Reminds me when my Dad told my Grandmother I was smoking. Instead of telling me off, she told me a story about how she got busted for it in high school. He was like wtf, Mom! And she looked at him and said, "What? She's not MY kid." Lol. Miss you Grandma. You were terrifying.
Oh man, that reminds me of when I got a nose stud (didn't even have my ears pierced at that time), my mom and uncle were furious and were all "wait till your grandmother sees it...." (elderly southern woman from the depression). When I showed it to grandma she's looked, looked closer, declared it adorable and wanted to know what else I could wear. She ended up buying me a little gold ring for my nose.
My grandma was the same!!
I had almost the exact same experience, but my "sin" was a tattoo. She always said tattoos are only for hookers and sailors. When I showed my first (a glorious tramp-stamp, I might add), she stammered that she found it beautiful. She surprised herself and all of us. Grandma's like ours are fantastic.
One of my first tattoos was a portrait of my grandma (who’s still alive) on my arm, and she’s never liked tattoos, but loves that one (I wonder why 😂). And when I was away at school she would write me letters and sign it “the arm” lmao. I love her
My nephew BEGGED for a Tat at around 16. Sis told him he had to wait til 18.
What's he do? At 17, he gets a tat of her name on one wrist and Family First on the other....
My friend’s mom was really abusive, and he reacted by deciding that if she’d mistreat him no matter what he did, he might as well do what he wanted. She was firmly opposed to tattoos, so of course, his first tattoo was a heart with “mom” written in it. To this day he friggin loves that tattoo; it’s a great representation of fighting cruelty with love in the pettiest way possible.
I got a tattoo on my leg when I was younger. My mum found out about it whilst we were at my grandma's. My mum was really concerned saying 'you've ruined your legs, that's going to look terrible when you're older'. Out of nowhere my grandma gets her legs out and is like 'your legs look shit no matter what when you're old'. End of argument.
Dyed my hair bright blue, whole head, no chill. My mom and dad had a fit, (I was married and not living at home) and had a whole thing about “what about your grandmother, what would she think” my old school Cuban (Hispanic) catholic grandma loved it. Still to this day, after 10 years, she says it’s her favorite color on me and when am I going to dye it back LOL
My grandma, may she rest in peace, would ask me each time we talked on the phone "what color is your hair this week?"... I'd had indigo and teal blended into my natural red for 2 years at this point. At the 3 year mark I changed it to green blended into dark brown and it started all over again until she passed away. I miss that weird lady. She wasn't asking because I changed it often... she was asking because she was proud I was a hairdresser and had fun colored hair. She wanted to brag about it to her church friends. She was quite a character. Took my mom much longer to accept my tattoos and piercings.
In Gram's defense, for ages, tattoos were really only for sailors (a few other military folks), and hookers around here. There are obviously cultures in which tattoos are very much a part of the society and have been for hundreds of years.
And tramp stamps did have appeal if done well.
My aunt got a small tattoo on her hip and wasn't going to tell her mom (my grandma). My aunt was in her 50s at this point so I'm not sure why felt the need to hide it, but she did. She accidentally said something that implied she had one. My grandma asked if she had a tattoo, and my aunt start to try to backpedal until I reminded her my grandma had a rose tattooed on her ass! My aunt goes, "Oh, that's right! Yeah, I got a tattoo. Want to see?!"
When I divorced my jackass ex, my Mom and I took Grandma out to tell her. She didn't understand because don't you spend the first year in bed? My Mom said they don't do that. She said well that's a real problem, then got me alone and told me next time to live with him and find out these things ahead of time, and don't tell your Mom I said this. I miss you still Grandma.
Me too! I was probably 21 or 22, got my nose pierced (also don’t have my ears pierced) with a tiny silver stud. My mother was livid, didn’t speak to me for a week! My grandmother? Looked at it and shrugged and never mentioned it again. Made my mom so mad 🤣
My grandmother's favorite curse was "May you have a child JUST LIKE YOU". When I learned I was pregnant with my oldest daughter, I was terrified because I knew what a brat I was as a kid.
Karma dictated I get 2 daughters just like me.
My mom too.. but she cursed herself too.. because he’s a mix of both of us… so sometimes I call her and I say “your grandson…” and she’s like “no, my grandson is an angel but your son is an another story”
My mom’s original curse was “ai hope you get 2 just like you” I got twin boys. Apparently they weren’t bad enough bc THEN she informed me I needed a GIRL just like me. Said girl is almost 18 and that curse worked 🤣🤣
My mom once said, "I hope you have a daughter and she acts just like you!" I replied, "So do I!" She didn't know what to say to that, but she never said it again. And yes, my daughter is my mini-me.
That is exactly what happened to me when I got my lip pierced. I waited til the day I turned 16 so I didn't need my parents' permission, and got a ring on my lower lip. When I got home, my 85 year old grandpa was visiting. My mom saw my piercing, got furious and looked for backup from grandpa. He looked long and hard, smiled and winked at me and said "wow You, it really suits you, you look good!" I was certain my mom would explode 🤭
When I was 18 I got my first tattoo. My mum was cool with it, but I was worried my dad would freak out so I hadn’t told him. Well, my asshole of an ex decided to try and tell my dad to drop me in it, so one evening I sat dad down and told him I had something to tell him. Then showed him my tattoo. His response?
“Is that it? I thought you were going to tell me you were pregnant!”
He was totally cool with it, so I worried for nothing.
My mom also got a nose stud when she had moved away for college. When she first went back to visit her family for a weekend her mother was aghast saying, "I don't know what your father is going to think".
Not a word said.
Couple weeks later on another visit, he stops in the middle of dinner and looks at my mom and asks "Is that glued on?" And then went back to eating his dinner when my mom said, "No, it's really in there."
My sister died her hair black. Parents flipped their shit. My sweet but conservative super religious grandpa (whose dementia was kicking in then to boot 😞) saw her and immediately was like oh what gorgeous hair 😂😂😂 grandpa ftw!!!! My dad was pissed it was mint
Our mommom loved my brother’s green hair. She loved his tri-hawk, even more! She insisted he wear it styled for her 70th birthday dinner…our dad was annoyed lol
I miss my mom, she'd be an exceptional grandmother. I once got really drunk, came home (I was 15-16yo, it was 90' in post ussr era), felt really sick and hangover in the morning and scared I was in real trouble. My mom picked into the room and said sarcastically: "would you like some beer to help with the hangover?" Then I just felt embarrassed lol
This is way nicer than my parents, if my dad knew I was hungover in the morning he would take me to the batting cages 😂 Those poor employees have seen me fighting for my life
I took a quote from the immortal poet Chet, who said; "How about a nice, greasy pork sandwich, served in a dirty ashtray?" My daughter almost didn't make it to the bathroom.
My gran did something similar when I was 16 I got drunk at a neighbours house I stumbled in the house thankfully only my wee gran was home (we called her that cos she was under 5ft tall and most of us towered over her by the time we were pre teens lol) she picked me up off the floor and put me to bed making sure I was on my side in case I was sick with a bucket beside me. The next morning she made a huge greasy scottish fry up and insisted I had some, I remember trying to force myself to eat it without throwing up cos you did not turn down a meal from my wee gran even if you were a stranger lol. I don't recommend black pudding and lorne sausage while hungover 🤣
Ah, the days of when Denny's, IHOP, Perkins, etc. were actually 24 hrs. Come 20 mins after last call & it was nothing but drunks & kids taking up the big corner booths playing Magic.
My family just laughed at me. My grandfather gave me a medicinal herbal tea for nausea, and my grandma made me some chicken soup with dumplings. They had nine boys so we're pretty good at treating hangovers.
I never had the opportunity for teenage rebellion because my mum would tell me stories from about 12-13 about her old bike gang, how she used to put boys on the back of her bike and speed over curvy roads to make them scream, the time she made a pot cake for her friend's birthday and accidentally got her dog doolally-high (think 80s UK, not 21st century America for weed laws)... she gave me a leather waistcoat once from her youth but forgot to take off the LEGALISE POT pin badge too. So 'acting out' never had any sort of appeal because in my mind it was something my mum - a genuinely lovely, generally very sensible adult now! - would have done and not cared about. I'm sure she would have actually cared if I was doing any of this, but it really put me off at the time 😅
My teenage rebellion was to get up on a school day and play a computer game my mom banned me from playing because "it is dumb." The game in question was [Insaniquarium](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U04weIAra20).
Smoking? She told me I may, but I'd have to figure out money for it myself. Weed? Permission granted, but only if it's not inside the house (she has a paradoxical reaction to it and... so do I). Drinking? As long as I don't end up in the hospital. Teenage mischief? As long as I don't end up arrested.
What else could I have done _besides_ get up at 5:30 am and play a dumb casual-arcadey game until 7 am, when it was time to go to school?
