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Original poster

Living with teenagers (Eddie's pants)

24 replies

JanH · 07/05/2006 22:35

From the Guardian's \link{http://www.guardian.co.uk/family/story/0,,1768716,00.html\Family section yesterday.} Is it really meant to be serious? (Or another mother-of-Florence?)

Her kids say, with far more perception than she apparently realises :

"I really think you should calm down, you know. Listen to yourself. Are you in therapy? You should be."
"You're scary."
"You just don't get it, do you?"
"You talk like that and you expect us to be well-adjusted. No wonder Ed needs to get out of his head all the time on drugs."

Shame the article is anonymous.

OP posts:

cod · 07/05/2006 22:38

she is mad
how did she get like that

Harpsichordcarrier · 07/05/2006 22:41

it turned my stomach, actually
does anyone really talk like this to their 14 year old??:

"Please," I tell Jack as quietly as I can, "I cooked you an egg. I beg you to eat it."
pmsl

ItalianJob · 07/05/2006 22:43

It was the egg bit that worried me! The other stuff sounded like normal harrassed mum, except for that.

Original poster

JanH · 07/05/2006 22:45

Normal harrassed mum? er, no. Soppy indulgent cow. They didn't get like that on their own, you know.

OP posts:

cod · 07/05/2006 22:46

with you thre janh

mrsdarcy · 07/05/2006 23:08

Was anyone else shocked at her son telling her to F* off? She obviously needs to work on her Stare of Death

BearintheBigBlueHouse · 07/05/2006 23:12

it wasn't just me then
I don't get a lot of that section
I think Charlie Brooker and Jim Shelley should write the whole shebang, there, I've said it.

Nightynight · 07/05/2006 23:14

interesting.
its the C word that got me. She doesnt feel in control any more.
er, theyre growing up. She isnt going to spend the rest of her life controlling them.

and why should she expect him to eat an egg because she cooked it for him? shes not the centre of his universe. maybe he doesnt feel like an egg this morning.

BearintheBigBlueHouse · 07/05/2006 23:14

it wasn't just me then
I don't get a lot of that section
I think Charlie Brooker and Jim Shelley should write the whole shebang, there, I've said it.

controlfreaky2 · 07/05/2006 23:15

do tell more re stare of death... think i need that. details please?

controlfreaky2 · 07/05/2006 23:15

do tell more re stare of death... think i need that. details please?

Harpsichordcarrier · 07/05/2006 23:17

"When they were little, we had three pale beech chairs from Scandinavia - I'd read they were good for posture. We used to line them up in these little chairs - Eddie, Becca, Jack - and feed them vegetables, wholemeal toast, mashed fruit. When they'd finished, we lifted them down, wiped them with a clean, damp cloth we kept by the sink, then brushed their teeth with special expensive no-fluoride paste. We thought we were so very clever, so loving, so in control"

controlfreaky2 · 07/05/2006 23:31

well... mrs d? anyone?

fennel · 08/05/2006 16:09

i don't believe she's remembering the toddler bit very accurately. mine have nice scandinavian beech chairs but apart from that it's nothing like she describes.

teenagers sound fun to me.

CarolinaMoonfish · 08/05/2006 16:15

It is all made up.

Her kids prob wouldn't say boo to a goose, but that doesn't make very good copy or get editors to commission you so she has to make up this load of old cobblers.

I love "I beg you to eat it", might save that for when ds is older .

frogs · 08/05/2006 16:25

Glad someone else noticed this! Put me off my Saturday morning coffee, that did. Having said that, I do know people whose teenagers talk to them like that. Not while I'm paying the mortgage, is all I can say. Surely the only response to a 17yo F-ing and blinding at you because he has no clean undies is, "You seem to be confusing me with someone who gives a toss".

Actually in this house mornings tend to involve creaky-voiced knackered calls from my bedroom pleading with any passing child to have pity and bring me a cup of tea. Sometimes they even do.

motherinferior · 08/05/2006 16:32

On the other hand I would rather have a tempestuous relationship with teenagers which resolved itself, than the one I did have with my parents. I was really quite good. Then I left home and didn't speak to them for a couple of decades.

mawbroon · 08/05/2006 16:51

When I was reading this, I was thinking she was like Gail Platt off Corrie!!

Doing the laundry in our house was done by us kids around age 13. It was promotion from the hoovering and tidying, but not quite the dizzy heights of bulk cooking on a Friday night for the week ahead which was the top job before leaving home. So, if there were no clean pants then I would have had to have told myself to f* off.

puddle · 08/05/2006 16:55

That family section of the Guardian is a load of old cobblers isn't it?

I hope I never see the day when I am begging my teenager to eat an egg.

joelalie · 08/05/2006 17:17

How about "I beg you to eat it because I'd hate to have to insert it forcibly"?? At least that way there is an alternative option.

Have to say that I'm dreading having 3 teens at the same time.

Original poster

JanH · 08/05/2006 17:43

And how come he's allowed to say

"It's this fucking bollocks, for fuck's sake, I'm so fucking sick of it. I can't go on like this."

"With no fucking clean underwear, that's what. Where the fuck is all my clean underwear?"

"Of course, I fucking well have, you fucking moron, what do you take me for?"

but she only gets cross when he says "fuck off"?

OP posts:

Original poster

JanH · 08/05/2006 17:52

joelalie, I've had 3 teens at once and it was nothing like that in my house, honest

OP posts:

morningpaper · 09/05/2006 09:46

I'm so glad you think this is mad, because I was shitting myself about what was going to come to me in ten years' time :)

If my 17 year-old complained about having no clean pants when they were strewn on his floor I'd love to completely tidy his room from top to bottom while he was out, and leave his porn mags / diary / drugs in a tidy pile on his shelf

and "Darling what are all these stiff crumpled hankies under your bed? Have you been gluing?"

themoon66 · 09/05/2006 11:42

My teenagers (DD aged 19 and DS aged 14) would never dare to speak to their parents in that awful, disrespectful way! I think whoever wrote that must have been over-egging it a bit. My DD once said F**k off to me during a heated row when she was about 14 and I whacked her really hard about the head with a newspaper and banned her to her room for the rest of the day! She crept down later and said sorry and wanted a cuddle.

Even now, aged 19 and living away at uni, she wouldn't swear at home. The other week she accidently let a f**k slip out in conversation and the second she realised what she had done, she went white and ducked under the table so I couldnt hit her!! 'Sorry mum, sorry mum, it just slipped out'!

My 14 year old DS has reached that stage where he doesn't talk to his parents at all, just grunts, so no worries about bad language there LOL

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