To be pssed off with Mothers Of Teenagers telling me how great it is having toddlers

Yeah but you should see the mother of teenagers at midnight...

Toddlers are bloody hard work, especially on very little sleep, and life feels like a never-ending rollercoaster. Mine drive me up the wall at times, and months of prozac are testament to that.

But they are 100% totally yours. I think the mothers of teenagers are looking back wistfully because in some ways they are never quite as much yours as when they are tiny. The innocence and gullibility. The total control you can have over what they are up to.

They do say that you never appreciate what you have till it's gone and all that.

None of which helps when you are in a supermarket queue, covered in sick/milk/food, with eyes like raisins in a big doughy face.

Kathy Glad you're LOL and not offended, I wasn't implying you were overweight because obviously everyone except me on MN is size 8, beautiful and 5'8" !! Just a delightful thing my dd1 said to me recently (I think she was trying to help )

Hi Paddington

The trick is to have a teenager and a toddler all at the same time. My teenage ds is brilliant with the little ones.

Wisteria - LOL @ your response to my post.

MIL swears DH was a perfectly nice teenager; indeed she also swears he was completely rational as a toddler.

Only, as somebody's reference to VSO reminds me, she went off to work in Switzerland for several years and only saw him in the holidays.
He played drums, too. God I bet he was awful.

I have 3 daughters 20, 18 and 3 1/2. None of them have been really hard work but I do love the toddler years! At least I know where they are and what they're doing and who they're doing it with!! (DD1 texts me all the time just to let her worrying mum know that she's ok)Btw hi, I'm new!

It always makes me . Bless them!

And then they start to fall in love with each other and it is so sweet and heartbreaking at the same time. And in the end they grow up an leave you [sigh]

" and often very toddler like"
Oh, that is so true

a quite like teenagers.

Granted I don't have any of my own yet, but I work with a load of them.

They are quite sweet and often very toddler like

I think that Guardian mother is awful; totally inconsistent, whiney at her kids, she and her DP constantly undermine each other, and in the last one her attitude to her daughter seemed almost leachy. Can't bear her.

teens are wonderful.
Oh but so are cute , chubby little toddlers.

har

I'm getting to that stage myself, morningpee - I look at toddlers and think how delicious they are even though I wasn't hugely enamoured with my own at that age

sh will eb a pinky liberal

Teenagers aren't all like that though, cc. That mother is a bit of a doormat!

I agree LucyE it's good to appreciate however they are.

I have to confess the Ann Karpf(?) column in the Guardian family section on Saturday, living with teenagers, does scare the pants off me.

Endless swearing, fighting and sulking etc, and she seems such a nice mum.

morningpaper, im supposed to be stopping MN but HAD to post. As the poor harrased mother of a teen AND a toddler - i can see your point,toddlers are hard work, but my teen - omg!!!! its not so labour intensive granted, did i say toddlers are hard work [work] but then you knew that alread But with Teens its the worry and the fact that they spend their lives fluctuating between pouring their woes at your feet and hating you. Its draining. I plan on enjoying my little girl while she is still just that i do know where you coming from though.

plus you lie awake worrying what they're doing when they don't come in on time! Not that mine do that yet but I did it to my mum - oh the hell that poor woman went through with me

Totally agree with that Lilymaid.

"Parents of older or grown-up children completely forget the lack of sleep thing" - Oh no we don't as we get "Can you pick us up after the party?" etc at 1 am (or later)and then have to get up in the morning and go to work! Parents can generally get some sleep in when their children are at primary school/early secondary, but pre-schoolers and teenagers keep you from your bed.

oh and tuppy, the midwife got it right, and I think as parents we will worry about our Kids till the day we die...just different worries

lol strawberry....like your thinking

I wonder, if those people that say it, maybe had relatively easygoing toddlers, and get the tough Teens then....if so, maybe tehre is some fairness, and because I haad 3 challenging Teenagers all mine will be lovely Teens (please, please, please...say it's so....lol)

Must admit, I do work wiht Teenagers with challenging behaviour, and they can be very extreme in their behaviour (but they often do have their reasons to be teh way they are) but not come across one yet where I thought, oh all is lost and how bad....they all have their brilliant moments and you can see the wonderful person that they desperately try to hide so often.

On the fashion thing...think most Teens have a much harder time to shock this generation of parents then it's ever been, because I see punks and goths, and ripped Jeans, and extra short skirts, etc...and always think...been there, done that....lol....part of it....so, maybe they will get bored with it easier, because, well, a lot is done for teh shock factor, isn't it....

Fleacircus - they are wonderful - when they're somebody else's but when yours get there, the surliness becomes intensely irritating and you worry about them all the time!

I have teens and toddlers. They are all difficult at times and they are all wonderful at times.

My kids are neither toddlers nor teenagers, they're in between. I can see that there's good and bad about both age groups. I don't think there's a time when being a mum becomes less stressful, but the things you have to do for them are different.