AIBU to call my 14 year old dd a "fucking bitch"

[NotSuchASmugMarriedNow]

- i didn't say it outloud, I just said it to myself in my head

she is being absolutely vile and thinks she can talk to me like something she trod in and I am sick to the back teeth of being spoken to disrespectfully.

I spent £40 on art supplies for her art exhibition she is doing this coming Friday. Today I started a job and I might not be able to go to her exhibition because I might be working Friday night. I have paid for her and supported her and driven her to her art activities all year long - I told her today I might not be able to go because of work but that I would be able to get there for the after-party and she said

"if you can't come to the exhibition don't bother coming to the after-party - i'd be embarresed if you were there anyway"

her db, ds and dad can go, it's just me that can't.

I was all set to say yes, of course yabu, but just in your head really doesn't hurt her at all! However, I think it's most likely she was upset about you not being able to make it to her exhibition and was lashing out because of that- not fair on you, of course, but teenagers are like that sometimes.

No You are not OP ..not sure what she was saying about you in her head..lol

I can't wait till me 9 year old going on 29 starts her crap...oops she's started already!!

You have to call children out on their shoddy behavior and accept when you are being a bit of a prat too...but as a parent you have a very unique relationship with your off-spring not a friendship imo, friendly yes, friendship no...

Do you really not know why she is beinhg awful?? Why didn't you book the time off work.It looks like you don't care
Can't you just take a sickie or find some other way of getting out of work to attend her exhibition.If she has been working on it for a whole year it must mean an awful lot to her.If she was 4 I bet you wouldn't have missed her school play
No one, on their deathbed has ever wished they'd spent more time at the office , plenty wished they'd spent more time with their loved ones.

The point is DD was being hurtful...expressing yourself is a decent and amicable manner is part of being an adult...she could have just said 'mum, I have worked hard and really want you to come and see my exhibition' instead she was rude and disrespectful...

Well actually I think the Op has been totally unreasonnable.

The Op has been hurt by her dd answer. So she lashed out in anger and though 'what a b**' in her head. I am sure that her dd saw what she tought (Body language and facila expression are usually saying just as much as words do).
Her dd was hurt. She has managed to so somethig that few people have done and her mum isn't coming. So she lashed out and told her mum she couldn't come.

I am sorry but I can't see the difference in between the 2 attitudes. I am hurt, I lashed out and say hurtful things.... Very sad on both account :(:(

OP YANBU.

To everybody else - We are (according to the 'rules') considered 'Middle Class'

We have a lovely home, and the resources to have been able to give our DC a very comfortable lifestyle.

DH and I are both laid back and easy going people; are very happily married and never went through any teenage angst whilst growing up.

Our DC have always been model students at school and a joy to behold at home.

But when DC1 hit approx 11 years it was as if a space ship had beamed him up overnight and replaced him with a monster. Gone was our lovely, polite, respectful and hard working model son. Suddenly we were living with somebody who grunted instead of using words; had major mood swings on a daily basis and didn't (appear to) give a crap about anybody but himself.

The son we knew and loved would still make an appearance now and again, but for a year or so he was horrible much more often than he was - well - himself.

He is through the worst of it now and is now his old self about 90% of the time - thank god.

Everybody I know with teenagers has been through the same experience to some extent.

I would love to live in your world for a day LeQueen

Moomoo that is exactly right. Lequeen you are impossibly optimistic and sound a bit silly

But she was being a bitch...things don't go according to plan in real life..so you have a tantrum??...she's 14 not 4

OOH I posted too soon on my post.

I am very close to my Mother, always have been. I can see fully where she could have muttered obscenities about me under her breath.
Esp now I have children.

When you've mixed with people enough surely you can see that? The girl who was never going anywhere despite being v bright but had no parental support is now earning shedloads in the city, the boy who was wierd at University has his own accountancy practice, what we are at 14 is not our be all and end all and people can completely change.
DH did, he left school at 16 and ended up with a 1st class hons degree and a v good career, as well as a naice middle class life

I told dp about this thread he said 'to be fair (!) we used to think like LeQueen'
What's that phrase? QED!!

OP- even the nicest of teenagers can be absolutely foul -especially to their mothers I've discovered. It has nothing to do with upbringing, or personality at the age of 7 or relationship with their parents or level of intelligence or sociability or anything else. It's just because teenagers are often quite random- all their neurones are firing off in different directions at once and we're the closest they have to a sounding board for opinions and ways of behaving. My friend says that teenage is like toddlerhood all over again and I think she's right.

