Considering I still live at home (I’m 17, give me a break), just now my mom said something that has always really bugged me:
“I’m cleaning your closet tomorrow! I can’t fit anymore clothes in there!”
That means that she’ll throw out whatever clothes she wants whether it’s something that I like or not. I can’t help it that I don’t wear out my clothes and that I stopped growing a couple years ago. 
Welfy
I wonder what the king is doing tonight?
What did I just say? (I don’t know. You weren’t listening either?)
I’ll put you in a crocker sack and drown you one of these days! (What is a crocker sack anyway)
There are staving children everywhere…(no, I don’t think they would eat this either.) =)
Alexandria
A mind is a terrible thing to waste, but an execellent thing to mess with!
What I never understood, is how my eating everything on the plate is going to help starving kids elsewhere. Won’t they get mad that I’m eating up all of the food?
Worse (and almost directly contridicting the above), is when they would get mad at me for eating/drinking too much of something. I’d get thirsty and get a glass of milk, and this was bad, because I was drinking it all up. Well, what is it there for?
Cessandra
My Homepage Updated 9/30/99!
The RHPS: Website For Virgins Updated 9/28/99!
Ike
That’s horrible! Did they really say that? Tell me they were kidding! Even if they weren’t!
(Feeling now that my parents were really a cakewalk.)
My dad asks really, I mean really, stupid questions.
Ex: We’re having chicken for dinner. I’m finishing, he walks in from work, starts talking in this stupidly childish “tone” and says, “I like chicken, do you like chicken?”
So I’ve only lived with him since I was born and I’ve only eaten chicken my whole life and he knows I hate when he does stupid stuff like that (I’d rather my parents be PARENTS than FREINDS) and he actually expects an answer!
Why does he do this to me?
And is this supposed to start a conversation? Even if I bite and actually say “Yes” he blows up on me saying I never talk to him. Is this normal parental behavior, or should I be worried?
Doesn’t it suggest that some people are just plain incompetent as parents?
“If you stick that lip out any further, some bird’s going to poop on it.” (Actually, this is what my husband’s mother used to say to him when he pouted.)
“Are we trying to (heat/cool) ALL of Cincinnati?” (when we left the door open)
“I’m not going to tell you again to (fill in the blank).”
Boris,
Naw…I just posted it to make everyone whose folks told them to finish their goddamn string beans wouldn’t feel that their own childhood was so miserable.
Once you have offspring of your own…(sigh). Mebbe I’ll start a thread called “Maddening Things You Say to Your Kids.”
Uke
I can’t believe I’m the only one who ever heard these:
“Well I’m not everybody else’s mother!”
and its corollary:
“If everyone else jumped off a cliff, would you do that too?”
(Learned quickly not to use the “everyone else” argument.)
“Get down from there, you’ll break your neck!”
“All right, but don’t come crying to me when you get hurt”
“Just wait 'til you have kids of your own!”
I remember these real well because now I"m starting to use them.
Mom (while cleaning up whatever mess we had made):
What, you want me to wipe your butt for you, too?
(use a Korean accent to get the full effect)
“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” Albert Einstein
Whenever we left the door open, my mom always said “I’m not paying to heat the great outdoors!” And yes, she used the old “I/m not everybody else’s mother” too.
My dad didn’t really use any of those sayings, but he always got really bothered at the weirdest things. One time, my parents both went on a “hold your silverware correctly” kick. I don’t know what that was, I think somebody must have pointed it out in a restaurant or something, and embarassed them. Anyways, once, after we forgot for the umpteenth time how to hold a spoon (we didn’t really forget, we just forgot we were supposed to be doing it), he muttered “…I have to teach them how to eat, too…” I was really insulted by this.
Also, once I complained that there was some residue stuck to my glass, and he just blew up. Among other things, he said “I have never seen you wash a goddamn dish in your LIFE!!!” First- not true. Second, I have never seen him take out the garbage since that had been designated as my job, but he still complained about it all the time. I didn’t say that, though.
Or, he had a habit of turning to anybody who had just entered the room, and did not know anything about the conversation going on, and asking “Isn’t that right?” When the person who just came in said “What?” he would say “Just agree.” Or sometimes he would say to me “In a way, I’m glad my father isn’t around anymore, because between the two of you, you would drive me insane.” I guess misery loves company.
One thing I am thankful for is this: My mother told us that her mother would always say “You will (do whatever it was that the kid refused to do), and you will LIKE IT!!” My mother swore that she would never use that on us, and she never did.
I got “If everyone else jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you do it too?” I grew up in New York City; this is just the urban version of the cliff one.
But my mother’s all-time favorite was “Because I’m your mother and I said so!” AAARGHHH!!! Usually offered when there was no possible rational explanation (which was fairly often). Did anyone else get this?
The Cat In The Hat
Disregard that last sentence, folks. EVERYONE has said that they got “because I said so”. Brain fart!
