Wow, you don't hear me (or most of us) say this too often... but the reply to LW#4 was perfect. The reply was even ended on a heartwarming - yet realistic - note.

P.S. Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there.

Ok, as a mom in her 50s with 2 grown sons, I am about to reveal the number one mom secret to all you kiddies. But it's bad, so maybe you should sit down first. OK, here it is:

Embarassing your teenage kids is one of the is one of the most fun things about being a mom. Because you know what? I never gave a rat's patootie what some 14 thought of me. That's the real liberation of being a grown up.

My favorite, by the way, was putting on the oldies station and singing along. Or dancing.

LOL! Thank you greensleeves for a much needed belly-laugh this morning.

Happy Mother's Day!

I was always the "mom" to the kids friends. Many would talk to me, when they felt they couldn't talk to their parents. Couldn't tell you how many times I was asked to drive them some where. When one of them would run away, they almost always came to our house. Our house was kid central, always full of kids, lots of times kids we didn't know. Now that they are all grown up, the friends will ask me, "remember when...?" Or mention how we helped in one way or another. I've never been told I embarrassed anyone.

As a mom in her 60s with two twenty-something children, I'd have to disagree with both Prudy and greensleeves. Sure, all teenagers are embarrassed by their parents, but the sarcastic reply lacked any sensitivity and I fear for "Prudy's" kids when they reach adolescence. Although when my children were in their teens and complained of being embarrassed by one or the other parent, I was fond of saying something to the effect, "You embarrassed us often enough in the past; this is our chance to get even.", in practice, I tried to be sensitive to their feelings and keep my interactions with their friends to the usual greetings and a few questions about their recent activities, etc. To me, this is just demonstrating the same kind of respect that I would expect from my children and their friends. What is the value of some smarty-pants answer? It will just teach teens that sarcasm is an acceptable response to a reasonable request.

Ha- Greensleeves! My aunt makes the greatest scratch cookies, actually, she makes everything from scratch. Once she made up a huge batch and delivered them to my cousin in her dorm- my cousin was so embarassed! So embarassed that she didn't see the stampede coming and not only got trampled down, didn't get any cookies! From then on, all my aunt's trips to the dorm were greeted by a shout- "IT'S THE COOKIE LADY!!!" Followed by a stampede. My cousin always made sure to be first in line!

Serendipity - you failed to teach your children one of the most important lessons in life. Be yourself - dance when you feel like it, sing at the top of your lungs and don't ever give a rat's patootie what some 14 year old thinks of you. Not even when you are 14.

The corollaries to the most important lesson in life: People who are not a little nutty are also probably not very interesting. And it doesn't matter what your friends think of your family, you still love them. And finally - not everything is this world is about YOU, dear child. The rest of us live here too.

I completely agree with Serendipity. The Annoyed Youth shared his/her feelings with the Mom and got shot down. S/he turned to Prudie for help and got shot down again. Being a teen-ager is hard enough without callous adults making sport of their feelings. So how about some constructive comments for the youth? Let's see . . . any chance your Dad can drive you? Do you spend time with your Mom and talk with her, or are the car rides the best chance she has to interact with you? Does the presense of another kid make it easier to get the conversation going? Maybe if you had good quality interactions with her on a regular basis, she might not be so pumped to perform when your friends are around. She might also be more receptive to hearing your unease in how she is coming off to your friends and how it makes you feel uncomfortable -- for both of you.

Greensleeves you seem to have clearly sent the message to your kids that everything in this world was about YOU.

Well, biffo, being an adult carries some privileges. Sorry all you little munchkins, but your parents outrank you. I wish a few more children were taught that lesson.

As for mothers thinking life is all about them - hey, most of us got over that with the first labor pain. We take our pleasures where we can find them, which ain't often, believe me.

LIghten up you guys - if goofy parents are the worst of your problems, you've had an easy life. That's another important life lesson.

I've got no issue with goofy parents but you come off as more mean spirited than anything.

i think embarrassing your kid to a certain extent is ok, but if its enough to make the friends not hang out at the house or go places with them b/c they don't feel like dealing with the parents, then its not ok, i have a couple of friends whose houses i don't go to, even though i really like them because their parents are kind of creepy and don't let us hang out by ourselves

If you are being "goofy" for your kids friends, is it because you are just being you? Or are you trying to amuse the kids?

