Are teen girls just idiots?

[Xahm]

Earlier this summer I spent some time with a friend's nieces, and they were on track to become like this girl. For example, we were at a picnic and the 11 y.o. asked why I wasn't giving my baby any food. I explained that he's too young for sandwiches and that I would nurse him later. She said "huh?" and cocked her head to the side. I explained further and still just got the "huh?" and head cock over and over. I didn't say it because she was young and not my charge, but I was loudly thinking "be careful, those who try to make themselves stupid frequently succeed."

[catz]

I've been on this board at least 10 years and thought it was an uncharacteristic and unnecessarily mean spirited post about an incident with identifying details about someone else's child in an extremely negative light.  Especially when not looking for problem solving strategies while bragging on your own parenting perfection.   🤷‍♀️  I've called other people out for it as well.  It takes a village.  Shut it down and call a parent and hand a kid off and be grateful your kids are so perfect.  I have no issues with your reaction.  It was the post tone that set me off.  

Perhaps you should just avoid interacting with teens in the future if you find them so annoying and impolite.

[Shoeless]

@MaBelle I got that your post was hyperbole,  born of exasperation with this obnoxious 18 year old.  At age 18, she should be well past this sort of thing.  I remember blurting out some obnoxious, inappropriate stuff to adults when I was 13 and rightly being put on blast for what I said.  But 18 years old?  Nah, you know better.  

Some kids around this age say inappropriate things not because they don't understand what they are saying isn't ok, but because they think it's funny to watch others get put on the spot.  They like pushing the envelope.  They know they are going to get a pass because they're young and other people will excuse it due to youth.  I've run into this before with kids younger than your nieces friend.  They feel very bold until someone tells them to cut it out.        

Edited to add: Also, I like your blunt style.  I am also blunt and get sniffed at that I'm not gentle enough.  I don't see a need to be gentle with people that are treating me rudely.  I don't think you owe an 18-year old (technically) adult special consideration of her feelings when she's not considering yours at all. 

Edited July 22, 2019 by MissLemon

[Tanaqui]

Quote

I got that your post was hyperbole,  born of exasperation with this obnoxious 18 year old.  At age 18, she should be well past this sort of thing.  I remember blurting out some obnoxious, inappropriate stuff to adults when I was 13 and rightly being put on blast for what I said.  But 18 years old?  Nah, you know better.   

 

I didn't particularly know better at 18. I mean, I don't think I would've made quite the rude comments this girl made, but yo, I made more than my fair share with the best of intentions. My foot was so far in my mouth at times that I thought everything tasted like shoe. And while I'd like to place the blame firmly on autism (and definitely thank the internet for the fact that I currently have any social skills at all* - no, that's not hyperbole), I think some of it in both directions was still just youth. 18 year olds can sometimes still be really... well, immature.

(I like to think that at 36 I have reached a pinnacle of maturity and social awareness and good grace, but I am uneasily aware that I probably have no more self-insight than I did 18 years ago. Well, I have a little more insight, just enough to know that it's possible that I don't have very much.)

* Sometimes when I say things like this people fall all over themselves to reassure me that they don't think I "seem autistic". They think they're being polite, but actually they're not. Regardless, if you're going in the other direction and you're about to snicker to yourself about how I have very few social skills now,  trust me, you didn't know me when I was younger.

Edited July 22, 2019 by Tanaqui

[SKL]

Teens can say some pretty dumb things, yes.  I was pretty dumb myself as a teen.  Knowing when to keep one's lips closed is a matter of maturity as well as education.

Also, I wouldn't leave boys out of this.  🙂

This thread reminds me of the time I was participating in the wedding festivities of a friend's a young relative.  A tween boy cousin in the family sat next to me and said, "do you mind if I ask you a personal question?"  [me:  "you can ask...."]  "Why at your age have you never been married?"

I wondered what his mother would have thought of that question, but I answered it to the extent I felt comfortable telling a random curious youngster.

Edited July 22, 2019 by SKL

[El...]

3 hours ago, SKL said:

Teens can say some pretty dumb things, yes.  I was pretty dumb myself as a teen.  Knowing when to keep one's lips closed is a matter of maturity as well as education.

Also, I wouldn't leave boys out of this.  🙂

This thread reminds me of the time I was participating in the wedding festivities of a friend's a young relative.  A tween boy cousin in the family sat next to me and said, "do you mind if I ask you a personal question?"  [me:  "you can ask...."]  "Why at your age have you never been married?"

