to think that people who have young children aren't in a position to know whether it is harder not to have older children or teenagers?

[Anice]

but on the other hand people who have older children have been in both situations and can compare?

I'm obviously a very bad parent. Negligent and heartless and cold.
No wonder my son has AS, I must be one of those refrigerator mothers that talked about so long ago.
Ah well.
I still think the demands are different but equally challenging, and that SPB may well find that she has more sleep and fewer relentless physical demands on her every waking moment when hers are older.

Goblin - whether or not your teen is out the house you lie awake. WORRYING behaviour, exams pregnant friends. Parenting someone who questions the way you do things is infinitely harder than a toddler. I've seen paper where my dd has written down my parenting short comings! You lie awake worrying.
Goblin you WILL wish you had not written this on the www!

I think it's perfectly reasonable to worry about your children, but with a sense of proportion. I do not lie awake at night panicking about my daughter at university, or my son on a night hike. I sleep, and if they need me they will contact me, or someone else will.
What's the point in imagining ten thousand possible horrors and believing a million dangers will overtake them? I'd rather deal with their actual needs and wants than fantasies.
I'll regret having written that I have a sense of priorities about my children, and that I don't live in a state of nervous frenzy about their safety and life choices? I don't think I will.
We've come a long way, and handled numerous shit storms along the journey. So I'm going to keep sailing my chosen course. It works for me and mine. Which I thought was the point most of us are making on this thread. It depends on your own strengths and the children you have. No one should be posting 'hahahaha' to a sleep-deprived parent of a demanding child and saying it is so much worse when they are teens.
It's just different.