Another verbal trap:
Your parent is angry with you about something, whether you know it or not.
Parent: “Do you know anything about that mess in the garage/the broken dishes in the kitchen/the trail of ants in the hall?” (or any similar supposedly mundane question).
You: “No, I–”
Parent: (doesn’t wait for you to finish your answer, but socks or slaps you, and then launches into an insane tirade suggesting you are hard of hearing.)
It seems to me that parents do this to get you off-guard, making you an easier target for physical or verbal assault.
Maybe this accounts for the generation gap…
“You know where your room is.”
Got to the point where I answered, varyingly, “So do you”, “Your point being”, or “This is true.” Oh, I was evil. But I could beat up my dad, so it didn’t matter much.
“You are smarter than these grades.” I’m smarter than a piece of paper . . . veeeery gooood!
“So how are you and [insert name of female classmate from hell] getting along?”
My mother always used to just start talking about how she met this nice young girl my age (or her parents) at the super-market, and how she was such a lovely girl, and how she likes (something that I like), and on and on. The obvious implication was that she wanted me to call this girl up and ask her out, but she thought she was being discreet by not putting it that bluntly.
I don’t think I ever told her directly that I would never call some girl I don’t know and ask her out, but I should have. Probably wouldn’t have helped though.
Oh, and my parents always used to tell me to eat my vegetables because it would grow hair on my chest. They told my sisters to eat their vegetables because it would make their hair (on their head, of course) curly. I always wondered at the marvels of vegetables that affected men and women’s hair growth in such remarkably different fashions.
My dad used to:
-walk in on me using the computer and ask me for the eighth time in one evening if I had done my homework, despite being responded to in the affirmative seven previous times.
-tell me I shouldn’t read (in the bathroom/at recess/when there was something else to do/when I could be exercising). This baffled the hell out of me because I kept hearing on the news (which I also listened to all the time) that kids were not reading enough.
-spontaneously decide that something was unacceptable. God, I hated that. My brother and I used to tease him all the time about his (lack of) hair and his age, and he would always laugh or mug sad-face or something. So we were doing this one night, and talking about something real old, and I said, “So it was when you were young, Dad, around the time blue-green algae started producing oxygen!” and he yelled, “Or maybe it was around the time children respected their elders!” Threw me completely.
-say “Show some consideration for the feelings of others!” Like you ever have in your life, you insensitive twit.
-say “You could be trying harder than this.” No, Dad, actually I couldn’t. You see, it’s a little difficult to concentrate on your work when your classmates, teachers, and father are making you feel like a piece of shit because you’re not completely normal. Alternate answer: Yes, Dad, I got bad grades intentionally to piss you off, because I like the atmosphere at home so much better when you’re pissed off. Dodging thrown objects is an important part of my workout regimen.
-tell me I’m not listening to him or I’m prejudiced against him during an argument. No, dad, I AM listening to you. I’m just disagreeing with what I’m hearing.
-tell me I’m being shrill. What I’m doing is holding my own in the debate.
-tell me I’m not really like that (whatever I may be doing). Actually, I am like that, Dad. It’s the little perfect person you want me to be that isn’t like that. Don’t confuse the two.
-tell me he has more experience and therefore I should follow his opinion on (everything). No, what you have is more experience being you. I have more experience being me.
He has also:
-said “Are you sure you’re not saying you’re gay just to be popular?” Trust me, if I were trying to become the homecoming king, being a faggot is not how I’d do it.
-said “Don’t call your brother honey!” I call everyone ‘honey’, honey.
-told my brother, “Now, this is the sort of thing a man can only tell his wife and his favourite son,” and then proceeded to tell him. Actually, I was kind of happy when I heard about that. It confirmed my suspicions.
-One Christmas dinner he asked me (since I often read Miss Manners books and whatnot) to tell him how to properly set a table. I told him, and also mentioned that we didn’t need soup spoons if there was no soup. He said yes, we do, and put them out anyway. I said no, we don’t. He flew into a rage and accused me of being doctrinaire and inflexible. Well, if you don’t want the answer, don’t ask the goddamn question! Did I mention that this was my last Christmas dinner at home before I moved out? You’d think he would have been on his best behaviour!
Note that all of the above were what I would have answered had I been braver/physically tougher/sassier than I am.
My mother, on the other hand, is an absolute angel.
Great, I was about to go to bed (it’s 1am) and I peek back into the land of Mundania, and see this thread…
When my kids ask me why we don’t really go to church or subscribe/prescribe to any particular branch of christianity, it will be because of my mother’s favorite saying:
Oooh, I feeeel soooo lucky. Like I get free coffee at Starbucks or my parking validated.
A great retort to this line ( and it’s used in other parts of this world, outside of NY too) is to say, " Well, Johnny Weismuller jumped off the bridge and lived…"
Johnny Weismuller was the first Tarzan.
My grandfather worked with Johnny Weismuller ( or so goes the family urban legend.)