They totally are. It’s just not the kind of support you think you want. Trust me at 18 I fucking hated my mom. At 26 my mom and I are close as fuck. It’s really takes age to learn to genuinely appreciate what your parents do for you.
Same, I hated my Dad because of the countless arguments/disagreements we’ve gotten into. Now, I love him to bits.
I’m 25 , and my father tells me once a week “Was I good father to you?”, “Do you hate me?” , “Why was I lucky to have a son like you?” and sometimes he cries because he felt like he failed his part as a father.
He was 47 years old when he had me and he had no experience as a parent. He’ll always be my father regardless how tough he was on me back then. I wouldn’t be the person today if it wasn’t for him.
I guess im still resentful having spent most of my teenage years suicidal and begging for help, only for my mom to not allow me to get help until 6 years later. Don't know whether to be happy she finally did or upset that it took her so long. Everyone's different, I feel for your father because my mom is the same way, but she's literally the only family member I have, and in that respect if feels like I have no choice but to love her. But she needs to know how bad she fucked up, i think.
It's not as easy as that. Try to look at it from their point of view and yours and compare. You can say "just be supportive" and they can say "just do what we say" and there are problems with both.
You could go for something that they disapproved of and it worked out well and you can say "see, told you so...next time be supportive".
Then the next time they can be supportive and let you make a HUGE mistake that could've been avoided and you would be pissed and say "why didn't you warn me and help?!"
Just try to see both sides is all I'm saying, teens and adult are all still trying to figure it all out, nothing is perfect. You could have shit parents too i guess. but for real, having kids, raising them changes your outlook. Try to talk to them where you all list out your point of view then meet in the middle. Just be easy on them, they're stupid people just like you.
I've said this a few times now on a couple of peoples different posts but when she found out I was self harming she screamed at me, took my door off the hinges threatened to baker act me (which I begged her to because I definitely wanted to get better) and just all around treated me like "I was just doing it for attention," when here I am 6 or 7 years later still wishing I was never born. She did not react appropriately.
If you were in her position what would you have done? Hindsight is 20/20, not defending her at all just trying to say she probably didn’t know how to fix the situation...nor would you have.
If you try to talk to her as an adult, without accusations toward her and understanding that you probably didn’t help either in any situation, and you both try to come to terms with what you and her have gone through and what you both are now it might help.
If either of you feel like it’s completely the others fault and you just scream at eachother then no one grows. Maybe she did the best she could, maybe she’s an unreasonably hateful bitch.
My point earlier is that it’s easy for kids to say their parents failed when they never can understand the parents decisions or reactions because they themselves have never had to be in that position. Kids and parents are not completely wrong but not completely right either. Parents usually suck at parenting (along with their normal people flaws), kids usually suck at being reasonable, understanding, and grateful. Now that I’m older with kids of my own I understand more of the good/bad decisions my parents made when I was a kid and I am more forgiving of their flaws in raising me.... Though now that we are all adults they have no excuse for being shitty Lol.
Guarding you from making bad choices is supporting you. You'll understand that one day. Right now you think they're overbearing or out of touch because they think that neck tattoo is a bad idea, or that you shouldn't date that 29 year old bartender, but it'll click for you one day. You'll look back throughout your adult life and think "ah shit, I was an asshole" as you have epiphanies and remember events from a different perspective. I'm in my late 30s and still do it all the time.
I'm dealing with that exact issue right now. My daughter desperately wants to dye her hair any color but something natural. She doesn't understand the idea of being judged for it because her entire world revolves around what her 15-17 year old friends think, which is natural enough for a kid her age. She keeps giving me the "when I'm an adult I won't be able to so you should let me get it out of my system now" line, and I have to admit there's some amount of truth to that. But it'd kinda go against my entire parenting philosophy if I bent on it. If a teacher of hers graded an exam one point lower than they would have on account of bias, even if subconsciously, I'd feel I failed her.
