Obviously I did it just to spite my 15yr old

[Oollliivviiaa]

I broke the shower this morning.
Obiously I did it purely to spite my 15yr old and no one else could possibly be as inconvenienced as her by having to have a bath instead.
What things have you done on purpose purely to make life difficult for your teen (according to your teen)?

We were doing up the bathroom last year and had to spend several weeks showering at the local pool or at work and I remember thinking how glad I was that the kids were still charming little primary school children and not teenagers because I am sure they would have gone NC with us for that. As it was, DS was delighted because he 'doesn't like washing anyway'.

I vividly remember being absolutely disgusted with my mother for sneezing when I was a teenager. How dare she.

Is it crazy to look forward to having ridiculous teenagers? They all sound hilarious 😂

When dd was a teenager, I once told my dd that she looked nice in her new bootcut jeans, apparantly that meant she looked terrible the rest of the time because I didn't say anything usually and also I shouldn't be looking at her.
I told her to roll down the waistband of her school skirt because when she walked upstairs I could she her knickers. I was a pervert for looking (I was picking up my car keys from the hook at the bottom of the stairs so I could give her a lift to school and looked up to answer a question) and anyway everybody wore their skirts short and the boys wouldn't look because they weren't perverts! (unlike me)

I wash shopping with the 16 yr old yesterday- pulled out a jumper and said ‘what do you think’

‘oh no I wouldn’t wear that it’s the wrong colour’

‘no I meant for me’ - sigh, eye roll, walk off 😂

I bought front row tickets for a comedian later in the year. DS is mad because his neck might hurt.

We were out in a lovely wine bar with 17 yo DS who was having a rough time at school. We told him we loved him no matter what and we would support him whether he wanted to go to Uni or not, that we had huge faith in him and we were confident he would find his way forward in life. He stormed out of the restaurant and went home because apparently this was not supportive.

When I was a teen my mother used to serve up hot meals on warmed plates, obviously out of spite, and so I told her "the trouble with this house is that the food is too hot". That told her!

My DD once told me that "the trouble with this house is that there are just too many doors", apparently I had deliberately searched for bought a house with too many doors just to spite her.

I make mine spit out their chewing gum and ask in French if they want to go to the toilet - the horror!

I worked in Asda and we had a woman come in and she had all her bags folded nearly in some sort of bag and she wiped out the Asda bags and I commented that she could use her Tesco bags

For spite, I address my kids on social media publicly as “famalan”. I know it’s Famalam, but I make sure that they hear Fam-Alan. Sends them mad.

Ha.

I was selected (from a huge pool of volunteers, who are all desperate to spend even a moment in her company) to collect DD16 from school one day last week.

As I was driving down the hill (basking in the glory of DD having deemed me worthy of sitting next to in the front seat, rather than in the back like I'm a taxi driver, as is usual when I give lifts to her friends), just 30 seconds away from school, a car started to pull out of a side road straight into our path.

Foolishly, I realise now, I beeped my horn in warning to the other driver, as although I obviously detest my daughter, and am always coming up with ways to upset her, I didn't want her to end up in hospital, and have to share a bathroom with "randos". DD's response to me sounding my horn was "NO! Why would you do that?"

I then made the mistake of responding; "Errrr, that car was going to pull out right in front of me!" Apparently it wasn't, the driver would definitely have seen us, and there was ABSOLOUTELY NO NEED for me to TOTALLY EMBARRASS DD by sounding the horn in the vicinity of all the pupils walking home from school. I feel like such a fool.

Duly chastised, I submitted to the sighing and silent treatment most of the way home, until I came to the crashing realisation that I had Totally Fucked Up. Never fear, thought I, and offered to drive to the nearest Costa for a whipped white chocolate frappe, to prove that despite all evidence to the contrary, purposefully embarrassing DD so much that it is ALL anyone at school will be talking about for the next month, I'm not actually the devil incarnate, sent to cause misery to teens, wherever I go!

To be fair, she's usually lovely, but I remember being mortified by most things my DM did when I was a teen! @AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta - my DM had a bright yellow, 3 door VW Polo when I was 15 and my DSis was 13. My DSis would always tell DM to put the front seat forward as soon as she arrived to pick us up, so DSis could open the door and fling herself down across the back seats before anyone saw her!