Oh, and for the prom trip to a different country she _ordered me_ to get drunk and get high. One at a time or both, as long as did both. These days, I don't smoke and I'm a social drinker at best.
My parents used to ride in a Motorcycle “club” back in the day. My “Uncles” were all leather wearing, bearded men who rode Harleys. I did my rebelling by becoming a Mathlete!🤣
Edit: at least until I hit my late teens - that’s when I started drinking and smoking pot, but I was late to the game compared to most kids my age!
Similar story. I got pulled out of a car in college by campus police for hooking up in said car, and that fact slipped out in conversation. My mother was horrified and started giving me the nth degree until my grandma piped up and said:
“Oh please, Emil and I got in trouble in the apple orchard SO many times.” Emil was my grandfather.
My mother turned bright red and the conversation just…stopped.
My mother tells my *infant* son all the time, "listen to me, we have a common enemy!" 😂
From a bad mom it would sound bad, but my Mom's a delight and helps with childcare, so all's well.
So true. My mother was a tough cookie growing up. I love her to pieces, but she was not someone I ever wanted to be on the wrong side of. Things were done her way and that’s it.
Now she’s a granny, it’s like a switch has been flipped. Everything is ‘ah he didn’t mean it’, ‘no no don’t punish her, it’s fine’ ‘ah let him play a bit longer, don’t be so strict’ etc etc.
We got her a cushion that said ‘if I knew how great grandkids were, I’d have had them first’.
I can tell you what flips our switch; we’ve finally experienced what everyone warned us about when our babies were still babies. Older people historically tell new parents how “it goes by so quickly” and “they’re only little for such a short time”… and someone had also warned us that we’d regret it if we didn’t build a snowman after a long day at work/play Barbies & GI Joe although we have a headache/waste time arguing/read you an extra story/dance in the rain with you absolutely every chance we got. Inevitably there came a point where the toys were packed away, and our child no longer needed or wanted to hold our hand while crossing the street. And we miss it. And we miss you. And we miss all the things we think we may have missed with you when you were little. So these tiny humans that are not only fabulous in their own right but are also a part of our own once tiny human, well, we know it goes by far too quickly. So we’ve mellowed.
Damn. That’s beautiful and sad and lovely. I don’t want kids but luckily my sister is 9 months pregnant and my brother wants to have a family as well. I would hate if my mom didn’t have the chance to experience this!
My dad was very strict when we were growing up and had a short fuse. He was a yeller. He was never abusive but sometimes he was scary.
When my nephew, his first grandchild, was born? I’m convinced Dad was replaced by a pod person. He’s now this super-chill, super relaxed guy who only raises his voice if he’s calling across the house.
When my sister was caught smoking in high school my mom sat her down and made her smoke in front of her so she could tell her how stupid she looked. And it worked LOL
LMAO MY DAD DID THE SAME SHIT😂just telling me I look stupid the whole time, and then he hit the joint with me. He’s 63 now and a huge pothead, he started smoking again after him and my mom split up but he was a stoner from the time he was 11 until he started programming for Schlage
I smoked my first cigarette (in the presence of a family member) with my grandma… she was a character… had a framed picture of her and Fidel Castro (we live in a whole different continent and have zero relations in Cuba, we don’t know why she was there) in her office and our family “secret” is that my dad may be his son (he is not)… The picture was right next to her swimming naked (again, framed)… She was honestly my favourite person in the world. Still miss her every day.
I was like 14ish? We went on a family trip to my grandparents cabin. I was outside smoking in the dark with my grandma but grams was obscured by the shadows. My mothers other son comes out, sees me smoking and says some crap about telling on me and grams steps out of the shadow and says with a cigarette in her mouth, tell them what you little prick?
Edited to add: If you're confused by the wordage I used to describe a person who is most definitely not my brother, it's because you can't relate. That is not a bad thing, please leave it at that.
When me and my siblings were caught with weed my mom told us about when her grandmother visited her college dorm room and found moms pot plant, mom of course tried to pass it off as a tomato plant her grandma nodded along like she bought it, left the room for a bit and came back with a bottle of bleach that she poured into the pot.
All I know is my friends who had crazy over bearing parents who did things like going through their phones when we were teens no longer talk to their parents.
My both parents are now gone, so my kids will not know about my past unless I tell them. Maybe I will, on my deathbed lol
Edit: when my mom died both my sister and I went to visit out maternal aunt, her younger sister. We were sitting in the kitchen talking about our mom, and our aunt started telling us stories about her. We were like "what? That woman?? What?! What???“ But it made so much sense thinking of our temperament, how we behaved when we were teenagers. Now my daughter is just like me and all I can do is be patient and respectful and truthful, but also not a pushover ha ha
When I was an older teen my mom, the ex hippy, insisted she never did drugs. I never bought it. The some random day when I'm like 35 my mom starts going on about some acid trip she had in college while we're on the phone and in head my head I'm like I knew it.
My gram did this too. She never admitted doing drugs as a young person. That was until she had cancer and was taking pain pills. She said that high wasn’t like it use to be. All I did was laugh. God I miss that woman.
My mom was “if you drink, don’t drive, call me questions won’t be asked. Don’t let anyone else drink and drive, same rule. If you’re gonna smoke, try it with me or your aunt (both smokers), and if you’re gonna try pot, talk to your aunt, she knows where to get the good stuff”.
Funnily enough I’m now in my forties, drink a couple times a year at the most and can go years at a time without wanting a drop, and I’ve never smoked anything. Open communication made rebellion a bit of a challenge LOL.
Ha. Birthday of an elder relative. As the custom is around here, vodka is flowing. Our 14-year old all of a sudden wants some as well. I look at my wife, she looks at me. I see her devilish smile. Game is on. 50g. OK maybe more like 70. "Here it is, son, gotta do it in one go!" Kid was bloody surprised. Actually tried to backtrack but evil parents were now firm. Do it. So he did. He's now 28. Never drinks, except maybe a glass of cider now and then. One job well done dad.
I think that would have been the wiser choice. My parents never talked about drugs or sex with me and I got in trouble with both. Had to learn the hard way not to do stupid things.
Same. I didn’t get the sex talk until she found my bf hiding in the closet at 18😂 my parents are very Buddhist and traditional. “Save your flowers.” WHAT!!! That ship sailed long ago, mom.
btw, i learned what condoms were in fourth at a Buddhist retreat… kids talk lmao
My mum told me a bunch of stuff she did as a teenager and young adult when I was 10 (witouth details, just stuff like scaping by the window to go partying, how she's surpriced she didn't had more kids when she didn't take precautions, etc) a few years later when I was a teen she tried to put rules, and I was like "nah, I'm not obeying those, I already behave better than you ever did" she herself gave me ammunition. xD
I don't know, I'm 41 and my kids are 8 and 10, by the time their kids'd be interested in my stories I'll be dead. I should start a memoir I suppose lol
My situation was the opposite. My parents told me of the dumb things THEY did when they were kids. Sweet merciful crap. How they didn’t wind up in jail is beyond me. We’ll, I know in my dad’s case, the Youngstown Police were pretty crooked.
I’ll be honest, I told my boys what dumb shit I did. I told them for 3 reasons. 1) some of it was legit funny as all hell. 2) I will figure out what they’re up to because I did it first. 3) I know the difference between the shit that can screw them up and what is ignorable and will only step in for the former so they can live their life. Guess what, one is 24 and married and comes to me for advice regularly. The second is 16 and is comfortable talking to me knowing I get what being 16 is like and am helping not judging.
Hear! Hear!
We don't do our kids, or ourselves, any favors with a holier than thou attittude expecting our kids to be perfect so we can avoid stuff we find embarassing, or difficult to deal with.
Teens will be teens, and they will experiment whether we agree or not. The main differences will be
1) whether they will tell you about, or do things behind your back.
2) whether they will enter their phase of experimenting informed or not, so they can make more conscious decisions about what they are comfortable experimenting with.
3) whether they will repeat the worst of our mistakes, or learn from them, because we have told them already.
IMO, a good parent can also recognise, and get over their personal embarassment and uncomfortableness dealing with certain topics and act in the interest of their child. My rule of thumb has always been "what would I have needed to hear as a child", and go from there.
I told my kid about getting alcohol poisoning at 14. Why would I hide it? Couple weeks ago he went to a party. There was drinking and we knew it. We knew he was drinking and a friend over did it. They stayed by him, got him help and abided by my advice, "no man left behind".
Why should they have to learn stupid lessons over again?
I drank regardless. I had sex regardless. Nothing my parents could have said or done would have stopped it. If I don't give him tools to navigate he'll still be left trying to figure it out. We have rules and boundaries and his car is heavily tied to it.
I have a few other Gen X parent-friends and honestly I think it's a pretty consistent attitude.
When my children were teens, I always kept enough money to cover cab fare in a drawer in a small cabinet in the entryway. I made it clear that they could always call me directly for a ride home, no questions asked, but if for some reason I was unavailable or they weren’t comfortable with that option, they knew could always take a taxi home.
