Why Mothers Embarass Their Teenagers.

When I was a teenager, I often wondered why parents sometimes seemed intent on embarrassing us in front of our peers. They would do or say something that would completely mortify us and then seem oblivious to our concern.

Maybe you need an example. ... Let's go back a little, shall we? 10 years ago I was 19 years old and on vacation with my family in Florida. While standing in line to see an exhibit, I realized that I needed to go to the bathroom. We were at an outdoor shopping center that was shaped liked a rectangle with a courtyard in the middle. There were still a few minutes before the exhibit opened so I told my mom quietly that I was going to go look for a restroom. I proceeded to walk around the rectangle looking for the public restrooms. When I was half way around the courtyard and far enough away from my family so that we would have to raise our voices in order to be heard, my mom began yelling at me across the crowded shopping center,"Stephanie, The bathroom is right there!"
My response to this, of course, was to completely ignore her and pretend to be looking for the person at whom the loud lady was yelling -- because that is what everyone else was doing.
"Stephanie, quit walking that way! The bathroom is over there!" By now my face was red and most people had figured out that I was the Stephanie whose mother wanted to go to the bathroom.
I turned and gave her a silent look that screamed "What are you doing?! The entire place does not need to know that I need to go! Be quiet!"
She apparently did not get the message however, because she continued to holler to me about how I better go soon because the exhibit was almost open and she didn't want me to hold it the entire time we were there.
It was at that point that I no longer needed to go. The urge had completely left for the moment. I was too embarrassed and annoyed to go now. Besides I was not going to make it clear to any of the shoppers who may have not yet figured out who I was by going any place near that restroom.
....................

Back to today.
I decided to take the kids to story time at our local library. We have done this several times and the kids seem to enjoy it. There are allot of toys and many children to play with. Today, though was not as fun as I had hoped. C made a city with blocks, then left it to go sit in the story circle. When he turned around and saw that another little boy had demolished his city and was now loading the remains onto a big truck to tow them away, he started crying at the top of his lungs. This wasn't too bad. I quickly explained to him that the toys belong to everyone and when you leave a toy someone else gets to do what they want with it. He stopped crying, but stayed in a foul mood the rest of our time there. After story time I let them play for a little while. J started to whine because it was close to lunchtime so I told C it was time to go. That is when the ticking time bomb exploded. C completely lost it. He threw the toys he was playing with, threw himself onto the floor and started screaming at the top of his lungs that he didn't want to go.
(I just want to put in here that C hardly ever does this in public any more. We did have a hard time with it pretty much his entire third year, but I mistakenly thought he was trained out of public fit throwing. I also need to add that C was one of the biggest kids in the library. Most of the kids were three or under.)

Of course right after C started pitching his fit, J decided to join him. I got C up told him to pick up his toys which he did though he continued to cry. Then we went to get our coats. I mentioned that there were a lot of children there today, right? Well along with each child there was at least one parent. And of course I felt like they were all looking at me wondering why I brought my bratty children out in public if I couldn't even control them.
I told C that we were not going to check out his books anymore because he was being so naughty. This just brought on more tears and louder crying. I went and put all of the books up on the counter and got the kids bundled up to go into the frigid air. C cried the entire time we were leaving the library...until the alarm went off as we were walking out the doors because I had forgotten one book that was still in the library bag.
Yeah, there is nothing better to get attention while leaving a place than two crying children and a thief alarm going off as you go through the door!

All that to say that I think I have figured out why parents are always embarrassing their teens and then acting completely oblivious. I don't think they are oblivious at all. Maybe, just maybe they are silently feeling vindicated for all of the lovely times they were mortified in front of their peers when their teenager was one, two, three, or maybe even four years old.