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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU....to insist my DD (almost 18) gets a bloody job before we teach her to drive?

88 replies

SmallerThanSmall · 31/08/2013 15:34

DD thinks the world owes her and we are out of order for refusing to teach her to drive if she doesn't get off her arse and get a job.
Today was the final straw when she got her hair done and was going to borrow money for (another) piercing, then asked if we could pay for her driving licence, oh, and don't forget I need all new stuff for school!...

OP posts:
Original poster
SmallerThanSmall · 31/08/2013 17:13

Feel much better now that I am not just being a horrid old cow...
Asking her to make some kind of contribution is right and reasonable. Thank you

OP posts:
sameoldIggi · 31/08/2013 17:16

Parents paid for us to have driving lessons, back in the day. We were actively discouraged from having part-time jobs by our school, who felt they interfered with our studies at a crucial time. They were probably right, when I did work part-time my wages all went in drink Grin
I have managed to become a respectable member of society, even with having most things paid for when I lived at home.

wannabedomesticgoddess · 31/08/2013 17:18

Oh sorry, only parents of teens know about these things.

Hmm
cushtie335 · 31/08/2013 17:18

Well, you were lucky your parents could afford it. Mine's couldn't and nor can I.

Fairylea · 31/08/2013 17:18

I learnt to drive aged 32. It's a helpful skill to have. It is not essential.

Yanbu.

SilverApples · 31/08/2013 17:19

No, but when your two are constantly mithering you for stuff when they are 14+ I hope you remember this conversation.
You may know about this stuff, it's not the same as having experienced it as a parent.

classifiedinformation · 31/08/2013 17:21

A teenager does not need to drive and part time student jobs are still available. I worked before I was 16 (paper rounds) and then got a part time shop job as soon as I started college at 16.

I had some money from my parents (that I wasted), so had to pay for driving lessons myself. In the end I gave up (through fear), but passed when I was 32. My OH doesn't drive, but I do agree that driving is a life skill that is good to have. However, I appreciate my license much more having passed later in life and because I paid for most of it myself.

YANBU, the harder he has to work for it, the better driver he'll be because he will appreciate how hard it is to come by a driving lincense and won't abuse it IMO.

classifiedinformation · 31/08/2013 17:22

Sorry, should have been "she" not "he" in my post!

wannabedomesticgoddess · 31/08/2013 17:23

When my two are mithering me I hope it is with more respect and gratefulness for what they already have. If they are spoilt little madams (unlikely) then they won't get anything, but I will take the blame for raising spoilt kids. :)

cushtie335 · 31/08/2013 17:25

Not sure why you're being so defensive wanna. There's a massive difference between when your DCs are very young and you obviously have to fund all their activities and pay for everything they need.

When they reach the late teenage years they're young adults and have to start behaving accordingly. Their needs from when they were 10 and younger are entirely different.

I couldn't possibly afford to pay for everything my DD wants. Before she got her job I gave her a monthly allowance which she had to budget. I obviously paid for all her education needs and clothes but social activities and just general "stuff" she had to find her own money and if she ran out, tough.

In about a year she'll probably go off to university and will have to live independently. I wouldn't have been doing her any favours by allowing her to believe I was going to fund her every whim and then coming to the crashing realisation that that ain't gonna happen.

wannabedomesticgoddess · 31/08/2013 17:30

Its my opinion. Nothing defensive about it.

Viking1 · 31/08/2013 17:41

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

comingintomyown · 31/08/2013 17:44

You hope its with respect and gratefulness for what they already have ?

OP I am in a similar boat and am taking the same stance YADNBU

SilverApples · 31/08/2013 17:46

Come on, everyone lives in hope don't they? Grin
My two are lovely, it has to be said. If I end up sharing the house with them for the next two decades, that's fine by me. They are polite, helpful and not demanding or unpleasant at all. Their friends all appear to be similar.

MiddleAgeMiddleEngland · 31/08/2013 17:49

It may be a useful skill, but it is not essential.

There are far too many teenagers who can't sort themselves out, and who are completely helpless about getting anywhere. It's one of my real bugbears.

