I, too, am troubled that Prudie would simply play the odds and assume the teenager in question is an obnoxious brat. I'd hope she'd at least withhold judgement on a young person with the wherewithal to read her column and seek her advice – this could be a fairly exceptional teenager we're talking about here! Also keep in mind that for teens in some places and situations, parental transportation may be the only safely viable option – as a parent, maybe accepting that your kid is embarrassed by you and toning it down a bit maybe be preferable to both straining your relationship and watching your child hop into a car with someone you don't trust.

How about this: Engage this group of friends (or, better, some honest and reasonable subset of them) in a conversation about parents, and express your concern that, compared to other parents, your mom is a little much. If your friends don't fall over themselves to confirm this viewpoint and express their exasperation, it probably isn't a big deal, and you should lay off your mom (and strongly consider apologizing to her). If they take the opportunity to express how obnoxious they find your mom, commiserate with them, but stick up for your mom since her clear goal is to see that everyone has a good time and thank your friends for their patience. I'm guessing that once you've gotten this all out, you'll feel less embarrassed. Show enough class to not share judgement of this little enclave with your mom, and appreciate the positive aspects of her sacrifice until you move away.

I agree with those of you who point out that the mom may very well be 'trying too hard' or otherwise being embarassing. There are some things that are just not worth fighting over, though. Whether this is 'mom' behavior, or a personality quirk (some adults act in ways which embarrass other adults -- notice how many letters get sent here from adult children complaining about their parents and inlaws) it shouldn't be too much to put up with it for a car ride. Especially since we expect that Annoyed Youth will, with some effort, be able to buy his own car, or leave the state, etc.

I don't think the whole "my house, my rules" statement applies here. If her mom liked to walk around naked, even when the LW brought her friends over, would the advice be the same? Prudie is basically giving the mother a pass to be as obnoxious as she wants, because, apparently, being a parent gives you that right.

"I, too, am troubled that Prudie would simply play the odds and assume the teenager in question is an obnoxious brat."

Well, lets play the odds the other way. How likely is a mother who is trying to relate and engage with her daughter and friends and drives them around a candidate for vilification?

Two words. The bus. Oh, two more! Car payments. Or, how about these two? Thanks Mom.

I'm one of those moms. I drive my daughter and her friends all over town, to movies, bowling, parties. I pick up and deliver. I've even had kids call me at 12pm when they couldn't reach their parents and needed an emergency ride, who weren't my kids, when my kid was home in bed.

The payoff? I get to be a fly on the wall. I know pretty much everything about them and their friends because they forget I'm there. I know who's smoking, who got drunk last weekend, who's going out with who, who had an abortion. And I'm a safety net for my kids extended group of friends.

They talk to me (and I talk to them) but at some point I exit the conversation and they talk among themselves. They always thank me and I get lots of friendly spontaneous hugs.

Occasionally, I embarrass my daughter. Sometimes, I even understand. I told some cheesy clarinet jokes one day, and later my daughter told me how embarrassing they were (Why did the chicken cross the road? To get away from the clarinet recital. HAHAHA). Other times, I think she's just going through some of the teenage thing. I don't take it personally, it's normal.

My daughter and I are happy together. She and her friends get to go a lot more places and have more fun. I get to be part of her and her friends lives. Sounds like a win win to me.

PhysicsGirl:

It reminds me of the time a few years back when I did my sister a favor by going out and buying her a bunch of groceries (she was running very low on cash) and she complained that I had gotten 2% milk instead of 1%.....

I agree, this is a good example. Here we have a person who did a 'favor' that the recipient didn't benefit from. Yet that damn recipient better be grateful anyway!

Look, if you love your sister and you are buying her groceries - 2% cost the same as 1%. Why not buy her the stuff she actually likes? Again, if this was about loving somebody and trying to help them.

I assume you didn't know (you don't strike me as a malicious person). Your sister was wrong for complaining yet at the same time, you did mess up. Usually when you are doing a favor you try to make it one that the recipient benefits from, otherwise you are just wasting effort.

But this Mom is different. Much like the mom in another post, this Mom has been told that her behavior is hurting her child (yes, embarrassment in front of a teenagers friends is painful - remember all those worried Fraysters about the teenage naked pics??). And her response is 'screw you, I'm doing whatever I want'. That isn't loving behavior, no matter what 'favor' is being done in the meantime. And that isn't modeling good conflict resolution (any wonder that the kid was bratty with her complaints??).

And just a follow up thought, how many of us here have been forced by life's circumstances to be 'grateful' for whatever they get? This kid can't get a car of her own without a job (assuming she is even old enough to drive) and she can't get a job without a car. If she is 14 like some of you all are assuming, she isn't even legal to work enough hours to support her buying her own car. Public transportation? Sure, if she lives in an area that has it. And, the transportation is safe enough that a 14 year old can be riding on it after dark. How many of you know of a town that has both a transit system big enough to get around on that is safe for young teenagers? She is stuck at the mercy of her Mom, and Mom is making damn sure she knows it. Again, not exactly good parenting.

I'm totally perplexed here. Someone who buys groceries for someone who is strapped for cash has to be evaluated for maliciousness and messed up?