Respectfully to the posters who do not yet have their own teenagers (and I know that some of you answering the OP have 7-8 yos only), you really really do not have any idea. Yet. Sorry, but it's on a level with proclaiming what your little as yet unborn first baby is going to be like aged 2.

A 9 yr old can have more empathy than a teen...that does not mean you cannot challenge them on their behavior...

I agree duchesse there is nothing that you know about a 7 yr old that applies to a teenager.

Um no thanks LeQ can I do it now, before reality hits?

You can tell them their behaviour is unacceptable every time, it makes no difference , they become so self obsorbed nothing is ever their fault, what's even funnier is that people who meet them will tell you how lovely, polite etc etc they are

I'm going to side with LeQueen here. When parents tell me that they don't know how their teens went from being little angels to nightmare teens I often think to myself that they were never little angels!

I'm sorry but ime the Kevin syndrome does not exist. Just lots of parents who can't quite accept that their child is no longer dependent and no longer such a child and a teenager who is pushing against sentimental parents. I don't think a child changes overnight, I think the signs are there way before but are overlooked or excused.

My dd is nearly 11 and for the past two years she has said that she often cries without knowing why. She can sulk and sometimes fail to get the joke and go off in a huff. Other than that she is considerate, kind, funny, patient etc. Yet I have no illusions that when she hits the teenage years her moods and sulks will come out stronger because the signs are there, I haven't missed them.

I also think that who they hang out with has a big effect on how they behave. Plus discipline at home. Why is it easier to punish a child for answering back but not a teenager? The punishment has to change sure, but they can still be punished can't they? So often threads on MN go on about what they did and what they said but no punishment is ever meted out, so obv if they think they can get away with it then they will push the boundaries ever further.

I think what happens is a gradual change but parents are often oblivious to it so it seems like an overnight change. Then there is this fear of disciplining them in case they get it wrong or it makes things worse and before you know it parents are tiptoeing around teenagers, trying not to exaggerate the situation.

This is how I see it. I may be wrong and we'll see when mine grow up, but as an outsider I can see things perhaps more clearly than the parents of teens can and perhaps this is what LeQueen is saying too.

I think you should stop giving yourself such a hard time, sounds like you have enough on your hands without another hefty dose of parental guilt, these things happen i'm sure she'll get over it!!

Rhubarb0 - there has been a whole raft of people sharing their own experiences here. People who do have teenagers. Yet you know better than them?

I think you are very wrong in your reading of the situations here, and it is actually quite insulting to insinuate that teenage issues are down to poor or cowardly parenting.

You and Le Queen are, indeed, outsiders. Why not listen to the experiences of people who have/are going through it?

You don't have to experience something to have an opinion on it. If that were the case then we'd better tell the phone hacking posters to shut up as they've never been hacked.

I'm saying things how I see them BecauseImWorthIt. I have said that I may be wrong but sometimes an outsider does see things more clearly. As a parent you are emotionally wound up with a situation and some of the best advice I've ever had have been from non-parents who view the situation differently and help give me perspective on it.

Nowhere have I said it was down to bad or cowardly parenting. My point is that I don't think children switch to badly behaved teens overnight. I think it's a gradual process that is sometimes missed and that may account for the fear of discipline because parents feel unable to handle something they've had no warning of.

However if this thread is exclusive for parents of teens then I'll happily leave you all to it. My mistake in thinking that the OP was actually seeking advice. I didn't realise it was confined to those with just the one point of view.

My DD was an angel up until about two months ago. She has since turned into a less attractive and well mannered version of Kevin.
I've locked her in the shed and am feeding her through the cat flap inbetween school. I'm not a bad mother. There is electricity in the shed, and as long as she is plugged into an electronic device and headphones, she is content. Or at least the grunts, sighs and exasperated moans that she makes, would seem to suggest so.
She has apparently lost the ability to speak, but her daddy and I can gauge her general level of contentment by how far her eyes roll in her head whenever we address her.
We will be letting her out when she goes to university.
We are going to university with her. We will share a dorm room. We are going to leave every stitch of clothing/towels etc. on the floor, leave plates/cups to grow interesting things and put empty packets back in the cupboards.