Susie O’Brien: Thanks son, I’m loving slavery

DEAR teenage son, thanks so much for introducing me to a life of slavery. I can’t tell you how happy it’s made me. No, really, I can’t, writes Susie O’Brien.

Know-it-all teenagers can teach parents many things.

DEAR teenager, I, your humble mother, want to thank you for teaching me so much these holidays.

Thanks for finally convincing me that putting on deodorant is the same as having a shower, as long as no one gets too close to “dem pits”. Thanks for proving you don’t need a wardrobe because you’ve got a floor and thus a floordrobe. Thanks for pointing out — once again — that the clean clothes are the ones near the door that haven’t been stepped on yet.

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Thanks for reminding me you can hear me even though you’re wearing ear buds and playing with your phone the whole time I talk to you. Your hearing is clearly exceptional, but it also seems to be highly selective. You don’t appear to hear me asking you to take out the recycling, but you can hear me ask you if you want to go to Grill’d with your friends. Freaky!

Thanks for proving once and for all that flushing toilets, replacing toilet rolls and putting your plate in the dishwasher are entirely optional activities. Thanks for taking the time to establish through repeated scientific experiments that if you wait long enough, someone else will do it.

And yes, that someone is me.

I also love the game we play every night when I ask you to do your teeth and you say you’re “just about it do it”. Sometimes you even have your toothbrush in your hand when you say this. Then you make sure you only brush them after I’ve asked 25 more times. So much fun! It’s sometimes 50 times! Keeps me on my toes. Thank goodness Married at First Sight is over as now I’ve got nothing better to do in the evenings than tend to your dental hygiene.

Thanks also for the feedback on my cooking. Leaving a pile of burnt bits on the side of the plate is a helpful reminder of my shortcomings as a chef. Actually, as you remind me, I’m a cook, not a chef. Chefs have TV shows. Cooks have kids.

Thanks for reminding me that putting your plate in the dishwasher is entirely optional. Picture: Thinkstock

Thanks also for reminding me that at all times your demands for expensive brand-name fashion items and lifts on demand usurp any needs that I may have. Pick you up from the bus stop even though it’s only a few blocks away? Sure, why not. I’ll stop working and jump to it. Thanks for giving me the opportunity of meeting your needs so effectively and with so little notice.

Thanks for reminding me that my work, which pays the bills, isn’t as important as you being on time to meet your mates to go see The Fate of the Furious for the fifth time in two weeks.

I understand your social life is very important. Much more so than mine, which seems to consist mostly of half-drunk glasses of wine at your friends’ mothers’ houses in between pick-ups. That’s when you are kind enough to allow me to come to the front door.

“Mum, you don’t need to get out of the car when you drop me off,” you say, even though I know you are only kidding. “Just hand me a twenty and back away from the doorbell,” you say. Hysterical.

And I love it how you become very loving when you need some money. “Mum, I love you, can I have a twenty? Yes, of course I’ll bring you change.” Of course, you never do — must get that hole in your pocket fixed very soon! Another job for me.

I also love how you find anything I do to be funny — hysterical, in fact. That includes something I like to call Drive Dancing, when I wave my arms around like I am having a fit at the traffic lights.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity of meeting your needs so effectively and with so little notice.

Occasionally it’s even in time to the music.

“Not in front of my friends, Mum,” you tell me between gritted teeth, pretending you’re finding it all highly embarrassing. I know you secretly love it.

“Mum, don’t sing, especially when my friends are over,” you say.

“Mum, don’t dance, even when my friends are not over,” you say.

Thanks, too, for giving me regular feedback on my appearance. As a 40-something woman, I need help in this area. Imagine — the other day I had a senior moment and even thought I looked pretty good before going on a date. Luckily, you were there to help me out: “Mum, you need your eyebrows done.”

“Mum, when was the last time you had your roots done?”

“Mum, what would you know about fashion? Sometimes you don’t even wear a bra around the house.”

And of course, every opportunity you get you remind me you’re now taller than me.

“Mum, let’s stand back to back,” you say.

“Yeah, let’s not,” I say, but you never seem to hear me. Classic!

Thanks for being a great son,

Love you more than I can say,

Mum

P.S. Now take out the garbage. x

Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist

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