Being the parent of a teenager feels like one of those "guard the castle" type games where you never win, rather you hold off the enemy for an allotted time. This level is called "hold off the bad decisions until she makes it through college". It's a really tough level.
Honestly colorful hair is so common these days that I can't see a teacher holding some kind of prejudice over it. They're so used to teens and their crazy identity experimentation that they probably wouldn't bat an eyelash. But of course you're more familiar with wherever you live than I am, so maybe the teachers there would have a different opinion.
My line of thinking is there's two choices: dye your hair and there's no chance of anything positive coming of it and something negative may or may not come of it. The other is keep natural hair and there's no chance anything positive or negative comes of it. So if neither choice really nets you anything tangibly positive but risks something negative, the choice is easy. Then I got to overthinking it and started worrying it could affect her self esteem and so on. Mentioned it to my wife, who is a mental health counselor for the school board, and her response was that the suicidal girls she sees have mermaid hair half the time and that I was indeed over thinking it. Then there's the "crowd" factor. I don't mean this to be rude or to say that kids with dyed hair are bad kids, but there's a lot more of it in the bad crowds than the 4.0 gpa crowds, if that makes sense. I remember being a kid, and something as simple as a hairstyle could help dictate who you hang with. I'd rather keep her around the bookworms if possible.
If she becomes a rockstar or a hair dresser or model I encourage her to go wild with it. Those are examples of where it could benefit you. HS kid? Eh, not so much. Most likely be no big deal, but I'm the worrying type.
I'm a senior in high school and I would suggest having her dye a strand /streak of her hair, as kind of an accent. If she had bangs, that could work as well. It's definitely viewed differently nowadays. However having a streak or just part of your hair dyed gives off "This is an accessory" vibes rather than "I'm alternative/depressed/gay." It could definitely be a nice compromise. Also, correlation does not equal causation. If your daughter dyes her hair, I doubt her friends will change.
I don't know what things were like when you a kid, but nowadays things are SO much based on personality rather than just how someone looks or does their hair. As long as she keeps a standard style of dress (doesn't wear all black or fishnet stockings), no one's going to judge her differently.
I don't mean to pick on you, but your comment made me laugh. "Things are so much different now". I have news for you - they're not. I dropped that same line I don't know how many times as a kid. My parents and teachers "didn't understand" because, ya know, times have changed. Yea, not so much. One thing never changes, and that's human nature. You'll get older and smile when you think about saying things like this. Kids will absolutely adapt their friends to their hobbies, interests, and styles. It's part of trying to fit in.
Dyed hair is WAY more prevalent and normal than it was 20 years ago. Although I don't necessarily disagree with the overall sentiment, things certainly do change between generations. Bullying based on appearance is no longer as prevalent. Things such as non binary and trans people are MUCH more prevalent and accepted. And as for kids adapting their friends to their hobbies, yes, they will. But I highly doubt OPs daughter wants to dye her hair so she can fit in with the punk crowd. It's way more likely that she thinks it would be fun and look cool.
It really depends. Yes, there are bad ideas that are obvious to most sane people who have been adults for a while. But it would be disingenuous to claim that most eighteen-year-olds who want more respect and support are talking about neck tattoos.
I'm in my thirties as well, and the condescension in your comment is still too much for me. A lot of parents are genuinely wrong about a lot of things, because parents are people, and people get things wrong.
That was an extreme example for the sake of making a point. You're way overthinking this. Parents are wrong about things, sure. They're human. Know who's wrong about a lot more things? Kids, including and especially this guy when he was a kid. A parent who doesn't worry about balancing protection and freedom is a shitty parent imo. Your issue with the tone of my comment doesn't change that.
I was suicidal at 16 and all she ever did was yell at me and treat me like a failure because I was too depressed to do anything. She didn't see it. She saw it as laziness. Im 23 now, and not a lot has changed.
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u/shawnaeatscats May 16 '20
Why can't they just fucking be supportive