DS hates me almost adult

[Flojoohno]

DS (17) has form for seeing someone new and behaving horribly.
We have different opinions on transgender and he becomes offended when I call his trans-boyfriends girls. We have often debated trans topics and I thought respectfully disagree albeit with a little teasing and eye rolling when I call his friends by their original gender to him (never met them).
Anyway, in my opinion gender isn’t relevant to the events. At the weekend unbeknownst to me DS had a trans-boy (16) stay over, they left the house untidy, DS didn’t sleep at all before a big event (training all year for) and had bites all over his neck for said event in front of an audience of several hundred people, he missed the start of the event because they went together (which wasn’t the plan) and arrived late letting team mates down. Anyway I got home to house strewn with energy drink cans and untidy and smelt funny, maybe vapes but I cannot be certain.
I shouted at DS that he was out of order having someone here without my consent and when I wasn’t home. DS then refused to discuss the matter so I drove to the trans-boys/girls parents home to let them know what happened and that they may or may not have had sex and they may need to check if protection was used. I was calm and polite as were they and that was that. On Monday my DS and the other person were clearly talking about it and DS took it upon himself to apologise to the parents on my behalf and apparent the parents said I was batshit and overprotective and they felt sorry for him. I am so upset that he has apologised on my behalf for nothing.
At night DS hands his phone in as he always has and I infrequently check it, probably not checked it for a year or two but I wanted to know what the full story was and why he had apologised and what the parents had said that for and his messages to that person were nasty like ‘I hate my mum and if I had anywhere else to go I wouldn’t be here’ ‘she’s a bigot’ ‘your dad should have punched her for turning up uninvited’.
To add fuel to the fire I then messaged this person, thinking it was DS, telling them that I didn’t mean it and my mum is lovely actually just a bit protective because she cares etc.
DS has told this person it was me and they’ve clearly both been bitching about me all day. DS who was ok about it when I told him what I’d done this morning and apologised then text me later telling me how I broke the law and his human rights etc.
It’s a mess. He’s due home any minute and should be handing his phone in for the night because he is a screen addict and won’t function of no sleep. For context I tried leaving him with screen in summer and he was sick as a dog from lack of sleep.
His college grades have gone down hill rapidly from A*s to D’s in a matter of months and his finals are three months away.
He’s also gone extreme lazy around the house and won’t be a single thing without being nagged.
I’ve handled this very badly but how do others manage with almost adults?

Your son has shown you more respect in accepting your apology and apologizing back that you have showed him.

I seriously hope you will learn from him and will naturally also go and apologize to his boyfriend’s parents and to the boyfriend for impersonating your son and being goady about his gender, without needing prompting.

I am very low, bordering on no contact at all with my mother for a variety of good reasons and bad behaviors on her part but I was honestly shocked when reading your OP to see that she, for a second, came across as a bit of saint in comparison.

if you were my mother I would absolutely and irrevocably go no contact with you the minute I hit 18 or a lot before if you kept being rude to the people in my life by being provocative about their gender identity. It’s completely irrelevant that you don’t agree with trans people and their validity. It takes NOTHING but basic decency to not be rude and make disparaging comments or distasteful jokes and eye rolls about your son’s friend. 100% believe what you want to believe but don’t be purposefully rude to and about someone else just because you don’t agree with them or who they are. it’s outrageous that, as the adult, you are the one acting like this and needing to be told this whilst your son gets it.

As for rushing to the other parents to tell them about birth control as if the other parents would have any way to control their child’s sexuality or morning after pill intake. It’s bonkers. Yet, somehow, less bonkers than you trying to pretend to be your son via text to compliment yourself as that’s even more bonkers.

your kid is 17. He is bound to complain about you, even if you were mother Theresa. There is no way to stop a 17 yo complaining but surely pretending to be him, causing a scene at the parents of his partner and purposefully being rude about the person he loves are giving him good reasons to complain!!!

Instead of obsessing over your son potentially complaining about you. Obsess over BUILDING a relationship with your son, in a way that’s both health and supportive so he has less to no reason to complain or run away. You want your son to love and appreciate you? Do the same!

love and appreciate the fact that you have raised someone who is wonderfully accepting of differences and who doesn’t accept rude or bullying type comments from others against other people (even from his parent). Appreciate the fact that he was responsible enough to apologize in your behalf as he was able to tell your scene likely made the other family uncomfortable, and be in awe of his understanding of your behavior and gentle nature in so quickly coming to a nice conclusion with you. Many wouldn’t. Your kid is far from perfect and clearly has lots of teenage flaws as most teenagers do but he seems inherently good natured and that’s BIG. Encourage that! (And dare I say it, emulate it!)

Because you are treating him like he is 12 years old, then he will not listen to you when your concerns are valid. At 17 years old he is almost an adult and your parenting has to be very different from how you treat a younger child.
You need to apologise and start trying to build a respectful relationship with him.

This reads like a trashy teen novel - over protective strict parent results in rebellious child.

When I was in high school it was ALWAYS teens with parents like you that were the outrageous "boundary pushing" ones - getting pregnant at 14, trouble with the police, experimenting with drugs etc.

Equating his boyfriend to a rapist is vile OP, would you discuss crime if his partner was a police officer?

Oh OP you really need some help and support here. You have not appreciated that your little boy has grown up - you still think you can control him. I don’t know where you start in changing your mindset and you really do need to change or your ds will spend his life avoiding you and your unhinged approach to your relationship. I’d suggest educating yourself might help - do some reading about parenting older teens. Mostly I’d say you are there to listen, support and offer your opinion when it has been asked for. We tell our kids that a good way to make decisions is to ask other people’s advice and then make up your own mind - so they can ask advice from us knowing we don’t expect them to follow it.