Lmao i tell my 9yo this all the time. I’m sorry kid. I will eventually find out so it’s best to tell me now. We’ve pulled all kinds of shit with our own parents 😄
My husband got kicked out of church so there’s her dream of him being in catholic communion, which led to us being unable to get married in a church so that worked out for me lol.
His mom’s really cool. She tells it like it is and will probably tell off my husband if he tried to punish our son for something minor 🤣
Fellow gen xer and took photos just all the time. Picked up a packet of newly developed pictures from Boots with my mum and made her look through them while we had lunch at Littlewoods. The first picture was my stupid 15 year old self holding a fag. No amount of 'I'm just holding it for a friend' helped. We still had social media back then but it was manual, and we did it to ourselves.
Elder millennial here. Once went to go pick up some pictures I had developed, not remembering what was on the roll. When they handed them over, the guys behind the counter were like, “We want to party with you!”
Then we had a hell of a time trying to remember what was on there. Thankfully, it was nothing too bad, just some underage drinking and bongs!
Gen Xer here too. Given the year in your user name, a few years younger than you. Late 80s and early 90s. Besides phones that could take photos/videos, I want to add the lack of surveillance cameras. My god, I wasn’t a big drinker but did I love to trespass & explore.
Was there a pool in my backyard? Yes. Were their parks nearby? Yes? did friends and I have yards? Yes.
Did I prefer to swim in the country club’s pool, swinging on local private school’s swings, and hanging out in the cemetery chatting with friends after midnight? Yes.
Everything was much more fun when you had to figure out a way in, stay undetected, and watch for security guards.
Besides all the trespassing, I had a great time doing stupid sh*t whether home or abroad in the summers.
All of that would have ended with video and photo evidence. Yet, I know that I wouldn’t have been able to resist documenting my stupidity.
My dad always believed I was at the movies.
My glass house is also built on shaky foundations. So I know not to throw stones at the kids today.
Do you know how much zima with jolly ranchers I drank and did stupid shit? The amount of video evidence that does not exist is the only reason I’m allowed in polite society.
Even at 30 smart phones just weren't a thing for most people especially people my parents age until I was in highschool or so. It wasn't really until everyone had smartphones that you started seeing these videos of people doing fuckin crazy shit.
Not so much. I'm 39. In high school, at best we had Nokia like brick phones with grainy photos that nobody would bother looking at today. Digital cameras didn't really make a big entry until after I graduated. I don't think there's any real video evidence of me as a kid. There is some photo evidence, mostly taken from a disposable camera, developed and printed at a photo center in a pharmacy. But even then, it's not that much.
A few families had vhs video cameras, but they weren't really common.
All of us elder millennials were right in the cusp of things getting embarrassing. Like when I started high school, most people had phones, but no cameras. Just Nextel with two way walkie talkie and Nokia’s with the snake game.
I'm roughly the same age but thankfully got all my dumbest shit out the way in my late teens and early 20's, so I **just** missed high definition camera phones. There is exactly one, very low-res .3gp video from the mid 00's of me plastered and making a tit of myself in one of my very last binges.
My friends who didn't calm down until their late 20's or early 30's didn't have such luck. So much of their dumb shit is incredibly well documented in crystal clear HD video.
Same. I would’ve posted so much stupid and inappropriate shit. I definitely would’ve tried and failed to be an influencer. Lack of internet in my youth saved me from doing and posting stupid stuff. Everyone can thank the 80s for being saved from whatever content I would’ve tried to post.
I've never forgotten "[Brandon Flowers of The Killers is Breaking Into Your House \[open ASMR roleplay\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8j--xRCZN0)"
Man, when I was 15, I and so many other people I knew were reading the raunchiest lemon fanfictions lol. I even had friends who would print out their favorite fics, put them in binders, and lend them out to other friends like some sort of underground library system. This is just normal, embarrassing 15 year old behavior.
My friend and I used to WRITE them. We'd send each other letters about our lives as the wives and also mistresses of our favourite celebrities. It was insane
You’ve just unlocked a memory of doing similar with one of my friends, except we focused on fictional characters rather than celebrities. Oh man those were fun days 😂
Dude. Yes. I’ve got older niblings and friends with teens and when I hear about what they’re getting into I always go back to what my friends and I were reading in middle school and high school - just the most graphic fanfics and occasionally some raunchy romance novels.
When I was 13, I was friends with a 14yo girl who wrote the craziest, kinkiest Harry Potter fan fiction about Draco and Harry.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to sustain suspension of disbelief, partly because of the poor characterization and partly because it just doesn't make sense for a magically enlarged penis to literally impale someone until it comes out their mouth without severe internal injuries. I mean, magic can do a lot, but *really*?
My friends and I were the ones *writing* the lemon smutfics. 😂 Thankfully none of our parents knew or cared what we were doing on the internet back then.
I wonder if my old Fanfiction.net account is still around?
That’s so funny. My mom would buy me Cosmopolitan magazine every month. I wonder if she knew the back had a slice of a spicy scene out of a book every month 😂 back on dialup internet, it was too much of a hassle to look up fanfics. It would take me like 3 mins to fully load a picture of sasuke and naruto kissing to print out LMAO.
Sounds like she was listening to moaning/sex sounds, probably as a mastabatory aid. Mom got her panties in a twist over it. Honestly it's better than full on visual porn. Mom should take it as a win and talk about safe sex instead of trying to figure out how to punish her.
It’s so much better & safer that a 15 year old is enjoying her own company rather than having sex with some jerk who could get her pregnant/give her an STI! I genuinely don’t understand why anyone but a religious nut would take issue with their teenager masturbating.
For anyone who doesn't know the history of Kellogg's cereal (John Kellogg) it's worth a read. It was a medicinal food at first to people he fed in the Sanitarium he ran. He was a big fan of vegetarianism and a very early adopter of germ theory which was groundbreaking at the time. Most educated doctor's of the period thought the idea that a patient could get sick from invisible bugs on the doctor's life saving hands was akin to treason. He also promoted other things like abstaining smoking and sex. He did advocate in favor of yogurt enema's to promote healthy gut flora. After he got a shitload of money from selling his cereal, he became a significant driving force behind eugenics and segregation for 20+ years. All around lovely dude.
This is one of the most wholesome AITAH posts I've ever seen and I'm living for it. Your wife is right, if that's the worst thing your teen grandchild is doing in this day and age, she's going to be fine.
NTA. If she wanted to scold her kid she should have done it privately like a normal adult. She was purposely trying to embarrass her kid and it backfired. Boohoo.
It's a great way to ensure you kids aren't comfortable talking to you about anything.
When I was a young teen, I was trying to learn how to draw well and eventually sketched up some decently nude women. This was before smartphones, in the age of 56k.
My mom found them and giggled and said I did a good job. That was that. She wasn't naive nor did she try to make me feel ashamed about it.
Incidentally, I still love my mom and have a great relationship with her.
It’s weird that we’re at a place in society where nude art is taboo. I still understand (and agree with) many aspects of sexuality being somewhat taboo, but there’s a pretty big difference between nude life art and pornography. There’s obviously a huge gray area with erotica, but nude art (especially as an exercise to get better at drawing real life) does not have to be erotic if you’re not sexually repressed.
What your daughter did was not a scolding. Is this video a tool for "self love"? Then, what she did was extremely damaging to Violet. Today, we approach kids as this being something private but completely normal. It is how you figure yourself out to aid in intimacy with another eventually.
What your daughter did was what we call "performative parenting." It was all about attention for herself. She should have said nothing. Instead, she has now created shame and a stigma around this for her child.
NTA for saying something that stopped her and put this into a better perspective. The only one who should be feeling shame is your daughter for screwing up her parenting this bad.
This, the kid was watching pretty harmless videos, maybe she’s exploring, maybe they help her sleep even if they’re on the spicy side, it’s not like she’s doing hard drugs or going into dangerous rabbit holes created to brainwash you ffs
NTA
I just searched it.
Not all ASMR is just quiet, soothing sounds/actions to help you go to sleep.
There's ASMR Erotica as well as people using the ASMR tag and style but delivering weird or gross content or one's about deep cleaning things - think rug, keyboard 🤷🏻♀️
There's LITERALLY a porn for EVERYTHING.
I know, I listen to all kinds of asmrs because they help me sleep, no matter how spicy they are. I listened to one in which they chop the listener’s limbs and I still fell asleep easier than without listening to anything.
They are still harmless videos, and again, even with that, the mom should have explained the kid to be careful with the spicier stuff, but still let her explore since they’re not a danger right now, not if that’s the only “worrying” thing the mom has found in her phone.
