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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To want to poke my 19 yr old son repeatedly in the eye with a pointy stick

40 replies

frumpet · 27/02/2014 10:50

Need to vent on here because my fingers are twitching ! I am really starting to lose the plot with my son . He left school after mucking up his AS levels twice and school asking him to leave . Since then he has worked for about 3 months , then was unemployed for nearly six months , got a 16 hrs a week job and has mucked that up too so is now unemployed again . I sorted out an interview for a local part time job , just to see him through until he can find something else and guess what ? he cannot be bothered to get out of bed to walk 2 minutes down the road , aaaaaargh !

OP posts:
DrewsWife · 27/02/2014 10:55

I have a 17 year old exactly the same. I need a pointy stick too. I got her a voluntary job at the church cafe. She went two days..... Hmm Won't work, won't go to college. Nothing!! Come and sit with me and have a coffee. Smile

Helltotheno · 27/02/2014 10:56

Sling him out. He'll get the hang of it soon enough when his choice is living on the street.

Original poster
frumpet · 27/02/2014 10:58

I sit here thinking 'where have i gone wrong?' , shall i pop the kettle on drewswife , am all out of biscuits im afraid Smile

OP posts:
Original poster
frumpet · 27/02/2014 10:59

I simply cannot do that helltotheno , no matter how character building it may be .

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BettySwollocksandaCrustyRack · 27/02/2014 11:01

I don't think it helps kids of this age when their mums sort them out interviews and jobs - they should be doing it themselves. At our company if someones mum phoned asking for a job for their kid it would be a non starter.

Tell him how much money he has to pay for every week for house keeping if he wants to carry on living there.....

CoffeeTea103 · 27/02/2014 11:02

He sounds very spoilt as you are doing by sorting out his interviews for him.

ifyourehoppyandyouknowit · 27/02/2014 11:02

Well you're enabling him. Stop cooking for him, he needs to buy his own food, and pay you rent and bills, stop washing his clothes - he needs to buy his own detergent and wash them himself etc. If you wont kick him out, make him realise that the only way he can not work is if he lives with you for free, and you aren't going to let that carry on. He's 19 FFS. Stop lining up job interviews, he can do it himself.

DrewsWife · 27/02/2014 11:04

I don't enable mine. I don't provide anything apart from the basics. A bed and basic food. But by sorting out jobs it shows we are taking this seriously.

BettySwollocksandaCrustyRack · 27/02/2014 11:07

You may be taking it seriously but they aren't. They really do need to sort their own jobs out rather than rely on mummy doing it for them.

TheScience · 27/02/2014 11:09

Presumably he can't be bothered because you are sorting his life out for him?

Is he signing on? Does he pay you rent/housekeeping? If you don't want to kick him out I'd start there - having no money is a pretty good motivator.

BarbarianMum · 27/02/2014 11:09

Don't want to chuck him out? Fine.

But you can cut off all internet access, TV access and food until he has done, say, 6 hours of housework per day to 'pay' for it. Because adults, (and that's what her is right) pay their way.

By sorting out job interviews and chivvying him out of bed you are treating him like a child. He isn't. After school comes real life - this is his. And in real life you get nothing you don't work for.

mrsjay · 27/02/2014 11:12

ok you need to leave him to stew in his own juices stop trying to get him jobs don't be funding any sort of nice lifestyle and STOP fretting he will come good eventually just stop seeing him as your little boy realise he is 19 let him muck his own life up he will soon realise that mum wont be doing everything for him,

Helltotheno · 27/02/2014 11:12

I simply cannot do that helltotheno

Most people wouldn't I guess! But I do remember this much from when I was briefly unemployed after college: my parents told me under no circumstances was I to be in bed after 8 am, I was basically kicked out of the house at 9, dressed respectably with a bunch of CVs in a briefcase and told to spend the day calling into companies and dropping off CVs. Might sound a bit extreme but I spent a lot of time in cafes and libraries looking at jobs pages and in employment agencies and visiting companies, and while it wasn't what I'd call enjoyable, I had interviews lined up in no time and had a job very soon after that. I was never home before 5 any day and usually took lunch with me.

Might sound strange but it did me no harm at all and I'd expect the same of my own kids. At 19, you shouldn't be lining up jobs for him. I'd expect that at 15 down the local shop or whatever, but not at 19.

Sovaysovay · 27/02/2014 11:14

He doesn't need a job. He gets to play little boy still living at home, with mummy washing his socks and cooking his meals.

Serve him his 28 day notice and he can sit at the bottom of the list waiting for a council house. He'll soon decide he needs a job then.

Original poster
frumpet · 27/02/2014 11:14

He paid rent when he had a job , not a lot £100 a month , but then he wasn't earning a lot either .
Both DH and myself work and have always worked , granted i currently work part time , but i have worked all through his childhood .
Perhaps i should do what my mother did when i was unemployed for a fortnight at his age and get him up at 8 every morning with a list of jobs to do around the house / garden ?

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mrsjay · 27/02/2014 11:16

yes do that frumpet why are you spoiling him , she says with a 20 yr old still in bed

TheScience · 27/02/2014 11:17

Is he signing on? Take £50 a week off him out of that. Let the job centre hassle him about finding work.

mrsjay · 27/02/2014 11:17

DO you still see him as a young teenager and not a 19yr old man I know it is difficult to actually think of them as adults especially when they are still living at home but you need to sort it he isn't a little boy,

mrsjay · 27/02/2014 11:18

yes Is he signing on ? if he is does he manage to get up for that

Original poster
frumpet · 27/02/2014 11:23

I think probably there is an element of guilt invovled for me anyway . He isnt DH's biological son and DH isnt and never has been a very hands on parent , though that extends to his biological children too .

When DS was at school doing his AS levels , i had a breakdown , due to PND and wasn't as on the ball as i might normally have been. My mother is convinced that it was because of this that he failed so spectacularly in his exams . Actually he failed because he simply could not be arsed , but my mother will never hear a bad word said against number one son , ever.

This has actually caused various issues with parenting over the years with regards to my son , but she doesnt have to live with him , i do . She decided that DH had thrown him out last year , he hadnt , he had just told him that he needed to get a job or move out , and she dragged DS off to her house for a week , well it wasnt a week , it actually turned out to be for about 3 nights , because he did bugger all there aswell .

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Original poster
frumpet · 27/02/2014 11:26

Can people sign on if they have made themselves unemployed ? The company wanted him to work somewhere else , a place that he wouldnt be able to get to , he was supposed to have an interview with the union rep present , but i think he ballsed that up .

OP posts:
mrsjay · 27/02/2014 11:27

oh that sounds awful that happened to a woman I know her granddaughter same age as one of my dds took the poor mite in as her mother and step dad was treating her badly (they weren't) granny took it for 4 days and sent her home, anyway you are not doing your son any favours by feeling guilty it won't end well he will think he can get away with anything , stop supporting him finacially dont let him starve obviously and let him grow up

mrsjay · 27/02/2014 11:28

it depends he can sign on and get no money I think he is showing interest looking for a job ,

gamerchick · 27/02/2014 11:32

You have to stop wiping his arse. At he gas no incentive to do anything.

gamerchick · 27/02/2014 11:33

*atm he has no. . Stupid phone