Decent responses ti 'I didn't ask to be born'

[arethereanyleftatall]

Hi. As the title suggests. 'Well you chose to have me' is my 15yo's response to any time I point out that maybe it would be nice to show a teeny bit of gratitude to whatever massive thing I'm doing for her that day. Does anyone have any good come backs?

Walk away in dignity. No-one ever wins against a teenager!

Stop doing shit for her? You don't choose to wipe her arse now she's able to do it herself.

'Neither did I, but as we're all here now we should help each other out, don't you think?'

Response to title question.

Love this 😁 and so very true!

If you had, I'd have said no 😉

Stop asking her for gratitude.
Setting yourself up for a fall there.
What are you doing that you need gratitude for? Do whatever your doing because you love her and she needs taking care of.
You may get some appreciation when her frontal lobe fully develops about 20 ish.
Until then there is no smart comeback that doesn't make you look even more of a dick in her eyes.
Eye rolling and smart alec answers or for the most part best ignored as not worth a response.
Sometimes silences is its own response.

I am loving these responses!! 😂

Thank you everyone. Some good ones here.

Thing is @gamerchick, I could, but I want her to do well at school, and I want her to go to her excercise clubs, and I want her ti have friends - all which need facilitating in terms of lifts/logistics/finances.

I've thought a lot about this and I believe the main issue is the transition from doing everything for them as a toddler to them suddenly being asked to contribute round the house when they're older.

As they understand it, these are your chores (as that's what they've seen since as long as they can remember) and that you are offloading your chores on them.

Or making them feel bad for running them around - when they were little nobody expected them to be grateful.

I have the same thing and it's bloody annoying!

Response - if you had asked to be born, I would have sold you to a scientific institution, as you would have been a foetus/ baby genius ….

This is a good point.

The best response to this is silence and a calm, neutral stare. This worked with DD every time. They really want you to blow up. Don’t give them the satisfaction, and model calm and assertive non reactive behaviour at the same time.

You want gratitude for your wants for her? Really?

Yes. I would have liked a thank you from driving her an hour to a party this morning.

This is good. This would work on her. 🙏🏿

Eh? @mumsnet - why was that deleted? Was that a mistake? I've forgotten exactly what it said now and I remember it was a good response!

Oddly, many young people have done, and continue to do, all those things without having a slave. She has legs and can walk or get public transport, money can be earned (or done without), and at 15 it's about time she started practising "logistics" for herself. When she masters "please", "thank you" and helping out more then perhaps she might get help with some of those things...

Only if you have the public transport required in your area @Neriah ...

“Neither did I, but we’re both stuck with it now.”

In your example : No, but you did ask to go to the party.

Don't say anything remotely like this because it's cruel and it'll stay with her.

You don't have to answer a teenager's every utterance. In fact, you'd be a fool if you did.

Ignore, ignore.

He/she choose to fertilise the eggs. There were lions of other sperm who could've done the job.

Oh OP! You’ve committed a big mumsnet sin! Expecting your offspring to show any smidgeon of appreciation such as saying thank you! You shouldn’t expect that - that just what mothers do and they don’t need to be grateful or appreciative or thankful for anything.

I would respond yes I did but I selected grateful child on the form but something clearly went wrong.

Or in this house we use the film Inside Out to say "detecting high levels of sass" but we try to laugh our way through any tension.