Tell me my teens aren't the only ones lol

[Srepmum1984]

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😂😂😂

Ahem. I am pension age and then some, used a tiny, tiny squirt of WUL in the unfamiliar machine in our holiday apartment this January after we had run out of the supplied laundry tabs.
It's truly extraordinary, the foam. (Never gets that foamy when doing the washing up...)

No chance of that for various reasons - we had this conversation a few weeks ago and she can’t think of anything worse than having kids young! Definitely doesn’t want to settle down anytime soon. She’s hoping to study graduate entry medicine after her current degree so will probably go down the same egg freezing route as me to have kids a bit later and focus on building a good life/career for herself. Mature head on young shoulders

"by 18 I was half way across the world."

Did you travel there on your high horse?

I’m surprised it took so far down the thread for the “my teens are/were/will be perfect” brigade to turn up and tell you all your kids/your parenting are irredeemably broken

Cooking the shell of an egg? Seriously?

im a mum of 3, Definitely not a mum who devoted my self to teaching DD 14/11/9 to life skills, but they can all pour a drinkable g and t, make a cup of teas, use the velvetiser , microwave , toaster, hang washing, dd14/11 do the ironing, coukd fry an egg, make banana bread.

im pretty chilled, but i really feel like id failed if my dd14/11 (or dd9 actually) friend the shell of an egg ffs.

My brother once put an entire saucepan in the microwave and was v confused when it started sparking. Small wonder he didn’t burn the house down. He’s 30 now and we still make fun of him for it 😂

If your teen looks the shell of an egg, then yeah, you have definitely failed in teaching that particular life skills.

Totally agree. I don’t find it funny or cute it’s pathetic and depressing.

Nobody is suggesting their child is perfect, at least I’m certainly not! I just don’t think that a lack of basic life skills and obvious failed parenting is something to laugh about

No, by plane.i saved up by working in a care home.

Those of you who find this thread depressing & despair about the parenting - you know you can just scroll on by? Maybe start your own thread about the State of Parenting Today even...

Exactly, that is the WHOLE point of this thread. That otherwise reasonably competent teens have done completed some everyday task so badly that the parents are just amused as how they could have missed this knowledge gap. It’s not all of these kids not knowing all of these things. It’s one of these kids doing one stupid thing.

That is why it is parents posting funny, one off anecdotes . Rather than begging for help on how to raise their kids.

it’s story time. Sit back. Enjoy. No one was harmed (badly) in the making of this thread x

I was 17 out on my own; working in a bakery; and decorating a cake that had been ordered. I misread the name, though, and a call to the owner ensued after the cake was received. Apparently, Happy Birthday Mango, didn't go over well. Lighten up, Margo. 🫣😂

No i think she was raised with common sense.

There's always one

But its true.
What as the parenting world come to when young adults are growing up without knowing the simple things.

My ds once needed a piece of black paper for a project so decided to use the printer to print one... 🤦🏻‍♀️😩

Nope. Found out about the milk in the kettle thing when I did it at work...😳😵‍💫🤫
Why doesn't it work? It should! 🤔

We left our 17 year old babysitter to put a pizza in the oven for our kids’ dinner. We left everything out and ready for her, plates, tongs, a plastic chopping board and pizza cutter. She put the pizza on top of the plastic chopping board and popped it in the oven. We came home to a right mess. She told us she’d been trying to clean it, but the plastic which had been dripping off the shelves and onto the base of the oven was now rock-solid and impossible to remove.

Ok, well when she messes up she will be too scared to confide in you.

No there's quite a lot really

Because laughing about your 14 year old swinging on and breaking bannisters because they thought that's what they were for, or your 17 year old deliberatelg cooking shell with egg, or your 18 year old dry swallowing lemsip and boiling milk in a kettle really isn't the flex you think it is

Not cute

I once nearly microwaved a metal pan.

That was three years ago. I was in my late 30s and DP squawked at me to stop. It was sheer luck I'd never tried it in the two decades previously. I had absolutely no idea metal and microwaves didn't go together, straight As and Oxford and a successful professional life notwithstanding.

We often learn by mimicking, not actually understanding how something works. So when one step of the process isn't as expected, things go wrong.

It strikes me that I don't really know what 90% of the settings on my washing machine do. I just do the same thing on autopilot every time and it works.

Also an intelligent mind is not necessarily a practical mind. I find competence snobs to be very dull people, mostly. Yes you were born with the innate knowledge of how to work household appliances but can you hold an interesting conversation about art.

My sisters daughters friend did not know how to make a pot noddle or switch the kettle on at the age of 14 not even joking.
Its not cute or funny.

If in doubt go for a low blow

Think about how many "basic" things you know and have learned in your lifetime. We learn by watching and being taught.