I hate the lifestyle that comes with having teens

[Secondtonaan]

I have 2 DC, 12 and 14 and an totally run down and fed up.

When they were younger I worked part time, we had lovely times together in the park or reading, they went to bed at 7.30 and DH and I would have a glass of wine and watch a film or make nice food and chat. I always knew where they were or who they were with

Now I have to work FT because of CoL but also to pay for school ski trips and £70 hoodies. They hove around until at least 1030 (often having a crisis at 1029) by which time I'm collapsing in bed, their rooms are full of shit and crockery I have to sort out while washing their favourite Zara tee shirt. Weekends are spent driving them from party to sports events to friends houses. I am totally exhausted and do nothing except work and be a teen concierge.

The kids themselves are mostly wonderful, doing well at an excellent local school, nice friends. Usual ups and downs but we're very close. I just can't stand the lifestyle and don't get a minute to myself.

Not strong enough for AIBU but do you relate?

I got a night owl and a morning lark. And I’m the permanently exhausted pigeon

"I was working 2 evenings at week at age 14 but I don’t think that’s done now."
This raises a good point, you know.
Why is this I wonder?
I was working at 14 too, in the late '80s, every Saturday 8am - 4pm at a delicatessan. Most boring job in the world serving people fresh ham and coleslaw all day and I hated getting up early on a Saturday to arrive there for 8, but I loved getting paid at the end of it and I loved having my own money. Can't remember anymore what I got paid, but I remember at the time feeling like it was a lot of money to get for myself every week!
Any fashion type clothes, albums, magazines, sweets, hair accessories I wanted, my parents made it clear I had to use my own money for.
I have a 14 year old who is also costing me a frickin fortune (to the posters saying to OP why are you spending £70 on a hoodie - this is a standard price for a teenager's fashionable label hoodie) and when I told him about my Saturday job at 14 he honestly looked at me like I must have had the most awful Dickensian childhood.
There's no way my 14 year old would even consider working all day every Saturday. And absolutely none of his friends do.
I don't even know if anyone would emply a 14 year old nowadays??

OP I could have written your post 5 years ago. I also was motivated by wanting my kids to have a better parenting experience than me. I loved, still do, being really close to my kids and getting all the news. And it was always our house that their friends came to so lots of extra noise and pizza boxes or crisp packets lying around. They were brilliant teenagers in the main, and I consider myself very lucky that they didn’t hide in their bedrooms but wanted to be with me sharing thoughts and ideas and looking for my opinions on stuff. But man, it was exhausting. Especially for an introvert. Everyone is away at uni now and I still get all the chat but obviously less intensely. Find ways to make time for yourself. Go for a walk alone, or a bath. And keep reminding yourself how lucky you are.

Perhaps your 14 year old could earn it at home gardening, cleaning windows, car etc so he can learn that £70 for a hoodie doesn’t just appear by magic.

They wouldn't IME unless it was a family member giving them some work. We are in a city and my 18 is having a year out before uni, he has struggled to get anything for about 7 weeks but now his applications have paid off and he has been offered three jobs in the last week! Although the jobs prefer 18 year olds as they involve serving alcohol in some way.

14 is still a child though, it is not that unusual to what hoodies at that price, I think we have got used to cheap clothes as a teen in the 90s I was buying Levi's, Diesel clothes and they were about the same prices- £50-100 for hoodies and jeans, skirts even. I didn't have to earn clothes at 14, I just didn't have as many until I could eqrn my own money at nearly 17 by doing a supermarket Saturday job. Even my Mum didn't work at 14 and that was in the 1960s. The only person I know that worked at 14 was my Gran and that was in the 1930s and my Grandad.

Yes, this was a similar set up to mine although there's always one set of parents that don't pull their wait with lifts and are happy for everyone else to sort the safety of their child out, I had a friend with a Mum like that, she wasn't a very nice person though so nobody really wanted a lift down her anyway!

My DD Just turned 15, went to a party last night and got dropped home about 10.30. The idea that she would walk home on her own across the City, near a dodgy park is ridiculous and I don't know anyone that would be happy about this, it changes IME at sixth form college and obviously adult teens but only because they tend to hang out in groups and walk home in groups.

Those saying that teenagers can get public transport late at night, etc. in a city.

We live in a university town and there was an attempted rape on the campus recently. The perpetrator’s been caught, but I’m still nervous. I wouldn’t want a 15/16year old walking home from a bus stop at 10 pm, for example.

I've got a teen and he's doing so well overall, super confident and more Gen X than Gen Z. Off on his bike loads, walks a lot, gets the bus, lots of friends, very much loves adventures and adrenaline filled days. Only thing I find worrying is having caught him with vapes and weed couple of times. It's not like we can lock him in at this stage, have had lots of talks and hopefully he'll be sensible but imagine not. I think I've been naive as to what teen boys get up to and what they have access to these days. Any tips gladly appreciated. Overall though it's a great stage and he's doing well considering last few years have been tough on him and us for various reasons.