I hate you, mom! 2026

"Mom, what horrible lipstick, you look like Dracula's wife." "Where are you going with that outfit? To Imserso?" "You have less class when dressing than an old woman." Does it sound familiar to you? Funny, our teenagers (rather impertinent) but hey, at least their glosses stay at home. Much more unpleasant are the comparisons: "Alicia's mother is cool, but you...".

Why are they throwing these darts at us? Why are they directed especially at mom?

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It wasn't so long ago that parents were the ideal human types whom children revered, but that idyllic adoration now belongs to the past. Now a few years have passed and the kids question family values, discover other families and other ways of life and declare them superior.

Mom represents her children's world

The mother is usually the first victim because it is above all her presence that evokes the period of childhood, and to leave those times behind, they try, to a certain extent, to free themselves from the mother.

Sometimes, adolescent children repeatedly provoke their mother and even laugh at her anger, because they do not doubt her affection and also because they fear her punishments less than those of the father. In girls, in addition, an unconscious rivalry with the mother is reactivated and, suddenly, they blurt out "I hate you!" or "I don't want to look like you!"

Other times, girls and boys, faced with the confusion caused by their contradictory and mixed feelings, opt for a cynical attitude and openly deny that they feel affection for anyone. They disapprove, they judge; They often have no regard, they do not forgive any weakness, any clumsiness and, if necessary, they invent them.

Don't be surprised if parents feel hurt. Sometimes ocelli react with anger: "If you don't like this house, you already know where the door is." But they suffer when they criticize their way of thinking, their tastes, their expressions...

At this age, adolescents experience a conflict between independence and dependence, between the desire to be pampered as children and to be recognized as almost adults. That is why they reaffirm themselves through opposition, often adopting capricious and defiant behavior. They seek to make their presence and will be felt in an oppositional crisis that has points in common with the one that young children experience around the age of two. But this crisis is more difficult for parents because now the child expresses himself easily, judges sharply, knows the sensitive points and knows where to prick so that it bothers him. He needs his own identity, separate from that of the parents, but it is difficult for him to distance himself from those he loves so much, so, to facilitate the process, he looks for defects in them.

Without taking a toll

Not only we suffer from their rebellious and critical attitude. It also generates feelings of guilt for them. They feel that this tension caused by the need to create a personality leads them to endanger emotional ties that, at the same time, they are eager to maintain.

Of course, understanding them does not mean putting up with everything. At the very least, parents have the right to express their discomfort at blatantly inconsiderate treatment. "I would like to go alone this time to buy the skirt, mom" is not the same as "Don't come, because you're in my way and you also have horrible taste." In the latter case, it is justified to respond: "You have the right to have your own tastes, but what you said hurts me. At home we don't treat each other like that." Parents are not mere authority figures, but people with feelings, and for children it is good to see this.

But if we say "At home we don't treat each other like that", we have to keep it. There are parents who throw at their children, with the greatest carelessness and carelessness, phrases comparable to the impertinence that we just saw a moment ago, or those that appear at the beginning of this article, without realizing that he who sows the wind reaps the storm. Respect is taught by example, that is, by respecting.

Let's not get overly touchy either. "I'm sure you won't last two sets today," Miguel jokes, raising his tennis racket. "There's nothing strange about it," his father responds naturally. "You're 15 years old and I'm 50." Teenagers sting each other quite easily. It is good for them to learn that they can respond calmly and without losing their dignity.

Talking to other parents who are in the same situation can help a lot to put our own situation into perspective, to realize that we are not the only ones and to take it with humor and philosophy. Their criticism will not last forever: it usually decreases as they get older.

Whenever we can, let's not take their comments as personal attacks, but as a chance to explore their ideas and mentality, which at this age is in full boiling water.

When our children get angry and criticize us, they are generally expressing not firm convictions, but rather uncertainties. Deep down they need to know what we think about norms, behaviors, problems and people. Not to take it as something sacred, but as a reference on which to form your own criteria. Let us be open to dialogue and reasonable, but also clear and firm. Let us know that, deep down, they continue to expect guidance and guidance from us. This is how we will retain your true appreciation.