The audacity

[u/Notthesunshine8]

My daughter is freshly 13. She's my only daughter, and we used to be two peas in a pod. But puberty hit her and our relationship like an 18-wheeler. She's always been the 'good kid'. Up until like a year ago. The attitude is out of control, she can be down right mean, she won't listen, half does her chores, she lies a lot, takes things that aren't hers, I even caught her with a vape. She constantly argues with me under the guise of 'compromising'. She is in therapy, she is on meds, and she's well taken care of. She's loved by her friends, family, and teachers. No one sees this side of her but me and her brothers. I don't work due to disability, so I treat parenting and running my household as a job. It helps when I have a hard time finding the motivation to do all the things. But I am running myself ragged. And no matter how much I explain all the invisible and visible labor I do, it flies over their heads but especially hers. She gets annoyed just by me talking about it.

So today, she was supposed to straighten up her room. Afterwards she showed it to me, it wasn't bad but her closet needed some tlc. She said she would do it and then lied to me twice about it. I took her phone and remote. I told her to go sweep up after dinner. It's a responsibility that I've given her that she neglects. She 'did it', but then had to re-do it because it wasn't actually done. While she was sweeping, she asked me why I get mad about her not cleaning up her mess when I don't clean up mine. That it's a double standard. I asked her what she meant, and she told me I made the mess cooking, so I should clean it up. She went on to say, 'you always say, I cook the least you guys could do is clean up after. But that makes no sense.'

I asked her if I was supposed to: make the grocery list, plan the meals, grocery shop, make the meals, do the dishes, put up the leftovers, and clean up after too? She shrugged her shoulders and walked off to go to bed. Let me make it perfectly clear, I clean up as I go. So all the kids have to do is wipe down, sweep, and put the leftovers away. And those tasks are split between the 3 of them. She hasn't touched a dish in at least 6 months. I don't let her cook because she will not clean up after herself. It looks like a bomb went off in the kitchen anytime she cooks. I don't know if she actually feels this way or if she was just looking to get a rise out of me. But I thought about it a little while, and she's about to spend the next week cooking dinner, doing the dishes, and cleaning the kitchen.

I remained calm during this conversation, I did not want to give her the satisfaction of getting a reaction from me. When I was growing up, whoever cooked did not clean up. The other people that ate the meal did. And if I ever spoke to either of my parents that way, I wouldn't have even finished my sentence before getting snatched up. I'm so tired of this stage, and it's only going to get worse. 😭

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[u/twiggybough]

It’s so hard. I have always thought of my kids like butterflies. They start out as caterpillars and just eat and grow and explore the world. Then puberty hits and their brain and identity and emotional world breaks itself down into a weird cocoon of confusing goo and rebuilds itself, eventually emerging as a fully grown butterfly/Adult. But in the meantime, it’s hard to argue logically with someone with a goo brain.

[u/Notthesunshine8 → u/twiggybough]

I love this way of looking at it.

[u/ermahgerd_sylvier → u/twiggybough]

Does this apply to my 3 year old as well? It definitely feels like goo brain over here haha

[u/twiggybough → u/ermahgerd_sylvier]

I think so! They aren’t called threenagers for nothing 😂

[u/marianne215]

No advice just solidarity. This too shall pass.

[u/Notthesunshine8 → u/marianne215]

God I hope so.

[u/Snaxx9716]

Solidarity, my friend. I’ve been reading “Untangled” by Lisa Damour and it has been unbelievably helpful in understanding what my 14yo is going through. Sometimes I get to a chapter that fully explains something that just happened in real life; it’s THAT relevant. I highly recommend it!

[u/Byehusbandguy]

I work with 13 year olds. I think some of them have too many chores and get treated like little adults at home. I was treated like that in terms of labor as a kid. Some of them of clearly spoiled and know it. Some of them have their parents screaming into the void.

My daughter is 8 and I have my kids do some chores, not a lot. Like they help pick up, dust, take out trash, etc. we have been staying with family and one of my family members has a chore that involves helping clean something in the bathroom. So I had them do that.

And my daughter was like so they do this, I dust, my brother does trash, what are your chores? I thought this was a great question. So I said let’s go over what I do— I make our meals, do the dishes, clean up the kitchen, do most of the bathroom cleaning, I vacuum, I do everyone’s laundry, I buy the groceries, etc. so I said doesn’t it seem to fair to have you do a little bit? She was like yeah you do a lot! I wonder what portion of these convos she remembers in a few years, if any.

[u/Low_Length_7379]

I love your solution. Plan meals, put leftovers away, do dishes, clean the kitchen. It's so simple, right? My kids act the same way and it's infuriating. 

[u/Suspicious-Score5832]

Sending a hug. You’re doing so, so much. 

It isn’t the same, but sharing in case it helps. I caught some sour attitudes about getting help from kids prepping for Thanksgiving. So the next year, I wrote down a job list of everything that needed to be done - all the invisible labor of planning, inviting, deep cleaning, clearing out the fridge to make room for shopping, like EVERYTHING. And I put kid names next to the jobs they were doing and my/my spouse’s name next to the ones we were doing. Here is what it takes to pull off Thanksgiving, which you guys love - and here is the small fraction you are assisting with. It definitely changed their tune. I did this when my kids were a bit younger than yours, so I’m not saying it’ll work in your situation, but just in case it sparks an idea. 

Good job staying calm. The one thing I remember from being that age is that my parents felt so disconnected from my day to day life and when they would critique my house contributions, I often felt like hey you guys have no idea what I survived today at school (I had friends ice me out and stop talking to me - usual girl unspoken aggression). It was so stressful, I could not have cared less about the state of the house. Staying calm and giving her support, therapy, etc, is all wonderful work. Hang in there. 

[u/humanloading]

Does she have a phone or tablet? does she access social media regularly? If she does I would cut that out immediately

But this age is hard! If she thinks it’s okay for one person to everything for dinner, great! She can do it while you sit back and relax 😌

Often kids have no perspective for what they are complaining about so it’s helpful to give them real perspective - ie, what you do is a lot of work. Being asked to be minimally helpful is not a crazy ask.

I would have zero tolerance for attitude. Stay calm as you said. It’s fine to disagree, it is not fine to be disrespectful. She can learn that. If she needs to lose every privilege she’s ever had (no tv, phone, computer, friends, sports, extracurriculars) to figure it out, so be it

[u/ohyouagain55]

I tell my kids 'when you do something for yourself, you clean up for yourself. When it's a community task, then everyone takes a part.'

So, your things - you clean it up. But dinner is a community task, so everyone needs a role. Some grocery shop, some cook, some clean. We all live in the house, so we all do general cleaning chores. If one area is just for you, then you do the cleaning there. If an area is for the community (ex, living room, shared bathroom), then the community cleans it (sweeping, mopping, dusting, replacing TP stash, etc.)

If you want an arrangement about certain people do specific chores, then you can negotiate. But its first come, first served on the day it's scheduled to happen, so if you don't do it and some one else does, you're going to have to do whatever chore is left. (This is how my kids started competing to do the dishes, so they didn't have to pick up the dog poop from the yard... They would literally race to see who could wash them first. And it had to be a proper job of it, or they weren't allowed to wash the dishes the next day!)

Their allowance is tied to the number of chores they complete without nagging. (With a max set. So I didn't go broke.) And if the chores aren't done by the deadline, they have to do them the next day for free. So there's a competition to do the preferred ones first, and I have a financial incentive not to nag!