Tell me about kids who actually grow up to like their parents.
My twins are using all their baby wiles to endear themselves to me - oh, they’re sneaky, these little ones. The soft coo, the itty-bitty toes, the way they shove their tiny fists into their mouths.
It’s all designed to distract me from the hopeless future of alienation, the moment when they decide I’ve got nothing to say that they want to hear and may in fact have been an idiot all along.
Then the truth of my sacrifices will be laid bare & I’ll regret not having run away from the diapers into a magical world where chocolate has no calories.
Is there hope for my future? Or should I run before it’s too late?
Don’t worry, it may take a while before they decide you’re an idiot. I have a 12-year-old that still thinks I’m all right. (I’ve heard that may change in a few years, *but *… as a contrast to those opinions, my s.o.'s 17-, 16-, and 13-year-olds persist in wide-eyed respect for us.)
They’re cute now, and hopefully will learn to use the cute, charming sides of themselves to try to get their way, as opposed to the evil, malevolent sides.
Oh, and you are so lucky to have twins!!! Good kids x2! (you hope!! :))
Anyway, don’t worry so much. I think most kids are good.
She is really a pretty good kid, but I can’t wait until I’m smart again
Rumor has it that it takes about 6-10 years, until that time paying her off works ok.
You have to take pleasure in the simple things in life…and with a preteen it’s things like seat dancing and singing really loud in the car when driving so she can’t get out of the car. She LOVES when I do that, she denies it but I know secretly she hopes we run into her friends.
And when she takes you aside at her party at your home and tells you to please stop talking to her friends; what she is really trying to say is come talk to us about boys please please please!
Most importantly, volunteer to chaperone dances with your husband. Make sure to dance cheek to cheek and kiss at least once during evening. Nothing will please your child more than parents showing affection.
So you see, there is hope for your future. Think of all the fun you can have driving them crazy
Well, my little brother is twenty, and I think he’s about at the end of thinking we’re all stupid. I didn’t used to be stupid, at least not as stupid as our parents, but then I sided with them on a major issue. So I guess I am an idiot now.
That doesn’t mean we weren’t RIGHT, just that he doesn’t want to admit it.
Brothers. sigh
I’m 28 and get along great with my mom now, if that’s any reassurance. (I got along fabulously with my dad, who died when I was seventeen. He was never an idiot, though Mom was on a regular basis. I admit I was a bratty teenager, though not a bad kid. I had a mouth on me, though.)
Oh, not to worry. I went through a stage of disliking my parents for about 3 - 5 years. Probably between the ages of 13 and 18. After that, it’s all uphill. My mom is one of my best friends. I talk to her about everything.
I think the key is to be your childs friend…to a point. You still have to play the role model / punisher / rule maker. My mom was very good at keeping both ends of the spectrum in our relationship. I knew when she was angry at me and I didn’t play the “friend” card. But there were times where my mom would let me stay up extra late on a school night and we would sit and talk about her childhood and listen to old 45s of hers. That was the best. And you know what, when I look back on my childhood…I pretty much forget all the “mother” things she did…I mostly just remember the “friend” things.
So, keep your chin up - love those babies - and remember, all is not doomed
Realising your parents are fallible is an important part of growing up. My sixteen year old daughter realised I was an idiot a few years ago, but she has now come to terms with it. There’s something comforting about coming out the other end of this; she’s no longer horrified and appalled when I screw up, she can accept that while I make mistakes, my motives are generally for the best, and I now provide her with endless amusement rather than embarassment.
I’m eighteen, and the past few years I’ve been increasingly impressed with my parents. Of course they still embarrass me sometimes (;)), but we pretty much get along great. And contrary to thinking they’re idiots, I’ve seen how intelligent and sensible they both are (much more so than me!).
Funnily enough, that happened to me as well. There used to be serious “tension” between us, until I went away to Uni. Now, we’re like best friends, as opposed to mother and daughter. I think its called the maturing process.
I turned 41 in December and I can’t count the number of times life has bitten me on the ass and I’ve thought, Mom and Dad sure were smart. Mom is still alive, I drove 120 miles yesterday, just to have lunch with her and tell her that I appreciate her. I wish I could do the same with Dad but he’s been gone now, 22 years. I was the last family member to see him alive, we had a good day.
I’m 25, and after a very rocky three/four years–once I decided that I was going to be with Mr. Levins in spite of the fact that he’s not the Presbyterian Caucasian dreamboat they always wanted–my parents, or at least my mother, is slowly coming around.
I think the trick with kids is to figure out that your parents are just people, who screw up just like everybody else, and for parents the trick is to realize your kids are grown. For better or worse. You can’t raise them forever.
My mom has finally figured this out; I made it clear a couple of years ago that I wouldn’t accept any kind of parenting anymore–particularly the negative kind–because I’ve been self-sufficient for the past eight years and don’t really want to hear it at this point.
Now we talk on the phone all the time, and she stays at our house when she comes to visit, and we have good “girl time” and it’s great. I have a feeling it’s just going to get better, and I’m very happy about it.
Girls and their mothers are probably always going to have a slight rocky period at one point or another…but most of my girlfriends really love their mothers and get along great with them now that we’re all grown up.
I’m seventeen, and I get along pretty well with my parents. We have our rough spots, but then it would be strange if we didn’t. Although there are times I’m mad at them, and don’t agree with their actions, I still do actually like them (although no one tell them that!) My mother is my best shopping buddy, and my father loves to accompany to my riding lessons and sometimes he and I go to the movies or do some other father-daughter activity.
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.
I agree with its sentiment. Of course, I don’t have kids myself. But if I ever do, I hope that they look up to me as a perfect hero until they’re about 13 or 14, then think that I’ve lost my mind, then come around again to see me as a fairly reasonable human being by the time they’re say, 30 or 40. And hope to live long enough to see that mebbe one thing that I showed them affected how they live.
My father’s been gone nearly 4 years. He gave me a lot.
My dad ( a single parent with 6 kids) said we all turned sub-hunam around 13, 14, or 15, but turned human again around 23, 24, or 25. See, there is hope!!
