Things your teens don’t know

[Mumofteentwins]

I remember seeing threads like these over the years but now I have teens of my own wanted to resurrect the topic!

I have 15yo twins. They are wonderful, lively, bright, sporty, funny kids. But sometimes I’m astounded at stuff they don’t know 😂 They have two well educated parents and a wide circle of family and friends and a houseful of books etc etc.

The other day I commented that I was pleased at how well my supermarket hyacinths are doing. Both looked blank, neither of them knew what a hyacinth was, ok not the end of the world but there are other examples.

Semi light hearted, but I do feel I’ve only got a couple more years with them at home and I want to fill with them as much general and practical knowledge as possible!

What do your teens not know? Seem to remember teachers usually have a lot to say on these threads!

Just asked DS (16). He had no idea either. I buy one for the kitchen most years and we have them in the garden too.

In 30 and I had no idea what that was until I just googled!

😂 makes me feel a bit better thanks!

And yes why would teens care about hyacinths, I do get it. But it’s just general knowledge isn’t it? Stuff everyone knows? Maybe it’s just less relevant now and it’s more important they know about interest rates and AI.

Happily (?) mine is a YouTube addict that has anything scientific nailed.

I once asked him about the Challenger disaster. ‘Well mum, let me break it down into simple terms for you …’

Cheeky sod. It was one of my favourite engineering / H&S / risk assessment / do the maths examples.

Loads of stuff we know that doesn’t feature in their worlds.. if it wasn’t for a stint in cubs they wouldn’t know what an iron was we never use one ever lol

I don’t need to teach my teens anything as they already know everything 😀

Absolutely true !

Bumping for the morning!

Haha yes to this 😂

yesterday I said to my teen son ‘hard cheese’ and he was lost for words as had never heard the expression before. We asked his older sister that evening and she’d not heard it either. Dh and I agreed it was a very old fashioned phrase!

Teen ds also doesn’t always seem to know where his bedroom bin is but I think that’s laziness rather than general lack of knowledge…

Oh yes I said to DS yesterday “oh that guy’s got egg on his face” and he didn’t know what that meant, it is quite old fashioned I suppose!

Mine doesn’t seem to know what a dishwasher is, even though I introduce it to him everyday

My DS is in his 20s and often looks baffled at every day common expressions I use and asks “Have you just made that up?”.

One of my favourites was when he was buying his house. He came off a call with the mortgage advisor in a foul mood. He had just been informed that his 4.7% mortgage rate was an annual rate, not over the lifetime of the mortgage. His mind was blown! “But that means I’ll be paying for the house four times over! That is utter extortion!!!!”

How DH and I laughed, not least because he is a bloody accountant. 😂

My 16 year old was asked yesterday what A levels he was picking, he replied “economics”.

The person replied with, oh what’s that? He replied with “I don’t know”.

He is honestly so infuriating at times. He is academically bright, and is on track to pass all his GCSEs but my god…. He knows nothing. So yes, I’ll be having a word with him why he thinks it’s appropriate to pick a subject he knows nothing about.

He is very hard to advise or guide, because, wait for it….. he knows everything 🤦‍♀️. Give me strength.

Lots of teenagers don’t know how to tell the time on an analogue clock.
Mine doesn’t know how to come home quietly late at night 🙄

Yes my DC have said that in exams there is a large digital clock as so many kids can’t tell the time on analogue 😱

😂😂

Nobody reads any more (at least, not anything that doesn't come in a sound-byte, Tik Tok friendly format). My kids (now adult) 'knew' a lot of stuff because it cropped up in books they were reading and they often read books that might have been published ten, twenty or more years before they were born. Now it's all so up-to-the-minute that anything that happened five years ago nobody remembers.

Nothing. She knows fucking everything there is to know about everything!! Until she doesn't of course!

The other day I commented that I was pleased at how well my supermarket hyacinths are doing. Both looked blank, neither of them knew what a hyacinth was,

Just asked DS (16). He had no idea either. I buy one for the kitchen most years and we have them in the garden too.

How can they not know about something you have in the house every year? As my mother would say, do they walk around with their eyes shut?

When we were small, planting the bulbs in mum's special bowl and putting them in a dark place was an annual thing.

I mentioned AMW to my daughter yesterday. She had no idea who he was, or that he'd been stripped of his titles, arrested etc. to be fair, she never watches the news as she says it's all negative. I get that but it does make her very ignorant of world affairs.

I drove my 17 yr old somewhere with two friends age 16 & 17 the other day. None of them knew who Madonna or Tom Cruise were. I nearly crashed the car (joke).

Recently discovered my teen thought nuns are called moths

Not my kid.

But when my ex husbands cousin was learning to drive and saving for her first car, she complained bitterly about the cost of insurance and declared "at least once it's paid then that's it" she did not realise her insurance would be annual.

I work at a utility company, I once worked with a woman in her early 20s who upon receiving her training was completely blindsided by the fact electric, gas and water needed to be paid for........

My DS just pretends he knows everything 😂 We were talking about our trip to London and he told me very confidently that we’d been on the Elizabeth Line and wouldn’t give it up. I knew it was Bakerloo so I decided to say, ‘no it was the Oak line’. He just went ‘yeah, yeah…that’s what I meant’

OK then 🙄

That letters needed stamps- I clearly remember posting cards and letters with him when he was younger but the stamp bit had been forgotten