Funny how life throws you a plot twist.
If you're a parent revisiting these teen movies – like American Pie or Mrs. Doubtfire – you probably find yourself relating to the adult characters more and eye-rolling at the nagging teenagers, amirite?
Wondering if your favorite films resonate with you on a different level today, Redditor roix_ducat asked:
"What teen movie is the epitome of "the older I get, the more I agree with the adult?"
Sixteen Candles
"I watched Sixteen Candles recently and I now do not approve of Samantha going anywhere near Jake Ryan."
Juno
"The movie 'Juno.' Jennifer Garner's character is at first portrayed as a 'square.' then you realize she's a mature adult and her husband is a man-baby."
American Pie
"American Pie. As a new father, I hope to be like Jim's dad when my little one is a teenager. Caring, loving and a complete embarrassment to them."
Animated GIFGiphyDennis The Menace
"Mr. Wilson in Dennis the Menace. Seriously, f*ck that little miscreant and his parents that turn a blind eye to his shenanigans."
Lion King
"The Lion King."
"Oh I thought Zazu was just an old fun-killer. What do you mean, Simba can't be king? Why would you prevent the kids from going where they want?"
"As an adult and father, I'm 100% Team Zazu."
Ice Princess
"The mom in Ice Princess. So you have a daughter who has a talent for and seems to like physics and has a shot of getting into Harvard. This girl throws it away for ice skating where she has only been competing for less than a year, where if she gets injured she's done and when she reaches 30 she's pretty much done. There is no way she is at an olympic level at that point she would need years of training! Hell yes I would advise against it to!"
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory
"Gene Wilder in original Charlie and the Chocolate factory 'stop, don't... come back.'"
"I don't necessarily identify with him, but from the out I knew he was the good guy. Essentially he was a wrathful angel, smiting the wicked and rewarding the good...and Grandpa Joe, for some reason."
– pjabrony
Dirty Dancing
"In Dirty Dancing, Jerry Orbach just wanted a family summer vacation and instead learned entirely too much about his daughters' sex lives."
Rugrats
"Rugrats. The parents were so young and just doing their best. I like it was a group of neighbors that were best friends too. I get really stressed out on their behalf now. Especially the one where did i just wants to make it home before her banana tree she bought died in the car but no one could get their sh*t together."
Mrs. Doubtfire
"Mrs. Doubtfire. Miranda came home from work only to find her deadbeat husband hosting a party with wild animals in her home. During the divorce, he claimed he was unemployable. Then he dressed up like a woman with professional makeup/costume etc. and watched their kids secretly and tried to kill her new boyfriend!"
– kmaec87
Good Will Hunting
"Good Will Hunting."
"A great film to watch as a smug, witty underachiever, however genuinely smart & funny you might be (at least according to your friends)."
"But go back to it 15 or 20 years later, perhaps after losing your wife to cancer, and you'll freak out at this scene."
"Source: No idea how smart or funny I really used to be, but I was definitely smug. I married the person I'd been with since we were both 16. She died at 33."
"F'k cancer."
Twilight
"Twilight, poor Charlie Swan.."
– Liliarus
"Dude was trying so hard to connect with his daughter after years apart. At some point he must've realized she was only sticking around in Forks because of some guy, and not because she wanted to be there with her dad. That would sting, especially considering he was on his own."
Mean Girls
"The principal and teacher in Mean Girls."
"They were just trying to do their damn jobs."
– daver456
A Goofy Movie
"Just rewatched A Goofy Movie as an adult. Goofy just wanted to spend time with his kid. That was the whole conflict. Just go fishing with your dad, Max, you and Roxanne are breaking up before the sequel anyway."
"Edit: Since this comment is getting a lot of attention, I wanted to plug one more Disney film you all need to rewatch as adults: Recess The Movie. Principle Prickly legit had me in tears you guys."
10 Things I Hate About You
"10 Things I Hate About You. When the dad says 'you're 18, you don't know what you want. And you won't know what you want 'til you're 45, and even if you get it, you'll be too old to use it.'"
The Little Mermaid
"'But I love him daddy' No! You're 16. You're not completely changing yourself for a boy you just met."
Kids are strange, almost otherworldly beings. They get wildly excited about weird, often near-meaningless things to the point that they're frantic and don't know what to do with their bodies. They cannot be trusted with anything heavy and can manage their emotions about as well as an opossum.
But there is some charm in remembering that weirdness. And even if we all were strange kids, the different forms of that strangeness are usually far and wide.
u/Shoddydiscord asked, "What is something you loved as a child but you realized is awful now that you're an adult?"What is something you loved as a child but you realized is awful now that you're an adult?"
Even Drake in Degrassi??
