Do you teenagers ever rewrite history?

[Spicypizza13]

Don’t want to go into too much detail as I’ve confided in friends about this recently. So it could be outing.

Basically my 17yo ds has started to rewrite history and throw things in my face that never happened. Or didn’t happen the way he says.

As far as I’m concerned he’s had a very stable, loving childhood. Two parents, nice home, 2 holidays a year, love, support, days out, everything he needed.

He says that his brother gets better treatment. He says that he was dumped in childcare and his brother wasn’t. This simply isn’t true. I have worked part time, the exact same hours throughout, and if anything I put ds2 in nursery during part of the school holidays to spend 1-1 with ds1. He berates me for picking his brother up from school even though I did the exact same for him.

He will say that I didn’t get him involved in enough sport. But the truth is he didn’t like it until he got older and we tried clubs but he wouldn’t join in. Once he got a bit older he started to enjoy it I enrolled him in lots of things. He says I give his brother better opportunities (that’s because his brother liked sports) but they both did sport ds1 was just a bit older.

Then he will say that I forced him to do other clubs that he hated like Scouts, but he didn’t hate it, he had school friends there and he actively wanted to go.

He will accuse me of not going to his sports days/concerts but that I do go to ds2. This simply is not true. I’ve made it to pretty much everything and anything I couldn’t dh or a grandparent went.

YES. My eldest has done this from being 14. They have now gone to live with their father. He is the bomb, I'm the devil incarnate. I did nothing with my kids (apparently) growing up. All I did was put them down. And put myself first. It's so very hard.

One of mine does although to a lesser extent than you’ve described. They seem to have selective memory for events and in their mind it appears I’ve behaved badly. I have tried to own any misdemeanours i may have committed and apologised but more in a ‘sorry you feel that way/remember it like that’ rather than a true apology as the actual events are different and i didn’t do the things they are remembering. Over time, as they have matured a little, they do seem more willing to have a proper conversation about what actually happened, rather than simply accusing me of things they ‘remember’. It’s been hard though and I’m still not sure that they don’t secretly still believe their version is true, and maybe for them it feels true if that’s what they remember?

You see it on MN all the time. Posters putting out a version of their childhood and inviting the masses to say how terrible their parents were when in fact their complaints are pretty minor (and one-sided).

Its easier to blame your parents than to step up and take responsibility for yourself.

Ds does this on occasion. Nothing major, and it's good that dh and I are both:"that didn't happen!" Interestingly, he doesn't pull us on times we may well have been twatty or unfair, or i feel guilt about.

I have this with one of my siblings. Our dad wasn't great, but they've turned him into the architect of everything that was wrong. Which is weird, because it was me that fought tooth and nail with him for years. But these days I'm very much a shrug and meh, people are strange. We all have our issues. We all fuck up somewhere.

lol, no. They both joke and say the other is the favourite but even they can’t keep a straight face as they know they have both been spoilt and we’d do anything for them.

If he feels he has a point and you’re being honest, then listen to him and calmly explain the reality.