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Remember when you were little and you got in trouble at school? Maybe you got sent to the principal’s office and a note was sent home to you parents. Or if you were really a bad kid, your parents got called in for a meeting to discuss your less than acceptable behavior. Then you got the opportunity to hear the speech that every kid wanted to avoid: “I’m not mad, just disappointed.”
There wasn’t anything worse than that phrase and the deep sigh that accompanied it. Give me yelling and a long term punishment of no tv, internet, or phone privileges (the home landline, obvi). Really anything except the pitiful looks that came your way for the next several months. Would you ever redeem yourself??
Let’s fast forward a bit. It’s 2018 and as much as we try to avoid it or pretend that it hasn’t happened, the reality is that we’re adults. We have jobs, pay taxes, and generally do the things teenage us always wanted to avoid. Sure, we still blackout on weekends and spend money we don’t have on things just to give our Instas content, but on paper we technically fit the bill.
That is until we mess up, intentionally or not, and are shoved back into our youth when that familiar phrase is delivered from the parental units. I don’t care how old you are, it still sucks to disappoint your parents.
Despite what my bio says and the fact that I am the ripe old age of 29 years young, I hate disappointing the wonderful people I call Mom and Dad. A couple of weeks ago I did a dumb thing that I knew they wouldn’t be happy about, but my high level of guilt persuaded me into biting the bullet and informing them. Not only did I get the “call us when you’ve grown up” line over the phone, but also the “not mad just disappointed” text a little while later.
Did it make me feel terrible and full of regret? Yep. Did I drunk cry about it excessively on St. Patrick’s Day and ask my bff if her parents would allow me to come to their Thanksgiving and Christmas this year because I swore my parents were going to disown me? Definitely yes.
Ok maybe I’m a little dramatic, but my point stands.
Perhaps it’s something small that you think isn’t a big deal and they take it way out of proportion or perhaps you legit done fucked up and their reaction is justified. Either way, no one likes to feel like they’re twelve years old and being sent to their room to think about what they’ve done.
I’d love to tell you that being an adult means you will always make the right choices that make not only yourself, but everyone else happy along the way. But I think that’s what they call a made for tv Hallmark movie and unfortunately you aren’t a C-List celebrity.
You will misstep a time or two or seven, and your parents will repeat that same ol same ol speech you knew was coming as you sat waiting for your ride home from the principal’s office. But unlike your younger self, you’ve realized that mom and dad will forgive you after one too many apologies and yes they will still love you.
Disappointing the people closest to you still shouldn’t top your list of favorite experiences, but no one said being an adult was all sunshine and roses. Just know that if nothing else, we’re all mess ups in this thing together..
Respond
Whatever Lola Wants
Outward appearance of being a hot mess with just enough Type A personality to not be a complete disappointment to my parents. Almost as good at avoiding commitment as I am at holding my liquor.
@LauraMeinert
What could constitute a “Call us when you’re grown up” text?!
That shit is savage. Did they have to do it to em? Jesus
Aside from getting arrested, I don’t know what would constitute this response. Lola, you spend the night in the slammer?
my guess was DUI?
I went out over Thanksgiving and ended up losing my Dad’s car key and fob. Even though I got a new one made, when I told my Mom she told me verbatim to “Grow the fuck up”. No mercy.
Yikes
for losing car keys??? god damn
I borrowed my dad’s mower on Saturday to do my yard because my mower is out of commission at the moment. I returned it to him later that day still in perfect working condition, with a full tank of gas, and the bag emptied. However, I was in a hurry and did not rinse it off before returning it (he was not home when I returned it). My dad is very meticulous about his lawn equipment being squeaky clean, so I got an angry phone call later that evening because he wanted to know why his mower had a thin layer of pollen/dust covering it. You would’ve thought I totaled his truck while driving drunk or something. So it is very possible to be an upstanding, tax-paying, gainfully employed citizen and still disappoint your parents at age 27.
Had to
My wife and I got “freshman year” trashed two nights before our wedding. Missed all kinds of family events the next morning. The look on our parents faces cut me to my core and still haunts me to this day, and I know they’ll use it against us at some point
That sucks because that’s your wedding. You didn’t miss someone else’s event.
I would rather get a DUI or arrested than have to come out to my parents again. That disappointment doesn’t go away, it keeps resurfacing every holiday or milestone in your relationships. “How’s your….’friend’..”…….gag.
I work at my parents’ company. If you think shit is bad when you’re a menace to society, you can’t imagine what this is like when you’re a menace to their retirement.
Other than usually making a mess eating drunk munchies in the kitchen at least one night per visit back home after going to the townie bar, my parents and I have pretty much gotten over all that. If we had more in common and they actually understood what I do for a living they’d probably be more involved and have more to bitch about, but as is, just not mooching off them and keeping a job makes them happy.
See this is why I only tell my parents good things, problems that have been resolved, and bad things that are far enough in the past that they’re beyond the statute of limitations
Worst was when I was in HS and mom thought I had hooked up with some girl and for a solid week she wouldn’t look at me (read: she cried) because she thought that “I was doing degrading things with women”, still haven’t been able to recover from it.
I get to do this every week when my mom finds out my husband and I didn’t make it to church yet again. Coming up with a unique excuse to cover up the fact that we just got too drunk the night before is getting kind of hard.
Luckily, I haven’t had this happen to me for a long, long while. I’m hoping I didn’t just jinx myself.
Parents are pretty chill and would only freak on me if it was murder or a DUI. Disappointing tho? Not having kids. That would kill them.