Page 6 | Tell me my teens aren't the only ones lol

Srepmum1984 · 2025-02-21T14:14:14+00:00

I am growing more and more gobsmacked with my teenagers common sense and I wanted to hear some other funny stories. This week alone, son has toasted bread with butter already on it because he couldn't be bothered to wait and it smelt like the house was on fire. Was feeling ill, so made him a Lemsip. He poured it (literally) straight into his mouth then screeched he didn't realise it was hot. He watched me make it from the kettle. Today he is working with me over his college half term in the office for some extra cash. Blew his nose, then proceeded to try and open my free standing air conditioner fin part as he thought ' I had a fancy Japanese bin' Please tell me I am not alone😂😂😂

Iwishicouldflyhigh · 23/02/2025 22:24

This thread is depressing. These children are our future.

by 18 I was half way across the world. Living independently, cooking eggs, using the microwave doing the washing.

ffs parents, take some responsibility and teach your children life skills. It’s not funny, it’s pretty horrifying.

McGregor33 · 23/02/2025 22:26

I told her to the bottom of the bowl was really hot to hold the sides, she grabbed it from the bottom 🙃

Asked her to hang the washing on the line, wondered what was taking so long and she said she couldn’t find the hangers.

Wanted to clean/tidy my car, turned out she’d seen a tiktok hack to stop glass misting. She had put shaving foam all over the front window and ‘buffed’ it in. Didn’t find that out until the 7am leaving the next morning 🤣🤣

Tricho · 23/02/2025 22:26

Iwishicouldflyhigh · 23/02/2025 22:24

This thread is depressing. These children are our future.

by 18 I was half way across the world. Living independently, cooking eggs, using the microwave doing the washing.

ffs parents, take some responsibility and teach your children life skills. It’s not funny, it’s pretty horrifying.

Thank you!

Exactly my point

SlaveToAGoldenRetriever · 23/02/2025 22:26

Judging by this thread I am very glad that my 20yo DD seems to have grown up with common sense and half decent problem solving skills! Some of these replies are absolutely batshit. How on earth are half of these teens and young adults going to cope in the real world?

Don’t get me wrong, DD isn’t perfect by any means but there are so many examples here of blatant learned helplessness. Very depressing.

SlaveToAGoldenRetriever · 23/02/2025 22:27

Iwishicouldflyhigh · 23/02/2025 22:24

This thread is depressing. These children are our future.

by 18 I was half way across the world. Living independently, cooking eggs, using the microwave doing the washing.

ffs parents, take some responsibility and teach your children life skills. It’s not funny, it’s pretty horrifying.

Fully agree!

blueshoes · 23/02/2025 22:28

CandyLeBonBon · 23/02/2025 21:58

@blueshoes teens do indeed cook meals, clean, tidy and otherwise mimic the jobs you do around the house - but what they are doing is modelling. They're mimic what out do, or following instructions. Because they still haven't yet learned or developed the skills to identify a problem and work out independently how to solve the problem.

I lived alone from 18, and was very much taught how to cook, clean, shop etc. I still made stupid mistakes because I hadn't yet developed problem solving skills.

But cracking an egg into a pan and cooking the shell as well? There is more than one of those on this thread. Do you need problem solving skills for that?

Is it possible to live in a house and see their parents crack an egg and not thought, hey, maybe we don't eat the shell ...

Tricho · 23/02/2025 22:29

blueshoes · 23/02/2025 22:28

But cracking an egg into a pan and cooking the shell as well? There is more than one of those on this thread. Do you need problem solving skills for that?

Is it possible to live in a house and see their parents crack an egg and not thought, hey, maybe we don't eat the shell ...

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That example in particular is shocking.

