A mom has shared online how she feels she has no privacy from her 15-year-old daughter after she found that she'd been looking through the garbage and discovered her smoking.
Sharing on Thursday on discussion site Mumsnet, user Fgstd explained: "I'm venting really. [I've] been through an awful couple of days and had a couple of cigarettes yesterday in the garden whilst the kids were at school. Showered after, washed clothes, and brushed [my] teeth."
She explained that her 15-year-old is usually a little obsessed with what she is doing, where she is going, and who she is talking to on the phone.
"We have spoken about it as it feels like I'm being stalked and tracked all the time," wrote the mom. "It's just a little bit too much. She is not insecure and happily buggered off all day today leaving me ringing her phone multiple times to see where she was and her ignoring me."
The Mumsnet user explained that in the evening she had asked for a hug multiple times, "which wouldn't be abnormal if she didn't smell me repeatedly," she explained.
"Tonight I put the black bin out for collection. I had carefully collected the [cigarette] ends and tied them in a dog poo bag and put them in the bin," she wrote. "My daughter goes out to do the recycling, she's going through the bin and opens the dog poo bag. Brings in the cigarette ends and says 'you need to explain what this is.'"
Feeling guilty and upset, the mom expressed her distress after her daughter confronted her. "I've not said anything to her," she wrote. "Feeling like the worst mother in the world right now."
In 2009, the U.K.'s National Health Service (NHS) Stop Smoking Services conducted a survey asking 400 children aged 11-15 with smoking parents to list aspects of life that worried them most.
School work and exams topped the list, but for 63 percent, their parents' smoking was the second biggest worry—more significant than falling out with friends or having a boyfriend/girlfriend.
Almost 9 in 10 of the kids surveyed said that they were concerned about the damage parents were doing to their health by smoking, while 43 percent said they felt they understood the risks of smoking better than their parents did.
But opinions on the daughter's actions were split on the discussion site.
"Tell her to mind her own and not to poke around," said one commenter. While another said: "I'd be telling her to wind her neck in! What damn business is it of hers."
But another Mumsnet user suggested that her daughter was likely just concerned and said: "She loves you. It's very bad to smoke. She will be feeling many emotions, not only anger that you have hidden this from her. Go and give her a hug and talk it out."
"I know this is manifesting in a very annoying way but it does sound like anxiety and fear around losing you or something bad happening to you," said another reply.
Another Mumsnet user agreed and said: "I can see it's annoying but I think you need to have a good chat and find out what is underlying this behavior. It does sound like she is anxious about something."
If you have a similar family dilemma, let us know via life@newsweek.com. We can ask experts for advice, and your story could be featured on Newsweek.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Alice Gibbs is a Newsweek Senior Internet Trends & Culture Reporter based in the U.K. For the last two years ... Read more