As soon as I saw the phone checking I stopped reading as my mind was made up.

YABU. Reminds me of my mother who did that to me. Over protective, wouldn't met me make my own mistakes, embarrassed me constantly the list goes on. We hardly speak now and have a very strange relationship with one another. She is desperate 10+ years later to have a bond but it's never come back. If you want a genuine relationship with your son in the future change your behaviour, now.

I wish my mum had.

Yeah I’d hate you too if you were my parent.

At 17 you should not still be confiscating his phone a and going to the other parents house. What you should have done is left his mess and asked him calmly to clear it up when he returned.

Op I had similar problems with my oldest when he was that age. Not with the trans stuff but with him generally being a dickish teen and me not knowing how to handle it given his age.

It's a nightmare, they are basically adults but you can't treat them as such (you'd throw an adult out or ring the police for behaving like that) but you also can't really treat them like a child (checking their phone or grounding them).

I don't have any advice because nothing worked for me.

But I do have hope to offer.

My oldest still lives at home now in his early 20s and we get on great. Basically he grew up and I chilled out.

Honestly if you can’t trust him in the house to be respectful then don’t leave him alone in the house at night. I’d be absolutely furious if my 17 year old had someone stay over without asking. They just wouldn’t do it anyway.

As for taking his phone away that’s nuts and yes you dealt with the rest of it badly but you know that. Sit down with him and have a chat. Tell him he’s not to have people over without asking first and you’ll stop checking his phone.

You seem to despise the very ground your son walks on OP

Oh sweet Jesus this poor boy

He sounds spoilt and you do sound crazy.

He needs to make his own mistakes, you need to step back. I would sit him down for a talk. Keep everything calm and don’t cry or get emotional.

Explain you just want the best for him however it’s caused you to make some mistakes. Apologise for your behaviour. Then talk through some boundaries, I would allow him to have his phone, it’s his life. Say you aren’t going to checking his grades etc anymore. You expect a basic level of cleaning in the house. If he can’t keep up with the cleaning and basic boundary’s you set then no lifts no money from you end of.

It's a hard job.

I did suspect you were a neurodiverse family when I read the OP. It's good that you all seem to have learned from this.

In your shoes I would keep taking his phone at night to make sure he gets enough sleep to get through his exams.

I would try to respect his friends and the reduce pressure about chores and continue to support him as much as you can with the basics (as long as he is not being too disrespect ful to you) to keep him focused on his exams.

You can look to make changes once his exams are finished in June.

Sorry meant to add that you should not check his phone as he is too old for you to do that. Just take it and put is somewhere else in the house so he sleeps.

Can't get over the proud overt transphobia and phone checking. You are batshit.
If it helps I have 2 teens one who is now older and was an absolute nightmare at 17. I still didn't offend her friends and invade her privacy. She's a wonderful adult now and we have a brilliant relationship.

OP I don’t think you handled it well - you handled it very similarly to how my mum would have down and it took me years to rebuild my relationship with her. We are also a ND family and I would encourage you to take that more into account for all of you when communicating around these difficult topics. There’s evidence that autistic people are more likely to be gender diverse (link below - although you don’t state the nature of the ND). It’s also true that ND people are potentially more vulnerable to situations where they could be placed at risk and I will certainly be looking out for my ND son when he reaches 17. However, the single most important thing if you really want to protect him is to build trust and a strong relationship so he can come to you with anything. www.spectrumnews.org/news/largest-study-to-date-confirms-overlap-between-autism-and-gender-diversity/

You are having a hard time on here. You get it: you messed up. Treat him like an adult: if he messes up college, so be it. He'll need to deal with this. Stop the lifts and the cooking and cleaning for him. Let him stand on his own feet. If you pay for the phone contract, stop.

Why would he be sick all over the carpet if he didn't give you his phone at night?

The trans issue is a red herring. Teens often believe different things. Try to keep communication open with him. If you know you will argue, don't engage.

Stop checking his phone. If he has a screen addiction, then he should seek help for that.

Good luck.

I missed the bit about SEN. What kind of SEN? Is that affecting how he looks after himself? Sounds like if you crack the screen issue then you'd have more luck at sorting the rest. How about a list for your ds to remember - self care and household chores?

Your post had absolutely nothing to do with your son's friend being trans. Why did you start your post with that and then keep mentioning it so much? 😕 Sorry but you do sound somewhat bigoted and you need to back off and let your son live his life.

Trans issues have no impact on your life/ relationship with your son other than increasing negativity between you.

If you want to improve your relationship with your son, try to get past your absolutely strange fixation on this issue. You need to accept that you disagree, stop talking about it so much, and be more respectful to his friends.

I’m glad you’ll no longer look at your ds’s phones and send texts impersonating him.

However, you need to stop discussing your views on trans people with your ds. You don’t have to agree that people can be trans, but your obsession with focusing on how your ds is dating a trans person and regularly bringing up your views on trans issues is ‘batshit’ (to use the word of the other person’s parents). It’s clearly not a ‘running joke’ if the other person (your ds) doesn’t find it funny. It’s just you being mean.

You should be focusing on why your ds’s grades have slipped rather than what genitals your ds’s friend has.

You impersonated your adult child on their phone so you could tell their partner how great you are?
That poor boy!