Middle school is already a lawless wasteland. The social hierarchy can instantly shift over a bad haircut or a single glance in homeroom. Imagine surviving all that just for your own parent to metaphorically grab a megaphone and announce your crush to everyone.
When TikToker Liv (@livifaithh) was in eighth grade, she had a crush on a boy and was texting him on her iPhone 4. She happened to tell her mom all about how cute, sweet, and fun he was.
Her mom teased her a little, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. What happened next was something Liv never would have expected.
After she went to bed, her mom proceeded to create a public post on Facebook, asking if anyone knew “Mark Smith,” the guy Liv was crushing on.
“Mark’s family saw that post; Mark’s friends saw that post,” said Liv. “Guess who else saw that post? Mark saw that post. I woke up to lovely messages from Mark. Started with a screenshot of my mother’s post, followed by why did your mom post this?”
If that wasn’t mortifying enough, Mark did not have a crush on Liv and told her so. Word spread, and pretty soon, the entire school knew that Liv liked Mark, but he didn’t like her back.
The rejection stung, and the public exposure made everything worse. To this day, the whole incident still haunts her, and she claims she will never get over the embarrassment.
It turned out Mark wasn’t a good guy, but that wasn’t the point. It was the fact that her mother had willingly outed her business to the internet. Liv thinks Mark still follows her on social media today.
Many TikTok users shared their own tales involving parents causing chaos. Not even parents during the pre-social media era were immune to humiliating their kids.
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“Moms were unhinged on Facebook when they first got on. My mom announced that I was grounded multiple times,” commented one user.
“My mom went to my sister’s high school to tell her boyfriend to leave her alone because her grades were slipping. This was during lunch. The entire school found out because she made a big scene,” wrote another.
“My mom once read and replied to my diary, like she wrote back as though it was a letter. Now, she wonders why I don’t tell her anything,” stated a third.
“In the ’80s, my mother, while drunk, went to the restaurant that my crush’s parents owned and told them how much I liked their son. We were in sixth grade,” added someone else.
Middle school is hard enough without parents getting involved in your love life. The internet is forever, especially when your mom is the one doing the posting.
By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
