Posted bySaw this comic today and almost fell out of my chair:
Seeing this reminded me of my own experiences growing up, where try as I might I just couldn’t faze my parents…
I remember being a 21-year-old party girl in San Francisco, and my dad asking me very straight-forwardly about my recreational substance consumption, and me answering him very honestly. (It was, uh, A LOT at the time.)
My father looked thoughtful for a second and then said, “That’s a pretty heroic dosage of toxins. I hope you’re prioritizing sleep and eating well, too.”
I thought to myself, “…!! Fuck, there’s no way to get a rise outta this guy.” And stopped trying.
I posted this story on the Offbeat Families facebook page, and started getting some amazing comments that I just HAVE to share:
- When I told my mom that I lost my virginity (at 18) she said “well, it’s about time!” that’s when I gave up! 🙂
- All of my friends that it was weird that my mom was the one to help me dye my hair pink and purple at 15!
- My mom would say “is that Metallica dear, i really like that song” not what I wanted to hear when I was cranking metal trying to piss her off when I was 15. God Bless her!
- My mother very bluntly asked me if I liked boys or girls when I was about 19, and when I told her I hadn’t decided, I thought I might just like both, she just nodded and said “Well, no rush to decide. May as well make the best of it while you can!”
HA! I love these stories.
I was bought up in the church. Sunday school every week, I played in the church band, all my family are ministers and VERY conservative (no drinking, smoking of any substance, definitly no other substances and I used to warn my friends before they came over not to swear infront of my mum) I wasnt allowed to wear black and I couldnt go to any of my friends houses unless mum and dad had met their parents. BOTH parents had to be met if I wanted to sleep over.. I was totally the coolest kid in school!! *mops up scarcasm*
But beside all of that, I was allowed to go the big shopping mall without adults before any of my friends were (and then it turned into my friends telling their parents that I was going to be there as a substitute for a responible adult, and that ACTUALLY WORKED?? we were 12!!) I wasnt allowed to wear a bikini until my nanna bought one for me at christmas when I was 13. When I was 14 my big brother and his wife paid to have my ears peirced for christmas – also outlawed.
But I was allowed to catch the train by myself 2000km each way to visit family for holidays. They used to pack me a bag of food, give me $10, a pack of cards and say “dont get off the train. Not for any reason”
I was also allowed to visit Dreamworld (the aussie version of Disneyland) with just me and my freinds/brothers. If mum knew that we were frequently chased by security gaurds for being little shits setting off match box bombs she probably would have stopped letting us go. hrm..
I grew up on a boat in marinas with really dodgy old boaties and solvents and all sorts of fun boat building material we shouldnt have had acess to. And our neighbour used to drink Methylated spirits by choice, not cause he couldnt afford real booze.
Through all of this I must have heard both mum and say “I might not like what you do or say, but I’ll ALWAYS love you” as well as my Nanna’s family instituion of saying everytime you left the house “Remember who you are, where you are and what you stand for” that my dad and all his brothers and sisters had when they were teens.
Mum and dad split when I was 16 and mum and I ended up living togeather (I had chosen dad and he said too bad, ya mum needs you more than I do. I was not very happy). I was expecting hell on earth.
Mum sat me down and said: You’ll be an adult in 2 years time and then you’ll be allowed to do whatever you want and I wont be able to stop you. So, how about from now on you start acting like an adult and I’ll only step in if I think you’ve REALLY crossed the line. Cause I think I’ve raised a responsible thoughtful beautiful girl and I think she can make her own decisions and face the consequenses of those. But I’m always here for anything you need.
From that moment, I had no curfew, could do anything I liked as long as I still went to school, had my boyfriends sleep over (the funny part is it horrified my dad – but at the time we went havin sex!! it was compleatly inocent until after I went to uni!) She never said a word when I came home at 3am on school nights, but she would still make me get up early for school. She let me buy that $200 dress I HAD to have with my wages, then she also let me walk to school (and work) for the next 2 weeks until I could afford to fill up my car again. So I had heaps to rebel against when I was young – but when I was a teenager they took all of that rebellion fodder away and I only hurt myself!!
As a result I didnt drink or try drugs till my 20’s, But never at home. I had orange hair and was the star attraction of the nightlife of our backpacker town, but I never bought guys home – although my friends who knew me never wanted to sit in my backseat!! hahaha!
I now have my lip peirced twiced and all she said was “It’s not as bad as I thought it would be” (I got it done at 26) and now its all healed she buys lip rings for me!