I wondered what his mother would have thought of that question, but I answered it to the extent I felt comfortable telling a random curious youngster.

At least he knew it was an overstep!  This made me laugh. 

MaBelle, it sounds to me like you were pushed a long way before you pushed back. Perhaps your direct response will be helpful in the long run. You didn't call her rude names. 

[Scarlett]

12 hours ago, MaBelle said:

HEY!  I thought my original post title had the word "All" in it too!  What happened.   I stand by the addition of the word ALL to my title.

This is becoming way more fun than I could have ever imagined.

Did you put it back?  Because it is back.  This is so amusing.  

Remember the other day when someone told me my idea of what to say to my bio dad was confrontational? And you said it wasn’t confrontational in your book.....so I guess we are soul sisters.  

[kristin0713]

Is it possible that this girl is on the spectrum at all and doesn't even realize that her questions are not socially appropriate?

[Scarlett]

The word all is gone again.  Someone is really messing with us. 

[MaBelle]

9 minutes ago, Scarlett said:

The word all is gone again.  Someone is really messing with us. 

Twilight Zone.  I am not changing it.  Too lazy.

[MaBelle]

47 minutes ago, kristin0713 said:

Is it possible that this girl is on the spectrum at all and doesn't even realize that her questions are not socially appropriate?

Anything's possible.

[MaBelle]

1 hour ago, Scarlett said:

 

 

Remember the other day when someone told me my idea of what to say to my bio dad was confrontational? And you said it wasn’t confrontational in your book.....so I guess we are soul sisters.  

I am honored!

[MaBelle]

2 hours ago, elroisees said:

 

MaBelle, it sounds to me like you were pushed a long way before you pushed back. Perhaps your direct response will be helpful in the long run. You didn't call her rude names. 

But I was horribly tempted.  My tongue was bleeding.

[MaBelle]

9 hours ago, FuzzyCatz said:

  

Perhaps you should just avoid interacting with teens in the future if you find them so annoying and impolite.

#1 I'm done parenting.  I don't want to parent the world.

#2 Believe me, I avoid all but certain teens like the plague.  Happy?

[MaBelle]

19 hours ago, gardenmom5 said:

if she hadn't started off with how perfect her own daughters were.....

 

 

I didn't say perfect, I said low drama.  Which, by the way was none of my doing.  Just the personalities God gave them.

I feel so misquoted and unloved...SOB...(not really, for those of you who don't get me.)

[SKL]

I think you did say something like "almost perfect."  But I assumed you didn't actually mean that literally.  🙂

[MaBelle]

3 hours ago, SKL said:

I think you did say something like "almost perfect."  But I assumed you didn't actually mean that literally.  🙂

Well, not to be combative, but they were very easy to raise.  I know not all are and for those who struggle with their girls I'm sorry.  Of course we had bumps, but like I said, no drama. And they certainly didn't ask my friends about bedroom habits.

And eta- it was not my doing either.  They are simply the way God made them.  And in the end it doesn't matter.  I know what my girls are like (and so do my IRL friends, some from this board.)

 

Edited July 22, 2019 by MaBelle

[SKL]

I hope my kids don't ask their friends' parents questions like that.  BUT I dare not say "my kid would never."  Because the minute I say that, watch out.  😛

[MaBelle]

1 hour ago, Indigo Blue said:

I'll tell you a story, MaBelle. My naive twenty-something self had a perfect little boy. He slept through the night at two weeks of age. He was a very, very good boy. He was easily amused and could entertain himself for hours. He was affectionate and quiet. He was well-behaved everywhere we went. I thought I was a great mom. Such a wonderful, smart mom that I was raising such a well-behaved, mild-mannered child. I was good at mothering. I had this thing down cold. I knew the secret. You just have to give them firm discipline and lots of patience and tons of love. You set good examples and teach them. Yes, I was the best mother. I would put my lovely son in the shopping cart and quietly push him down all the aisles and do my shopping at leisure, because, after all, I was so good at raising this boy, you know. I would see other moms with screaming boys, running around and throwing stuff off shelves, and I have to admit I would think that I was due all the credit for the picture of heaven sitting quietly in my cart.