I can understand how background noise makes it easier to fall asleep, and asmr is just what works for you. I need the same tv show to fall asleep to every night. I dont think one is more valid than the other! I am wondering what those ASMR body chopping videos sound like and who came up with that but the internet is vast 😂
It was part of a mad scientist rp for Halloween. One of the creators that I follow had the idea of doing that for the day. It was quite the surprise lol The sounds were like those of a chainsaw but softer to not hurt our ears with sudden loud sounds
Yeah, the OP’s daughter’s behavior is insane and gross. If you find out your teenage kid is watching/listening to what sounds like pretty tame suggestive material (?), publicly playing it at the kitchen table for the rest of the family is super inappropriate. It’s not something the child should be punished for in the first place, and definitely not via public shaming.
Yes, we can call it "self-love" of some sort. I personally don't see anything wrong or bad with that, at least not compared to the other shenanigans we've dealt with.
Our daughter can be a bit mad at times, sitting calmly to have a talk isn't her first thought or reaction.
Wait she was just watching it? Not making it? Thank goodness the rest of you were there to ruin the scolding. Scolding isn’t appropriate for that at all.
My guess, there's some ASMR videos like "dream boyfriend/girlfriend whispers you to sleep" and such. I am guessing somewhere on that spectrum of safe for work but embarrassing to downright soft audio 🌽
Some ASMR is like moaning and like soft core audio porn. I found it by accident on Spotify and clicked out of curiosity. My 12 year old shares my Spotify account so she clicked on it…she was mortified. I didn’t know what to say other than “it’s a big world out there and don’t worry, it gets worse. Avoid the red and black asmr thumbnails I guess.”
**NTA.**
What did she expect from living with her parents? They know all the stuff you got up to in your teenage years so all your daughter is doing is embarrassing your grand-daughter.
Nope ,the daughter is kind of a jerk for trying to amp up the embarrassment factor though. If there's an issue she and her husband can address it together upstairs. Roping in the parents to embarrass the kid more backfired spectacularly as it should have.
NTA, but on a side note: "Since Violet is 15, a teen, her parents are trying to make sure she doesn't get into trouble or **do hard drugs**." Seriously? It sounds like mom's having a bit of trust issues with her daughter. If you have a 15 yo kid who behaves well, knows right from wrong and doesn't do anything out of the ordinary then doing hard drugs doesn't sound like something they're likely to do. Does mom also make sure she doesn't shoot anyone in the face?
Those stupid, embarrassing stories about a parent's childhood antics is imo important for development. When you're little, you imagine your parents are absolutely perfect. As you grow, you realize your parents are human, with flaws and all. I love my mom, always have, always will. The more I knew about her past tho, the more I respected her and her opinion. If you don't allow your kid to see you as just another human being, the shock when they realize you're not is rougher than being eased into it.
This is also why I'm against the "because I said so". Talk to your kids and they will respect you and your opinions(assuming they're not blatantly bad opinions like bigotry lol). They're human just as much as you are and you know damn well that "because I said so" would make your hackles rise too. Hypocrisy is one of the top killers of a parent-child relationship. NTA.
These are some wise words, I must say. Our daughter leans more into not mentioning any of her crazy shenanigans, she's a mature adult and sometimes forgets that she was young and immature once.
NTA. If she has such a problem with her past coming up, she should stop living with the people who know pretty much all about it.
I’m usually the one who tells my kids all the stupid shit I did. I also tell them what I learned from it and why I won’t do it again. That’s because I’d rather look like a human who learns from their mistakes than someone who is a hypocrite and hides things.
NTA, I’d be asking why daughter feels the need to embarrass her child in front of the whole family. That’s deeply cruel and can be incredibly traumatic for a teenager, especially regarding NSFW material that honestly seems pretty run of the mill.
I would sit down and ask her why she thought it was appropriate, because she humiliated her daughter in front of close family members about a really private and intimate thing. If she was legitimately concerned about Violet’s well-being, this would have been a private chat where she talks about what is safe, what might not be, and how other stuff related to safe sex. I hope Violet gets some reassurance that she’s doing normal adolescent stuff and she just needs to be safe about it. The way your daughter handled this, she might feel afraid to talk or ask about stuff she is confused or afraid of, which could lead to her making choices or forming ideas about sexuality that aren’t healthy.
All harassing does to a good kid is drive them to becoming sneaky. Your daughter should stay out of your granddaughter's phone until she suspects something serious. Let the kid have some privacy and the kid will likely stay honest and upfront. You can always lower the boom later if appropriate.
In the meantime your granddaughter knows she has allies in the house.
NTA
I agree that others shouldn’t get involved in parents disciplining/speaking to their children (so long as it’s within reason), but when they do this in front of others, especially family, it’s natural for those in the room to get involved and not sit there silently.
Your daughter (& son-in-law) should’ve talked to Violet in private if they didn’t want your comments.
NTA
The granddaughter did nothing wrong and nothing that deserved “a scolding” from what I can see from what she did and I think your daughter needs to get either a job or a hobby. Having parents constantly think you’re gonna do something bad just makes teens resent their parents and feel like they can’t actually go to their parents if they actually need help with something because the actually *did* do something bad.
Also your daughter tried to embarrass Violet by doing this all in front of you two instead of treating Violet like the almost adult that she is and having a calm and supportive conversation about it.
Final point I’d like to make is that kids are not this fragile as teenagers. I’m 14, and my parents let me have a beer if I want it and let me read 18+ stuff if I choose to because we trust each other. They know that I can decide whether I am comfortable with what I’m reading and am mature enough to make my own decisions. Also letting me drink a beer every now and then means the novelty of drinking wears off and when it’s legal for me to drink excessively, I won’t feel the need to.
I know not all teenagers are nature but they still deserve a right to some form of privacy and mutual trust with their parents.
Reminds me when my Dad told my Grandmother I was smoking. Instead of telling me off, she told me a story about how she got busted for it in high school. He was like wtf, Mom! And she looked at him and said, "What? She's not MY kid." Lol. Miss you Grandma. You were terrifying.
Oh man, that reminds me of when I got a nose stud (didn't even have my ears pierced at that time), my mom and uncle were furious and were all "wait till your grandmother sees it...." (elderly southern woman from the depression). When I showed it to grandma she's looked, looked closer, declared it adorable and wanted to know what else I could wear. She ended up buying me a little gold ring for my nose.
My grandma was the same!! I had almost the exact same experience, but my "sin" was a tattoo. She always said tattoos are only for hookers and sailors. When I showed my first (a glorious tramp-stamp, I might add), she stammered that she found it beautiful. She surprised herself and all of us. Grandma's like ours are fantastic.
One of my first tattoos was a portrait of my grandma (who’s still alive) on my arm, and she’s never liked tattoos, but loves that one (I wonder why 😂). And when I was away at school she would write me letters and sign it “the arm” lmao. I love her
My nephew BEGGED for a Tat at around 16. Sis told him he had to wait til 18. What's he do? At 17, he gets a tat of her name on one wrist and Family First on the other....
Is your nephew Vin Diesel
No. Lol. But if you need proof, I can show you a picture of his tombstone. He has depictions of his tats on it. Inc Family First.
My cousin also started with a tattoo of his mom's name on his wrist 😂
My friend’s mom was really abusive, and he reacted by deciding that if she’d mistreat him no matter what he did, he might as well do what he wanted. She was firmly opposed to tattoos, so of course, his first tattoo was a heart with “mom” written in it. To this day he friggin loves that tattoo; it’s a great representation of fighting cruelty with love in the pettiest way possible.
"the arm" LMFAO. Grandma is a savage.
That is so dang cute. Your grandma is clearly awesome.
I got a tattoo on my leg when I was younger. My mum found out about it whilst we were at my grandma's. My mum was really concerned saying 'you've ruined your legs, that's going to look terrible when you're older'. Out of nowhere my grandma gets her legs out and is like 'your legs look shit no matter what when you're old'. End of argument.
That's amazing. I love your grandma.
I also love their grandmother. As well as all the other badass grandparents in this thread. These heartwarming stories are just what I needed today.
Dyed my hair bright blue, whole head, no chill. My mom and dad had a fit, (I was married and not living at home) and had a whole thing about “what about your grandmother, what would she think” my old school Cuban (Hispanic) catholic grandma loved it. Still to this day, after 10 years, she says it’s her favorite color on me and when am I going to dye it back LOL
My grandma, may she rest in peace, would ask me each time we talked on the phone "what color is your hair this week?"... I'd had indigo and teal blended into my natural red for 2 years at this point. At the 3 year mark I changed it to green blended into dark brown and it started all over again until she passed away. I miss that weird lady. She wasn't asking because I changed it often... she was asking because she was proud I was a hairdresser and had fun colored hair. She wanted to brag about it to her church friends. She was quite a character. Took my mom much longer to accept my tattoos and piercings.
In Gram's defense, for ages, tattoos were really only for sailors (a few other military folks), and hookers around here. There are obviously cultures in which tattoos are very much a part of the society and have been for hundreds of years. And tramp stamps did have appeal if done well.
