MomResponds.com: Ask Questions, Get Answers

Luise Addresses Your Interests With Wisdom and Love

My Teenage Son Hates Me

Category: Troubled Teenagers

Question: Dear Luise: My eldest son has just moved out to be with his Dad. He absolutely detests me saying that he wishes I was dead, ‘m evil, he hates my guts!  He moans about my clothes, about the dinners I give him, doesn’t want me going out, talking to his friends, saying constantly that I am an embarrassment. Me and his dad are obviously not together and life did turn upside down when we split – please can you give me some advice. I am desperate and don’t know what to do?  He is only 15? S.

Answer: Dear S. None of us can give our children a perfect home with perfect parents. We would like to and most of us give it a try but we find we have no wings.

As far as I know, there is nothing you can do to turn your son around at this time. He may become wiser as he becomes older and he may eventually realize that he is using you as a scapegoat.

Fifteen is a hard time…adulthood looms and the free ride of childhood looks like it won’t last forever, after all. Many boys become intimidated by what might be expected of them in the years to come and feel inadequate. A great cure for that is blame. Find someone to blame it on and all is again right with the world.

He can probably get along with his dad pretty well, if they both agree about you.

Wait. It’s all smoke and mirrors and we can hope that blaming you won’t hold up in the long run, as a viable explanation. In the meantime, treat yourself will deep respect and know that you are not alone with this. Many of us, myself included, have had to endure the really awful contempt of a teenage son. Blessings, Luise

Related Posts:
  • My Son Hates Me And Is Being Cruel
    Question: Dear Luise: My grown son, age 24, is now married but had an illegitimate son prior to his marriage. He hates me because I...
  • My Teenage Son Has Withdrawn
    Question: Dear Luise: My 16 year-old son doesn’t seem to care about me, his mother. I’ve realized I spent much or my 20 year marriage...
  • My Teenage Son is Acting Out
    Question: Dear Luise: My 15 yr-old son has been acting out with drugs, drinking, and wanting to stay out all night…or he runs away. He...
  • My Son Hates Me
    Question: Dear Luise: My son is grown, married and has grown children of his own. Yet he seems obsessed with what a bad mother I...
  • My Young Son Hates his Little Brother
    Question: Dear Luise:  I have 4 children; an 11 year-old boy, 9 and 6yearr-old girls and a 3 year-old boy. My oldest son gets along...

11 Comments »

Comment by B.

May 17, 2009 @ 8:17 am

My son is 22 years old and to make a long story short. I left him with his father when he was 1 1/2 years old. However, I was never really out of his life. I was at his grandmother’s house every other day. I brought him to my home on weekends. My son even came back to live with me when he was 9 years old. I had him involved in all kinds of sports activities, but my only demand was that he keep his grades up or at least try and when I found that he couldn’t I took him to a tutoring program which he refused to attend. I took him out of special Ed because he didn’t want to be in their with the other disable children. The school said that it was only because of his reading level that he was in Special Ed. I got him a reading course and myself and oldest daughter tutored him at home, but the older he got the more rebellious he got towards me. His father was in and out of jail 11 years of his life and is currently still on drugs. Although, I left him with his father, his grandmother, myself and other family members raised my son. But, to this day my son resents me. I think it’s partly because my girls had it so much better but I never favored any of my children, it’s just the way it was. All my children have different fathers. My son said to my at around age 11…Why couldn’t all of them have the same father…then he called me a hypercrite because he heard someone else in the family say it. I really didn’t understand, why my son has a tendency to listen to other people when he was living with me and he has nothing to grip about legitimately. Today as I write this email I’m sending my son pictures of him and myself along with his sisters for over the past 20 years. I just want him to remember that I was there. I just don’t understand why he won’t talk to me or what it is that I have done so bad for him not to want me around him. He currently lives with his grandmother. B.

Comment by Luise

May 17, 2009 @ 10:23 pm

Good for you for not giving up. I know kids can get confused and resentful when a family has numerous people playing the parental role. However, you never know when he might respond to your love and realize that it is genuine.

Comment by M.

