Okay, today's question is Ashley from the United States. Growing up, I always felt embarrassed by my mom, even from a pretty young age. We have a great relationship now, but I'm curious if you have any insights as to why I would have felt that way.
SPEAKER_01Welcome to a mini episode of the Bratbusters Parenting Podcast. I'm Lisa Bunnage. I'm a parenting coach, mom, and grandmother.
SPEAKER_00And I'm Amy Bunnage, Lisa's daughter, and I handle the marketing and planning here at Bratbusters. Let's get into the episode.
SPEAKER_01Because
you're normal, we're all embarrassed by our parents because we like to look like we're adults. I don't know why, but we're like 12 years old. We like to look independent. Because this is usually when the hormones hit and you want to look independent, free-thinking, mature. It's really hard to look mature when your mommy's licking your fingers and st and flattening down your bangs. You know, like it's just part of the deal. You're gonna always be embarrassed by your parents at certain times. Now, were you ever embarrassed by me? Don't bring up the ribbon routine.
SPEAKER_00Never, never once was there a speck of embarrassment.
SPEAKER_01Now I'm gonna ask this again.
SPEAKER_00Were you ever embarrassed by me? I am going
to tell a story. Oh so I would have been, I think, 25 at the time, and I decided I was going to go down to Malibu. I went to this retreat. So 25-year-old woman. Listen, we don't have to discuss this. I think we should. I think this will give a good indication because I think also like this is nice for parents to hear um maybe some of the areas in which your parenting um maybe, you know, your your blind spots possibly.
SPEAKER_01Okay, whatever.
SPEAKER_00So I was down in Malibu, I was all by myself, I traveled down there. Um I'm pretty good though. Like I'm I'm pretty good at knowing my surroundings, all of that. So I took an Uber. It was a one-hour trip into Malibu. Now it was up in the Malibu Mountains, and it was really hard to get cell phone reception up there. So I told my mom something along the lines of, okay, I'm leaving now for the retreat. And I just kind of said, I'll text you when I get there. But like I assumed that she didn't think I was going to text her the moment I got there. Like I assumed she thought I'd give a little bit of leeway to, you know, get settled into my room.
SPEAKER_01You assumed wrong.
SPEAKER_00I assumed wrong. Apparently, my mom was tracking my location the entire time. When the cell phone reception cut out, it then looked like my find my maps went off a cliff for some reason. It looked like it just went somewhere.
SPEAKER_01Well, it did because there was the road, but the car that she was in, her phone was not on the road. It was in the bushes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. All you need to know is I got a frantic, frantic call.
SPEAKER_01Okay. I had to call the re the retreat and uh tell them I was looking for my daughter because I think she went off the cliff. She somehow found scrounged this information. I had to really search because it was kind of a private, you know, like it wasn't like a permanent retreat kind of place. But yeah, and uh they had to pull her out of some class and well, they had to go searching for her.
SPEAKER_00Not just that. When I got my mom on the phone, do you know what I was greeted with? Not a, oh, I'm so glad you're okay. Okay, have fun. Do you know what you put me through? Here I am trying to relax at this retreat, and I get this frantic. And it's supposed to be a relaxation retreat. So that's how I started my retreat. And I felt, I felt it took a couple days for you to finally forgive me. I was mad. I was mad. Do you know what I went through for the entire retreat? I had you being mad at me, looming in the back of my head.
SPEAKER_01Plus, she got she was known as the one with that mother. Yeah. So which woman is that at the retreat? Oh, you know, the one with that mother? So to clarify, I've never once been embarrassed by my mother. Oh, God, I forgot about that. Yeah, it's funny I blocked that one out of my mind. Anyway, so you get the point here? It's completely normal to be embarrassed by your parents. You're trying to be independent and grown up, but you were just a wee 25-year-old. But you're trying to grow up, you're trying to act like you're independent, that you don't need your mommy and daddy anymore, even though you do when you're younger. Um, but yeah, you did not need me phoning that retreat. I agree with that. Plus, I had called your brother and your father, and I'm we're divorced, and I'd called them. Have you heard from her? I can't find her. So they're searching, also. They're trying to figure out what's going on just to shut me up. And they're just trying to shut me up, is all they're trying to do.
SPEAKER_00I finally got reception. You should have seen my phone.