Oh, and I still tell all my friends not to swear in front of my mum even though she knows I swear like a trooper myself! (but only when I think she’s not around)
When I was about 17 my friend was over with her brand new mohawk, my mum walked in, blinked at her for about 15 seconds, said “I never noticed what lovely eyebrows you have” and walked out again.
A few years ago, she admitted to me that she was disappointed that none of her kids turned out to be gay. On the plus side, I think her granddaughter might be bi. lol
A year or so ago I told my now 14yo daughter that it would probably be much easier if she just rebelled against her fairly conservative dad (what can I say, I was rebelling) and left me out of it. So far my plan is working brilliantly. I’ve discovered that it’s so much easier being the parent of a teen if you like the same music and styles they do.
Freshman year of college, I got my nipples pierced, and then my room mate and I went to hang out at my mom’s house for the weekend. My mom was a nurse and worked until 11, and when she got home I want in my PJ’s, kinda holding The Girls (they were still sore from the piercing earlier in the day and the support felt good). I was planning on telling my mom anyway, but not until the next morning. But she walked into the house, saw me holding my boobs and blurted, “Did you pierce your nipples?!” I replied, “Yes. Yes I did.” Whereupon she marched me into the bathroom to have a look under better lighting. I gingerly lifted my shirt and without a word about the nipple rings a kind of wistful look passed over my mom’s face and she said, “Christine you have such lovely breasts. I haven’t seen them since you were a little girl when you needed help in the bath.” My response was to yank my shirt down and yell, “EW, MOM!!” and then try to get my room mate, who was standing in the bathroom door snickering, to shut up and make me hot chocolate.
My mom was pretty close to disowning me when I got my first Tattoo. Just a couple years later she was getting inked with me on my birthday!
Oh, and I vividly remember one day back in freshman year of high school my mom calling me to our linen closet to show me the stash of condoms and pregnancy tests she kept “in case you or your friends need them”. I’m sure that contributed to my abstinence during high school!
My very liberal mother always supported whatever I did. Pink hair, tattoos, sex, bad choices. She would give her opinion-good or bad- advice if she had it, and leave it at that. She always told me I could love whomever I wanted, and that it would be okay if I became a lesbian. (I don’t think she ever thought that was a possibility, I doubt there ever was a more boy crazy girl than me!)
But the day I sat down with her (at the age of 19) and explained that I was an atheist, she cried. Literally bawled. She said I didn’t have to be Christian, like her, but that I should believe in SOMETHING, so that I would never ‘feel lost’.
To this day, it’s just about the only thing she tries to change about me, and constantly nags about.
When I was 15 or 16 my dad said, “Look, I know you’re going to do whatever you want anyways. I just ask that you don’t get ME in trouble with the police. And don’t make me deal with your mother. Oh god, I’d rather go to jail than deal with that.” (Those two are, thankfully, very divorced and have been since I was little!)
Up until last year I was still living at home with my parents when my mom stumbled across my bag of bedroom “gear.” I had quite an assortment of stuff, her reaction, “well you really are your mothers daughter” she had the same reaction when she found out I was smoking pot at 15. That’s when she decided it was a good idea to hand down her old pipe to me. I love my mother.
I was the one doing bad things to get a rise out of my parents in high school–mom still hates my tattoos, hates any hair color other than my natural one (which I haven’t seen in 10 years), doesn’t understand my “hippie” parenting or choice to eat organic and locally-grown food, tried TIRELESSLY to keep me from smoking pot and having sex…all those efforts only made me rebel harder!
I kind of imagine that someday my son will be like Alex P Keaton from Family Ties, really straightlaced honor student, young Republican, straight edge…and I will be disappointed but not show it!
When I was 13, my mum found a gram of coke in my jeans pocket. She stormed into my bedroom, threw it at me and said ‘Jesus christ! How many times have I told you to check your pockets are empty before putting your jeans in the washing basket!’
I had 20 piercings, had left school at 12, fled the country without a passport and been deported, was a drug user and had moved my boyfriend in by that point.
I think the first time I ever shocked my mother was when I was 18 and told her I’d been accepted into university lol.
My husband took my 13 year old daughter to see Iron Maiden last year…
She loved it!
I always love when she gets mad and tries to upset us with loud music. We tell her to turn it up!!
2 stories
1. For my 21st birthday my uncle airmailed me a bottle of home-made, real-wormwood absinthe v. illegal in the states, and an absinthe trenet and a box of sugar cubes.
Oddly, I never had any, ’cause it vanished.
2. So, I come oome from college and there on nthe table is the poster child high-school bong. Water bottle, aluminum foil, bic pen (I don’t smoke)
I looked at my parents and said “Jeez, you two! You’d think at your age you could afford a grown-up bong!”
