All the ways parents, even the famous ones, embarrass their kids

Parents have elevated embarrassing their kids to an art form, and columnist Susie O'Brien reveals why she takes particular delight in mortifying her children.

“You’re not embarrassing at all, Mum,” my son told me the other day.

“Except when you dance.”

Family members think I dance like Elaine from Seinfeld.

Her dancing style is a triumph of confidence over co-ordination.

She leads with her thumbs, locks in her elbows and follows up with a snazzy array of dips, kicks and jerks.

I’m sure I don’t dance like that. Nope, no way.

I feel good when I dance, and sometimes I even notice other people pointing and staring. See? I’m that good.

The fact that I am embarrassing my kids won’t stop me, no siree.

Embarrassing my kids is something I’ve elevated to an art form.

It’s very satisfying, and now they are older, it doesn’t take much to make them embarrassed.

Talking with my friends about bikini waxing, how hot our first boyfriends were and the tattoos we didn’t get will do it every time. (Or maybe it was how hot the bikini wax was and the boyfriends we didn’t get?)

My kids are always ready to step in to tell me when I’m crossing the line and causing them shame.

Susie O’Brien enjoys embarrassing her kids. Picture: Nicole Cleary

You are not cool. You are not funny. You are not hip. Please do not try to be, they tell me. Don’t dance. Don’t sing. Don’t tell jokes because they’re not funny.

I am not allowed to ask my son if he’s got a girlfriend - especially if I call her a “lady friend” - and I am not allowed to suggest any of my friends’ daughters as potential dates.

I am not allowed to mention any of the following in front of my son’s friends: body odour, armpits, body hair or the fact that he had a can of Lynx Seduction confiscated at the airport recently.

And I am not allowed to use any young-person words, like “emo”, “mint” or “fleek” – especially wrongly.

For your information, “fleek” means cool. And it’s “on fleek”. As in “your eyebrows are on fleek”. (My daughter told me that - but she wasn’t talking about my eyebrows at the time.)

Friends tell me their kids hate it when they dance to the hurry-up music at school drop-off, sing the wrong words to songs, complain in restaurants and barrack too loud at school sports.

Celebrity offspring often talk about how embarrassing it is growing up with a famous parent.

Nicole Richie has often talked about how she hates it when her father dances. She and her sister used to be out the back of his concerts saying to each other: “Someone tell him to stop dancing.”

Someone tell him to stop dancing”: Nicole Richie was embarrassed by her famous father(Photo by Adam Bettcher/Getty Images for Live Nation)

It’s the same in Rob Lowe’s family.

When Lowe posted a shirtless photo of himself exercising on social media back in 2019, his son Johnny responded: “This is the worst thing that has ever happened to Instagram.”

Lenny Kravitz’ daughter Zoe had similar feelings.

“He’d pick me up, and the entire school would flock to the parking lot,” Kravitz said in one interview.

She implored him to be a little more low-key. “Just a shirt that I can’t see your nipples through,” she told him once.

I’ve never (knowingly) had my nipples on display at pick-up, but my daughter tells me I’m embarrassing when I scream out her name in public, ask her about her private life and lick my fingers to wipe food off her face.

Lenny Kravitz didn’t always dress appropriately for school pick-up.. Picture: Mark Seliger

What kids don’t realise is that a certain satisfaction is to be had from making our kids embarrassed, and the more they protest, the more we’re likely to kiss them at the school gate and use their pet names in front of their friends.

It seems I am not the only one. The internet is full of pics of parents pretending to breastfeed apes, celebrating their child’s conception dates on social media and posting helpful hints about why it’s best to buy top quality condoms just to get a rise out of their kids.

When my kids need taking down a peg or two, I reminisce loudly about their younger years in front of their friends.

“Remember the time you painted with your own poo in the cot and your grandfather was babysitting?”

“Remember that stage you went through where you would randomly touch strange women in the street as you walked past them?”

Aaah, good times.

Hooray for embarrassing parents.

What my kids don’t realise is that I have an endless supply of stories about body hair, sex, bras, puberty, flirting, periods and all the other things they find embarrassing. The more they protest, they more likely I am to roll them out - in person and in print.

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Originally published as All the ways parents, even the famous ones, embarrass their kids