SPEAKER_01It was Yeah, yeah. But no, it's completely normal. I wouldn't worry about it. You know, us parents are embarrassing. And I did mention earlier about the ribbon routine that uh that was uh that was really bad. That was really bad. Um, you know, I did tell that story once before. Basically, I did a performance routine uh with ribbons, you know, at the gymnastics place that she worked at. Um, and I don't know anything about gymnastics or doing a ribbon routine, but I did one anyway. And um, so yeah, she was pretty upset. So I would have had to have done some kind of amends. I would have had to have done something for you after that, but that was pretty bad. Those are two moments, yeah, I'll have to admit, wasn't my finest moment. Um, but the the second one was based on worry, so I'm not gonna really apologize for that one. But the first one was awful. I was just trying to be funny, and you know what? You're not funny anymore. Like that was not funny, but I was the only one laughing.
SPEAKER_00Anyway, that was embarrassing.
Now, do you think that this embarrassment from like do you think this is just a rite of passage? And why specifically you said they're trying to distance themselves? Is there any other reasons why you think this happens?
SPEAKER_01I think it's basically a rite of passage, unless your parents are really um, you know, really doing something horrible to try and embarrass you. But even that can be funny, but it depends on the kid, you know? Like you'll see sometimes people dress up um for Halloween and go and pick up their teenagers at the front gate at high school thinking they're funny. And some of the teenagers think that's funny. So, but you know what? Us parents are not perfect. We're gonna make mistakes. And if the embarrassment is because you're yelling at them and swearing at them and that, that's different. That's abuse, right? But if it's just because you're trying to be funny, you're trying to be buddies, you know, it's just the rite of passage. We're there, there's a time and a place for parents acting like goofballs in front of their kids or over worrying and calling the resort or the retreat. Um, you know, there's a time and a place for that stuff. But overall, we are gonna do stuff. We love our kids, we worry about them. And that will, no matter how old you are, you will always be our kids. My kids are 36 and 31, and they're still my kids. You know, they'll always and my mom used to say that, you know, my brother was like in his 60s when she passed, and he says she's he's still a little boy. I mean, you'll always be our kids. We're always gonna overworry about you. Uh, we might embarrass you at times, but oh well, right, write a passage.
SPEAKER_00Oh
well. Well, I think that this topic brings up a few extra questions, like for example, teasing your children. What areas would you not approach?
SPEAKER_01Never in a million years would I ever tease them about crushes, ever. Because if even when they were little, they were three, I think three years old. I don't know if you had a crush, but little boy had a crush on you. Um, remember that? I think so. But I think just in general, like even never tease about matters of the heart ever. Never say, oh, you got a boyfriend. Never. You know why? Because when they get older, they won't tell you nothing. They don't want to be teased about it. They don't want you making fun of their crushes because they're matters of the heart. Even though they're little, they might be five or fifteen or whatever. It doesn't matter. It's still matters of the heart. Their heart is wrapped up in that crush that they have, right? So never tease about a crush. Anything that's that's you know, like uh they have a cr like they really like someone or they like a boy or a girl or whatever, never, ever, ever tease about that.
SPEAKER_00Are there any other topics that you just kind of think parents sometimes go too far with embarrassing their children? Um, yeah, I think anything really private.
SPEAKER_01You know, anything private where and you know what that is. Like it it's anything where where if you you think back when you were young, would you want your parents announcing that? So yeah, when my kids told me something in confidence, I kept it to myself. Like you wouldn't be throwing, for example, a period party. No, some people do that. Um yeah, I would I would not do that. I do I do have lines I won't cross, believe it or
not.
SPEAKER_00And then what are your thoughts on parents trying to be cool? Like let's say they're giving in and trying to be the best friend.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I would never want to be cool as a mom. I always want to be mom. My role is not cool, my role is mom. And and you can still be a friend, but you're still mom friend, I'm still mom friend. I was it was very clear that I was mom. So I was definitely buddies with my kids, but I was mom before I was anything else. You don't want to be cool with your kids. That's ridiculous. Come on, grow up. You know, you're not you're not 16 anymore, and you don't want to be 16 anymore, and they don't want you to be 16 anymore. Now, some kids think it's cool to have a cool parent, but overall, I I don't recommend it, to be honest. I think it kind of blurs the line between leader, parent, and then friend. Well, that's a tricky one because you do talk about the fact that you want to be friends with your kids. Yeah, but your mom friend, your mom friend, you're still mom first, you know? Like you're not I'll I'll tell you why. Because let's say you you want to be cool. So you grab a bottle of wine and take your 16-year-old daughter to the movies and you drink wine at the movies. That's trying to be cool, right? That's ridiculous. That's against the law, it's ridiculous, it's irresponsible. That's not parenting, okay? That's the kind of cool I'm talking about. Also, we do tend to dress the same and listen to the same music these days. When I look back at the way I was raised back in the 60s and 70s, there was a huge generation gap. My mother, you know, they got stuck at, I think when they hit 30, that's they never listened to a new song after that. Like it was really bizarre. They never changed their taste in music. It was really bizarre. It was the same old music that they always listened to. And the way my mom dressed, I would never have worn her clothes. You know, there was a huge generation gap, but that has closed. So we do tend to look more like our kids and listen to the same music and have a lot of the same taste. Um, but we are not our kids. And they don't need another friend. I always say they don't need middle-aged friends, they need parents, but you can still be like mom friend, dad friend. It's just you can still be best friends with your kids, but your mom, your mom friend, your dad friend, because your first role is always the parent.
SPEAKER_00My first memory of us starting to dress the same was if you live in Australia, you probably remember these, are those Supreme belts, the big stretchy belts that they used to sell at Supreme, which is really just an Australian clothing store. We don't really have it over here in North America, from my knowledge. But we went through those and we would switch back and forth. Gosh, those were Oh, that's right.
SPEAKER_01You were quite eight. Yeah, you were about eight. And there were these, they were just big fabric belts, is all they were. It was the same fabric that ran around the arms of your uh hoodies or whatever. It's that same kind of fabric, and it was just a giant fat belt, and it was very flattering. Went around, covered your whole waist area, really flattering, and it would pull in the waistband of your pants and your top and everything. But yeah, we shared those. But no one was mistaking us for sisters, put it that way. No one thought there goes two girlfriends. It was clearly mother and daughter. Okay, do you have anything else you want to add to this topic?
Uh, I think it is a rite of passage. I think that's a very good term for this. Um, it's very normal to want to separate from your parents. Uh, you know, um, I remember my son said to me he was a teenager, and I said, you know, we're just not buddies at, you know, best friends anymore, like we were. And he goes, Mom, he says, I'm turning into a man. He was a teenager. And he goes, I'm turning into a man. He says, You can't turn into a man when your best friend is your mommy. Like at some point, they do have to start pulling away, and you do become more embarrassing, I'm assuming. I don't I don't know if he was ever really embarrassed. Stuff like that didn't bother him as much. You were more bothered by that sort of stuff, I think. I was. And they're all different. So you've got to also judge it by their personalities, okay? They're all come they're all different. So if one kid's gonna be humiliated by this stuff, I wouldn't do it, to be honest. Uh that ribbon routine, I'm not proud of it. Uh, but I did have to pay for that big time. So um, yeah, I did pay my dues. But yeah, that was one of the few big mistakes I made was that ribbon routine, I would say. But we do have laughed at it a lot since.
SPEAKER_00We have. It's it's brought us joy. It's brought us closely together.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Ten years later we got over it. But yeah, it's just a rite of passage. Look back, were you embarrassed by your parents? Or, you know, would you be upset if your kids were embarrassed by you? I wouldn't. I would think, yeah, that's completely normal. I think that's the thing, is like, would it hurt your feelings as a parent? God, no. I'd be almost uh proud of it, to be honest, because that's normal. I'd feel like a real mum. Because you're supposed to be embarrassed by your parents, I think. To a certain not all the time, but yeah. To an extent. Well, you didn't want me at grad or anything either, like helping out. I I didn't turn up to grad. I wanted to be a volunteer at their grad parties. I didn't turn up to either one. Um I I think that was already full. My son wouldn't have cared, but my daughter, you you said no, I don't want you volunteering at the grad night.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because I was scared of another ribbon routine. So I think I had my I think I had my reasons.
SPEAKER_01Okay, fine. But yeah, I didn't turn up because she didn't want me there. I would have loved to have gone, but she didn't want me there. I was on the committees, but I I wasn't, I never turned up to a grad. So out of respect, right? Because it would have been embarrassing having me there. Okay, well, I have nothing else to add to you. Neither do I. So thanks so much for joining us. Back again soon talking about another parenting topic. Happy parenting.
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