One woman's confession on TikTok has unleashed a flood of (hilarious) regrets from people about how they treated their moms when they were children.
"I was just thinking about how growing up, my mom would want to talk to her girlfriends after church for, god forbid, 20 minutes," actor and writer Eilise Patton, 27, said in a TikTok video. "She never gets to talk to these girls because she had five kids that she takes care of 24/7 — and we would act as if she was skinning us alive."
Patton continued, "We're like, 'We're ready to go!' She's like, "OK, can I ... catch up with my friends?" and we're like, 'No.'"
Recalling her impatience, Patton said, "I remember she would be talking to a friend and I'd be like, 'Car. Now.' Can you imagine? God forbid we sit in a grass patch outside of the church in the pleasant sunshine."
Patton says that today, if she were her own mother, "I'd be like, 'Go to the car, roll up the windows, turn the heat on, suffocate yourself — what do you want me to say?'"
TikTok commenters confessed their own childish behavior as kids.
- "One time I turned off my mom's Crockpot because I didn't like what she was cooking us for dinner. I still feel bad about it."
- "Thinking about all the times I didn't have the dishwasher unloaded before she got home. Why couldn't I do the bare minimum?"
- "After having a kid, I've become a mother apologist."
- "I think about how little we respected my mother's job. We would call her at work in the summer to tattle on each other. An absurd amount of calls."
- "This is how I feel about not pulling meat out of the freezer for my poor, tired mother."
- "I used to ask my mom, as soon as she opened the door, 'What's for dinner?' the moment I saw her."
- "We had oil heat and I used to crank the heat up whenever she left because I wanted it at 72 instead of 68 and I probably owe my parents no less than $7 million."
- "My mom asked me to take the chicken out of the freezer and I was like, 'I don't know. That's too much.'"
- "I remember my mom hiding in the car so she could read and have alone time. I kept trying to open the door to be with her ... I get it now."
- "I swore my mom had eight-hour hair appointments and I would die. They were probably like, 30 minutes to an hour-and-a-half and definitely her only 'me time.'"
- "My mother paid for my whole wedding in 1997. Not sure I ever really thanked her. It's too late now."
- "The moment your brain finally develops and you realize your mom was also a person trying to figure it out cuts so deep."
One person on TikTok pointed out, quite correctly, that the blame doesn't rest solely on children acting childish: "Honestly I’m not taking on this guilt. WHERE WERE OUR FATHERS?"
Some TikTokers said their children behave similarly. "I hope my kids are this self-aware when they're older. I expect apologies from all of them," one wrote.
Patton tells TODAY.com that her mother Suzanne is a “national war hero” for putting up with her five children.
She recorded the video after witnessing a child tug on his mother's arm while the mom caught up with a friend at a farmer's market.
"The dad was looking up at the sky ... and the mom was eventually peeled away from the friend," says Patton.
Patton remembered her childhood tantrums.
"Now, I am so close with my mom and (I tell her), 'You put up with a lot,'" Patton tells TODAY.com. "She says, 'It was a joy.'"
Patton adds: "Moms are really out here loving us through horrible things."
Now that Patton's two sisters have children, she says, they call their mom for advice: "It all comes back around."
Patton says one good thing came from all the video comments written by people who now regret how they treated their mothers.
"Young (parents) wrote that it was refreshing to know that their kids might feel this way in the future," she says. "It gave them hope."