I’m pretty sure my almost 12yo thinks I wake up every morning thinking “I know what I’m going to do today on top of working 8 hours cooking and cleaning - I’m going to wind DD up, make my every action all about how to piss her off and start arguments.” It’s the only explanation given that I can literally just be in a room and she’ll come in and go “What?!” 🙄 to think I wished the toddler years away

‘Trying to be funny’ earned me a very stern ticking off…
I also asked the French teacher if DD needed a tutor (embarrassing enough) but apparently I managed to do it in a way that strongly implied that I was expecting the teacher to give up his holiday and tutor for free!

The secret is, you have to lean in to their enbarasssment. I mean I KNEW that the kids would one day find me embarrassing - but I just thought they meant my presence around their mates. Oh no - it means everything about your character, the way you look, your interests, hobbies and the words you use. So I stay being myself and lean into it. DD huffed off in the supermarket the other day because I was singing along to the song playing and it’s soooooo embarrassing-ger (they also add syllables to words when moody). I started singing louder. She stormed off then came back because she “couldn’t find the way out”😂😂 and was most annoyed I didn’t stay put and wait for her in the cereal aisle. Mama has shit to do, love

I’ve done this before. Out shopping and thought after her 20 shops (including returns) I’d have a quick look whilst passing some jeans. She nearly collapsed with utter boredom. I immediately stopped and comforted her. She was a real trooper if I’m honest.

Tweensandterribletwos · Today 21:46

I make mine spit out their chewing gum and ask in French if they want to go to the toilet - the horror!

If this is where you admit that you're a geography teacher in Denmark, then I'm with the kids!

Poor brave little soldier- imagine the selfishness of your own mother wanting to consider spending money on herself. - the nerve . I’m surprised she didn’t collapse in horror

My Mum bought a 2CV.
She got rid of it after a year when neither I, my brother or Dad would get in it!

I was told by my then teen daughter that I was “always hanging around” - in my own house in an evening which was obviously sooooo unreasonable and presumably I should have just gone and sat in my car or something.

My dad has made it his life's work to embarrass his 3 daughters. We are all in our 40s and he's still at it. The partners are used to it by now and find it hilarious, but we spend XMas in a state of teenage cringe.

He loves it and will do it until the day he dies. The contrary old adorable bugger.

I don’t want to come across as goady, but do teenagers really behave like this?

I have two DDs, now in their early thirties, and neither of them ever behaved like this.

I have a wonderful memory of arriving home from school (which was two buses and a long walk away) and waking down the path in the dark to a house with a delightful glow of light and a smell of wonderful home cooking.

My Mum remembers me getting home from school and asking 'what's for dinner', pulling a face and stomping off to my room.

I refused to let my teen take her school bag with her on an overseas trip to America - a schoolbag that had been around more weed than Cheech and Chong and would have seen her arrested as soon as she entered America.

I was not only ruining her life by refusing to allow her to take her favourite bag but also by sending her to that school in the first place! It was the only school with space, so not exactly a choice.

8 years later and she's almost ready to admit I had a point.

@BebbanburgIsMine Yes they do. Hopefully not all the time, but they are finding their feet in the world, beginning to grow apart from their parents, often in the shock of puberty, discovering their own identity, and part of that is rebelling against their parents. Perfectly normal. Even some of us have admitted to our own teenage moments on this thread. With yours, you must have been very lucky, or they expressed their rebellions when you weren't there to see it.

The young Victoria Beckham (then Victoria Adams) was embarrassed by her father taking her to school in a Rolls Royce. She also turned up to her first day at secondary school in exactly the correct uniform, then saw that nobody else did, because nobody else could afford it.

Oh my God. I stuck my head around her door this morning
Me - good morning!
Her - ugh
Me - what's wrong?
Her (hissing) - we have no shower

We figured out last night that we could use part of the new shower to make the old shower somewhat usable. Husband wants to do that but I've said no because it's rewarding her awful behaviour. He has baths anyway and I'm not overly bothered so it's not cutting our noses off.

Should we:
A) get the old shower sort of working just to end the 24hr (and counting) tantrum.

B) let her have baths. She needs to get over it and can't sulk her way into getting what she wants (plus it might make returning the new shower difficult if it turns out to be faulty).