Ouch! Oh how deeply the words of our daughters wound us to our very soul! That’s a quote from a mother-teenage daughter review of a new British movie by the director of “Bend it Like Beckham” called “Angus, Thongs And Perfect Snogging.” It’s the story of a a boy-crazed teenager who has to contend with the embarrassment her clueless mother causes her.

The movie resonated with the mom who reviewed it, she realized that she was just as clueless as the mom in the movie. She thought she was such a cool mom but as she watched the relationship between the mom and her daughter it dawned on her that this could have been a home movie. She knew that her relationship with her daughter was being played out on the screen which was confirmed by her daughter’s review of the movie. Both reviewer and character were embarrassed by the actions of their mother. Everything the poor women did embarrassed their daughters, even kissing their husbands!
As I read the review I thought of yesterday when I went to the gym with Samantha. We were walking on the treadmill next to each other, she said something to me and then I replied but she couldn’t hear me. So, I raised my voice so that she could hear me over her iPod. She looked at me as if I’d spit in public and said, “You’re too loud!” and I replied, “Well, I had to shout over the iPod to be heard!” Of course this elicited an “Oh! You are so embarrassing!” As we were returning home we got into an argument and it turned out that I embarrassed her by shouting when there were cute boys in the gym. This from my twelve-year-old.
I guess it’s probably a waste of time trying to teach my daughters that the opinion of some guy in the gym isn’t really worth that much and that they shouldn’t spend their lives so focused on what other people think. I could beat my head against the wall encouraging them to make choices based on their own preferences, not what others perceive as cool or acceptable but I don’t think it’s sinking in. Too bad! They may have realized much sooner that it’s more fun to set your own path then follow after what everyone else is doing. You try to help them circumvent some of the angst in growing up but they simply won’t let you.
Of course none of this is surprising. Weren’t we embarrassed by our moms?

ESV Ecclesiastes 1:9 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.