Checkmate For DD

[TheShellBeach]

Reminiscing...........,,,twenty years on:

I recall when DD was thirteen she told me once that she was ill, so I let her have the day off school. Despite having had a "terrible headache and awful period pains" she recovered remarkably quickly and I realised by mid-morning that she'd been having me on.

The next day she asked me for a note to give her teacher, so I wrote the following:

"Dear Mrs. X,

DD was absent from school yesterday because she was pretending to be ill. My investigations suggest that this was very likely because she had failed to do her homework the night before.

Yours sincerely,

The Shell Beach"

Mrs. X was delighted with this missive and apparently pinned it on to the wall in the staff room. DD was less delighted when she discovered what I'd written, but she never tried that one on again.

@Hercisback is correct.

The suicide rates for our generation (Gen X) are the highest, and have been since they started tracking us. So it’s not a case of generally people are more unhappy when they reach middle age. Our generation has been a bulge in the graphs since we hit our teen years.

4.7 suicides per 100,000 aged 15-19 compared to
15.4 suicides per 100,000 aged 40-49

@donttellmehesalive All OP needed to do was be a little more sceptical next time her DD claimed to be ill

But really I blame the teacher who stuck the note on the staff room wall . That caused the humiliation

If the story is even true

Please come back and give us an update op.

Did your dd turn into a well-adjusted individual with a sense of humour and a great relationship with you?

Or are you nc because of the ritual humiliation by two bullies and the epic parenting fail?

I've met a lot of parents and I think it'll be the first one.

Here is an article showing that Gen X is the most damaged generation mental health wise. So the way we were raised, definitely was not good parenting.

Sorry forgot link
www2.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/generation-x-most-likely-to-die-by-suicide-or-drug-poisoning-ons-figures-show_uk_5d527bf8e4b05fa9df043884

Load of twaddle. Mental health crisis continues every generation, it neither gets worse or better. I would say teenagers these days have it far worse than ever before thanks to technology. So actually you're talking nonsense.

No sorry you are absolutely wrong. The mental health crisis was/is worst for Gen X than any other generation currently alive today:

”Ben Humberstone, ONS deputy director for health and life events, said: “Since the late 1980s to early 1990s, we’ve seen that those who are part of the so-called ‘Generation X’ have been consistently more likely to die by either suicide or drug poisoning than any other generation.”

”In 2017, 49 was the age at which most people died by suicide, whereas back in 1993 this age was 22. Data suggests this apparent generational shift in suicides also seems to have begun in the late 1980s.”
www2.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/generation-x-most-likely-to-die-by-suicide-or-drug-poisoning-ons-figures-show_uk_5d527bf8e4b05fa9df043884

Teenagers today, so far, are doing much better than Gen X did at their age.

I think OP would be unlikely to admit if it was the latter.

I don’t think something like this would necessarily ruin a relationship, there’s years of parenting after all. I just think it’s best to get kids to make good choices for the right reasons, not through fear of humiliation or similar. If they learn to do things for the right reasons, they’ll consistently do the right thing and make good choices.

Here is a trend graph showing the bulge in high suicides for Gen X rippling up the stats as each year passed:

Jeez, does every single thread have to be turned into a lesson on MH? If the OP had then wondered why her DD has since suffered from chronic anxiety and had dropped out of education well maybe. But she didn’t.

@TheShellBeach about 40 years ago when my DB was in sixth form he got drunk some evening and threw up. He also failed to attend college next day and my DM wrote a MUCH more earthy letter to explain his absence. Now I’m sure she’s regretting that because it could have ruined his life. But it didn’t because like many of us, he has resilience and learned a lesson.

I was trying to remember where I'd seen it.

It was funny then because a) it was fiction and b) it was just another mark of the appalling parenting that had led Adrian to try it on in the first place (he also got involved with Barry Kent's bad crowd and ran away from home).

The response on here show why the UK is as fucked today as it is.

It was a brilliant response OP, I would be reminiscing about that also, with a wry grin.

Ignore these miserable bastards

Exactly.

