Teenagers pulling away from family -- or do they get pushed away?

In My Humble Opinion
21

It was not an isolated incident, but it had not always been this way. It got worse as I got older, Combination of things. This was the family that lost a brother to leukemia, and it seemed to draw the surviving siblings closer together. Fortunate for them, but it made them very insular. They also got more heavily invested in their religion, again giving them a strong support system, but not leaving much room for a cousin who was different from them in a lot of other ways*. And there was the age thing: it was okay when I was a little kid and they were bigger kids. But when they started college, got married and so forth, I was below their radar.

And this wedding was the first summer after a Christmas visit to their house, where I was similarly ghosted, only it was worse then because it was at close range. So I think I went into this wedding with equal parts hope and dread.

And no one gave me a chance. First, I was at a table, next to my mom. I can’t remember if there was assigned seating; I don’t remember if the food was plated, buffet, or just snacks. But I sure as hell remember that the first time I tried to join the conversation, my mom said “Oh, shut up.” Not viciously, but exasperated, over her shoulder, not even letting me finish the sentence. Which I was and am sure gave everyone else at the table the impression that I was so talk-talky and annoying that even my own mom couldn’t stand me.

So after taking a couple of minutes to regain some dignity, I got up to look for someone else to talk to. What the hey, I’m not a little kid, why am I hanging with my mom anyway? (My dad was away at the time.) So there are all these round tables, and most people are facing inward. I don’t want to interrupt anyone; I won’t talk unless someone makes eye contact. So at about the third table, someone finally looks my way. “Hi, I’m Rilchie! Are y–” “Hi, Rilchie.” And turns away.

Well. Wow. A couple more tables, and a woman about my mom’s age is looking my way. “Hi, I’m Rilchie! Are you here with the bride or the groom?”

“Rilchie. Are you here with your parents?”

“Well, my mom.”

“Well, why don’t you go find her? She’s probably wondering where you are!” In an overly-soft voice, like I was a pre-schooler who was Running All Around.

Okay. That’s gonna take another minute or two to recover from. I may have gone to another table or two; I may have gone right back to the original table. Not because that woman had scolded me, but because I was running out of options. So I sit down, and my mom immediately turns as far away from me as is possible at a round table, still yammering to whoever. Okay then. Well, if I have to be alone, I’ll be physically alone, outside. But the fastest way outside was to cut across the dance floor. And I slipped and almost fell, in my good shoes, and that is when I started crying.

Someone must have told my mom, because I’m still out there, still crying so hard I can’t see straight, when she comes storming out. “Now LOOK! There’s a whole ROOM full of people in there you can talk to!” Some other stuff I can’t remember, and her last word was, “And nobody is going to put themselves out for YOU!” Turned and flounced back inside.

Well, we moved away a year later, so less contact when I was in high school. But then came T’s wedding, when I was 18. Eighteen, just graduated high school, and although I wasn’t beautiful, I looked damn good in that gown. So you wouldn’t think it would be a repeat of last time, right? Ha. Ha. Ha. More people I didn’t know, I try making the first move, and still no one’s interested.

Oh, except for D, the guy whose wedding it was when I was 13. He got inappropriate; let’s leave it at that. I spilled my drink on him and ran. And I wouldn’t have told anybody anything, except I had to tell my mom why it was that I didn’t want to use Aunt C’s pool if D was going to be there, or to be anywhere that he was. There was no confrontation, mind you, but she did believe me. (And it wasn’t a pedo kind of thing; more like a #metoo thing.) I’d been hoping people would really see me this time, and think, “What a mature young lady.” Instead, I got “Ooer, mature young lady, rawr!” Seriously, fuck those people.

But the good news is, I was finally able to take a stand. No more weddings, no more any large gatherings with this family, or mom’s family in general. I was tired of having to give up my time just to be a spectator to my supposed family bonding with each other. And they may well have been waiting for me to get the message already. So that was that. I went far away to college, then moved far away with the future Mr. Rilch, and they’re just people I once knew.

So why am I bringing this up again? Well, I heard one too many people complaining about angsty teens. I wanted to post my own story (somewhere else, not trying to start a board war), to give some perspective. And I was dismayed, to put it mildly, at some of the responses I got. So I thought I’d post here to find out if I’m crazy, or it’s actually not okay to cold-shoulder someone just because of their age.

*And who, according to one of them, practiced a religion for poor, deluded fools, who were going to have a hard time getting into Heaven, not like those of his faith, who had a straight shot. I didn’t talk to him for a while after that.

22

Thanks for the thoughtful, and I’m sure painful, response.

