Disrespectful 18 year old daughter

[phil3]

Drive her to the army recruitment office tell her good luck. Before anyone snaps at me we did it to our oldest

 

[Annie]

I’ve always felt “because I said so” is a form of cop-out.

I always tried to explain my reasoning to my children, but that did seem to give them the impression that I could be talked around, and sometimes I just didn’t have time to go through the entire thing. Maybe your children are different, bit one thing I learned with my children is that children are very different.

 

[MarthaSo]

I’ve never used the term “because I said so” and I don’t ever bully my children.

Many of you have been very helpful in answering my question! I’ll no longer be checking responses here and will put it in prayer.

God is good and I know He will see us through. May you all be comforted when your time comes, as it will to us all.

 

[MarthaSo]

Many of you have been very helpful in answering my question! I’ll no longer be checking responses here and will put it in prayer.

God is good and I know He will see us through!

May you all be comforted when it’s your time of trial, which visits us all.

 

[MtnDwellar]

I have not raised any teenage daughters during a pandemic or otherwise.

I am an alcoholic drug addict. In 32 years of recovery I have attended literally 1000s of recovery meetings, conferences, and workshops. I’ve met with addicts and the parents of addicts. I have heard the cries from parents who blamed themselves for not being proactive during the early stages of their child’s problem. I’ve sat with parents at the funerals of their children.

I’m not saying that drugs are responsible for their problems. I am saying that it should be considered. The suffering that addicts and their families endure is immense. If looking through a child’s room can help prevent the devastation, it’s worth it.

 

[MarthaSo]

How’d I miss this one? Excellent and wise thank you! Ok now i’m leaving
God bless y’all!

 

[Irishmom2]

Personality changes are indeed a symptom of a drug problem

But they are also a sign of depression in teenagers. I think that route might be the one to look into before deciding that a teen has a drug problem.

 

[MNathaniel]

I have not raised any teenage daughters during a pandemic or otherwise.

I am an alcoholic drug addict. In 32 years of recovery…

I’m not saying that drugs are responsible for their problems. I am saying that it should be considered. The suffering that addicts and their families endure is immense. If looking through a child’s room can help prevent the devastation, it’s worth it.

I appreciate that you’re coming from a place where this was your personal experience, and you want to help others avoid the path you went down.

At the same time, and I mean this with respect, I would suggest trying to avoid projecting and overlaying your experience onto every teenager, unless more details from their life match up with more details from yours.

This 18 year old said the F word when her clothing was critiqued.

You have projected ‘personality change signifying possible drug use’ onto this, and suggested that the mother rummage through her daughter’s purse and scour through her daughter’s bedroom, advising suspicion should the mother find anything as simple as an incense stick.

I honestly wonder if your experience as (it sounds like?) a teenager who did drugs, has left you not realizing which parts of your teenage behaviour came from the drugs and which parts would have been there anyways. I am speaking as a past teenage girl who never did drugs: I was moody and used profanity anyway. Lots of teenagers do. It was not a symptom of drug use.

And from the perspective of someone who never did drugs, I am stating that it seems like a dramatic escalation to suggest violating an 18 year old’s privacy by searching their personal things for drugs, on the basis that they said the F word. If a mother acted on this suggestion, it could create a brand new and bigger problem (of long term distrust from the boundary violation) that is unnecessary under the circumstances.

It is commendable that you wish to help parents identify when their children might be struggling with a drug problem. All I’m suggesting is to maybe wait in future for more of the symptoms you suggested (and it looks like have now deleted?) to actually show up in someone’s anecdote, before suggesting they catastrophize and risk their child’s trust by sneaking through their things.

 

[MtnDwellar]

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

Some of my posts on this thread have been flagged and removed. I wish they told what rule was broken in the notification.

I can tell that I am alone on this, but, I believe that a parent has the right and also the responsibility to discover what children may be hiding whether or not they exhibit any suspicious behavior. They don’t have a right to privacy from their parents while living under the parent’s roof.