Pretty obvious going on some of tbe replies here, why do many young adults get their arses wiped and can't cope with adulthood.

When mine were off Ill, they were confined to their bedrooms until the school day ended with a book. It was very boring and not something they minded if they were truly ill. I didn't get much of the faking it

My father liked to reminisce many years on about what a shit I was and how brilliantly he dealt with it.

Spoiler alert: I wasn't, he didn't and he was a useless turd of a parent. Hardy har har.

When my daughter was 4 she got nervous in school after being told off by teacher. So almost every week without fail I'd get a call from school, ur daughter is poorly can you come pick her up. After the 4th time I said there's nothing wrong with her send her back to class. So they did she never tried it again unless genuinely poorly. Most resilient kid I know. Tough love is needed with kids.

All the posters ripping into op have zero sense of humour and a perfect example of why kids now are growing up to be entitled spoilt brats who must never be made to face reality or take responsibility 🤣

Maybe I'm misunderstanding.
I think if the OP had said she was reminiscing about something that had happened 40 years ago, it would have triggered the memory of hearing in the news last week that Adrian Mole was published 40 years ago and I may have understood the book reference.

The OP says she is being light hearted, yet her reference is pretty hard to spot - a different version of an event which she read in a book 20 years ago.

A few people have spotted it, but most haven't. I think for a joke to be funny you need most of your audience to get it.

Sorry for the miseries OP. I think that’s really funny.

OP, you've had a mixed bag of responses here. My mum once wrote a genuine sick note to get me out of doing PE when I was your DD's age. I'd broken my ankle and arm a few months earlier and they were healed (my arm took longer than my ankle as it was more severely fractured at the time and I had a bit of nerve damage as well). I've never been very sporty and my PE class were doing running outdoors. I remember one line in my mum's letter was specifically "Her ankle is fine now." The PE teacher said that if my ankle was fine, I was fine for running...she took pity on my and I was able to sit it out, but I still don't know why my mum even wrote that note to get me out of PE if she was writing "her ankle is fine now".

I love your note and I'm sure your DD will be telling this story as well (as I'm writing mine on here) with shame, but also with a bit of lighthearted humor. I'm sure you wouldn't have written it if your daughter was genuinely very ill and/or had mental health/anxiety issues re. homework or going to school.

These are dark times we live in just now...we all need a bit of cheering up now and again!

Wish I was the perfect person like you!

Exactly.

I know the world is going to shit and it's raining, but God people are miserable and oversensitive this AM.

I think for a joke to be funny you need most of your audience to get it.

You can make whatever joke you like, but if it falls flat to a great extent then you either have to read your audience better or find a different audience entirely.

Stand up comedians die on stage all the time. It's hard making a large group of people laugh. If their response is to stomp off and blame the audience, though, they haven't got what it takes to be funny.

Like fashion, we all think we are the ultimate authority on what's funny...

I bet you and your daughter laugh about this now. People on mumsnet are nuts to find anything wrong with this!

It’s Mumsnet as a whole now! You can’t post anything without absolute morons reading in to every word and coming up with ridiculous scenarios that don’t exist, it’s all fantasist bollocks.

“I’m thinking of buying my first kitten, any advice”

”Obviously you’re going to start breeding cats, I think it’s disgusting. You say you’ll be “buying” the kitten, you’re giving money to the cat farming trade. And when you start breeding you’ll be making money you won’t declare, benefits cheat much? You don’t mention your husband in all of this, that speaks volumes he’s obviously neglecting you and doesn’t care what’s happening in your life, LTB”

literally every thread! The concentration of nutters on here is staggering, all holier than thou armchair psychologists it’s gross.

I'm with you OP.

After an argument over something or other (messy room probably) my son (10) wrote me a note telling me I was mean and he wished he had another mum etc....

I corrected the spelling and posted it back to him asking for a re do 😂😂

I am in full time post 18 education myself as an adult, and can agree at the softness of parenting not helping these days.

So so many of the students have a meltdown at having to do something they don't want to, for example give a presentation which is part and parcel of the course. They don't seem to have been raised to cope with doing something they find hard or just don't want to

What you did was genius