"What? You?!" Sneery Teen

[PyongyangKipperbang]

He is 15 and literally NOTHING existed in the world until he heard of it, which I am sure he is not alone in.

He is into musical theatre. Goes on and on about various musicals he has found and likes. Ok, no problem there except he does it in a very sneery way as if I coudlnt possibly know about these things but I generally let it go.

When I was younger I planned to go into acting and part of my unofficial training when I was waiting to go to drama school was being trained in theatre production. There is a really good theatre nearish to me and I did some am-dram and got a lot of training in sound for stage productions and I really loved it. I decided that I would rather do sound than acting. Then life happened and I didnt go to school and blah blah but I did still do sound for am dram for a few years.

Last night I get "You probably wont have heard of it but there is this great musical called Blood Brothers which has great songs" and I said "yeah I know, they are good". "Oh you've heard of it?" and it just put my back up. So I said "Of course. Its been around for years and is very well known. I did the sound on it when it was on at X theatre about 20 years ago"

That was when I got "What? You?!" in an incredulous disbelieving sneery way. "You dont seem to me to be someone who could do that" And I got really annoyed and did shout that yes believe it or not I do actually know things, that I did have a life that didnt involve being a mother and to not look down his fucking nose at me. Oh and by the way, no he doesnt fucking know it all. I then asked him a few technical questions "do you know how to....." which he didnt and I could say "Well I do, so...." and he bogged off upstairs!

AIBU to think that sometimes it is justified to give them a smack round the earhole, because I have had the most incredible urge to do just that ever since.

Yep, I've got one of these (lone parent too) who us j-u-s-t starting to come out of this behaviour.

My dad's advice to me was to ignore it and he reminded me of a comedian's joke he'd heard (adapted from a literary quote I think) "when you're 17 you think your parents are the stupidest people in the world, then when you're 20 you wonder how they learned so much in 3 years".

I called out my kids when they did stuff like this because I didn’t want them to start doing it to their friends and end up with no mates!

@Cheeeeislifenow

It's because they don't see you as a person, you are a "mum" 😄

I think I was 30 before I realised my Mum had a personality.

Lockdown has taken away a few opportunities but it has given us some. Ask him again “do you know how to do... because I do and I can show you “ then you can have some Mum and son time. He can ask you questions and he will be ahead of the game with his friends. Suddenly you will be the cool mum who knows stuff. You were a teen once you said so. Go forward lovely mum.

"Blood Brothers", lol, hardly unknown!!

God I’ve got a 4 year old who already mansplains, and also converses thusly:

“what’s that there mum?”
“It’s a picture of a tornado”
“No it isn’t. It’s a whirlywindyduster and they come from dragons. I know because I’m the Dragon Master and (etc etc)”
“Darling, that’s very creative - but it’s a tornado. Do you want to know about tornados?”
“Nah it’s okay. I know everything about them already and I control them with my superpowers”.

It’s cute now, but I can already see where it’s going....

(Also a LP....)

My ds was a bit of a know all teen. I remember once volunteering to drive some teens to another school to play a football match. As we were waiting outside his school to be allocated passengers he asked me to stand further away from him!

He’ll grow out of it OP. If he keeps being rude I’d threaten to make friends with all his friends. That will scare him!

I’m with you op, all the way.

I have two teenage DSs, DS1 is far worse for this kind of stuff. We had an epic row once about Jim Morrison. DS1 is a musician and is into music, as am I. We were taking about the Doors and I said something like ‘you know that iconic image of JM’, he’s literally sneered and said ‘that’s not iconic, I’ve never seen it’. It turned into,a massive argument.

Oh and all the ‘old’ music you used to moan about in the car DS1, you know, Pulp, The White Stripes, Arctic Monkeys...you now listen to and play all that music. What a knob. He’s at uni studying music, ahem.

I would have been furious-he effectively called you a liar.

I'm guessing it's because you're female & he gets it from his GF?

Poor you.
He does sound like a dickhead.
One of these days, he'll cross the wrong person and he'll end up with a smack in the mouth.

Ah OP he’s a teenager trying to find his way in the world and it’s a really tough time for him. You need to try and turn these things into a bit of a joke and have a laugh about his ancient old mum once doing something cool. Makes for a much better home environment if you can good-natured,y take the piss out of each other. And he can learn a bit more about you too. Gives you things to talk about to half with the boredom.

His reaction was unreasonable and hurtful, but rather than just pull him up on it appropriately you made it tit for tat. That just goes down to his level.

If he’d answered, ’Tell me it’s not true’ I would have been more impressed ...

Musical theatre...it’s a cliche but is there a chance that he is gay and struggling with the idea of coming out, which is making him more emotionally fragile and prone to lashing out?

And you are how old? Where ever could he have learned to speak to someone close to him with such contempt? Very puzzling.

Yes they grow out of it.....eventually. It’s hard though.

I can laugh at this because i’ve Got the tee shirt.

Actually I have five and grey hair

He was a dick (because he's 15) and you put him in his place a bit - I don't think you did anything wrong, OP, especially as his behaviour doesn't sound like a one off.

@LizFlowers who do you think plays all the male parts in musicals if not boys who once loved musicals? It's not so niche.

I understand about your anger at him OP but I wonder if some of your reaction was because more generally you feel as if you're not recognised for what you do. You can't blame him for the road not taken.

Idon’t know why some people are so convinced that he’ll grow out of it by himself if OP doesn’t come down hard on it. So very many men speak like this to women into adulthood. I’m sure most of us have worked with or dated them
This. I think mothers have a duty to knock it out (metaphorically speaking) of their wannabe alpha boys.

@LakieLady

Teenagers are so full of it. My DSS once tried to tell me and his dad that Tony Blair was the first ever Labour PM.

We were both around during the Wilson/Callaghan governments, and DSS had never heard of them, or Clement Attlee or Ramsay Macdonald. And he was doing GCSE history at the time.

As if a Tory PM would ever have set up the NHS ...

Lol. And the welfare state..... set up by the government under that well know Tory Sir Wazzerwazizname.....

@Margotshypotheticaldog

Idon’t know why some people are so convinced that he’ll grow out of it by himself if OP doesn’t come down hard on it. So very many men speak like this to women into adulthood. I’m sure most of us have worked with or dated them This. I think mothers have a duty to knock it out (metaphorically speaking) of their wannabe alpha boys.

Yup!

I also disagree that it's a usual teen thing.

Most teens I know haven't been like this.

Thank you for reminding me how lucky I am!

I think we get less of this because we've been more able to share our interests and background with our children. Also, DS was a chorister; so I recall him being disbelieving age 10 or so when I tried to tell him he'd done more singing already that I had in my life (I sang in school choir, university choral society - but that was once or twice a week stuff at most).

DS is also currently 15. The problems I get are when I try to explain to him that he needs to talk more or people will think he's rude ("you're the only one who ever thinks that"), or point out that something said exactly the same way as you normally speak will be taken seriously and is not sarcasm or a joke just because you think it is. When he was younger he had no tact (seriously not good if you are next to a senior chorister with dodgy intonation), currently he really needs to learn to show more on his face!

Oh, and he absolutely insists that a few pointers we were given on his otherwise excellent last school report, are not in any way things that his teachers have a problem with ...