Children, even 18 year olds, lack judgement. Whether it’s drugs, predators, false religions, or some other error, it’s up to the parents to protect and defend them. Of course I am not advocating for some kind of Nazi Gestapo SS obsessive behavior, Some reasonable monitoring techniques can save a child.

 

[scousekiwi]

Search her room, purse, and other possible hiding places for drugs. Also look for paraphernalia. Incense or air freshener, cigarette lighters, cotton, spoons, or anything out of place can be reason for suspicion. They can make pipes out of almost anything.

I think you’re making rather a giant leap here. Teenager uses the f-word a couple of times and you begin searching for drugs? In the absence of any other evidence of drug use, this seems unreasonable.

@MarthaSo I’m not going to add to the general bafflement about your rule against the wearing of hoodies, as I think that point has been made and you have explained yourself several times. However, I would make a more general observation based more on my experience as a teacher than as a parent (although I have found this to be true in both situations).

One of my first jobs was at a public school. It’s not a world I was familiar with, and I don’t in principle think that public schools should exist, but we needed the money and the free accommodation. The boys weren’t beaten—that was my only red line. We were, however, expected to enforce many obscure rules, often relating to standards of dress. For example, first-year boys were required to button both buttons of their jacket (contravening the rule that a gentleman never buttons the bottom button of his jacket or waistcoat). My point is that it is relatively easy to enforce rules that make sense and relatively difficult to enforce rules that do not. Nobody seriously questions that there should be rules against bullying, fighting, stealing, cheating, and lying—not even those who break them. It is much harder to justify having rules which seem arbitrary and frivolous. And when one tries to enforce arbitrary and frivolous rules, it seems to have the effect of diminishing respect for authority more generally.

 

[Jen7]

You’re right, I shouldn’t have mentioned to take off the hoody, even good naturedly. It’s just never been a problem before. It’s been a house rule since they were little.

Then you were right to mention it. Don’t stop because she got angry. It’s YOUR home.

We don’t wear shoes indoors & no one may cuss at me for expecting them to take off their shoes.

Your daughter is an adult and may move out if she’d like to break the house rules. Boefully she won’t see hoodies as something worth moving out over… but that’s up to her. It is NOT your responsibility to change the rules so she stops cussing! It rewards her for cussing.

More appropriately she could have courteously explained that she’s freezing and her hoodie is the only warm item not in the laundry (or whatever) and THEN you may modify the long-standing rule if you wish. But changing it because she cussed?? You will be getting cuss words about everything!

 

[Lea101]

It is much harder to justify having rules which seem arbitrary and frivolous. And when one tries to enforce arbitrary and frivolous rules, it seems to have the effect of diminishing respect for authority more generally.

This literally happened with my teenage sister today. Dad nagged at her for something really stupid (he asked her to eat a cracker and he stood there to make sure she ate it). Sister flipped out and dropped the F bombs because frankly he was being annoying. Dad has kind of mentally checked out when it comes to discipline for years so he told me to switch off the Internet until she apologised. Sister flipped out even more because it’s just a stupid cracker.

And she’s right. It’s just a tiny insignificant thing that’s being enforced so she’s going to feel annoyed.

But with the case of OP and my sister, it doesn’t mean she gets to get away with it. I told her that it’s not because she didn’t want to eat the cracker but it’s because she flipped out and that’s frankly annoying for all of us, lol. I empathised with her by telling her tbat it was a silly demand but she could have handled it better (although this is because I’m her sister not her parent).

If you tell her off, OP, make it clear that it’s because of her language, not the rule.

 

[Lea101]

They don’t have a right to privacy from their parents while living under the parent’s roof.

They do to a reasonable extent. A parent don’t have a right to strip search their 17 year old daughter for drugs for instance.

A lot of times parents justify invading privacy simply because it relieves their anxiety or curiosity about their kid who has a separate life.

As a child grows up, they get more and more privacy for obvious reasons. You may check you baby or a toddler for any signs of sexual abuse, but a parent may not bring his 17 year old daughter to check if her hymen is broken or not (some famous rapper did this and got flamed online for it).

