Things I've done wrong according to teen DD

[GreenHairThingy]

Have enjoyed the various "toddler meltdown" threads over the years - you know the ones where the sandwich was cut the wrong way or the sky was the wrong shade of blue

Well this morning my only interaction with my 17 year old DD had her complaining that:

(super whingey tone) "this isn't fair! My arms just aren't strong enough for this!!! You know I've no upper arm strength" as i callously showed her how to empty and clean the tumble dryer filter so she could dry HER clothes. Take away is: I'm to blame for her lack of upper arm strength: Noted.

5 minutes later she is making herself a sandwich. I've bought a Warburtons loaf this morning.

(totally exasperated tone) "Mum, can you PLEASE stop buying bread that's about to go out of date!"

Confused, I check the date of the bread. It says the 15th March. She continues "exactly! The last loaf ran out on the 13th!!" (the loaf we finished yesterday, on the 11th)

When I politely and calmly suggested she call the team at Warburtons to complain, as i can only purchase the bread that is available with the dates that are offered, she rolled her eyes and said" it's really not ok"

I long for toddler tantrums. They were so much more reasonable.

When DD was a teenager I'd drop her off in town to meet her friends. The second she was out of the car, the window came down and I'd shout 'don't forget the 3 S's. No swearing, no smoking, no sex'.
She started getting the bus not long after.

@MrsGulDukat

My daughter has never tantrumed but she makes up for that in sheer stubbornness and the incredible ability to make any simple task a when week event. She can stretch out the most mundane and easy task into a days even weeks long thing.

I wonder if we share the same daughter?

I used to congratulate myself on not having toddlers tantrums from her (DS had been an accomplished breath-holder ) but STUBBORN!

Didn't want tp do something? Never made a fuss - just didn't do it.

Determined to do something? Never argued about it, just went ahead and did it.

She's 35 now and hasn't changed . . . firmly believes that God gave her heels so she could dig them in . . .

And everything is done in her own good time.

I hope the house never catches fire.

dd 23 who has been away for university but home now due to covid and saving to go abroad was asked to bring washing in, and hang it up on the airer,
they looked like they had been thrown on
she said it was boring, when questioned!

@MrsMackesy

Mother

I have also been called by my first name and in a disparaging tone.

Ah you need to preempt this one.

When DS was growing up I said I hated being called “mum” as it was tacky and everyone has one. He could call me “ TheWinter” or “mother”. He called me mummy or mama when he was little and mum now just to be contrary.( I don’t mind in the slightest).🙂

oh don't get me started on Use By dates . I take something out of the freezer and DS looks at it and say "I'm not eating that, it says use by [one month ago]"

Er....you DO know what a freezer is for don't you?

I had visions of the T. rex with their short arms all withered but fully capable of being terrifying and causing havoc

I have 4 year old twins and was hoping things got easier. Reading this thread in horror

@MumofPsuedoAdult

oh don't get me started on Use By dates . I take something out of the freezer and DS looks at it and say "I'm not eating that, it says use by [one month ago]"

Er....you DO know what a freezer is for don't you?

Yes!

Last weekend I was toasting some hot cross buns that had gone out of date the day before. They were perfectly fine but she refused to eat them in case she got food poisoning 🤦‍♀️

When she was at uni we went to see her and took a bag of shopping with us. I bought some mince and meatballs to put in the freezer. She chucked it away after the use by date. She just doesn’t seem to be able to get her head around the whole point of a freezer

My 16 yr old dd was on one last night. Apparently I didn't show enough sympathy for the 1 Direction boys, how they were thrust into fame, worked so hard, were badly managed to becoming multi millionaires by the time they were in their 20s etc.

When I compared their hard life to a young lad we know who has had it really tough, I wasn't taking into account poor 1ds lived experience. Then when I tried to explain that children with supportive parents tend to have better outcomes I was trying to steal her thunder for her getting into uni. She's not even got to uni yet 😁.