December 5, 2009 @ 2:14 pm

My 14 year old son wants nothing to do with me.
I have filed for divorce from his father. I was a stay at home mother for almost 10 years and as our 2 children got old enough, it was time for me to work It was not long after and my world began to crumble. I have been accused of everything from doing drugs to having affairs by my spouse. The emotional abuse has bee more that I can bear…and to add to it all…I am the victim of severe parental alienation from my son by his father. He wants no relationship with me at all…ignores my every word..and is terribly angry. We have tried 2 counselors, and he refuses to speak to me. If I’m told one more time that “he will come around someday” or to be patient…I’m going to bust. What can I do? M.

Comment by Luise

December 14, 2009 @ 12:25 pm

I had a similar experience many years ago. The marriage failed when I left home and went to work. When I was under everyone’s thumb and almost invisible, we were OK…but there was not room for me to be anything else. As far as I know, there is nothing you can do. You’re to blame for everything in your son’s eyes. So was I. Sometimes they come around and sometimes they don’t. My son never forgave me. He tried but he had built up too big a case against me. We had an “armed-truce” and did the best we could. He died of sleep apnea when he was 52 and we were still walking on egg shells. What a sad and totally unnecessary way to live…just to keep “bring right” in place.

Comment by L.

January 27, 2010 @ 8:13 am

My son is 19. I am a single mom. I have custody of my 2 year old grandson. My 19 son got his GED, and drivers license. He promised he’d enroll in college. A week after he got his license, I let him use the car. He got pulled over and arrested DUI. He now has been order to do counceling, community service, and a coronor program. He won’t go look for a job. He has his friends in and out of our house like it is a flop house. I finally told them no one is allowed her after ten. I have a job and the baby, and I just don’t want them in my home, at all. I want him to get his life together. Now he has a girl living in his bedroom he has been dating for like a month. I know he loves me, but when I get tough with him he says he hates me. I don’t want these kids around, I want him to finish his dui program, and I want him to get a job and a trade: college. What do I do? L.

Comment by Luise

January 27, 2010 @ 9:39 am

I would see a lawyer regarding my son’s decision to remain a dependent child on a permanent basis and run my home however he wishes. He’s pretty much taken it over. I would also talk with someone in law enforcement and in the programs he is resisting. It is is your home. If you want the girl and the rest of his friends out of there, you may have to take some drastic steps. I honestly don’t know what they might be. Blessings, Luise

Comment by L.

January 27, 2010 @ 11:12 am

Thank you. I really like your advise. It is not like he is 12 and has an occasional friend over. His friends are also using him. I told him today I don’t want any of them over any longer. And the girl needs to leave. If he doesn’t listen, I will consider your suggestions. I am sick of it. L.

Comment by M.

March 26, 2010 @ 9:27 pm

I’m so glad I came across this website. I also have a son who hates me. He is 19 and has an intellectual disability and OCD. He met a girl with much worse problems than he has and the girls mother brought him to Centrelink to sign forms to claim a carers pension and basically abducted my son for financial gain. He lives with them and have called the police if I even try to speak with him, changed his phone number and is uncontactable by email. They have turned him against his family and he has totally cut us out of his life.
I have only ever tried to do the best for him and as he’s the only boy in the family and with a disability, he’s always been treated like the golden child. I have been a single parent most of his life and this all happened around the same time as both my parents deaths. Will it get any better? Or will my heart remain broken for the rest of my life? M.

Comment by Luise

March 28, 2010 @ 8:13 am

Dear R. Please come over to my Web-forum: http://www.wisewomenunite.com where I think you will find wisdom and support. My take is that it will get better for you even though it may not change. Your son may be happy in his new life. That’s at least possible. It’s not much to hang on to but it’s something. I don’t know what your legal rights are but I would be cautious, if there’s any chance that this is what he thinks he wants. It may be as close as he can get to growing up and leaving home and the girl may matter to him. If this happened to me, I would seek the advice of an attorney and also the professional people you have interacted with as you raised him. Blessings, Luise

Comment by K.

May 10, 2010 @ 1:30 pm

My son is 15, he hates me, he calls me vile names He says he wants me and his sister dead and we’d better watch our backs. He sets fires, steals, vandalizes my home. I’m so afraid it would almost be better to be dead. Ive tried everything, drs, meds police…here do i go now? K.

Comment by Luise

May 11, 2010 @ 7:27 pm

Please bring this issue over to my Web-forum at http://www.WiseWomenUnite.com Blessings, Luise

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment