Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to give my kids so many lifts for this reason?

54 replies

JohnAndYoko · 19/03/2024 11:15

Two teenage kids. Both quite up and down emotionally. Both good kids who sometimes struggle. Quite capable of getting buses/walking to most places they go.

Anyway - I give them quite a lot of lifts in the car. Sometimes to make their lives a bit easier and give them some breathing space. But most often because it's in the car that they TALK to me properly. Something about it makes them open up. And it's not because I/they don't have other opportunities to talk. There are lots. But somehow, the best times are in the car.

DH says I need to stop it, and they should only ever have lifts in very unusual circumstances. But I can't/don't want to do this.

So I continue to pollute the environment and spend unnecessary cash on fuel to keep them communicating with me more frequently/openly during what are basically quite hard times.

AIBU?

OP posts:
DreadPirateRobots · 19/03/2024 11:23

While I do understand and I'm not going to tell you YABU, I would definitely look out for other settings that "work" in terms of having these conversations, because 1) it was great for my resilience, independence and self-confidence to be getting myself around as a teen 2) I still have bad memories of the time my mum searched my room, found my pill, and then decided to tackle me about it when she was driving me somewhere and I was trapped with her. also don't do that last bit ever and don't bring up sensitive stuff on purpose when they can't get away

KTheGrey · 19/03/2024 11:23

Well done you. That's lovely of you 😊

Candleabra · 19/03/2024 11:21

Funny how they open up in the car isn’t it.
I think it’s a combination of the enclosed space, and that they’re looking ahead, not at you. Makes it easier to talk somehow.

Durdledore · 19/03/2024 11:20

I feel you. I make my life really fucking complicated and hard work by giving my teens lifts. But I protect that time like I used to protect a day or so a week at home with them when they were tots.

They need us still, and that time alone in the car when they’re off to do something they want to do somehow opens a channel up inside them and all sorts comes spilling out that wouldn’t otherwise be expressed doesn’t it?

Keep doing what you’re doing. What a lovely mum. Xx