When this little boy was 7, he was blessed with a little brother. I don't think I slept for two years. I had bags under my eyes. I have a professionally-taken family photograph wherein you can see my purple, tired eyes, and my sweet little peanut face boy smiling so perfectly in the photo...to prove it all. I remember the day well. We had to wait a very long time until it was our turn to be photographed. By the time we went in, I was exhausted from having run all about chasing after him, keeping him out of things and in my sight. He screamed and cried the whole time, except for one brief moment when the photographer snapped his picture when he was still and smiling....just for a second. We were enjoying a meal in a fish camp once. He was sitting next to me in his high chair, squirming. A stranger walked over to me from another table and handed me something. I stared in disbelief. It was my son's shoe. He had thrown it across the fish camp. I had to plan shopping trips more carefully. I had to be quick. No reading labels, just throw it in.  I began to see the error and irony of my naive thinking. I did everything exactly the same with them. I began to wonder, if he's like this now, what will happen when he's sixteen? I would remind myself then that, yes, yes, I am a good mom. Just a wiser one.

It turned out that they both were awesome during their teen years. Not a speck of trouble. But I've long since lost my naive attitude, lol. But, still, honestly, it takes good parenting and lots of effort, and that we gave in spades. But, now, in my fifties, I realize that so much of our personality is just the way we were born.

Bwahaha!  My three boys were like wild Indians.  But two of them are in law enforcement now so they have to behave themselves.

[Rosie_0801]

10 hours ago, kristin0713 said:

Is it possible that this girl is on the spectrum at all and doesn't even realize that her questions are not socially appropriate?

 

Sooooo not an excuse at her age.

[Shoeless]

16 hours ago, Tanaqui said:

 

I didn't particularly know better at 18. I mean, I don't think I would've made quite the rude comments this girl made, but yo, I made more than my fair share with the best of intentions. My foot was so far in my mouth at times that I thought everything tasted like shoe. And while I'd like to place the blame firmly on autism (and definitely thank the internet for the fact that I currently have any social skills at all* - no, that's not hyperbole), I think some of it in both directions was still just youth. 18 year olds can sometimes still be really... well, immature.

(I like to think that at 36 I have reached a pinnacle of maturity and social awareness and good grace, but I am uneasily aware that I probably have no more self-insight than I did 18 years ago. Well, I have a little more insight, just enough to know that it's possible that I don't have very much.)

* Sometimes when I say things like this people fall all over themselves to reassure me that they don't think I "seem autistic". They think they're being polite, but actually they're not. Regardless, if you're going in the other direction and you're about to snicker to yourself about how I have very few social skills now,  trust me, you didn't know me when I was younger.

 

OP said she'd given the teen a few polite warnings that her questions were not appropriate and the girl pressed on anyway.  Do you think that's typical for 18? I was definitely immature at 18, (probably still immature for 47!), but I think if a friend's mom had told me "Look, you need to stop", I would have stopped instead of pressing on.  I would have felt really embarrassed. 

[Katy]

2 hours ago, MissLemon said:

 

OP said she'd given the teen a few polite warnings that her questions were not appropriate and the girl pressed on anyway.  Do you think that's typical for 18? I was definitely immature at 18, (probably still immature for 47!), but I think if a friend's mom had told me "Look, you need to stop", I would have stopped instead of pressing on.  I would have felt really embarrassed. 

 

It sounds to me like she had the same superior attitude of a lot of 18 year olds and think she is better than everyone else, so she was asking rude questions so she could enjoy being judgmental. I'm not so sure I would have been as patient.

[Tanaqui]

Quote

Bwahaha!  My three boys were like wild Indians.  But two of them are in law enforcement now so they have to behave themselves.

 

I didn't know anybody used that phrase anymore. It's really inappropriately racist.

[MaBelle]

1 hour ago, Tanaqui said:

 

I didn't know anybody used that phrase anymore. It's really inappropriately racist.

Huh.  I have Indian blood.  I have a pic to prove it.  I look just like her. 

 

Edited July 23, 2019 by MaBelle

[Tanaqui]

I'm not sure who "her" is, but at any rate, that doesn't sound like you're saying that you are tribally enrolled or otherwise part of the cultural life of a Native American Nation, recognized or not.

[MaBelle]

52 minutes ago, Tanaqui said:

I'm not sure who "her" is, but at any rate, that doesn't sound like you're saying that you are tribally enrolled or otherwise part of the cultural life of a Native American Nation, recognized or not.

Her as in my ancestor.  No, I'm not tribally enrolled.  Or otherwise.  So what?   Isn't that incredibly racist to deny me my Indian ancestor?

Wait, wait, could there be money involved?

Edited July 23, 2019 by MaBelle
adding smartass comment.