Teens' responses show profound lack of respect

D ear Amy: I am a 14-year-old girl. A boy in my class recently called me a word that is apparently the "worst word a guy can call a girl." I had not heard it before, but my friend told me what it meant.

[Daria]

LW2--Thank your neighbor for her helpful advice, and never, NEVER attend another of her "gift cards only" functions. Imagine what horrific brats she's raising!! And please don't tell your kids that their thoughtful gifts were rejected.

[Mrs P]

Where is your voting area? I miss it.

[iconoclast59]

Can we get the teenage boy from LW1 to go over to LW2's neighbor's house and call HER a "bad word"? Because she certainly deserves it!

[Slickster]

LW2: Believe me, you didn't lose anything. Clods like your "friendly" neighbor are much better left alone.

Loved the LW3 tale of the bridal relay! Wonder if the new husband felt the slightest bit intimidated by his new wife's entourage. Good incentive to treat her right, though!

[eeyore2003]

LW1: I don't get the "worst possible word you can call a girl" thing. I'm guessing I know the word,(assuming it's the same word from Atonement) and while it can be insulting, aren't these girls giving a lot of power to a simple word, particularly since she doesn't seem to have any problem humiliating other people for their poverty or other things. The girl just seems dayum stupid, so I would generally agree, except both of the kids need to get over themselves.

LW2: If the neighbor's gifts were really that bad, why couldn't she just return them to Target or one of the many stores that will let you return gifts without a receipt for store credit? And how old are these kids? Because the gift opening segment of a gift card party must be one of the most boring things ever, and maybe I'm just unusual, but birthday gifts were often presents I hadn't thought to try and loved, or things my mother didn't want me to buy but I secretly wanted like Barbies. Way to ruin the fun.

LW3: Just how long was the aisle?

[Suzanne]

I wouldn't let my kids attend any more of her parties.

And I would have told her how awful she is for bringing that up & that I'm sure her mother didn't raise her that way & what happened. Then, tell her she doesn't have to worry about gifts anymore because your kids won't be attending any of her parties anymore.

OR let the kids go to the parties, but don't bring any gifts. If she comments about it later, tell her you know how upset she gets over "wrong" gifts so you'd thought it would be best to not get any at all. Of course, after that, she'll eventually stop inviting the kids.

[Asha]

LW2 - this is a windfall - now you do not need to hang out with this "friendly" neighbor!

[Asha]

LW1: are you the child of the friendly neighbor from LW2?

[****]

I would advise LW2 to tell her neighbor:

"I'm sorry your children do not appreciate the gifts my children chose for them. You are, of course, welcome to donate them to charity if you so wish."

Continue to encourage your children to choose thoughtful gifts and teach them the proper way to behave. You can't fix your neighbor, but you CAN raise your children properly.

AND I'm not sure I'd hide this from the kids. Do you really believe that the brats next door won't say something themselves???

[****]

LW3: "Dear Amy: Can you stand one more letter about walking down the aisle?"

NO! No, as a matter of fact, no, we can NOT!

See you next tuesday, Amy.

[dhkinil]

What I find amazing is that assuming the word is from Atonement (also a monologue in the **** Diaries) that a fourteen year old girl did not know what it was.

[dhkinil]

I did not put the **** * in, I would have thought that the correct anatomical word used in a play title would pass the filter, obviously I a do not have sufficient caffeine in me yet to figure this out.

[Ann L]

Yikes! Enough already with the aisle walking pieces. We are saturated.

Re LW2: "Sorry your kids didn't like the gifts my children chose for them. You may want to consider just putting 'gift cards only' on the invitation so that folks like me will understand."

That will accomplish one of two things: the neighbor may reply, "It's just not good manners to put any expectation of gifts on the invitation" (Yeah right, I know) and then our heroine can arch her eyebrows, smile, and say, "And this visit IS??"

or the gift card directive will alert any future invitees how this family is.

[webguy]

LW1: How about some responsibiltiy for the boy throwing the object in the first place? She threw it back and he got mad. Her behavior is not acceptable either, but nothing would have happened if he hadn't thrown the object in the first place.

[TTFN]

LW2: how pathetic! The kids are learning from the mom how to be ungracious when receiving a gift. Ugh! I have a brother-in-law who taught all 4 of his kids the exact same thing. Whenever a gift-giving occasion was upcoming, he made it very clear that he had a (very lengthy) list of items he wanted (by store!) and we could choose from that list only; otherwise, he didn't want a gift.

By the time his kids were 10, all they wanted for birthdays and Christmas was cash. Two are now in college & two are in high school. I only hear from the oldest one, conveniently, every year just before his birthday, "Here's my current address." Meanwhile, my sister-in-law simply stopped not only purchasing even a token gift for any of her nieces and nephews, but doesn't even acknowledge their birthdays on any level.

Needless to say, this family has alienated themselves from the rest of the family and it's very sad to have witnessed. All I can say is LW2's neighbor is going to end up doing the same thing: alienating people. And she's teaching her children to do the same thing. Valuing money over people. How sad.

[cindy fl]

LW2 - you scored big losing that greedy, self centered neighbor. sounds like an awful mom raising spoiled brats. they cud have quietly donated the unwanted gifts to goodwill etc. 10 to 1 those kids have a house full of toys, gadgets they dont use and constantly want more. sad.

[Jane]

iconoclast59 wrote:

Can we get the teenage boy from LW1 to go over to LW2's neighbor's house and call HER a "bad word"? Because she certainly deserves it!

****! Thanks!!!

[Britni]

It's The **** * Monologues, not **** * Diaries

[dhkinil]

Britni wrote:

It's The ***** Monologues, not ***** Diaries

Thank you and obviously nowhere near enough caffeine in my body when I made my first post. My wife and I saw it in London with Edie Falco and, I think, Sophie Okenodo, who played Don Cheadle's wife in Hotel Rwanda. I can't remember the name of the third actress, but she did the one about the *****word and wanted to do it as Margaret Thatcher. Eve Ensler said she could not, so after she read it the "standard way" she said, had I been allowed to read it as Margaret Thatcher this is what it would have sounded like, and it was terrific. The audience was laughing so hard it must have taken five minutes before they could go on.

And as for the fourteen year old, I can't remember the movie, but it was more of a woman's movie (I am a bit metrosexual) and one of the characters complained to her friend regularly that the word was often used to describe her and finally, near the end, her friend said you really are a *****.

[Terri at home]

Any male who doesn't realize how bad it is to call a woman the c word is going to get himself in deep trouble.

LW2: I'm with the poster that said tell her to give the gift to charity (hi ****). Great idea.

LW3: I'm sure it meant a lot to the whole family.