Of course those are extreme examples-but I bring it up because this is the scenario where a parent’s sense of duty/protection is at its all time high, yet it still doesn’t justify certain actions.

If you’re going to rummage through her things, I would rather a parent tell their child what’s going to happen and let them watch, so there’s less betrayal (but of course, lots and lots of yelling probably).

Alllll that aside though, I’ve been 18 rather recently. The most likely scenario is that she’s already irritated and hormonal, and mom was in the way and unfortunately was the target of yelling. Or daughter was already upset with mom over something and unfortunately like most of us, she doesn’t communicate this and it builds up.

If her daughter comes back home clearly high or in withdrawal…maybe it’s enough justification for a mom to casually stumble upon something while cleaning up lol

 

[MNathaniel]

Domestic violence should not be tolerated. From what I have read in this post and in other posts is that you are experiencing parental abuse (domestic abuse) and it is not okay.

…

Don’t be afraid to phone the police.

Stand strong.

What the???

Are you sure you’ve commented on the right post???

An 18 year old said the F word when asked to take off her hoodie. This is not a time to phone the police.

Both you and the OP seem to have your profiles hidden so I can’t easily check the OP’s past posts. Could you please link to specifically what they’ve shared in the past that makes you think it’s reasonable to suggest their daughter is committing domestic violence and the mother should consider phoning police??

 

[Aulef]

How often do you and your family receive the Sacraments and go to Mass?

 

[ZemD]

@MarthaSo i was very disrespectful towards my mother as a teenager and at 18 she told me to get out. I had to leave university and work full time to afford an apartment and bills.

Best decision my mom ever made. It was the best wakeup call and my mom and I have gotten along great since I was about 23. I’m 30 now.

Having to do it all myself was the only way I understood how much my mom did for me.

 

[JMMJ]

I consider searching a child’s room to be responsible parenting.

She isn’t a child. She is an adult.

 

[JMMJ]

OP has posted, in the past, about other significant issues in the family dynamic. Things that would be very difficult for many 18 year olds to live with.

I think offering some counseling services to the daughter may be the best thing. It can help her design a life of her own and help her figure out how to not be so entangled in some of the other stuff going on.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Personality changes and mood swings are known symptoms of drug use. I consider searching a child’s room to be responsible parenting. Assuming that one’s kid is not using drugs is naïve. It is very simple to eliminate the possibility.

She’s 18 years old - not a child, but an adult who happens to still live with her parents.

And it’s pretty ridiculous and insulting for you to assume based on the girl dropping a couple of f bombs that she might be on drugs and rush to search her room. As others pointed out, that’s likely to just cause more problems for this family and would likely just encourage the girl to decide her parents are toxic and maybe try to move out. It also sounds like some sort of Tipper Gore exaggeration. “You talked back to your mom, you must be on drugs!” Just plain imprudent and overreaction.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Martha your daughter is now legally an adult. Domestic violence should not be tolerated. From what I have read in this post and in other posts is that you are experiencing parental abuse (domestic abuse) and it is not okay.

Angrily cursing at your mom is unacceptable behavior, but it is NOT domestic abuse, and as someone else suggested, if you called 911 and reported that your 18-year-old daughter swore at you, the operator would probably tell you that wasn’t an emergency and stop wasting their valuable time.

. . . .

And regarding “if her behavior is like this in other areas of her life like work - it would not be tolerated” that really depends on the work situation. There are plenty of jobs out there where getting mad and arguing with your boss on the job, or even swearing, just means you had a bad day and you need to calm down, or it might mean you have a legit problem with the boss or with an order you were given. It doesn’t mean pack your bags and leave the job site. Not all workplaces are like the military where you’re given an order and expected to say Yes Sir and do it, and what is tolerated and how disputes are handled depends on the job and the situation. I have buddies who work in construction, and I’ve worked in manufacturing plants - do you honestly think no one ever yells or cusses or refuses to do something? And do you think they just up and fire a unionized worker with 15 years of experience because the person got mad and cussed?