A parent’s mere existence can cause a teen to feel humiliated

Mom is not cool in her jeggings and Uggs. Dad’s a dork who drives a wreck. Together, they’re unbearable, singing along in the supermarket to “Do they know it’s Christmas?”

No wonder “Mom (or Dad), you’re embarrassing me!” is heard wherever teens are seen in public with their parents.

And yet, parental bad taste is not the true cause of teenage mortification. What’s really going on is a normal stage of adolescent development, according to David Sabine, a clinical psychologist in Wichita Falls, Texas.

Sabine said that teens feel, “I am more important than everyone else around me. If I have a pimple on my face, everyone in the world is going to see it.”

By extension, they think the world is also watching their parents, and that they’ll be judged by peers and strangers alike for what mom or dad says or does.

“They think they’re just bound to be caught up in that wave of uncool,” he said. “They feel that anything close to them is going to be noticed, when in fact nobody’s looking, and nobody cares.”

The criticism can be mighty picky. Shari Von Holten of Wantagh, N.Y., embarrassed her daughter by doing the following: “I tapped my foot to music once in front of other people. I sang to a song in the car. I own a website. I mentioned her name in a conversation with my friend.”

She added: “Just my breathing is an embarrassment.”

Using slang is bad, too.

“I am not to use ‘cool’ words like awesome, sick, bling,” said Stephanie Staples, mother of three teens in Winnipeg, Canada.

And never call attention to yourself. Dianne Sikel of Phoenix was banned by her son from ever bringing pom-poms to football after she spent one game waving them while cheering for his team.

Shaunice Hawkins’ kids literally ran away from her at the Universal theme park in Orlando outside the SpongeBob SquarePants ride when her husband belted out, “Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?” But Hawkins, who lives in Maplewood, N.J., relished the moment, saying, “My husband and I live to embarrass our children!”

Hawkins is not the only parent to get a kick out of teenage unease. Tilmon Brown of Mobile, Ala., said he makes a point of picking his 14-year-old daughter up from school in his beloved old red pickup truck, even though he owns nicer cars.

“She is mortified, she hides her head, and on some occasions, hides behind the school buildings until all the other kids have been picked up. She tells me that she had to stay late at school, but I know what she is up to.”

Brown said he also likes to blow the horn “real loud, which sounds like a dying moose. What is strange is that all the other kids love it, they think her dad is way cool, and lots of them come over and give me high-fives.”

Toyota uses the concept of kids’ embarrassment over parental behavior to sell Highlander SUVs. One ad shows a kid in a nondescript sedan mouthing “Help me!” as his parents croon, “Just call me angel of the morning!” to a song on the radio. In an adjacent lane, a boy in a Highlander, watching a video on a backseat entertainment system, comments, “Just because you’re a parent, doesn’t mean you have to be lame.”

Looking like a dork is a parental no-no, but so is looking too good. Eva-Marie Fredric said she went to a coffee bar with her high school-age son in Los Angeles and got a very friendly greeting from a young man there. A few minutes later, a group of her son’s teen friends approached, leading her son to shout, “This is my mom, guys!” Later, she said, her son told her, “I’m really glad you take care of yourself, but I don’t want to hear a word from any of the guys.”

What should parents do?

Adolescence is a stage when kids launch from parents in a big way, Sabine said, “at a time when peers are everything. They spend so much time fretting about that, the pressure leads them to emphasize and magnify anything that might reflect upon them. They are working so hard to be cool that they project the criticism onto mom and dad.”

So how should parents respond when kids express embarrassment about something they said or did? Sabine said that rather than demanding respect or getting angry, it can be more effective to use humor and invite communication.

You could sigh in commiseration, “Yes, it is a real burden to have a dad like me,” Sabine said. Or, he suggests, you could “give them an opportunity to inform and teach you.” If your tattered jeans or ancient sneakers cause them humiliation, invite them to take you to the mall to pick out new ones.

But don’t make changes you’re not comfortable with. It’s also OK to say, “I want you to respect those things that are authentic to me,” Sabine said.

Fortunately, as teens mature, embarrassment over parents wanes.

“By 16,” Sabine said, “they have come to live with the idea that mom and dad are not going to be cool.”

Sometimes kids even realize that what embarrassed them is worthy of emulation.

Jeannie Bush of LaCrosse, Wis., said she writes a letter to her kids when she has a concern. One day, her daughter, then in high school, complained: “I hate it! Do you have a letter for everything? … I hate it! … No one else’s mom does this!”

Bush said her daughter, now in college, recently wrote her own letter of complaint.

“I couldn’t have been more proud,” Bush said.