Have I been overly harsh on DD?

[Toebeans]

DD 15 has ruined her bedroom carpet with make up. She has asked for new bedroom furniture for Xmas - she would have liked new carpet too but I refused as she will not stop allowing make up brushes, mascara, eye pencils etc from falling on to her carpet where they stay and soak into the carpet.

In order to clear her room of the old furniture it’s been taken into our spare room where I have recently had a NEW carpet. All her make up has been put in the spare room on her old furniture whilst we await the delivery of the new furniture.

This morning I walked in the spare room to find a brow brush caked in brown stuff on the carpet with two large marks on the carpet where it fell or was pressed in.

I went completely ballistic and swept all DD’s makeup off the dressing table into the drawers and taped them up so the make up is now out of bounds until the new furniture comes and is installed in her room. She can only have it back then as if she wants to wreck carpets she can sodding well wreck her own already stained carpets. This will mean around 3 weeks with no make up.

She’s stayed in bed feeling sorry for herself all day but I’ve ignored her - she’s been warned repeatedly about leaving makeup everywhere and the fact she has no respect for the house. This is not the only thing she does, she will drip overfull cups of coffee everywhere, leave dirty wipes over her bed, handprints up her walls - basically no respect for anything.

Have I been unreasonable?

They don't though Stoic, they just have different tools they use to present themselves.

I wonder if the OP would be called ‘cruel’ or like a ‘controlling partner’ for removing her son’s hair gel for a few weeks?

Cue stampedes of women saying OMG Yes.

TheStoic I have to assume you're being deliberately obtuse if you think a boy having to go without hair gel is the same thing as a teenage girl who wears a full face of makeup every day having to suddenly go bare faced to school....

Yes, there is increasing pressure on boys to look a certain way as PP said, but it's no way near the amount of elaborate pressure there is for women and especially teenage girls to look a certain way among their peers.... You do understand that, right?

Just hope the people mocking the "cruel" "controlling partner" comments don't actually have a daugher. If your daughter has been through/is going through her teenage years, and you did/do stuff like stopping her from wearing her makeup or taking away personal items which were hugely important to her self esteem as a punishment for minor transgressions, then your daughter doesn't like you. HTH.

Stoic, this has nothing to do with sexism, so I'm not quite sure why you feel the need to make it so. 😐

It's about a young teens self image & if it were a boy, whose image is important to him, which is the case for most of them these days just as much as girls, then I'm pretty sure it would be seen as just as cruel to make a lad go to school not feeling he looks his best & facing the barrage of questions & taunts that will go with it.

My DD goes to school without makeup out of choice at times & she gets asked why she looks so ill, emo, etc etc as she's naturally pale. They also comment in the boys just as much if they are having a scruffy day & boys here often wear concealer for their break outs too

You’ve been kinder than I would have been. I’d have binned the lot after that many warnings, and there wouldn’t have been any allowed back in the house for a good long time after too.

Just hope the people mocking the "cruel" "controlling partner" comments don't actually have a daugher. If your daughter has been through/is going through her teenage years, and you did/do stuff like stopping her from wearing her makeup or taking away personal items which were hugely important to her self esteem as a punishment for minor transgressions, then your daughter doesn't like you. HTH.

I would also be concerned that if a teen girl accepts this sort of controlling, belittling punishment from a loved one, that there's a little precedent creeping in there to accept such controlling, belittling behaviour in future from a partner

I think a week ban and then making her scrub the carpet before reviewing where in the house she's allowed to apply her make-up might be a more balanced approach.

Then again, you don't get my sympathy because you you know she is mucky & has little respect for your furnishings but you let her loose on a new carpet. The make-up should have stayed in her old room. A mirrored compact is sufficient. I say this as a reformed carpet wrecker.

Don't think you're being unreasonable at all. She's 15, plenty old enough to learn to have some respect for the house you've worked hard to turn into a home.

My mum did the same to me, actually. I was so careless with my stuff at home so she just stopped bothering with my room and it made me realise the amount she did to keep my room clean as I had to start doing it myself. Was a lot more careful with stuff after that.

Looks like hippy and Smallplant are playing the who can be the most liberal super cool parent game.

Looks fun

I understand your frustration. It's the fact that she didn't even tell you that it had dropped and stained that would make me very angry. I'm not sure about the ban on makeup as for some teenagers it would be a very harsh and disproportionate punishment whereas for others it would have little impact. If they have money they can easily by more and keep it at school.
Personally, I would make my DDs pay if they damaged stuff through negligence as this is what happens once you leave home. Get the carpet cleaned and charge her.

people posting that their 15 yr olds never wear make up are missin the point.If the girl in question usually wears a full face of make up to school, she is going to look very different without it.People will notice and comment.I find it very difficult to understand how op and others can think that subjecting a teen to humiliation, negative comments on her appearance and possibly ridicule, is not pisspoor parenting.You are setting her up for bunking off, maybe even self harm and certainly damaging your relationship with her.

Not at all Storm, if anything in RL we are considered pretty strict parents.

I just don't think 3 weeks public humiliation, which this will be for a girl that age, who is obviously into her makeup, is a suitable punishment for marks on a carpet, it just seems massively disproportionate to the crime. Especially when the risk could have been minimised by hard flooring, if it means so much to the OP that it's kept stain free.