Yeah, fuck those people. 18yo you made the right decision to GTFO and write them all off.

23

My college student (!!) offspring tells me often her friends aren’t as close as the two of us are. It’s an only-child-single-parent dynamic, and most of those I saw growing up the pair were super close. I don’t know if being stuck inside with me and no friends for a few years of Covid also helped. She had horrible bratty moments and I am not a perfect parent, but the teenage years were mostly easy breezy.

I’m sure people would say I was a bratty teen, but I had a lot of bad things going on and I was … not given a lot of positive attention. I’m sure some people say I pulled away, but I feel I was given a good shove too.

Like most things, I think it’s a balance of nature and nurture and when you add in other people (spouses, siblings, friends, extended family), so many variables can complicate things despite anyone’s best intentions.

24

Are these people alive or in your life?

I’d ask them why they did that. It may be they weren’t thinking but otherwise not actually meaning to hurt you.

Only you know the back stories and family dynamics.

I don’t know, it might hurt more if they don’t even recall.

YMMV.

We like you and will be your surrogate family. :slightly_smiling_face:

25

Beck, I’m not kidding when I said I went no-contact. I didn’t flounce; I just let go. A different set of cousins invited me to a family reunion ten years ago; I got closure from that. All the cousins are still alive except D; he died before he was fifty (heart attack). There’s no possibility of asking anyone anything. And it’s really my mom who repeatedly threw me under the bus, and we had it out in my early 20s.

So again, why am I bringing this up? I think it’s more (post!) menopausal silliness. Memories I thought were buried are creeping up again. And I’m very much attuned to people talking about situations like this. In fact, I’ve noticed a pattern. Like I said in the OP, I’ve seen people talking on social media about younger people in their families or friend group. Over the years, I’ve noticed three categories of such posts.

  1. “I have this much younger person in my sphere, and I’m not sure how to make a connection with them.” Well, clearly if they’re approaching from that angle, they’re sincere, and open to constructive suggestions, and they usually get good results for both parties.

  2. “I have this much younger person in my sphere, and I’ve never liked them. Their being born, their being in my life now, has always been a problem for me. Especially since they never cooperate with me and always have an attitude. How can I straighten them out?” What those types want is advice on how to give the alleged Problem Child either a physical whoopin’, or a verbal beatdown, but without getting in trouble with whatever parental units are in the mix. They don’t to hear any suggestions that they modify their own behavior, though.

  3. [Like Filbert said] “It was fun having a Mini-Me for a while, but I’m just so over it now. How can I get this kid off my back?” These types mostly just want people to commiserate with, and to hear anecdotes of how annoying their younger whatevers were, so they can nurture their resentment and be on an even shorter fuse the next time they see the kid, and be even more snappish and get a rise out of them earlier. “See?! I can’t do anything with hir!”

2s and 3s are usually not open to the kind of suggestions I make. “Well, maybe s/he’s thinking this and feeling that. Can you try doing this and saying that?” “Oh, get outta here with that glurge. You obviously have the mind of a child yourself, if you’re taking THEIR side!” Now, I honestly don’t care if I offend these people; their reaction kinda proves my point, that they’re not as mature as they claim they are. I’m not trying to help them; I’m trying to help the child/teen. But, I can’t help them, because the “adult” won’t take my advice, and in fact, I gotta hope they don’t ramp up their nastiness just because of me.

Yes, I often get into things that may not be my business. But not because I’m self-righteous or a glurge peddler or immature and naive. It’s because so many people minded their own business when I needed help, and if I ignore children/teenagers who might need help now, what good am I?

26

I’ve had to learn to discount most of what I see online. I don’t do Facebook but I see YouTube shorts. I think a lot of those things are fake or people who just wanna stir drama for clicks.

Maybe don’t read them.

27

That’s the best advice.

There is far more turmoil, real and imagined, in the world than you can begin to assuage. If you must, do something concrete to volunteer at a local charity or clinic or whatever that helps real flesh and blood kids you can see in person.

But don’t pour your sanity away trying to make the unhinged online whining of 350M Americans somehow better. That’s all effort and no reward. And it’s crazy-making effort at that.

Just say “No” to reading or responding to online drama llamas.

It’s hackneyed, but try this on for size:

Remembering that “should” is not the same as “ought”. The human universe is full of sadness and strife. Along with a lot of good. Always has been and always will be. Such is the nature of humans. The drama llamas wallow only in the former. Don’t hang out with them.


