Inspired by this recent thread, I am asking fellow Dopers to relate their experiences from when you wondered what you did to deserve the things your parents did to you for their own amusement.
My dad would sing loudly and off-key. He knew it would annoy me and I’d leave the room. Perhaps he did it on purpose so he could watch TV without me making noises while playing with my toys and interfering with his viewing. Whenever he offered me ice cream he’d sometimes keep bringing it to me in odd, unconventional containers (such as on a plate, in a glass, etc.) My mother never did anything to annoy me that I can remember, though.
my dad had a habit of belching and passing gas without shame in restaurant settings just to make me mad. he did this even when i was in prep school, in front of friends, teachers, and administrators during family day banquets.
suffice it to say that he reinforced a lot of people’s stereotypes against ‘scholarship kids.’
no wonder i’m an anal-retentive tool that teaches etiquette classes.
My dad used to give me giant bear hugs in public when I was a teenager just to embarass me. You know, the kind where you’re lifted off the ground? Annoyed the hell out of me at the time. Now I’m happy to get them ::
She would be in my room for some reason, and I’d ask her to close the door on her way out. She would close it almost all the way, but leave it ajar. Every time I’d have to get up and shut it.
I’m sorry to say, there was no humor in this. It reflected her controlling nature. This drives me crazy to this day when someone else does it too, at home or at work.
My father used to poke me in the sides or tickle me. To the point of pain. HE thought it was funny. Needless to say, I certainly didn’t.
He did lots of other things to annoy me, but most of them weren’t done out of humor but “for my own good.” Like making me eat oyster stew whenever we went to a wonderful seafood restaurant on the Oregon coast (to this day I can’t be in the same ROOM with a bowl of that slimy, disgusting stuff). All my food issues can be placed DIRECTLY at his feet.
Being told ‘try it, you don’t know what you’re missing!’. I am a finicky eater. If it smelled bad or looked too slimey it wasn’t going in my mouth, period. Coaxing, mocking or forcing just made me more pig-headed about NOT putting it in my mouth. Any wonder I STILL hate seafood? Newsflash: it’s a sea-insect and gets boiled alive, so there’s no way it’s going into my mouth! Yeah, I have food issues too, butrscotch, and I feel you!
Oh God, I could tell you, but I don’t have the time to write it, nobody would have the patience to read it, and the board isn’t large enough to support it…
My mom will sing songs about poo, pee, and other similar topics in Chinese… even if they have company over. :eek: So why the big deal? Well, even I can understand them with my limited knowledge of Chinese… and the company is usually Chinese. She even stops herself mid-song to say: “Oh, I guess I shouldn’t be singing about poopoo… they’ll understand me!” (then she’ll laugh and continue singing)
She and my dad will also try to hug me in public and in private… I’m just not that kind of a “touchy-feely” person with my parents, and I make no apologies for it.
My mom will also insist that I’m the one with an unnatural interest in poo and similar things… when in fact, SHE’s the one with it. Classic denial going on there.
There are a LOT of other things, but I won’t go into them now. Too little time, and it would be way too long.
I’ll just say that my parents know these behaviors annoy me, but they think it’s humorous. Go figure. :rolleyes:
I’ll be in my room and my mom would always yell my name from the kitchen and I’d run all the way over only to have her ask me to do insanely petty things like open the kitchen window “just a bit more”
Or she’d say "Oh, since you’re here, could you please throw this carrot peel in the bin * right next to my leg? *
make me eat
no im not suffering from some sort of eating disorder or anything but it goes like this,
will i make u some dinner?
no thanks, iv eaten,
ah il just make some sausages and chips
no mam honest im fine
ah sure il make em anyway
i dont want them
ah go on
no thanks
and it goes on and on…
im not ungrateful, its just a waste!
My father would call me downstairs from my bedroom to walk right past him sitting in the living room, into the kitchen to get him a beer. (Or soda or ice water or whatever.) Or make him an egg or an omelette or sandwich. “Since you’re already down here,” he’d say. He’d also whack me on the back, and damn near knock me over every time. (He wasn’t hitting me hard, or he didn’t think so, but he’s stronger than he probably realizes.)
My mother had this annoying habit of catching me every time I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing. She is the quietest, sneakiest person I know.
Qadgop makes horrible, horrible puns. And sings off-key. I honestly think he purposely did it a lot more when I was at that age where everything your parents do mortifies you. Now it just amuses me to no end. Like the time he was rummaging around in the fridge while talking to me, and suddenly grabbed the bottle of lime juice, perched it on top of his head, and declared, “I’m sublime!” Or the time he made up a song about the capitols of the Canadian provinces and territories. (“And the capitol of the Northwest Territories IS Yellowknife, wo wo, but I DON’T know… the capitol of NUNAVUT…”)
As for my mom… If you’ve ever seen the Simpsons episode where Marge substitutes for Bart’s class, my mom is EXACTLY like that sometimes. Just the typical lovable dorky mom.
For reference, here’s that part of the episode from SNPP.com.
Marge: Well, I’m sure some of you already know me. I’m Bart
Simpson’s mother.
[everyone laughs; Nelson pushes Bart]
[Marge goes up to Bart and starts wiping dirt off his cheek]*
Now I’m just grateful that she’s very good tempered about being compared to Marge at all. If you’re nice, she’ll do Marge impressions when she gets a bad cold.
They made me go to bed on the night of the first Moon landing. I was 9. It would hardly have killed me to stay up, or be got out of bed in time to see it. :mad:
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