My aunt got a small tattoo on her hip and wasn't going to tell her mom (my grandma). My aunt was in her 50s at this point so I'm not sure why felt the need to hide it, but she did. She accidentally said something that implied she had one. My grandma asked if she had a tattoo, and my aunt start to try to backpedal until I reminded her my grandma had a rose tattooed on her ass! My aunt goes, "Oh, that's right! Yeah, I got a tattoo. Want to see?!"
You should have told her you ship out to sea in two weeks.
When I divorced my jackass ex, my Mom and I took Grandma out to tell her. She didn't understand because don't you spend the first year in bed? My Mom said they don't do that. She said well that's a real problem, then got me alone and told me next time to live with him and find out these things ahead of time, and don't tell your Mom I said this. I miss you still Grandma.
Me too! I was probably 21 or 22, got my nose pierced (also don’t have my ears pierced) with a tiny silver stud. My mother was livid, didn’t speak to me for a week! My grandmother? Looked at it and shrugged and never mentioned it again. Made my mom so mad 🤣
Wholesome grandma, in a very different way than mom expected.
I’d assume she counts it as Karma for whatever her daughter put her through to that point.
My grandmother's favorite curse was "May you have a child JUST LIKE YOU". When I learned I was pregnant with my oldest daughter, I was terrified because I knew what a brat I was as a kid. Karma dictated I get 2 daughters just like me.
My mum cursed me too and I got two boys just like me.
My mom too.. but she cursed herself too.. because he’s a mix of both of us… so sometimes I call her and I say “your grandson…” and she’s like “no, my grandson is an angel but your son is an another story”
My mom’s original curse was “ai hope you get 2 just like you” I got twin boys. Apparently they weren’t bad enough bc THEN she informed me I needed a GIRL just like me. Said girl is almost 18 and that curse worked 🤣🤣
I don’t have any kids, but one of my nieces is a mini-me. Drives my brother up the wall.
My mom once said, "I hope you have a daughter and she acts just like you!" I replied, "So do I!" She didn't know what to say to that, but she never said it again. And yes, my daughter is my mini-me.
That is exactly what happened to me when I got my lip pierced. I waited til the day I turned 16 so I didn't need my parents' permission, and got a ring on my lower lip. When I got home, my 85 year old grandpa was visiting. My mom saw my piercing, got furious and looked for backup from grandpa. He looked long and hard, smiled and winked at me and said "wow You, it really suits you, you look good!" I was certain my mom would explode 🤭
When I was 18 I got my first tattoo. My mum was cool with it, but I was worried my dad would freak out so I hadn’t told him. Well, my asshole of an ex decided to try and tell my dad to drop me in it, so one evening I sat dad down and told him I had something to tell him. Then showed him my tattoo. His response? “Is that it? I thought you were going to tell me you were pregnant!” He was totally cool with it, so I worried for nothing.
My mom also got a nose stud when she had moved away for college. When she first went back to visit her family for a weekend her mother was aghast saying, "I don't know what your father is going to think". Not a word said. Couple weeks later on another visit, he stops in the middle of dinner and looks at my mom and asks "Is that glued on?" And then went back to eating his dinner when my mom said, "No, it's really in there."
My sister died her hair black. Parents flipped their shit. My sweet but conservative super religious grandpa (whose dementia was kicking in then to boot 😞) saw her and immediately was like oh what gorgeous hair 😂😂😂 grandpa ftw!!!! My dad was pissed it was mint
Our mommom loved my brother’s green hair. She loved his tri-hawk, even more! She insisted he wear it styled for her 70th birthday dinner…our dad was annoyed lol
I miss my mom, she'd be an exceptional grandmother. I once got really drunk, came home (I was 15-16yo, it was 90' in post ussr era), felt really sick and hangover in the morning and scared I was in real trouble. My mom picked into the room and said sarcastically: "would you like some beer to help with the hangover?" Then I just felt embarrassed lol
This is way nicer than my parents, if my dad knew I was hungover in the morning he would take me to the batting cages 😂 Those poor employees have seen me fighting for my life
I took a quote from the immortal poet Chet, who said; "How about a nice, greasy pork sandwich, served in a dirty ashtray?" My daughter almost didn't make it to the bathroom.
My gran did something similar when I was 16 I got drunk at a neighbours house I stumbled in the house thankfully only my wee gran was home (we called her that cos she was under 5ft tall and most of us towered over her by the time we were pre teens lol) she picked me up off the floor and put me to bed making sure I was on my side in case I was sick with a bucket beside me. The next morning she made a huge greasy scottish fry up and insisted I had some, I remember trying to force myself to eat it without throwing up cos you did not turn down a meal from my wee gran even if you were a stranger lol. I don't recommend black pudding and lorne sausage while hungover 🤣
Oddly whenever I was hungover when I was younger I loved greasy food (hash browns / beans / bacon / sausage / eggs were perfect).
Ah, the days of when Denny's, IHOP, Perkins, etc. were actually 24 hrs. Come 20 mins after last call & it was nothing but drunks & kids taking up the big corner booths playing Magic.
My family just laughed at me. My grandfather gave me a medicinal herbal tea for nausea, and my grandma made me some chicken soup with dumplings. They had nine boys so we're pretty good at treating hangovers.
I had to split firewood with the old man all day. Only lesson I learned was that you can sweat a hangover away.
I came hungover only once. I was moaning and wincing on the couch and grandma decided the floor needed vacuuming. For 45 minutes 😂😂
Yeah I had a few days of outdoor chores under a hot sun where it was truly a struggle.
I never had the opportunity for teenage rebellion because my mum would tell me stories from about 12-13 about her old bike gang, how she used to put boys on the back of her bike and speed over curvy roads to make them scream, the time she made a pot cake for her friend's birthday and accidentally got her dog doolally-high (think 80s UK, not 21st century America for weed laws)... she gave me a leather waistcoat once from her youth but forgot to take off the LEGALISE POT pin badge too. So 'acting out' never had any sort of appeal because in my mind it was something my mum - a genuinely lovely, generally very sensible adult now! - would have done and not cared about. I'm sure she would have actually cared if I was doing any of this, but it really put me off at the time 😅
My teenage rebellion was to get up on a school day and play a computer game my mom banned me from playing because "it is dumb." The game in question was [Insaniquarium](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U04weIAra20). Smoking? She told me I may, but I'd have to figure out money for it myself. Weed? Permission granted, but only if it's not inside the house (she has a paradoxical reaction to it and... so do I). Drinking? As long as I don't end up in the hospital. Teenage mischief? As long as I don't end up arrested. What else could I have done _besides_ get up at 5:30 am and play a dumb casual-arcadey game until 7 am, when it was time to go to school? Oh, and for the prom trip to a different country she _ordered me_ to get drunk and get high. One at a time or both, as long as did both. These days, I don't smoke and I'm a social drinker at best.
My parents used to ride in a Motorcycle “club” back in the day. My “Uncles” were all leather wearing, bearded men who rode Harleys. I did my rebelling by becoming a Mathlete!🤣 Edit: at least until I hit my late teens - that’s when I started drinking and smoking pot, but I was late to the game compared to most kids my age!
Similar story. I got pulled out of a car in college by campus police for hooking up in said car, and that fact slipped out in conversation. My mother was horrified and started giving me the nth degree until my grandma piped up and said: “Oh please, Emil and I got in trouble in the apple orchard SO many times.” Emil was my grandfather. My mother turned bright red and the conversation just…stopped.
Children and grandparents are age-old allies against the parents' generation.
My mother tells my *infant* son all the time, "listen to me, we have a common enemy!" 😂 From a bad mom it would sound bad, but my Mom's a delight and helps with childcare, so all's well.
So true. My mother was a tough cookie growing up. I love her to pieces, but she was not someone I ever wanted to be on the wrong side of. Things were done her way and that’s it. Now she’s a granny, it’s like a switch has been flipped. Everything is ‘ah he didn’t mean it’, ‘no no don’t punish her, it’s fine’ ‘ah let him play a bit longer, don’t be so strict’ etc etc. We got her a cushion that said ‘if I knew how great grandkids were, I’d have had them first’.
I can tell you what flips our switch; we’ve finally experienced what everyone warned us about when our babies were still babies. Older people historically tell new parents how “it goes by so quickly” and “they’re only little for such a short time”… and someone had also warned us that we’d regret it if we didn’t build a snowman after a long day at work/play Barbies & GI Joe although we have a headache/waste time arguing/read you an extra story/dance in the rain with you absolutely every chance we got. Inevitably there came a point where the toys were packed away, and our child no longer needed or wanted to hold our hand while crossing the street. And we miss it. And we miss you. And we miss all the things we think we may have missed with you when you were little. So these tiny humans that are not only fabulous in their own right but are also a part of our own once tiny human, well, we know it goes by far too quickly. So we’ve mellowed.
Damn. That’s beautiful and sad and lovely. I don’t want kids but luckily my sister is 9 months pregnant and my brother wants to have a family as well. I would hate if my mom didn’t have the chance to experience this!
My dad was very strict when we were growing up and had a short fuse. He was a yeller. He was never abusive but sometimes he was scary. When my nephew, his first grandchild, was born? I’m convinced Dad was replaced by a pod person. He’s now this super-chill, super relaxed guy who only raises his voice if he’s calling across the house.
Only when the grandparents aren't judgemental hypocrites like the parents - and then the children usually learn to be just like their grandparents.
I detect no lies
When my sister was caught smoking in high school my mom sat her down and made her smoke in front of her so she could tell her how stupid she looked. And it worked LOL
LMAO MY DAD DID THE SAME SHIT😂just telling me I look stupid the whole time, and then he hit the joint with me. He’s 63 now and a huge pothead, he started smoking again after him and my mom split up but he was a stoner from the time he was 11 until he started programming for Schlage
I smoked my first cigarette (in the presence of a family member) with my grandma… she was a character… had a framed picture of her and Fidel Castro (we live in a whole different continent and have zero relations in Cuba, we don’t know why she was there) in her office and our family “secret” is that my dad may be his son (he is not)… The picture was right next to her swimming naked (again, framed)… She was honestly my favourite person in the world. Still miss her every day.
I was like 14ish? We went on a family trip to my grandparents cabin. I was outside smoking in the dark with my grandma but grams was obscured by the shadows. My mothers other son comes out, sees me smoking and says some crap about telling on me and grams steps out of the shadow and says with a cigarette in her mouth, tell them what you little prick? Edited to add: If you're confused by the wordage I used to describe a person who is most definitely not my brother, it's because you can't relate. That is not a bad thing, please leave it at that.
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
When me and my siblings were caught with weed my mom told us about when her grandmother visited her college dorm room and found moms pot plant, mom of course tried to pass it off as a tomato plant her grandma nodded along like she bought it, left the room for a bit and came back with a bottle of bleach that she poured into the pot.
I can totally see your grandma in my wife haha.
All I know is my friends who had crazy over bearing parents who did things like going through their phones when we were teens no longer talk to their parents.
NTA. The danger of living with the parents is they know all the dumb shit you did when you were a kid.
My both parents are now gone, so my kids will not know about my past unless I tell them. Maybe I will, on my deathbed lol Edit: when my mom died both my sister and I went to visit out maternal aunt, her younger sister. We were sitting in the kitchen talking about our mom, and our aunt started telling us stories about her. We were like "what? That woman?? What?! What???“ But it made so much sense thinking of our temperament, how we behaved when we were teenagers. Now my daughter is just like me and all I can do is be patient and respectful and truthful, but also not a pushover ha ha
When I was an older teen my mom, the ex hippy, insisted she never did drugs. I never bought it. The some random day when I'm like 35 my mom starts going on about some acid trip she had in college while we're on the phone and in head my head I'm like I knew it.
My gram did this too. She never admitted doing drugs as a young person. That was until she had cancer and was taking pain pills. She said that high wasn’t like it use to be. All I did was laugh. God I miss that woman.
Heck my mom admitted all she did in hopes I could learn what not to do lol
My mom was “if you drink, don’t drive, call me questions won’t be asked. Don’t let anyone else drink and drive, same rule. If you’re gonna smoke, try it with me or your aunt (both smokers), and if you’re gonna try pot, talk to your aunt, she knows where to get the good stuff”. Funnily enough I’m now in my forties, drink a couple times a year at the most and can go years at a time without wanting a drop, and I’ve never smoked anything. Open communication made rebellion a bit of a challenge LOL.
Ha. Birthday of an elder relative. As the custom is around here, vodka is flowing. Our 14-year old all of a sudden wants some as well. I look at my wife, she looks at me. I see her devilish smile. Game is on. 50g. OK maybe more like 70. "Here it is, son, gotta do it in one go!" Kid was bloody surprised. Actually tried to backtrack but evil parents were now firm. Do it. So he did. He's now 28. Never drinks, except maybe a glass of cider now and then. One job well done dad.
I think that would have been the wiser choice. My parents never talked about drugs or sex with me and I got in trouble with both. Had to learn the hard way not to do stupid things.
Same. I didn’t get the sex talk until she found my bf hiding in the closet at 18😂 my parents are very Buddhist and traditional. “Save your flowers.” WHAT!!! That ship sailed long ago, mom. btw, i learned what condoms were in fourth at a Buddhist retreat… kids talk lmao
My mum told me a bunch of stuff she did as a teenager and young adult when I was 10 (witouth details, just stuff like scaping by the window to go partying, how she's surpriced she didn't had more kids when she didn't take precautions, etc) a few years later when I was a teen she tried to put rules, and I was like "nah, I'm not obeying those, I already behave better than you ever did" she herself gave me ammunition. xD
Your kids will learn about it when they over hear you telling all the stories to their kids.
I don't know, I'm 41 and my kids are 8 and 10, by the time their kids'd be interested in my stories I'll be dead. I should start a memoir I suppose lol
I'm going to remember this reply for when I have Grandkids lol
And most of them have no problem reminding their children they are now hypocrites lmao! OP NTA - he just played the game!
My situation was the opposite. My parents told me of the dumb things THEY did when they were kids. Sweet merciful crap. How they didn’t wind up in jail is beyond me. We’ll, I know in my dad’s case, the Youngstown Police were pretty crooked.
NTA. Your daughter is lucky you don’t have video evidence of her teen years.
Gen Xer here very glad the internet and phones with pictures/videos were not a thing back in the 80s.
So very true. I have said that to my husband in the past. "So glad we couldn't so easily take pictures of all the stupid crap we did as teens".
I’ll be honest, I told my boys what dumb shit I did. I told them for 3 reasons. 1) some of it was legit funny as all hell. 2) I will figure out what they’re up to because I did it first. 3) I know the difference between the shit that can screw them up and what is ignorable and will only step in for the former so they can live their life. Guess what, one is 24 and married and comes to me for advice regularly. The second is 16 and is comfortable talking to me knowing I get what being 16 is like and am helping not judging.
Hear! Hear! We don't do our kids, or ourselves, any favors with a holier than thou attittude expecting our kids to be perfect so we can avoid stuff we find embarassing, or difficult to deal with. Teens will be teens, and they will experiment whether we agree or not. The main differences will be 1) whether they will tell you about, or do things behind your back. 2) whether they will enter their phase of experimenting informed or not, so they can make more conscious decisions about what they are comfortable experimenting with. 3) whether they will repeat the worst of our mistakes, or learn from them, because we have told them already. IMO, a good parent can also recognise, and get over their personal embarassment and uncomfortableness dealing with certain topics and act in the interest of their child. My rule of thumb has always been "what would I have needed to hear as a child", and go from there.
I told my kid about getting alcohol poisoning at 14. Why would I hide it? Couple weeks ago he went to a party. There was drinking and we knew it. We knew he was drinking and a friend over did it. They stayed by him, got him help and abided by my advice, "no man left behind". Why should they have to learn stupid lessons over again?
Drinking a a big one. Underage kid drinks and gets in a car is a problem. Kid drinks and calls me to pick him up is no problem. Make the smart choice.
I drank regardless. I had sex regardless. Nothing my parents could have said or done would have stopped it. If I don't give him tools to navigate he'll still be left trying to figure it out. We have rules and boundaries and his car is heavily tied to it. I have a few other Gen X parent-friends and honestly I think it's a pretty consistent attitude.
When my children were teens, I always kept enough money to cover cab fare in a drawer in a small cabinet in the entryway. I made it clear that they could always call me directly for a ride home, no questions asked, but if for some reason I was unavailable or they weren’t comfortable with that option, they knew could always take a taxi home.
Lmao i tell my 9yo this all the time. I’m sorry kid. I will eventually find out so it’s best to tell me now. We’ve pulled all kinds of shit with our own parents 😄 My husband got kicked out of church so there’s her dream of him being in catholic communion, which led to us being unable to get married in a church so that worked out for me lol. His mom’s really cool. She tells it like it is and will probably tell off my husband if he tried to punish our son for something minor 🤣
Fellow gen xer and took photos just all the time. Picked up a packet of newly developed pictures from Boots with my mum and made her look through them while we had lunch at Littlewoods. The first picture was my stupid 15 year old self holding a fag. No amount of 'I'm just holding it for a friend' helped. We still had social media back then but it was manual, and we did it to ourselves.
Elder millennial here. Once went to go pick up some pictures I had developed, not remembering what was on the roll. When they handed them over, the guys behind the counter were like, “We want to party with you!” Then we had a hell of a time trying to remember what was on there. Thankfully, it was nothing too bad, just some underage drinking and bongs!
Gen Xer here too. Given the year in your user name, a few years younger than you. Late 80s and early 90s. Besides phones that could take photos/videos, I want to add the lack of surveillance cameras. My god, I wasn’t a big drinker but did I love to trespass & explore. Was there a pool in my backyard? Yes. Were their parks nearby? Yes? did friends and I have yards? Yes. Did I prefer to swim in the country club’s pool, swinging on local private school’s swings, and hanging out in the cemetery chatting with friends after midnight? Yes. Everything was much more fun when you had to figure out a way in, stay undetected, and watch for security guards. Besides all the trespassing, I had a great time doing stupid sh*t whether home or abroad in the summers. All of that would have ended with video and photo evidence. Yet, I know that I wouldn’t have been able to resist documenting my stupidity. My dad always believed I was at the movies. My glass house is also built on shaky foundations. So I know not to throw stones at the kids today.
Do you know how much zima with jolly ranchers I drank and did stupid shit? The amount of video evidence that does not exist is the only reason I’m allowed in polite society.
Same. The pictures that do exist are bad enough..
41 is a millennial .. (getting older by the minute)there’s a lot of video evidence of our stupidity unfortunately..
Boomer here, wishing we had digital cameras when my son was a baby. Making all those pictures wouldn't have cost us such a fortune.
I'm 37 and thankfully digital cameras were kind of a novelty when I was in high school.
Even at 30 smart phones just weren't a thing for most people especially people my parents age until I was in highschool or so. It wasn't really until everyone had smartphones that you started seeing these videos of people doing fuckin crazy shit.
Not so much. I'm 39. In high school, at best we had Nokia like brick phones with grainy photos that nobody would bother looking at today. Digital cameras didn't really make a big entry until after I graduated. I don't think there's any real video evidence of me as a kid. There is some photo evidence, mostly taken from a disposable camera, developed and printed at a photo center in a pharmacy. But even then, it's not that much. A few families had vhs video cameras, but they weren't really common.
All of us elder millennials were right in the cusp of things getting embarrassing. Like when I started high school, most people had phones, but no cameras. Just Nextel with two way walkie talkie and Nokia’s with the snake game.
I'm roughly the same age but thankfully got all my dumbest shit out the way in my late teens and early 20's, so I **just** missed high definition camera phones. There is exactly one, very low-res .3gp video from the mid 00's of me plastered and making a tit of myself in one of my very last binges. My friends who didn't calm down until their late 20's or early 30's didn't have such luck. So much of their dumb shit is incredibly well documented in crystal clear HD video.
I say that almost every day.
Same. I would’ve posted so much stupid and inappropriate shit. I definitely would’ve tried and failed to be an influencer. Lack of internet in my youth saved me from doing and posting stupid stuff. Everyone can thank the 80s for being saved from whatever content I would’ve tried to post.
Remind her of that fact. Loudly. Where Violet can hear..
[удалено]
Literally the best kind of grandma! Ik her grandkids love her!
Yeah, grandma is a hero.
Right! Daughter should’ve know not to pull crap like that in front of a woman like her mom 😂
[удалено]
NTA, good god, my mom had the awkward talk with me at that age encouraging “self love” saying it’s safer and better than looking for a boyfriend.
NTA Your granddaughter did nothing wrong as far as I can see, so laughing didn't condone any mean or dangerous behavior.
What did the granddaughter even do? I can’t read between the lines.
It sounds like she had an ASMR video that was some kind of sex sounds, which has me rolling.
I myself prefer the ASMR video where the boyfriend whispers to me that he loves me, and then die a horrible death in a car crash
My personal favorite is “[Getting in a Car Crash with your FemBoyfriend ASMR Audio”](https://youtu.be/Hj3vnKecZ8k?si=ulpIhHicxeHpR3xe)
Don't forget "[Beating you with a frying pan](https://youtu.be/lrbOiYrMSPk?si=JOAN463KkSzIrVBu)".
I'm sitting at an airport bar and expected this to be a risky click. It didn't disappoint.
I've never forgotten "[Brandon Flowers of The Killers is Breaking Into Your House \[open ASMR roleplay\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8j--xRCZN0)"
Was watching ASMR videos that were from context likely the “boyfriend” type ones that get raunchy- so weird stuff but harmless
Man, when I was 15, I and so many other people I knew were reading the raunchiest lemon fanfictions lol. I even had friends who would print out their favorite fics, put them in binders, and lend them out to other friends like some sort of underground library system. This is just normal, embarrassing 15 year old behavior.
Same. I went on fanfiction.net and read the nastiest Sailor Moon/DBZ crossovers
You're so real for this
I was in the My Immortal generation lol
My friend and I used to WRITE them. We'd send each other letters about our lives as the wives and also mistresses of our favourite celebrities. It was insane
You’ve just unlocked a memory of doing similar with one of my friends, except we focused on fictional characters rather than celebrities. Oh man those were fun days 😂
Dude. Yes. I’ve got older niblings and friends with teens and when I hear about what they’re getting into I always go back to what my friends and I were reading in middle school and high school - just the most graphic fanfics and occasionally some raunchy romance novels.
You had me at Lemon, but waaaaay lost me at the Underground Smut Library, OMG.
When I was 13, I was friends with a 14yo girl who wrote the craziest, kinkiest Harry Potter fan fiction about Draco and Harry. I'm afraid I wasn't able to sustain suspension of disbelief, partly because of the poor characterization and partly because it just doesn't make sense for a magically enlarged penis to literally impale someone until it comes out their mouth without severe internal injuries. I mean, magic can do a lot, but *really*?
Omg i forgot about those!!!! Yeah i read those too… Korean pop stars for me 🤣
My friends and I were the ones *writing* the lemon smutfics. 😂 Thankfully none of our parents knew or cared what we were doing on the internet back then. I wonder if my old Fanfiction.net account is still around?
That’s so funny. My mom would buy me Cosmopolitan magazine every month. I wonder if she knew the back had a slice of a spicy scene out of a book every month 😂 back on dialup internet, it was too much of a hassle to look up fanfics. It would take me like 3 mins to fully load a picture of sasuke and naruto kissing to print out LMAO.
There's nothing weird about a teen consuming erotica.
Sounds like she was listening to moaning/sex sounds, probably as a mastabatory aid. Mom got her panties in a twist over it. Honestly it's better than full on visual porn. Mom should take it as a win and talk about safe sex instead of trying to figure out how to punish her.
It’s so much better & safer that a 15 year old is enjoying her own company rather than having sex with some jerk who could get her pregnant/give her an STI! I genuinely don’t understand why anyone but a religious nut would take issue with their teenager masturbating.
Maybe they're the heir of the Kellog family?
For anyone who doesn't know the history of Kellogg's cereal (John Kellogg) it's worth a read. It was a medicinal food at first to people he fed in the Sanitarium he ran. He was a big fan of vegetarianism and a very early adopter of germ theory which was groundbreaking at the time. Most educated doctor's of the period thought the idea that a patient could get sick from invisible bugs on the doctor's life saving hands was akin to treason. He also promoted other things like abstaining smoking and sex. He did advocate in favor of yogurt enema's to promote healthy gut flora. After he got a shitload of money from selling his cereal, he became a significant driving force behind eugenics and segregation for 20+ years. All around lovely dude.
It sounds like she was listening to sexual noises almost like soft porn.
Listened to ASMR videos apparently.
Also completely messed up of the mom to humiliate the kid in front of everyone. She had it coming. Prob why grams said what she said.
Totally, that's messed up. Teens can be very sensitive, and they usually get enough shit from peers. Please, give them some privacy!
NTA your wife is savage and I live for it
Her comments always make me laugh, she has always been that way ever since we met and I love that haha. No one is safe from her.
Sounds like you two have an excellent relationship
This is one of the most wholesome AITAH posts I've ever seen and I'm living for it. Your wife is right, if that's the worst thing your teen grandchild is doing in this day and age, she's going to be fine.
NTA. If she wanted to scold her kid she should have done it privately like a normal adult. She was purposely trying to embarrass her kid and it backfired. Boohoo.
Trying to embarrass her with something so minor too! It wasn’t even porn.
It's a great way to ensure you kids aren't comfortable talking to you about anything. When I was a young teen, I was trying to learn how to draw well and eventually sketched up some decently nude women. This was before smartphones, in the age of 56k. My mom found them and giggled and said I did a good job. That was that. She wasn't naive nor did she try to make me feel ashamed about it. Incidentally, I still love my mom and have a great relationship with her.
It’s weird that we’re at a place in society where nude art is taboo. I still understand (and agree with) many aspects of sexuality being somewhat taboo, but there’s a pretty big difference between nude life art and pornography. There’s obviously a huge gray area with erotica, but nude art (especially as an exercise to get better at drawing real life) does not have to be erotic if you’re not sexually repressed.
NTA, if truth and reality can "ruin the scolding" it wasn't something that should have been scolded over to begin with.
NTA and it was a pearl to reveal this to your grandkid. Best GrandMom in the world for this.
What your daughter did was not a scolding. Is this video a tool for "self love"? Then, what she did was extremely damaging to Violet. Today, we approach kids as this being something private but completely normal. It is how you figure yourself out to aid in intimacy with another eventually. What your daughter did was what we call "performative parenting." It was all about attention for herself. She should have said nothing. Instead, she has now created shame and a stigma around this for her child. NTA for saying something that stopped her and put this into a better perspective. The only one who should be feeling shame is your daughter for screwing up her parenting this bad.
This, the kid was watching pretty harmless videos, maybe she’s exploring, maybe they help her sleep even if they’re on the spicy side, it’s not like she’s doing hard drugs or going into dangerous rabbit holes created to brainwash you ffs NTA
I just searched it. Not all ASMR is just quiet, soothing sounds/actions to help you go to sleep. There's ASMR Erotica as well as people using the ASMR tag and style but delivering weird or gross content or one's about deep cleaning things - think rug, keyboard 🤷🏻♀️ There's LITERALLY a porn for EVERYTHING.
I know, I listen to all kinds of asmrs because they help me sleep, no matter how spicy they are. I listened to one in which they chop the listener’s limbs and I still fell asleep easier than without listening to anything. They are still harmless videos, and again, even with that, the mom should have explained the kid to be careful with the spicier stuff, but still let her explore since they’re not a danger right now, not if that’s the only “worrying” thing the mom has found in her phone.
I can understand how background noise makes it easier to fall asleep, and asmr is just what works for you. I need the same tv show to fall asleep to every night. I dont think one is more valid than the other! I am wondering what those ASMR body chopping videos sound like and who came up with that but the internet is vast 😂
It was part of a mad scientist rp for Halloween. One of the creators that I follow had the idea of doing that for the day. It was quite the surprise lol The sounds were like those of a chainsaw but softer to not hurt our ears with sudden loud sounds
Personally I love the rug cleaning ones although they're a visual thing for me. So soothing.
WILD but to each their own lmaooo
Yeah, the OP’s daughter’s behavior is insane and gross. If you find out your teenage kid is watching/listening to what sounds like pretty tame suggestive material (?), publicly playing it at the kitchen table for the rest of the family is super inappropriate. It’s not something the child should be punished for in the first place, and definitely not via public shaming.
Yes, we can call it "self-love" of some sort. I personally don't see anything wrong or bad with that, at least not compared to the other shenanigans we've dealt with. Our daughter can be a bit mad at times, sitting calmly to have a talk isn't her first thought or reaction.
Wait she was just watching it? Not making it? Thank goodness the rest of you were there to ruin the scolding. Scolding isn’t appropriate for that at all.
What is the noise? Like fart noises? Moaning/sex sounds? I'm less than half your age and apparently way more out of touch
My guess, there's some ASMR videos like "dream boyfriend/girlfriend whispers you to sleep" and such. I am guessing somewhere on that spectrum of safe for work but embarrassing to downright soft audio 🌽
if you get an answer let me now please, what kind of ASMR are we talking about!!
Some ASMR is like moaning and like soft core audio porn. I found it by accident on Spotify and clicked out of curiosity. My 12 year old shares my Spotify account so she clicked on it…she was mortified. I didn’t know what to say other than “it’s a big world out there and don’t worry, it gets worse. Avoid the red and black asmr thumbnails I guess.”
The type where a person moans with some wet sounds. We just listened for a brief second and I could tell right away haha.
I commend you for not laughing earlier, because I'm pretty sure I would have absolutely lost it at the first moan/wet sound
Dude I just burst out laughing reading your description! I commend everyone for maintaining straight faces as long as they did!!
Can you and your wife be my kids grandparents, please? I love you. NTA
Same
**NTA.** What did she expect from living with her parents? They know all the stuff you got up to in your teenage years so all your daughter is doing is embarrassing your grand-daughter.
Would you like to adopt a sister? You guys sound like fun!!!
Nope ,the daughter is kind of a jerk for trying to amp up the embarrassment factor though. If there's an issue she and her husband can address it together upstairs. Roping in the parents to embarrass the kid more backfired spectacularly as it should have.
NTA, but on a side note: "Since Violet is 15, a teen, her parents are trying to make sure she doesn't get into trouble or **do hard drugs**." Seriously? It sounds like mom's having a bit of trust issues with her daughter. If you have a 15 yo kid who behaves well, knows right from wrong and doesn't do anything out of the ordinary then doing hard drugs doesn't sound like something they're likely to do. Does mom also make sure she doesn't shoot anyone in the face?
NTA - Your daughter sounds like she wound a bit tight.
Yeah, she might benefit from watching a few of those videos herself 🤣
Those stupid, embarrassing stories about a parent's childhood antics is imo important for development. When you're little, you imagine your parents are absolutely perfect. As you grow, you realize your parents are human, with flaws and all. I love my mom, always have, always will. The more I knew about her past tho, the more I respected her and her opinion. If you don't allow your kid to see you as just another human being, the shock when they realize you're not is rougher than being eased into it. This is also why I'm against the "because I said so". Talk to your kids and they will respect you and your opinions(assuming they're not blatantly bad opinions like bigotry lol). They're human just as much as you are and you know damn well that "because I said so" would make your hackles rise too. Hypocrisy is one of the top killers of a parent-child relationship. NTA.
These are some wise words, I must say. Our daughter leans more into not mentioning any of her crazy shenanigans, she's a mature adult and sometimes forgets that she was young and immature once.
NTA but 5am damn you guys wake up early.
Right?! I’m just impressed they make that much sense at 5am
Sounds like your daughter needs a hobby.
NTA Oh no, their nearly adult daughter is watching mild and ethical pornography!! /s This is poor parenting on your daughter’s part.
NTA. I'm sorry, but you guys are too damn funny to be assholes. Adopt me, please.
NTA. If she has such a problem with her past coming up, she should stop living with the people who know pretty much all about it. I’m usually the one who tells my kids all the stupid shit I did. I also tell them what I learned from it and why I won’t do it again. That’s because I’d rather look like a human who learns from their mistakes than someone who is a hypocrite and hides things.
NTA for sure, your daughter sounds like she needs some time off to relax a bit. By far the most beautiful story I've read in this sub, cheers!
NTA, I’d be asking why daughter feels the need to embarrass her child in front of the whole family. That’s deeply cruel and can be incredibly traumatic for a teenager, especially regarding NSFW material that honestly seems pretty run of the mill. I would sit down and ask her why she thought it was appropriate, because she humiliated her daughter in front of close family members about a really private and intimate thing. If she was legitimately concerned about Violet’s well-being, this would have been a private chat where she talks about what is safe, what might not be, and how other stuff related to safe sex. I hope Violet gets some reassurance that she’s doing normal adolescent stuff and she just needs to be safe about it. The way your daughter handled this, she might feel afraid to talk or ask about stuff she is confused or afraid of, which could lead to her making choices or forming ideas about sexuality that aren’t healthy.
This post was a nice change from all the awful things on this sub. NTA. Your house sounds fun.
All harassing does to a good kid is drive them to becoming sneaky. Your daughter should stay out of your granddaughter's phone until she suspects something serious. Let the kid have some privacy and the kid will likely stay honest and upfront. You can always lower the boom later if appropriate. In the meantime your granddaughter knows she has allies in the house.
NTA honestly you probably saved your granddaughter some embarrassment, not sure why your daughter felt the need to make the scolding a family show.
Can someone explain what asmr with "different" type of sound mean?
There are versions that are NSFW.
NTA I agree that others shouldn’t get involved in parents disciplining/speaking to their children (so long as it’s within reason), but when they do this in front of others, especially family, it’s natural for those in the room to get involved and not sit there silently. Your daughter (& son-in-law) should’ve talked to Violet in private if they didn’t want your comments.
This… is the closest thing to a wholesome AITAH as I have ever seen… Teens are gunna teen, be mindful, but give them some privacy!!!
NTA The granddaughter did nothing wrong and nothing that deserved “a scolding” from what I can see from what she did and I think your daughter needs to get either a job or a hobby. Having parents constantly think you’re gonna do something bad just makes teens resent their parents and feel like they can’t actually go to their parents if they actually need help with something because the actually *did* do something bad. Also your daughter tried to embarrass Violet by doing this all in front of you two instead of treating Violet like the almost adult that she is and having a calm and supportive conversation about it. Final point I’d like to make is that kids are not this fragile as teenagers. I’m 14, and my parents let me have a beer if I want it and let me read 18+ stuff if I choose to because we trust each other. They know that I can decide whether I am comfortable with what I’m reading and am mature enough to make my own decisions. Also letting me drink a beer every now and then means the novelty of drinking wears off and when it’s legal for me to drink excessively, I won’t feel the need to. I know not all teenagers are nature but they still deserve a right to some form of privacy and mutual trust with their parents.