DH and I both drive, but we cycle, use buses and trains and walk as well. DCs in their late teens have been brought up the same. They are both totally capable of looking up bus and train times, walking two miles to the nearest railway station (we will deliver/collect if it's after dark), cycling a few miles to meet up with friends, etc. They are actually quite scornful of their peers who can't/won't do this. One was pleased to find that she could make quite a long train journey, with four changes, to go to a university open day on her own without mishap. Good for their self confidence.

A friend of theirs who was visiting wanted to go home, had texted parents to ask for a lift and got no response - both parents out doing other things. She actually cried when I said I was sorry but I was about to start work and couldn't take her and she should walk. Bright, sunny day, residential roads, less than three quarters a mile Hmm

I know another girl, aged 17, who has never been on a bus or a train on her own and is convinced she'd be terrified. I blame the parents.

Of course they should contribute, or at least realise that they have to do without other things if they don't have any income of their own. It does not do them any favours to go on babying them about when they get older.

Rant over.

wannabedomesticgoddess · 31/08/2013 17:51

Its not impossible to raise nice children.

I hardly think its a funny thing to aim to bring up children who are grateful.

SilverApples · 31/08/2013 17:54

I know a number of teenagers like that, and I have no idea why their parents have allowed it to happen. These are children without additional needs who should be functioning at a much higher level of independence.
DD has guided friends through the underground several times, rather than have their parents come up and get them from central London and drive back to Sussex. These are uni students now

SilverApples · 31/08/2013 17:56

Not impossible by any means wanna, but there are so many shades and variations between entitled and arrogant little shit and perfection incarnate.
Sometimes your child will slide around a bit on that scale, and that's when rules and expectations and consequences and consistency make a difference.

SilverApples · 31/08/2013 17:58

It's only funny because your children probably aren't in school yet and you are predicting what they will be like at 17. They may well be lovely.
But it reminds me a bit of the lectures I was given on child rearing and the importance of BF by my younger, unmarried and childless brother.
Bless him, he's an experienced parent now and he's...adapted to the reality.

wannabedomesticgoddess · 31/08/2013 18:01

And what part of my posts have suggested that I diagree with rules, expectations, consequences and consistency?

I just think that 17 is a bit late to be starting to think about these things.

Personally I think driving lessons (in my area anyway-very rural) are part of creating an independant adult. That's my opinion. Its not incorrect and I don't need to be sneered at.

wannabedomesticgoddess · 31/08/2013 18:03

Again, predicting? No. I said hope. Aim. Not a prediction at all.

Mumsyblouse · 31/08/2013 18:12

There is no point learning to drive unless you are going to get a car and actually use it. DH has several friends who learnt to drive before uni. However because it was never essential to use it (they all lived in London), more than ten years on they have never regularly driven a car and are incredibly dangerous when they very occasionally get behind the wheel.

This was me, learned to drive, drove for a few years then lived in London and didn't drive for 10 years. The difference is that the day I got a job in which I had to drive, I got back in, overcame my fears, practiced on a short familiar run and have been commuting by car for the last 10.

Learning to drive is a life skill, you have no way of knowing you'll always be in a well-served transport hub/large city. I would much rather pay for driving lessons (which we had on 17th birthday plus dad taking us out for practice) than anything out of the list mentioned. Once you leave home, you can't practice in the family car or get family members to take you out. If you have to learn later in life in response to getting a job and commuting, it is very stressful, I have a relative that learned in their thirties and they had no road sense having never been on the roads in their lives and had to take the test twice, all taking about 18 months. You can't just quickly learn. At home, from 17-19 is the ideal time.

Mumsyblouse · 31/08/2013 18:13

And, hair and piercing way less important than learning to drive.

cardibach · 31/08/2013 18:14

Driving can be essential if you live in an area with little or no public transport (as we do) or want to do a community based job (as DD does). I am paying for her driving lessons as I think it is essential, it is expensive and I would prefer her not to work during term time - I am a teacher and I have seen what effect this has on grades (not in every case before you all jump on me, but I don't want to take the risk with her grades). However, she manages the wages she earns in the summer and an allowance I give her in term time for everything else. She is independent and aware that she is fortunate. She is not at all spoiled.
It depends on your child and your personal circumstances, I think, as with everything else related to parenthood.

comingalongnicely · 31/08/2013 18:19

Still cackling at respect and gratefulness!! Grin

Come back in a few years & let us know how it went....