Sahara123 · 23/02/2025 22:29

Drylogsonly · 23/02/2025 21:59

DS has been doing laundry for a good 18 months now - age 14- and a couple of weeks ago couldn’t find the laundry capsules to improvised wit some washing up liquid instead… just FYI its foams, REALLY foams but still the kitchen fkoor got a good wash I suppose

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I’ll confess that at age 40 ish and away at a holiday cottage with another family we realised that we had no dishwasher tablets. So the other mum and I decided to put a couple of squirts of washing up liquid into the dishwasher, and went out. Came back to literally knee deep bubbles filling the kitchen 🤣

TickingAlongNicely · 23/02/2025 22:30

Mine poured melted wax, since how else would you get rid of a liquid..

I had to dissemble all the pipework to get the block of solid wax out.

Same one did the buttered bread in the toaster thing too.

I suppose I never specifically said not to do those things...
She can cook meals, change a bed, put a wash on, use various tools safely... but has a habit of acting before thinking.

Jaggy1 · 23/02/2025 22:30

I’ll add from one I’ve done myself back in the day 🤣.

my dad was on a fishing trip with his friend and phoned to tell me he was just leaving, would be home in 45 mins. He just fancied a salad for dinner so did I mind putting a couple of eggs on to boil for him getting in. No problem I say.
Dad comes home 45 mins later to tuck into his boiled eggs that have the consistency of cannonballs after being boiled for 45 mins by me. Topped up the water and everything. No one had ever told me how long to boil an egg for I just presumed it must take that long if he was phoning that far ahead 🫠

Never has an egg been eaten in the family home since without that story getting a run out.

edited to add I’m 28 now, this was at least 14 years ago 🤣

PleaseDontFingerMyPouffe · 23/02/2025 22:31

This thread is EXCELLENT.

I was the teen with an overdose of common sense (making me the sensible one) but I'm in my 30s and I still found myself wondering last week if it would work buttering the bread before putting it in the toaster.

I still have no idea which compartment in the washing machine drawer washing powder, liquid and fabric conditioner go and at least once a year I forget myself and take a pan out of the oven barehanded.

BeGoldHedgehog · 23/02/2025 22:31

Iwishicouldflyhigh · 23/02/2025 22:24

This thread is depressing. These children are our future.

by 18 I was half way across the world. Living independently, cooking eggs, using the microwave doing the washing.

ffs parents, take some responsibility and teach your children life skills. It’s not funny, it’s pretty horrifying.

This a thread about perfectly capable teens doing silly things

BeGoldHedgehog · 23/02/2025 22:32

SlaveToAGoldenRetriever · 23/02/2025 22:26

Judging by this thread I am very glad that my 20yo DD seems to have grown up with common sense and half decent problem solving skills! Some of these replies are absolutely batshit. How on earth are half of these teens and young adults going to cope in the real world?

Don’t get me wrong, DD isn’t perfect by any means but there are so many examples here of blatant learned helplessness. Very depressing.

Edited

They are one offs...

hpertrophywife · 23/02/2025 22:33

couchparsnip · 23/02/2025 21:22

I was one of those judgemental parents. DS has amazing common sense and I took full credit.
He cooks, keeps his room tidy etc, an old head on young shoulders.

Then along came DD who insists she needs no help doing anything and then tries to boil noodles in the kettle or cook a cake at 220 degrees because it will go faster. 🤣. She has the same upbringing but just refuses to believe that anything I tell her is worth listening to! Not since she was about 10.

I have a younger one who is so competent it's insane - the eldest... Well. She's lovely, but There is the world in her head, and that's far more interesting than the one we all inhabit! So - same!!

BeGoldHedgehog · 23/02/2025 22:33

SlaveToAGoldenRetriever · 23/02/2025 22:27

Fully agree!

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Until she comes home from uni...pregnant 😆

Iwishicouldflyhigh · 23/02/2025 22:33

summer3219 · 23/02/2025 22:16

You can try and provide all the instructions and life lessons possible but teens will still do daft things. I'm not sure whether it is a lack of application of the information they have been provided with or just a belief that now they are heading for adulthood they know better.

Do you really think that? I’m really screwing up my brain and I honestly do not remember for any of these things as a teenager, and I wouldn’t say my mum was a particularly ‘on it ‘ parent.