It was my GRANDMOTHER that was the liberal one in my family life. When I was 12 and had invited my friend to Sunday dinner, the conversation turned to the seaside in which my gran pipes up with “Don’t have sex on the beach, sand gets EVERYWHERE” whilst looking at my Grandad with an “am i right?!” kind of like. I was MORTIFIED.
She also told me not to settle with the first guy I had sex with, and gave me my motto in life – everything worth doing, is either illegal, immoral or fattening.
She is my world! I adore my grandma!
My parents were both pretty conservative, but incredibly supportive. There were *very* strict rules when I was young, then the rules became more & more lax. I was encouraged to ‘be myself’ and not just ‘follow the crowd’.
Once when I was 17 or 18 a a family member saw me & a friend walking around with spiky hair, ripped clothes and wearing COMBAT BOOTS. She quickly reported to my Mom about my appalling appearance. Mom’s reply, “Do you know how long it took us to find combat boots in Sherry’s size? We must have looked through 100 pair before we found a men’s size 6!”
I never really tried to rebel against my parents. I knew I could talk to my Mom about anything – and I did. They bought me my own whiskey and I was allowed beer from the fridge. When my friends were busy trying to get someone to buy them booze I didn’t care, drinking didn’t hold any great mystery or appeal to me, it wasn’t forbidden fruit.
My Mom still waxes poetic about my electric blue highlights. That & my green & black hair, those were her favorites. When I had to color my hair ‘normal’ shade of red for job interviews she was sad, and hoped I could find a job that would let me have ‘pretty blue hair’ again.
My Mom rocks.
My grandmother took me to the PX at the local Air Force base to get me real combat boots when I was 12. Men’s size 5, at least there were enough women in the military by then so we could find them.
When I was sixteen, I admitted to my mom that I was having trouble figuring out how to masturbate. She bought me a vibrator. I was mortified, but grateful.
I totally didn’t tell my mom about getting my first tattoo. She walked in on me, maybe an hour after I got home, and saw me laying on the couch letting air get to it.
Mom: Holy shit, you got a tattoo!! Let me see it! Hey, thats not the tattoo I designed for us! So when are you getting ours done?
Me: Uhhh….when I can afford it Mama?
Mom: Cool, hey did I tell you I got a new one last week? Here, I still have some good soap and tat wax…
I love my Mama. She is the epitome of COOL. I never really tried to rebel much, because my mom was so cool, why should I? She taught me how to be a classy, offbeat, cool Lady, and I love her everyday for it. The same year she got her 2nd Masters Degree, was the same year she was voted an MTV Hottie at the bar she works at on the weekends.
See what I have to look up to? I might end up being a fraction as cool as she is, and I’ll be happy with that.
I’m definitely second generation offbeat. My mother kept her head shaved when I was growing up, she also tattooed my father as a hobby, she helped my dye my hair pink for the first time when I was 13, we even shared an eclectic taste in music, ranging from Greenday to Elton John to Fleetwood Mac. We got tounge rings together when I was 13, and matching tattoos when I was 16. A lot of people thought she was being irresponsible to be letting her teen daughter get piercings and especially the tattoo.. But she firmly believed that piercings could be taken out if I ever stopped liking them and that I was mature enough at the time to make a decision like a tattoo. My mother was the biggest role model for me growing up and taught me so much about accepting people and that we are who we are, nothing about the way we choose to look will change that. I’m 22 years old and married now but my mom still shaves her head at almost 50 and we sometimes go get new piercings or tattoos together. A few months ago we got matching nose rings. I hope to be as big of influence on my child(ren) as she was on me, and I hope to have just as good of a relationship.
I had the best of both worlds in a way. I come from a very conservative Mormon family, the oldest of 8 children and DEFINITELY the black sheep. My parents have always freely expressed their disappointment when I did things they disapproved of – but always let me know that I was accepted and loved regardless. We’ve had our substantial disagreements but they’ve never come down on me beyond “we wish you’d made a different choice” kinda stuff.
When I went through my hardcore goth phase, they didn’t bother me about it. Music wasn’t a problem as long as I wore earphones or the stuff I played over the stereo didn’t contain swearing or explicit sexual lyrics. Drugs have never been my bag – they are upset that I smoke but they just give me crap about quitting and that’s it. They kinda turned a blind eye to sex – they were upset that I was so sexually active but never got on me TOO bad about it. In my late teens, in a brutally honest conversation with my mother, I finally said “mom- I won’t ever lie to you or dad. So if you don’t want to know somethiong – don’t ask”. That has worked well for almost 20 years now, lol.