@Dallas_Jones in post 17 here gave some concrete examples of good he did. And no doubt he felt like he was bailing the ocean with a teaspoon every day. The need for help far, far outstrips the supply. Because humans. That was his paid job, but there are almost certainly similar volunteer opportunities if you simply need to do something to help some challenged youth grow up to a better life.

28

This thread reminds me of a period in my teens when my parents apparently decided I was a rootless youngster without ambition and needed to be motivated.

Among other things, I was urged to read “What Makes Sammy Run?”

So I guess I was supposed to grow up to be Harvey Weinstein. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

29

I had a really bad adolescence with a mother who didn’t know how to parent a teenager. It was really the most nightmarish time of my life. The first time I seriously considered suicide, I was 13 years old. Generally I was a good kid but the more I had to deal with my mother’s temper tantrums the angrier I got, until the day, at age 17, I literally walked out the door and did not return. Things went downhill from there. People in my family had talked behind my mother’s back for years about how unhinged she was, but I seem to have lost a lot of credibility for being the one who actually stood up to her. Not everyone failed me, but many did.

The thing about adolescence is that even in the best of circumstances, it’s hard. Hormonal and physical changes are hard. If you’re a girl, you’re often on the receiving end of sexual attention way before you’re prepared for it. (I can only speak from a girl’s POV.) You’re dealing with menstruation for the first time. Expectations change and you’ve got a lot of demands on you. And socialization becomes something else, at least for me it felt like a lot of other girls treated it as a competition. This is also where depression, anxiety and eating disorders start to happen. And because of school schedules, most teens get way less sleep than they actually need.

As a result of all that, teenagers can be in a pretty shitty mood. They might be surly and withdrawn as they try to sort through all the changes. A parent or relatives can either take this personally and make the situation significantly worse, or they can recognize how freaking hard it is to be a teenager and respond with compassion and grace.

Sometimes I think I’m raising a teenager because my kid pushes back so often on very reasonable expectations. But I try to remember who is the adult in the room. Even at his age he’s engaged in a struggle I can only see from the outside. I’ve been somewhat worried about what his adolescence will be like because mine was so miserable. But I also know that I have reasonable expectations about what kinds of behaviors to expect from teens, as well as an understanding of just how hard it is to be one. So regardless of the challenges he faces, I will be an entirely different kind of mother than the one I had.

What is comes down to for me is that as a parent you can either choose to take it personally, whatever “it” is, or you can be a parent and support your kid through what is likely the hardest time of their young life. If you fail to do that, that’s on you - not your kid. You don’t get to check out of engaging with your child just because they are harder to deal with. That’s when they need you the most.

30

As a side note, I’ve seen kids scapegoated long before adolescence. I have a relative with three very difficult children - I mean VERY difficult. This is mostly due to them having neurodevelopmental disorders. One is aged 7 and two are 6, I believe.

Many many people in our family have singled these kids out as uniquely bad and blamed the mother. To the point of not inviting the kids to events. (And they are not THAT bad at these events, really. Every time I’ve seen them they are just acting like rambunctious kids.) But the mother, too, understandably at her wit’s end, assigns much more intention to this behavior than likely exists. A lot of her criticism of her children likely stems from the way she is shamed for their behavior, but it doesn’t help matters.

I do not believe she is to blame for their behavior at all. But I wish they had someone in their corner even when they were behaving at their worst.

31

I have one grandchild who has been very difficult since birth.

She came out screaming and didn’t stop for like 3 years. (Yes, she’s been tested, no divergences detected).

Some kids are just hard. I don’t see where blame is even a consideration.

She finally matured into a touchy mid-aged kid. With many good qualities. She’s very humorous and sees funny in about everything. I appreciate that.

Her mother is sweating the teen years as we speak. The older sister is Very pre-teen and considered the perfect child. I keep telling my son and DIL try really hard not to compare. Don’t discount Sisters accomplishments, but don’t throw it in middle childs face. Plus they have twin boys. It’s hard. If they’re really careful they can ease these girls thru the teen years.

Man, I have hope in my heart. :crossed_fingers:

32

I was floored when I saw this in Harper’s Index, May 2026:

Percentage of Americans who say that, as children, they knew a compassionate, nonjudgmental adult: 35

Percentage of these Americans who say that their mother was such a person: 50

That their father was: 5

May 2026 • Source: *Marc Brackett, Yale University (New Haven, Conn.)

The expression “it takes a village to raise a child” may be trite, but it seems compelling to me.

33

I am lucky to be in that 35% because of my beloved Aunt. And one of my grandmothers.

Some kids get nothing.