A 14 year old (or whatever age of this young person person) is some sort of victim because she has no car? Mother's can't be themselves? They're just silent chaffuers or else that makes them a bad parent? Who is at the mercy of who in this scenario?

I personally had immigrant parents. I sometimes felt embarassed, but was my mother a bad parent because she spoke with a funny accent? Should I have asked her to shut up when other people were around? Later in life I was embarassed by the idea that I let some ignorant kid make me feel she was less than because we didn't eat cucumber sandwiches.

And on the scale of real teenage problems-sex, drugs, education, paying for college this isn't a problem. This is a normal stage in teen-age development. Teen-age entitlement is a different matter all together. Perhaps as the OP noted this is an exceptional young person, but lets face it, they're not exactly asking where to invest their science fare winnings.

How about we say that somebody who does a 'favor' may not be doing the recipients any actual favors. Sometimes people do 'favors' so that the can indebt the recipient, not to be kind. Sometimes people do favors that the recipient doesn't want and then demand that the recipient be grateful anyway. I'm not saying that of PG. I'm just saying that I'm not giving anybody any medal for doing 'favors' without examining the motivation behind it.

SonnyPI67:

Wow. IncogNeato your vitriol against teenagers is startling, and a little disturbing.

What vitriol? I have been a teenager, had teenagers, and volunteered around teenagers. I've defended teenagers often, when they are unjustly accused. However, this teen is acting like a jerk. It's age-appropriate behavior, but that still doesn't make it acceptable, anymore than a 2-year old stripping and running naked at a wedding would be age inappropriate or acceptable.

SusanM:

Look, if you love your sister and you are buying her groceries - 2% cost the same as 1%. Why not buy her the stuff she actually likes? Again, if this was about loving somebody and trying to help them.

Really, Susan, you're kidding, right? Do you know all the brands, flavors, etc. your siblings prefer, were you to buy them groceries? Have you ever received a gift from someone which was the wrong size, color, etc.? Did you complain, "Oh, I hate that shade of green!" or did you return it for something that suited you more?

PhysicsGirl didn't say her sister was an invalid or without transportation. She simply was low on funds. With the receipt, and often without it, most grocers will let you exchange one item for a same-priced item in the same category; so her sister was the jerk, not PhysicsGirl. She just as easily (more easily, in fact) could have let her sister go hungry.

I have bought my siblings groceries before - for my little sister I walked her into a store and said "ok, I can do about $100, let's shop". For my brother (when he lived with me) I said "here is a piece of paper - write me a grocery list". When he explained to me after a trip that the hot sauce in the glass bottle was not the same as the stuff in the plastic bottle, I laughed at him, said he was crazy and then told him to put the plastic bottle kind on my list for next week.

Again, it isn't right to complain about somebody's gift choice. But it sure the hell isn't right to say "you have no choice in the quality of favors that I do for you but you still owe me because I did something for you". I think that is what is at the root of what is bugging me - this concept of indebtedness in return for an unasked for, unwanted favor.

Circling it back to the LW, if this child was somehow magically able to make a rational choice at the age of kindergarten, do you think that she would have perhaps chosen to skip the expensive private school education / rural living / etc for the possibility of being able to run next door to play with her school friends? The parent's made a choice for their child, now they are expecting her to be grateful for it, even when it is seriously messing up her social life.

I think the concept, you're describing is just too extreme and abstract for the problem. The problem itself is really likely more about dramatics than a real "problem. " On those days in my life, that I was eating ketchup and Ramen noodles myself, I would have been damn happy to get any kind of milk and another bottle of ketchup. Grateful, in fact. There's something about putting water in your milk that would be applicable here too.

I think it's a matter of degree, no? If we tell someone in Myanmar this morning they should be grateful to get 6 oz of water or folks in Darfur that 20 oz of cornmeal and a 1/1/2 cup of lentils will be their diet indefinately, I see your point. My sister, unasked, bails my ass out of the food bank. Grateful. And considering the kismet that puts me behind this computer and some other person in line at the Red Cross, I can live with being grateful.

Circling back to LW, myself....Like I said, My parents we funny talking, distinctly unfashionable, over eager to engage with my friends and their parents. Are they bad parents? Are poor parents who live in mobile homes bad parents? Are parents with lawn gnomes bad parents? Are parents who show some affection to each other bad parents? Or, most breathtaking in your example now this young person is a victim of parents who might have put him in a good school, have a nice home and drive him around inspite of his lack of appreciation for what they must think is his own good.

When an incipient adult and parents disagree on what "their own good" is, that is what sets the stage for launching an independant adult into the world. It's nature. Also, without developing some social skills, there is no social life.

Wow you are putting a lot of words into my mouth. Who called this child a victim? And while I have a whole separate rant on the concept of comparing people to the very worse circumstances, I wasn't really intending on going there either.

All I'm saying is, when you do somebody a favor, that doesn't mean they automatically owe you.

And we could also go on a long rant about how parents raising their child correctly is considered a 'favor' but I'm not going to even attempt that other than to say, if you chose to bring a child into this world, you do owe them the best childhood you can manage.

That was hilarious, MsChris!