Tricho · 23/02/2025 22:33

BeGoldHedgehog · 23/02/2025 22:33

Until she comes home from uni...pregnant 😆

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Excuse me?

blueshoes · 23/02/2025 22:36

Drylogsonly · 23/02/2025 21:59

DS has been doing laundry for a good 18 months now - age 14- and a couple of weeks ago couldn’t find the laundry capsules to improvised wit some washing up liquid instead… just FYI its foams, REALLY foams but still the kitchen fkoor got a good wash I suppose

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This one is forgivable. I can see the logic. Who knew about the extreme foaming.

yourmaw · 23/02/2025 22:36

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

...obligatory- "betchure fun at parties" --- eyeroll.

Also apply the above to @Sugepaper Either dreadful parenting or not very bright. My 10 yr old wouldn’t do any of this.

Such condemnation on a "fun" thread. Here is the attention you so despearately crave

Kurokurosuke · 23/02/2025 22:37

letslaughitoff · 23/02/2025 21:58

Yep.
I was standing on my own feet at 16 living on my own at 18 working and paing my own bills and working on a course to make something of myself.
The other week a friend of mine told me her 17 year old fried an egg but it dint taste how mum done it because he cracked the whole thing shell as well in the pan.
She said it was so funny.

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Working and paying bills doesn’t stop you doing slight dumb stuff! Even as an adult, a house owner, a parent I have definitely done stuff and thought, well that was stupid. Have you not?

and one of the best, most helpful most cathartic responses to this is to have a laugh. To share it.

these kids aren’t doing anything bad, just slightly ill thought out errors. Which they will hopefully learn from 🤣

Lostmyusernametoday · 23/02/2025 22:41

To all the ‘it’s a generation problem’ brigade. When we were teens out friends parents went away and we tried to make a pot noodle and we added the sauce sachet to the kettle. Tea with a hint of chicken going forwards 😂. Can confirm we’re all now reasonably successful women who operate fine in society, I think it’s just teens! Can also confirm my mum definitely showed me how to do things, again, it’s teens!

ladygoingGaga · 23/02/2025 22:42

This thread has cheered me up!

I have a 19 years old DS, bright but will not seek advice or take any at all.
He regularly cycles the two miles to work in a hoody, never checks the weather, you would think coming home soaked would only happen once - nope! I’ve informed him numerous times there are such things as weather forecasts.

Then he gets the reminder to tax his car he is learning to drive in, I remind him.. several times, offer to show him, I get “leave it mum I’m capable of sorting it out”
He was sent a fine this week. And no I did t pay it!

StepAwayFromGoogling · 23/02/2025 22:43

I put washing up liquid in the dishwasher when I'd run out of tablets. I broke it. I was 46.

letslaughitoff · 23/02/2025 22:47

Kurokurosuke · 23/02/2025 22:37

Working and paying bills doesn’t stop you doing slight dumb stuff! Even as an adult, a house owner, a parent I have definitely done stuff and thought, well that was stupid. Have you not?

and one of the best, most helpful most cathartic responses to this is to have a laugh. To share it.

these kids aren’t doing anything bad, just slightly ill thought out errors. Which they will hopefully learn from 🤣

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Ive done plenty of dumb things but the basic life skills i know about from the age of 10 upwards.
But at 15 i think we all know not to put milk in kettles and plastic in ovens and how a lemsip is made along with many more things.

Justgorgeous · 23/02/2025 22:49

julesagain · 23/02/2025 22:04

My two daughters are nothing like the teens on this thread, thank God. They have been raised earlier than anticipated due to my health collapsing when they were 7 and four, to cook, operate a washing machine and iron, and other such things. My eldest, when on her residential trip age ten was the only one who was able to put her duvet in the cover and brought all her dirty clothes back in it's designated bag and not mixed in with the clean ones. My friends were extremely envious of that. They can also paint and decorate, assemble furniture, and know basic car maintenance before they started to drive. Most of this has been due to necessity due to my health, but neither feel hard done by as we've still had fun and they are largely prepared for adult life

Great! We all have our own journey.