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I wouldn't purposely embarrass my kids, but I would tease them and joke around with them in shared fun. I think among the latest was texting my teenager a selfie of my husband and I doing one of the school spirit poses while he was at a game. We looked ridiculous. We laughed and my son can tell his friends his parents are weird. No harm done.
I started dancing with some friends at a neighborhood get together and my kids were embarrassed.
If my kids were acting up that morning and I drove them to school I would pull up with music blaring and sing along. This happened once and it never happened again with them acting up.
I try to have fun but not too much at the expense of my kids but just enough.
When his dad drove him to school our son wanted to get out of the car a block away from where all the other kids would be. The cap his dad wore had ear-flaps and this embarrassed the boy. His dad tried many ways for all our son's friends to see this cap. It was so funny.
When I was in 7th grade, my parents were the homeroom parents. On certain days they would bring baskets of apples and oranges to the room. Everyone seemed eager for theirs, but I was mortified.
My daughter was 13, a high school freshman, and completely infatuated with the Hunger Games. She was especially gaga over Peeta, the blond male lead of the books/movies. This was right about the time the first movie was coming out (hadn't even released yet) and the mall was loaded with Hunger Games related merchandise. She and I were alone in the mall, and I stopped at a store that had a display of fleece blankets, each with the face of one of the cast. So I reached into the bin, found the blanket with Peeta's face on it, and held it out to show her. And told here "Look, you could sleep with Peeta'. She turned multiple shades of red and ran for the hills.
But it was HER that proceeded to tell all her friends about it the next day at school. So I may have embarrassed her, but apparently I won the 'coolest mom ever' award the next day in the lunchroom.
Oh! I embarrassed my niece. I was in Wal Mart with her and my sister as well as my son. I found a snoopy card that had a song when you open it. It is the one where they are all dancing up on the stage.
So I started dancing like the kids on Charlie Brown in the middle of Wal Mart and she ran in the other direction! My son danced with me!
I guess our family has the same quirky sense of humour...so silly things were normally a mutual thing....and we have never done anything to purposefully embarrass each other.
Do you mean some parents embarrass their children on purpose? My goodness, I could never do that. Children embarrass so easily on their own, I see no reason to add to their misery. I wouldn't change my ways though except for special circumstances. If I loved Fiddler on the Roof music (I prefer Matchmaker), I'd certainly play it, but I'd never purposely do something with the intention of embarrassing them.
Oh I would. To me this scenario falls under the heading "Harmless Fun," at least in my family it does.
Of course if I had an unusually sensitive kid I would take that into consideration and go easy, but my kids were (and still are) a rambunctious brood.
This "memory" is one that they laugh raucously about now, by the way - they're in their twenties and early thirties. Believe me, this did no harm to their sense of self esteem and self worth.
Yeah, I don't get why any parent would intentionally attempt to embarrass their child. Childhood is tough enough while they sort through growing up and peer pressure, our job is to help them through that transition, not add to the pain.
Maybe it is just me, but I always wanted my kids to be proud to say I was their Dad. Last thing a kid wants to say is "Yep, that idiot over their is my Pop !" There are a lot of other things a grownup can do for fun and not inflict pain on their kids.
Don
Hey, here's my take. If I've got a kid who is so embarrassed by "Fiddler On the Roof" music being played by their mom, that this inflicts actual pain and psychological trauma, then they've got some really serious issues - and if that's the case, I wouldn't do it - and I'd get them into some counseling as well.
My daughter was 13, a high school freshman, and completely infatuated with the Hunger Games. She was especially gaga over Peeta, the blond male lead of the books/movies. This was right about the time the first movie was coming out (hadn't even released yet) and the mall was loaded with Hunger Games related merchandise. She and I were alone in the mall, and I stopped at a store that had a display of fleece blankets, each with the face of one of the cast. So I reached into the bin, found the blanket with Peeta's face on it, and held it out to show her. And told here "Look, you could sleep with Peeta'. She turned multiple shades of red and ran for the hills.
But it was HER that proceeded to tell all her friends about it the next day at school. So I may have embarrassed her, but apparently I won the 'coolest mom ever' award the next day in the lunchroom.
Cute one!
This reminds me of something from my kids' teenage years.
My fifteen year old daughter had the uncanny ability to sing "Give It To Me Baby" JUST like Rick James. DEFINITELY unsettling - and of course she wouldn't do it "on demand" but she'd sometimes surprise us by wandering through the house and suddenly busting out with "Give it to me whatcha say, give it to me right away" in that growly Rick James voice - it was hilarious and yet somehow very scary! Not to mention, a bit naughty...
But of course if her friends were around and I said, "Oh come on, honey, do that Rick James impersonation" she wouldn't do it for love or money.
Anyway, I was in the mall one day and found, for $5, an extra large RICK JAMES T-shirt - red with his picture in some stupid plastic looking suit with his beaded hair, crazy look in his eyes - it was hilarious! Actually I found two, which was a good thing because I wanted to keep one for myself.
But I had four teens who all thought Rick James was hilarious, and I just knew they'd all like this t-shirt, even if all they did was sleep in it. So I had an idea.
I brought it home and showed it to them that evening, and I was right - they all wanted it. So I told them whichever one of them did the best impersonation of Rick James around their friends (and us - at our house) over the next week would win it - and of course we'd vote.
There was a huge showdown between my fifteen year old daughter and my thirteen year old son. Actually, now I can't even remember who won the shirt but the competition itself was hilarious! And yes, they all sang Rick James in front of their friends!
I still have that T shirt but my husband won't let me wear it to bed - he says it freaks him out. SUPER FREAK! Anyway, I usually save it for when I have girlfriends over for a night of wine out on the patio, or when my now grown kids come over.
I guess our family has the same quirky sense of humour...so silly things were normally a mutual thing....and we have never done anything to purposefully embarrass each other.
Well, to clarify, I don't mean "embarrass to the point of tears."
My own mother, when she was in her seventies, actually snuck up on my oldest daughter (mother of four herself now) in a store and grabbed her on the behind and made her scream! So yes, we do have a pretty raucous and rowdy sense of humor and we don't mind slightly embarrassing each other.
Just the other day, as we were walking into a restaurant just after a nice little rain, my husband waited till I was under a branch right outside the door and then reached up and shook the branch and got me quite wet.
Some people would get mad about that sort of thing, or be embarrassed about walking into a restaurant sort of wet, but I thought it was hilarious and so did he. In fact I told him, "Oooh, good one. I admire your sense of timing...in fact, it sort of turns me on."
That's just how we roll.
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Last thing a kid wants to say is "Yep, that idiot over their is my Pop !" 
There are a lot of other things a grownup can do for fun and not inflict pain on their kids.
Not to mention, a bit naughty...