Any TV show with a predominately teenage cast. So much bad acting that I'm amazed my parents could stand to let me watch them.
Full House. That was one horrifically bad show. I adored the shit out of it as a little kid.
Power Through
I used to bake scrambled eggs for myself and pour a lot of fu**ing salt on it and I'd take a while to eat it but I'd always finish it. I grew out of it when I realized it tasted like sh!t and that's why it always took me so long to finish it
GiphyBest Drinks at the Block Party
Lil hugs barrel drinks. For 10 cents those things were awesome. Recently saw them in the store and bought one. Absolute horrid sugar water. I cannot believe I ever thought they were good.
Party's Over
Snow. I miss being a kid and waking up in the morning to see the aftermath of a massive snowstorm and just being excited to go outside and play in it. Now as an adult, not only do I not get snow days but I have to leave for work earlier than usual.
GiphyKids are Really Weird
Eating entire sticks of butter. Don't ask me I don't know why I did it, but I did and they were delicious.
GiphyObscure Opinions People Are Fully Committing To | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
We all have a set of beliefs about even the smallest of topics. Like sandwiches should have structural integrity. That's something we can all agree on, right...Better When My Neck Was All Cartilage
Sitting in the front row at a movie theater.
7 year-old me thought this was the greatest thing in the world.
Animal Testing
Animal Planet use to air this show called Animal Face-Off back in 2004. The premise was that they would take two large beasts (like say a lion or a bear) and then stack up their weaponry and physical attributes against each other using special machines to mimick their power before playing a 3D simulation of the two animals fighting. My 7 year old self absolutely loved this show and I was always so hyped to see a new episode. Curiosity got the better of me many years later so I decided to look up the episodes online and my god was it awful. The results were often skewed out of favoritism (they admitted they made the lion beat the tiger because they liked it more), there were many inaccuracies (in Great white shark vs Saltwater crocodile the shark was able to keep fighting after having one of its fins bitten off and turned upisde down, both would have incapacitated and killed the creature in real life), and the animation was pure drivel with graphics that would make a PS1 game shake its head in shame. I was legitimately shocked as just how horrible that show was considering how much I loved it as a kid.
Good to Have Around for Nuclear Winter Though
Tinned pasta. Especially Heinz tinned ravioli!
Lived on it as a kid, which in hindsight says a lot about my parents. Tastes repulsive.
Redditor The_Sh0w asked:
"What's something you can't believe you had to explain to another adult?"
The privilege of in depth and accurate education isn't something we all have.
Here in the United States it is perfectly legal to teach inaccurate information in schools (we're looking at you anatomy and sexuality classes) and so it's sort of understandable why so many people still think women urinate from their vaginas.
Sorry if you're just now finding out.
We'll give you a minute to process.
Check out some of these other "you totally should have known this" things that people have had to patiently (or not-so-patiently) explain to other adults.
A Female Human and A Male Human
How men and women evolved together. He said evolution can't be real "because what are the chances a female human and male human evolved to match each other?" as though they evolved separately then just met up one day.
I also had to explain we're still evolving.
Scaring Chlamydia Away
That if you want to get rid of an infection (in this case, Chlamydia), it's not enough to just own the antibiotics prescribed to treat it. You have to actually ingest them. You have to put the pills (500mg Azithromycin, 2 tablets, one time dose,) into your mouth and swallow them. You can't, like, threaten the Chlamydia with the pills and frighten it away.
I'm an OB GYN nurse in a clinic- this person was a patient. Plus she was pregnant, which is why I needed her to not have Chlamydia. When I asked "How do you think this works?" I got a blank stare.
GiphyNot Enough Electricity
Had a coworker once that told us she had to use special calculators, keyboards, etc. because she didn't have enough electricity in her hands. Her response when I told her that wasn't how electricity works was that she had seen an electrician about it.
I just left.
Was she talking about touch screens? She may have got the electrical facts wrong, while correctly noticing that screens don't react to her fingers: https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2015/06/zombie-finger-and-touchscreens/index.htm
Give her a travel-sized bottle of skin moisturizer, and tell her it was recommended by a top electrician.
No, she was talking about an actual physical calculator. She was legitimately an idiot who said dumb things all the time. We only had her because her original department refused to take her back.
AC Power Settings
Thermostats- "You got it! The number is the temperature you want it to be, not power level"
- Dawnalla
Someone Is In There
Toilet doors. That's right, if it says occupied there is someone in there. If it won't open it's locked...because someone is in there. You have to wait outside because yes someone is in there. This was many times throughout the day.
I had the misfortune of having my office across the hall from the customer bathrooms. I would be informed when supplies ran out or there was a problem even though there was a sign to let customer service know. I had one man tell me I have to look in the toilet to know what is wrong with it. No. No I do not.
