Parenting Teens: Genetic Tic?
Thursday, September 25, 2008 at 12:00AM It is true that only women can give birth. I am female, of age and married, so in my immediate family I am the only one who can give birth. There are a few other things I have come to realize only I can do:
Only I can:
Toss out empty shampoo bottles left in the shower.
Unload and load a dishwasher without being told too.
Both notice and wash a smelly dog.
Carry a new roll of paper towels all the way up from the basement.
Do a full load of wash each time the machine is run.
Find other household members misplaced Bibles (whether missed place at
home, in church or in the car. My internal Bible finding GPS gets a lot of use)
My husband works very hard to support us and I am the at home spouse so I don’t expect him to do the above actions any more than I expect he would have given birth to any of our children. If I was working outside the home thing most likely would be different, but I’m not. The children are another matter.
At one point in time (between the ages of 4-12), they could perform any of the above actions even if they couldn’t give birth. Some weird genetic convolution must take place after age 13 and they lose the ability to do the above or even to notice that something needs to be done (hence our 2 smelly dogs).
This has to be a strange genetic tic, what else could it be? (Note the irony of the Getting From Here to There posts)
If your kids aren’t teens, you may not think there is a strange genetic tic that occurs after 13. (After all what else could be causing this?) That’s okay, maybe your kids won’t tic.
But if you have teens: how does this strange genetic tic, manifest itself in your home?
Counter fairies…..how I could forget they believe in counter fairies!
hope, parenting teens, raising teens, selfiness, silliness in parenting teenagers 
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Reader Comments (7)
Same problem here, No-one but me can change the toilet roll ,can bin the empty roll.can wipe up spills.It's the cop out gene.
Cop out gene, good name. I knew it had to be something.
Luckily, my teen does empty the dishwasher and replaces the toilet paper when empty, but that is only because it is part of her chores, and when she doesn't, she does not get her chore money come friday. I know not everyone believes in paying their kids to do chores, but it works for me. The shampoo bottles on the other hand, same genetic tic!
Your world sounds so very much like mine! My daughter is 12, she's still helping with a little bit, but between her and my husband, it seems I'm the only one capable of getting things ALL THE WAY to the trash, recycling, dishwasher, or wherever the item needs to be.
Maybe it is a genetic thing, or maybe this is like the nymph stage in insects... the transformation taking place inside somehow erases their brains, at least temporarily! Great post!
Hilarious! My kids aren't even teens yet and they don't remember this stuff! I'm in real trouble, right?!
Baby Luvin
Mom Tidings
Saving With Tracey
One can always live in hope they are ticless.