If it's the latter, I think it's strange. It leans toward (I guess everyone is using this example, so I might as well) the Mean Girls mom. Kids don't need their friends parents to entertain them. It's creepy, really.

But if you are just being yourself, and that is more on the exuberant side, you shouldn't have to modify your behavior.

My mother and I are very close. And when I was growing up my mom was the "cool" mom. She likes the same music I do, does the same things I do, and is just generally very involved in my life. She would talk to and goof around with me and my friends. She was loud and sometimes obnoxious, and over the years I find that when she's doing something absurd I just roll my eyes. And I was always hearing "your mom's so cool, funny, etc." And it was never a problem for me per say. The only thing was that sometimes teenagers don't want parents around. Not even the "cool" parents. This is because teenagers are trying to figure out how to become independent adults (that is the goal of raising children right?). And this desire for independence put me in the unfavorable position of a tug of war between my mom and my friends. To the point where my friends would occasionally ditch me in favor of not being around a parent. This continued to the point that I eventually called them all on it in a truly dramatic and teenage fashion. And yet I never questioned or complained about my mother's presence and involvement.

But this became a precursor for many other things. Some of which came to a head recently. See because I always allowed my mom to be so present and involved in my life, she always maintained that position. This continued through college, when I would go home every weekend to hang out with mom, and when she would come crash in my dorm room for a visit. And again I never questioned it. But I just got married. And I naively thought that the boundaries would change once I had my husband to consider as well. And you know what, the boundaries didn't change at all. She still wanted to see me every weekend, and it got to the point that I was seeing my mother more than my husband (mostly due to work schedules during the week, and then the fact that mom would take up an entire (and I'm not exaggerating ... literally we'd be together like 10 to 12 hours) day during the weekend).

It has since gotten better. She no longer assumes we're getting together, and she's become more respectful of my schedule and my time with my husband. And I still talk to her on the phone a lot. But I had to redraw the boundaries and change her expectations for this to happen.

Sorry for the long post, my point is that the LW is trying to navigate the same things that I wound up having to "fix" as an adult. He's trying to come up with some boundaries. So while it is a parent's job to be involved and aware of their kid's friends, it is also your job to teach them to stand on their own and live their life. Otherwise they wind up smothered and resenting you, and if this mother cannot show her teenager the respect that he's requesting, she's going to push him into resentment really quick.

danam:

If you are being "goofy" for your kids friends, is it because you are just being you? Or are you trying to amuse the kids?

If it's the latter, I think it's strange. It leans toward (I guess everyone is using this example, so I might as well) the Mean Girls mom. Kids don't need their friends parents to entertain them. It's creepy, really.

But if you are just being yourself, and that is more on the exuberant side, you shouldn't have to modify your behavior.

You hit the nail on the head and one of my posts made this distinction as well.

The fact is that Prudie didn't take the time to figure this out and just assumed the kid was being a brat. It kind of sounded bratty to me too, but I see now that the response should be a bit better, both to the teen and the mother. Perhaps there was a communication problem such that the problem was not handled very well.

My mom and I often have this problem. We wind up hashing things out during a fight instead of discussing rationally. It's always been our problem. Perhaps the teen was too accusatory or disrespectful when he/she told his mom how he felt. Maybe the mother needs to be the adult and see that perhaps, just maybe, she was overboard and didn't realize it. Perhaps she feels embarrassed now.

See, my parents talked with my friends, too. But they somehow naturally knew what the boundary was. They were never in our face if we were hanging out at my house, except to just do a "check" and see how we were doing. But even in college, my friends liked my parents and we liked each other's parents generally and had no problems talking to them in general terms and chit chat. Nothing pushy, nothing embarrassing.

It's quite possible that neither person is the evil one in all of this. The mom may have thought she was doing the right thing. Someone else said in one of the threads that maybe this is the oldest child, the first time dealing with teenage stuff and she erred but not maliciously. So she tones it down. The kid was embarrassed (although I wish they would be more specific - making jokes and being loud is too general for me to decide if the mom was really obnoxious or not) and said so. The kid can tone down in the future what he/she has to say to mom about something and the two can reach an understanding about boundaries and talking things out in a more respectful and productive way.

Sounds like, all things being equal, the two can reconcile and the mom can tone down a bit and the kid can not get so uptight if his/her mom is around or giving them a ride.