Contraception Concepts
Client - "I keep getting pregnant and it's not fair, I've already got 3 kids! You [social services, in general] need to help me."
Me - "Well, what contraception are you using?"
Client - "OMFG WTF (etc., etc.) I'm only sleeping with one fella, why the eff do I need contraception? I'm not a dirty slag!"
I had to gently explain that you have to use contraception if you don't want to get pregnant, even if you have just one sexual partner at the time.
- LTLxx
Family Fun With Furniture
Had to explain to my 50 year old father that queen sized beds were not made exclusively for women after he jokingly called me a sissy whilst we were talking about furniture.
My brother-in-law asked me why I wouldn't weld a metal lamp base onto his wooden shelf. After I explained it for him, he proceeded to cite a Minecraft modpack. He is 25 and this was 2 months ago.
- [Reddit]
Fried Or Fertilized
Fertilization of the egg is how pregnancy occurs.
Wife and I were having trouble conceiving for a while. Had some tests done, all was well, it was just a matter of time before it was going to happen (it did). When the mother-in-law asked why my wife isn't pregnant yet, we mentioned eggs and fertilization, and it's just a matter of time.
Her reply was 'If you need eggs just go to the grocery store and get some.'
She legitimately thought that the doctor recommended we both need to eat more eggs to conceive a child. This woman is in her late 50's with some college education. She absolutely should know this.
GiphyNot A Charger
My friends and I were on vacation and decided to go into a sex shop. Mind you, we were all early to mid thirties. I was looking at range of toys when one of my friend asked which one of them charges Apple iPhone 8? 🤔 Had to explain what they were used for and she pretty soon walked out of the shop.
Five Plus Five Plus Ten Makes Twenty
That the pretty little "5" and "10" on the green bill she had meant 5 dollars and 10 dollars.
She said she had "3 dollars" after counting 2 fives and 1 ten dollar bill.
She was 22 .She had her diploma.
And I don't want to come off as though I'm making fun of her or talking bad about her because she's very sweet. She's kinda like a puppy. She's sweet and easy to love, but don't expect her to do your finances.
- MrR08070
Happy Halloween
To my ex boyfriend earlier this year (he is 26 and I am 25) I had to explain that Halloween is the same date every year. He asked me which day Halloween was this year, I said: "It's on a Thursday"
to which he replied "No what is the date date of it?"
I thought he was kidding until I realized he wasn't.
Cursive
Had to explain to an acquaintance in college that cursing, i.e. vocalizing words that societal groups regard as obscenities, was not the same as cursive, i.e. handwriting stuff where all the letters are getting freaky and loopy and all up in each others' business.
It took me about 5 minutes to fail to explain the difference to him, after which point I felt like cursive him out.
Animals
The definition of "animal".
To explain, this is how they thought things were arranged:
Humans - Humans
Animals - Anything with fur that is not human
Lizards - Uh?
Bugs and Birds - Catch-all for none of the above
They argued with me saying bugs are not animals, they are bugs. They also argued that plants are not living.
- pakidara
Even When You're Not In California
Ok when the bottle of brake cleaner says " known in California to cause cancer " you are not exempt because your not in California.
- Stone057
The Neighbors Fruit
I have to explain to my cousin that you can't take your neighbor's fruit that they planted in front of their house without their consent. I don't know if she is just being greedy or what but what a thing you have to say to 30 yo woman. No wonder she is still single until this day.
- Letsrain
Stars And Stripes
I was in a car with my Father In Law and we drove past an American flag and he said he wondered how many stars were actually on the flag and if they meant something or it was just the way it was designed. Yes, we're both Americans and this was in America.
- rlw0312
Swimming While Pregnant
My best friend was pregnant around 18. I couldn't convince her that it was okay to go swimming because she was concerned the baby would drown. In the end, I told her to just call the doctor so we could go swimming.
Fridge And Freezer
That a fridge and a freezer were two different things with two different purposes. Worked with a guy in a kitchen who honestly thought that both functioned in the same way, kept finding ice cream and such in the fridge and veg etc. in the freezer.
Driving To Hawaii
My mother wouldn't believe that you could not drive to Hawaii. She told me I didn't know, since I had never been to Hawaii. She's a stubborn old broad who won't take criticism and evidently has never seen a map.
GiphyPierced Ears
They informed us about STDs in school and they said that we shouldn't use used needles, so a girl asked: "Am I getting AIDS if I pierce both of my ears with the same needle?"
So listen, some of the answers were things that if we squinted really hard we could kind of understand ... kind of.
Nobody really expects you to be an expert in everything.
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