My mother was (and likely still is) of the belief that the ability to embarrass her children was one of the few joys provided to parents of teens. Due to the sibling spacing we had, my sister presented my mother with a button that said, "Be Kind, I Have a Teenager" and then told my mom that she had done the math and my mother would get to wear this for sixteen and a half years. (My mother was thrilled. She did wear the button though.)
Now, my mother is a fairly creative person, so we were pretty lucky that a lot of her embarrassing was limited to things like waving at us. My brother and I figured out pretty quickly if you waved back right away, she stopped, my sister was slower to this realization which led to very exaggerated waving on my mother's part followed by loud, "Hi, Sweetie Pie!".
So, it is just as well, that my mother never quite had this idea. Fortunately for the kid involved, he has found the humor in it now (although he apparently still find his dad in the Little Mermaid costume embarrassing.)
Rants About New (and old) Things