Me: “Can you chop a lettuce for me?”
16yo: horrified “I don’t know how to chop a lettuce.”

Madam DEFINITELY knows how to chop a lettuce now 😜

ould l just share the hell of clothes shopping with my dd. ( pre lockdown)

So I’m not allowed to suggest anything or pull it off a rack to show her. I just have to look alert and interested at all times. If l don’t, I get accused of ‘just standing there’. So l have to maintain this rictus smile whilst wanting to scream all the time. And look involved but not being allowed to do anything.

I don’t go with her anymore.‘

I could have written this post ... back when my daughter was 16 / 17 .. if I did show her anything she would either roll her eyes is ask for you or for me ? If I said me she would say
‘ oh yeah it’s ok for you ‘
Haha obviously wouldn’t be seen dead in it herself

But , but there is light at the end of the tunnel , she has since said ( need to wait for late 20’s ) sometimes you chose for me things I wouldn’t look at in the hanger but actually look great

Hang in there

I'm laughing at these - mine are all in their 20s now but I cant remember them doing anything like it. Probably blocked it out! My middle child does come home and promptly clean the kitchen 'properly' which I'm quite happy for him to do NB kitchen is perfectly clean he just moves all the clutter from the worktop to the windowsill or the windowsill to a single pile on the worktop . Eldest child is home every weekend and sets himself a challenge of seeing how many mugs he can use and put on the side for washing up before I snap . I know exactly what he's up to so don't snap very often

Got 2 teens here. A 16 yr old and 8yr old
8 is more teenager. I know nothing about music or fashion or make up or technology or health or anything really because everything I ever did was in the olden days and I lived in a black & white world.

16 yr old has discovered weight training and now only eats foods he's prepped and (taught him some basic cooking in lockdown) everything must have added protein. 🙄
Turns his nose up at home cooked food which I make (always healthy as dieting )
Made himself a ready meal of spaghetti bolognese and a hotdog toastie as said it was less calories than the curry I made.
He also knows everything whilst also does f-all cos he knows nothing.

This is funny! both of my teenagers are like this. ''there are breadcrumbs in these meatballs'' (said with devastation). These crisps are smoky bacon.. on and on and on it goes. My younger teen will go to Aldi to buy milk, bread and basics if I ask him but the older teen never, ever does anything to bring food in to the house, and in fact once when I was delayed coming home from work, she wouldn't answer the front door so the tesco delivery van left with the week's food.

I get the same @GreenHairThingy no sympathy for being a single parent to two teens and working full time and doing 90% of the tidying up, laundry etc they have it harder and can debate with me why and how they have it harder!

I also refuse to go shopping with mine.

The younger one isn’t interested in clothes shopping so just getting her to go for basics is hard work and always ends in tears so I just buy stuff for her.

The big teen - I haven’t set foot in a clothes shop with her since the West Quay Tantrum of 2017. She buys her own stuff online these days

@IHaveBrilloHair

I used all the cheese on her dinner. This was awful as there was then no cheese left. I gave her money to go to the shop for more cheese, she came back with a bar of chocolate and continued to moan about the lack of cheese

Oh that is my son. He went to Aldi and got crisps, grapes, diet coke, yoghurt, sausage rolls and even though I'd also told him to get lasagne or a pasta dish and he forgot. He got biscuits and chocolates though. An hour later he said ''what's for dinner''. I said lasagne. And he was like kevin the teenager.

we have no food only ingredients

Tbf, I do my own shopping, stock my own cupboards and plan and cook my own meals but still have days when I open the fridge and think this

@TaraR2020

we have no food only ingredients

Tbf, I do my own shopping, stock my own cupboards and plan and cook my own meals but still have days when I open the fridge and think this

yes, me too

I go food shopping armed with my meal plan and full of intentions to stick to it, walk past the oven chips and ignore the ready meals as this week I’m going to be a domestic goddess and serve healthy meals, lovingly cooked from scratch.