34

[quote=“LSLGuy, post:27, topic:1033317”]
@Dallas_Jones in post 17 here gave some concrete examples of good he did. And no doubt he felt like he was bailing the ocean with a teaspoon every day. The need for help far, far outstrips the supply. Because humans. That was his paid job, but there are almost certainly similar volunteer opportunities if you simply need to do something to help some challenged youth grow up to a better life.
[/quote] I worked graveyard shift, mostly what I used to call Advanced Babysitting. But I was the only normal adult in a dorm of 160 young people at night. Sometimes there was a significant incedent or trauma from home, and I was the only one available to talk to. Long nights talking it all out. All night long and getting them centered on what to do next.

Maybe their brother killed himself, maybe mom is in jail again. No counsellors on duty at that time of of night, just me. I never realized just how many young people have no family, no hope, and believe they have no furture. If you have a young person with even a totaly disfuncuntial family, they are way ahead in the game of life. Because they have some kind of family.

It was a underpaid shitty, job that I had to quit for unrelated health reasons. But is was personally very rewarding emotionally.

35

A grandma like you in their corner will help.

36

I’m going to respond from the POV of a parent. We had a daughter, then 2 1/2 years later twin sons. The first few years weren’t too bad. The kids were adorable and all we had to deal with was simple exhaustion.

Then they started school. Three kids with different personalities, trying to treat the twins as two separate individuals with different interests, sibling rivalry x3 with each one trying to prove they were the alpha, scheduling conflicts, constant complaints of “it’s not FAIR,” every time my wife and I had to make a decision about who got what or which event we could or couldn’t attend. Counseling, both individual and family. The onset of puberty ramped everything up. It wasn’t until my daughter was safely in college and the twins were late in high school and able to hang out together or go off with their separate groups of friends that the friction eased enough for us to stop being traffic cops/crisis managers and for them to ease up on the sibling competition so that the five of us could start to interact as reasonably normal human beings.

Some families never get past that kind of stressful beginning. Some people, having grown up in that kind of environment, never get over it and even project it onto their later relationships.

37

From the sounds of it, it sounds like your mom basically brainwashed everyone into hating you behind your back. Toxic people do that, destroy someone’s reputation so that person is easier to control and so nobody will ally with them or support them. The fact that everyone at the party treated you like shit sounds like your mom got to them and turned them against you.

Going no contact was a good move. Your mom would’ve made your life miserable if you let her be in it.

38

She didn’t help, for sure. But nobody hated me. It was not a vendetta, I don’t think. It was just a roomful of strangers. The only people I wouldn’t have had to introduce myself to were all at the head table. That left people on my uncle’s side, who I barely knew, and the groom’s friends, who I didn’t know, and all the people on the bride’s side who I didn’t know. Might have been a good idea to introduce me to people, or have someone else do so? But she seemed not to think I was worth the effort, so I appeared to have no reason to be there, and people responded accordingly. Nobody “got to” the bride’s family; they didn’t notice me at all.

I remember that wedding when I was nine. I spent about five minutes with this person, ten with that couple…I worked that whole room! But looking back, I must have been getting signals, from eye contact, facial expression, body language, that it was okay to do that. Four years later, I got no signals: dead fish. Probably because I was radiating insecurity. Wonder why.

So mom didn’t conspire against me, but she did hang me out to dry. Like not countering Aunt J (groom’s mother) when she’d put me down. Loudly correcting me in front of others; probably to ward off accusations that she was spoiling me, but giving the impression that I was a handful and a half. And other stuff. So yeah, it was not “Let’s all hate Rilchie,” but a strong sense of, “Rilchie is a lot, isn’t she? And so strange!”

But I didn’t go no contact with her, just her family. Again looking back, I think it was a win when I was 20, at college, and she called to tell me that her Christmas plans heavily involved her family. “But I guess that’s not something you want to do…” “Yes, I want to go to [city] with my friend.” And I did. And had a great time being part of a group.

39

I’ve known 3 people personally who went to Job Corps, all of them in the 1980s. Two could have been described as learning disabled or borderline intellectual functioning, and the other was a teen mom who said, “I want to better myself, and get myself and my daughter off ADC.” (Aid to Dependent Children, now called TANF last time I looked.) I don’t know what kind of program the first two did, but the third one did a secretarial program, and did indeed get a good job afterwards, although having to leave her daughter with her own parents for 2 semesters was really tough. The Iowa program was in Denison, a small town out in the middle of nowhere.

I recently heard about a woman in either Kentucky or Tennessee who was in a Job Corps program, and killed a classmate back in the 1990s and is about to be executed for it.

40

Are the 6-year-olds twins?

Where is their father?