Teenagers can be like babies: Annoying repetition of words.

Fair warning:  the socialization of your children is no longer happening in your homes or in your schools,  it is happening online on really mindless social nets like Tik Tok.  I really hope that that CEO of Tik Tok has bad dreams every night. No he doesnt. He doesnt care.  He cares nothing about your kids, he cares nothing about the state of children, or their wellbeing he only cares about how much money is going into his pocket and his company's coffers or with his investors.  You cant blame him or tik tok, it is your fault for letting your kids spend x too many hours on tik tok.  Parents fault.  Easy way out. Geez I d almost like to go back to the 90s when Beevis and Butthead were the teenage icons.  They were way smarter than anything on tik tok.  

Jeff (y)ass

What not one of those people in the company or invested in it will admit is that it is an addiction. An addiction for kids to keep scrolling endlessly.  Addictions are always good for the makers of the addictions.  Alcohol, drugs, sugar, its all good for sales when people are addicted.   

I remember when my daughter was a little baby before she learned how to talk.  She kept saying the phonic sound "ba".   Ba ba ba.  Say at least one hundred times a day.  Probably more.  

Babies, and my daughter too, she would just drop something and leave it there.  That was fine. I understood that a baby loses attention and just drop what they are working on and leave it there. They cant have an idea of putting it away. You dont get that idea until way after 2 if not 4 and that is after your parents have said 1000 times "can you put your stuff away?"  in a nice comfy pleasant tone of voice.  

Now, funny how I have to listen to my 16 year old teenage girl repeat the same couple words at least 100 times a day if not several hundred.  

Sigma.  Sigma this sigma that.  And if you are playing a board game with her, you can count on hearing the word 100 times during the play time.  

Yes I know adults also do this. "Dude", "bro" are probably words from other generations.  I hear a word in a language other than english uttered sometimes twice in sentences by people speaking that language, at the least in every sentence.  That too is very annoying and I would like to tell them that it sounds awful, accept that they are my work colleagues and I would rather not have bad releations.  So.... crap.   I have to hear it.  

But Sigma.  Seriously Dude.  It gets annoying after the 50th time. Then it is just mind grading, like scraping your nails on a chalkboard.  

And for crying out loud, when will we be done with the word "skibidi" Or Skibidee? I felt like throwing up after hearing that word about the 10 000 time about two months ago.  Fine, it will go and some other dumb word and trend will replace it. 

Ok, sure, these actions, words, have always been developed by teen agers.  They have their own language and "boomers" are well, "boomers", they dont understand. In fact everyone, every parent has always been a boomer to their teenage children.  "boomers"  (parents) have never understood their teenagers.  Teenagers now will be boomers in 20, 30 years.  

Ok, so yippee for teenagers.

But...

So, I have to ask, have they always been this dumb and annoying or is it getting worse?  I would like the CEO of tik tok to be flushed down his skibidee toilet.  At the very least, that he has teenagers who drive him crazy too with dumb tik tok videos. I mean seriously, does the guy even watch the content? And he says he wants to make a safe, entertaining experience for every age group.  Well let me ask you this Mr. Shou Zi Chew, does addiction count as safe?  No, only to your pocketbook and your investors.  And then you keep yourself safe by saying Singapore has stricter rules for under 8 (or 11?) year olds. So he is let off the hook.  In fact Singapore is controlling his tik tok.  Just wait til his daughter is above 13 and she is scrolling for two or three hours a day.  Let it happen, please please let it happen.     

That is the difference before when teenagers had their own culture and language. It wasnt an addiction, a physical addiction which caused them damage. It was just culture, the culture of teeens.  But tik tok is an addiction.  It is not a safe environment Mr. Chew. 

Question? Why is Harvard putting out all these weirdo nutcases who are making billions off of making us suffer under their mindless creations?  

STOP! Stop?

I ll probably stop writing this blog at the end of the year.  

Two reasons.  One daughter is now 16, the other 13.  The older sticks to her mother more than to me. It seems I am some sort of a nagging pariah for her.  Anyway she prefers her friends, understandable, to me.  And her mother to me.  All I can do is make observations about being a parent in this time and nag my daughter some to get her to do stuff.  She doesnt even like my food much any more though I am making it the same as ever.  Maybe bored with it.  She likes making her noodle dishes.  That s good that she does her own food, even if it hurts that she rejects mine. You know? She is a teenager, she knows how to do it. She knows how to do everything.  

Two, I just probably will see less of her.  

My other younger daughter, we still do things together. Go to a movie,  I still help her with her language course(s) and try to help her with math.  I guess I still could be (close to) 40 per cent daddy with her.  Less. But my older daughter.... much less. 

Some of it is sad.  I thought in her teenage years she would need her father more. They often say, I have read quite often, that teenage girls need a solid male figure in their life to lay down the law, give them some guidance on what is wrong and right and maybe kick them in the butt lightly to tell them that is wrong, do it right.  Because their frontal cortex is a mess and causing them to do messy things. 

Sadly it seems in my case that is wrong.  She gravitates to her mother and will do anything her mother says, whereas she yells at me when I try to tell her to do something.  It took her two hours to get ready to walk the dog one weekend when I was home with her.  She yelled at me when I had to tell her again and again, "take the dog out".  It happened again today and I told my younger daughter to yell at her, I wouldnt do it.  The older daugther didnt yell at her sister, so hard. When Mother said, "the dog is standing in front of the door, walk the dog," she got off the toilet and did it.  

Its ok, these relationships swing back and forth not only during growing up time, but during one's whole life.  

However, the very sad part which disturbs me is that she sees me as a bad father, "a sh... dad and bad husband to my wife because she is swinging away from me. It means for her that I was bad her whole life. At least I get that impression. 

That just isnt true. I remember all the nights she woke up calling "daddy" and I would wake up (my wife snoring away, never heard ANY of these calls) and run to her bedside and stand by her till she was asleep again.  Bad dream.  Waking in the night scared her.  And lots of small stuff like that helping her.  No.  No no no. I wasnt the sh.... t dad.  But .... it seems at this point, I am and was.  

I recently wrote a post, didnt I?, about the possibility of the family or kids rewriting your history.  It can happen when they are in this attitude that "you suck".  

So the question is, should I just say to myself, Ok, she is fine with her mother and

now its time for you to step out of her way and let her alone?  Dont bother with anything.  Stop the nagging, that is finished.  Dont take her dishes to the sink.  Dont care if she goes to bed at midnight.  Dont care if she doesnt finish her dinner because "it was disgusting" and then she goes to the store for a bag of chips.  Just drop it and stop.  In a sense, even stop being a parent to her.  She IS 16.  

Or .... or what?  Continue to be a nag and try to redirect her, push her to stay away from the wrong directions and decisions. Her frontal cortex is still a mess. 

Recently she said, I feel like there is something pushing me to do wrong, and i know it, and I try to not do wrong, to do right. But it is pushing me to do wrong. 

Is it past the worst of the mess of the frontal cortex?  15 and 16?  I doubt it.  But it seems like something is breaking. Maybe I should hang out and stick on and make sure she has the solid male in her life giving her good assistance?  

Or maybe by default that wont be my job anymore because I will be too far away and she wont want it.  

My brother did the same thing with his parents when he was 16.  He had another ten years of mess I would say.  At least my daughter turns to her mother.  

So, if that is the case, will I have much more to write about in 2025?  40 per cent worth?  

I dont know.  I can say, "I ll cross that bridge when I get there."  But that "bridge" is coming up very soon and I will be crossing it any time now..... I think.¨But also, maybe that bridge is already collapsed.