Get to about Wednesday, I’ve run out of steam and just want to bung a pizza in the oven

Has anyone whose teen rolls their eyes and moans about the dinner you’ve cooked, got a handy dog to give it to? I mean as in at once, ‘Ooh, sorry - my fault’ - grabs plate - ‘A second dinner won’t hurt him for once,’ as you scrape it into the dog’s dish.

Mid week before return to school - do I need to order bus tickets? No I've got loads it's fine.

Night before - need a bus ticket, you last ordered in October.

Pulls up bank statement - ordered on 9dec so must have some left as you couldn't physically use up that many in the time left.

Cue hour long search...i find them under his Alexa. "Oh yeah I put them there"

Later in the week sends me an Amazon link for wireless head phones. (His way of asking for them). You've had 3 sets of these in the last 18 months - where are they? Dunno.
Walk into his room and pick them up off his shelf and put them in his hands.

He's the eldest of 3 boys. He was always the organiser one. I'm screwed when the other two are teens!

It's the lack of food that makes my teens moan. There is just never anything to eat in this house!
(I'm a borderline prepper, there is always food, bloody loads of it. But not always crisps or biscuits.)
@Theimpossiblegirl

It's like the Homer Simpson line 'oh man, there's nothing to eat except ingredients!'.

Oh my goodness I am so glad to find it's not just my teen! There's never anything for breakfast but I don't know what he wants for breakfast because he doesn't specify just that we don't have it! There is usually an array of cereals, toast with various toppings, eggs, yogurts, fruit. I think he wants a bacon sandwich every day but I'm not making it and he's too lazy!

He gets up early so at least we don't have to deal with that but he's an utter nightmare until his medication kicks in so we have him terrorising everyone for a few hours.

He hates having a messy room and blames it on his brother but he also never put his clothes away or makes his bed or tidies it himself!

How dare I require him to help out in the home he lives in? How dare I not buy him a £75 Nike tech fleece? How dare I make him go to school and do his work? Terrible parenting.

@MissyB1

Teen ds “what’s for dinner?” When I tell him he does an enormous sigh and his face drops down to the floor (doesn’t matter whatever meal I propose, reaction is the same.) “Oh noooo!! I hate that why do you keep making it! I suppose I’m going to have to eat it or I will starve, not that you would care!”

Ds then scoffs down enormous plateful of said awful dinner in about 1 minute flat and asks for seconds!!

My Ydaughter will ask what's for tea and when I tell her will invariably sigh, assume a martyred expression and say "ok then'. She is working and contributing to the household budget so she knows she can add anything she would like to the online shop but apparently the Waitrose website is too hard for her to navigate- despite a large part of her job being maintaining and updating the website of an international company. If I buy something I know she likes she will pityingly explain to me that she used to like X when she was younger but now she is older and more sophisticated she no longer eats smoked salmon/noodles/soup/chicken nuggets. They still disappear pretty quickly.

She drifts about the house in a vest top and shorts and complains she is cold so for Christmas I bought her a heated throw. She assumed her martyred expression and explained to me (oh so kindly and compassionately) that I should know that her internal body temperature is very hot and she never feels the cold so she has no use for such a thing. I've had the last laugh there though - I gave her the money I paid for the heated throw and kept it for myself. She sits shivering on the sofa throwing me envious glances as I snuggle under the toasty warmth but pride makes her refuse to share it with me!

I love her so much but I cannot wait for this know it all phase to pass.

Finally I am winning at parenting. My 15 was often insufferable at 10 i-13sh. How we all remember the great sagas of despair and his sadness that I didn’t have a good enough understanding to know how to be truly free. To get him to come shopping or to lend a hand was inviting tears, shouting and even violence. He woke up improved one day and at 15 is a friendly and thankful child who offers to come shopping and loads the dishwasher etc. He ends every phone call with ‘love you’ even when with friends. Now I am wondering if this is an interim lull in teenageddon!