StormcloakNord Not really. Many posters have said that taking all makeup away (for weeks!) from a 15yo girl who usually wears a full face of makeup every day is very harsh.

I'd say I'm much stricter than certainly about 95% of parents I know and see out and about. Not liberal at all. Don't believe in being your child's "friend" at all. But I wouldn't do something that would cause emotional distress to my daughter as a punishment.

Now the OP hasn't said if her DD uses her makeup to cope with self image/self esteem, but I assume since she wears a full face every day, there is an element of that. I take my daughter's mental health into account. Sorry if that seems overly liberal to you. In OPs position I would just ask her to apply her makeup in the bathroom. It's not a hard problem to solve.

A lot of you seem to derive a strange pleasure from upsetting your children and having no regard for their feelings, the "I'd have chucked the whole lot out the house" brigade. It's not proportionate, neither is taping drawers shut. It's not sensible adult behaviour, and as RockinHippy said, not a good way to model how to behave in a relationship or respond in an argument. How would you react if your DD told you her boyfriend had thrown out her clothes or banned her from wearing make up? Cleaning up the mess she's made, or finding an alternate solution (ie bathroom) is proportionate. I just can't find myself caring enough about my carpets to upset my daughter that much over it I care more about my daughter's wellbeing than a patch of carpet. But hey, everyone is different!

I must be in the hippy camp too then.

I don't punish those I love.

I don't punish my elderly mother who often gets it wrong. I don't punish my OH, I don't punish pets and I don't punish children.

smithsally884 has it spot on.

OP if you've not personally experienced being a teenage girl who feels the need to wear a full face every day, maybe listen to the posters who have, and what they're telling you about how this could impact your daughter

I read these threads and the glee some posters take in punishing their kids or urging other parents to is very familiar to me. My parents just loved dishing harsh, lengthy punishments. I well remember the kangaroo courts as they marched up and down telling me all my failings. It was nothing more than a power trip and I see that on here often, I really do. This kind of authoritarian punishment may well work in the short term but it also breeds resentment and gradually frays away family bonds. I don’t see much of my parents these days and it goes right back to their ridiculous overreactions when I was a teenager. I don’t miss them and I don’t think of them much. They behaved as though they couldn’t stand me most of the time growing up yet often professed to love me. It certainly didn’t feel that way, then or now.

Yanbu, sounds exactly like my Dgd, she ruined her carpet with makeup too. Do schools allow makeup now? I only ask because she never goes to school without slapping it on. Oh to have the skin of a 13 year old. I always tell her she doesn’t need it, why cover up the lovely radiant glow of youth. But as has been the case since time began.....they know better than us.

If the 15 year old in question has had repeated warnings, and has repeatedly promised to alter her behaviour and then not done so, removal of privilege is the next logical step. If maintaining a face of makeup is important to her she needs to learn to do the things that mean she retains the ability to do so.

Actions have consequences. She was warned, she now gets what she earned. In this case, a harsh lesson, but a necessary lesson.

removal of privilege is the next logical step.

No it isn't.

I have never done this.

It's not mistakes though, it's not accidents. She's clearly not sorry for it because she keeps doing it. It's a repeated carelessness from knowing that ah well, mum will clean it up and I can still slap it on my face and spill it everywhere with no consequences.

My daughter's mental health means a lot, my carpets also cost a fuck tonne of money. My daughter isn't old enough to use makeup but when she is, if she can't use it carefully and with respect for her surroundings she won't get to use it, simple. I'll also not let her grow up believing makeup equates to self worth.

All of this is totally moot because unlike OP, we all have no idea if her daughter is dependent on makeup. If she is, that's a separate issue but OP is well within her rights to take a privilege away from her DD if her DD can't be respectful with it.

Also @speakout "no it's not. I have never done this"

You're aware people parent differently yes? You're entitled to your opinion but basing it off the fact you don't do it is ignorant.

If that works for you, then grand.

It works for us. If I give repeated warnings with clear consequences, I follow through on that and my children learn.

I refuse to think of my children as friends that have to be kept jovial. They’re not, they’re children that have to learn that actions have consequences. Acting like a dick means not having the means to act like a dick after a while.

My reply was to speakout, not you Stormcloak. Peril of message boards!

I'm definitely in the same boat as you IncyWincy!!

I’ve done stupid things like taping make up (threw a dolly out the window) when I’ve just lost my shit. Kids of all ages can be simply maddening. But I’m my view you can’t then try to post rationalise an over the top and emotional response by labelling it ‘consequence’ or punishment. That’s not cool. What the punishment was for your DD wasn’t the loss of the make up it was seeing you go bananas! How much she cares about that is what you need to work on. It drives you mad that she mucked up the carpet, she needs to really ‘get’ that. I have apologised to my kids when I’ve lost it, I always go back on the stupid ‘punishment’ that I blurt out when I’m cross. I’m ridiculously inconsistent but I’m human. Hopefully (the eldest is 10) I’m showing them that hurting others isn’t ok but that we all make mistakes. Fully accept I haven’t had any teenage experience tho so....!