hand.
Also the very tech your using to answer me has millions of how to videos on cooking, just in case anyone needs them.