The only thing I’m honestly terrified to bring up is that my fiance and I are in a polyamorous relationship with another (previously 2 other) woman – as mainstream Mormons, they’re DEATHLY allergic to anything that even faintly resembles polygamy and I’m pretty sure they would freak, lol.
To this day I have an incredibly open and honest relationship with my parents, conservative as they are – and I’m grateful for it.
“We don’t have bail money in the budget this month.”
My mom said that line to me and my friends every time we went out.
My brother came home one day and asked my mum is he could get a tattoo. (He needed her to sign his consent form.) But he made her a deal: if he paid for the tattoo she always wanted, then he could get one too… She agreed and it was a nice afternoon of all of us in the tattoo shop together while they got tattooed.
Flash forward a few more years; I wanted my first tattoo, (At 16) mum agreed, and sat in the shop and teased me about being a “Wimp” because I said it hurt. LOL.
My dad also gave both my brothers their first mohawks and helped me dye my hair hot pink. It was hard to shock them… considering I am also the “White sheep” of the family. (Both brothers are in scream-o heavy metal bands with disgusting phrases as band names.) Mum, dad and the step parents still come to every show. LOL
I grew up going to church but I wouldn’t say my parents were conservative…well my mom anyway. All I really remember about my dad’s “parenting skills” is that he always said no so I never asked him for anything.
When I was 15 or 16 my mom DID have a problem with me saying I was bisexual but after one incident it was never discussed and while I know she wasn’t trilled she accepted my committed relationship with a woman at 19-20. Other than that the only thing I remember her having a real problem with was my “spiritual interests” but that was brief. She found a book I had borrowed from a friend about Wicca and expressed her disapproval but I was 18-19 and it was a phase anyway.
My mom was a pretty open-minded parent. She helped me dye my hair hot pink for the first time at 14 or 15 (and many colors after), took me for my first piercings at 16 and 17, and my first tattoo at 18 (while still in high school). My dad always hated my weird-colored hair and piercings (still does) but has never had a problem with my tattoos.
While she was very understanding for the most part, as an adult looking back I realize there were things I did that broke my mother’s heart. (For example, my mother went to great lengths to understand me and understand WHY when I began dealing with a serious self-injury problem when I was younger but never really made me feel guilty about it. She just took me to counseling and tried to understand. She even had me help her write a paper about it for one of her college classes and I can’t explain how much it means for someone to try to understand an issue like that.)
Now I’m pregnant with my first and I wish she was here more than anything. My boyfriend (hopefully soon-to-be-fiance! lol) and I haven’t really done much discussing of parenting styles but I was reading him some of these comments cause he kept asking why I was laughing and he seems like he might be more conservative than I will. I think we’ll pretty much be on the same page as far as hair color, tattoos, piercings, etc but as far as alcohol and marijuana he’ll be more conservative than I will so I guess we’ll have to come to a compromise. I just know I wanna be like my mom! <3
This is totally us. I have 19,17,14 and 13 year olds and we talk to them about everything. I am also the mom that has dyed my daughter’s hair green, blue and now Raggedy Ann red. Also, not only did I each of my boys to get their ears pierced, but since you pay for 2 earrings and piercings anyway, I got the second one for each of theirs.
The most hilarious thing to me is that knowing they would want to rebel in some way, I chose food to be our major issue. We eat all organic and 50% raw at meals… So, when they are mad at me… they eat junk food. I love it.
a) they have an outlet to say fuck you to mom that does not have lifetime consequences and b) they get stomach aches and are reminded how awesome it is that I teach them about healthy eating 🙂
When I was about sixteen this happened.
Me: Hey dad, I’m planning on shaving my head tomorrow.
Dad: Tomorrow. Is tomorrow that Wednesday?
When I was 15,
‘You are most certainly not running off on your own to a Tool concert, I liked them first, it was me who introduced you to them in the first place. I used to rock you to sleep to Opiate every night when it first came out. I’m coming with you.’
I had a very similar experience. My mom took me to get my hair died blue at a salon when I was 13, but only after giving me the full sociological lecture on social mores and boundaries of the community. Later I found out that she thought it was her duty to at least make me think that I could be shocking her. “It’s kind of hard for you to rebel when you have parents like us, kid.”
My sister became a born-again Christian for a couple of years and freaked out my family like no one’s business
When I was 14 my mother set me down and we had a very “in depth” deiscussion about sex
There where condoms, lube, ect… And of course “never use petroleum jelly with a latex condom, did I ever tell you how you were conceived?” I shudder my freinds were getting tab a slot b and I was getting the play by play.
Her favorite line if I left the house “Don’t drive drunk and don’t come home pregnant”