am i being fair to my 17 yr old daughter

[ghostspirit]

my daughter gos to college mon and tueday. wed,thurs,fri. she is at home so on theses days. i ask her to tidy 2 rooms. living room and kitchen, sometimes the hall. and she picks her siblings up from school. i get home 10 mins after they get home. I give her 10 pounds a week for doing the 3 day school run. plus 18 a month for her phone. and if shes going out with a friend or something i will give her extra money.

im up at 7am sorting the kids getting them to school then i come home for about 45 mins and get sorted for work. i then go to work and get home 3.30-3.40 i work in a school kitchen its very busy and physical. Im 16 weeks pregnant and having problems with my hips and back time i get home i want to cry in pain and can hardly walk.

sat/sun/mon/tuesday me and the boys 7 and 12 do house things between us.

my daughter is constantly moaning about it. going on about all the stuff she has to do. i have come home to a bomb tonight there were not even clean plates for me to do dinner. im meant to be signing a new tenancy tomorrow i said to my daughter if you were a landlord would you want us living in this house. her reply was well its not my (her) responsability if i get into trouble......

Am i asking to much of her.

It currently 3 younger siblings but next year it will be 4, the OP has already penned her in for babysitting duties while she does the supermarket shop.
I wonder how many other minor responsibilities she has that aren't listed.

And if there were less kids in the household there would be less cleaning to do. There sounds like a lot of cleaning goes on.

Dixie she may, I'm offering an alternative view.
Everyone I've ever know with a lot of younger siblings always resents the support they need to give in their teen years.

It also doesn't make sense to me that you use the things you have over her as bargaining tools for not doing housework, when if that is what motivates her, it would be in her best interests to use them to get her to find a job, or a voluntary role, or anything that is about her bettering herself rather than keeping house.

Tell her her boyfriend can't come and stay if she doesn't find a job, or if she isn't reliable about going to college and getting her work done then you won't pay for her phone, but don't use those few things that motivate her to get your housework done. The rest she will do because of the natural consequences if she doesn't. If she doesn't do her laundry, she doesn't have clean clothes. If she doesn't clean her room, she will be embarrassed at the state of it when her boyfriend stays over.

She will automatically learn that she has to pitch in at home if she learns that she has to be responsible for herself in other areas of her life. At the moment all she seems to be learning from home is how to have children and tidy up after them, and I'm sure she has more potential in life than just that.

Yes I have had the care of a teen in the past.
This isn't just her own mess it is the household mess of a large family that her mother has chosen to have not the DD.

By banning the BF all you will do is speed up her moving out faster, can you run your household without her?

OP where is/are the father/s of your children? Sounds like they are getting off lightly.

Holy shit, just read through all of this & Im astounded at some of the nastiness on here!

So you should basically get sterilised and hire an au pair OP?

Ignore. Ignore. Ignore. Focus on those who are posting advice and not judgement!

For what it's worth, when I was your daughter's age, I was full time at college and doing a 21 hour a week job at a supermarket. Once we hit 16, all us kids had to get a job because there was no other money.
I think the chores etc your DD is doing sound like the basic mimimum. I know you don't want to rock the boat, but perhaps sit down with her & maybe your 12 yr old, talk about everyone's ambitions, what they want from school/college, what you want for work and your growing family. Look at household budgets and talk about how you can all help each other achieve the things you want and help the family run smoothly. If she is able to put both her college and chores in a broader context of taking responsibility, it might help?

My other point is, if you're renting, when your DD turns 18 she will be on the rental agreement. This happened with us and personally I can say it was a bit of a shock to the system to realise as far as the wider world was concerned, I was a responsible adult! Is there a way, without it sounding threatening, you could flag this up to your DD and have a talk about the implications?

Oh, and to all the snarks who say jobs & chores get in the way of their precious children succeding: Im currently completing a PhD at a Russell Group university, under a prestigious research grant, so taking responsibility for my own life and coming from a poor family who rented never did me any harm!

I think it depends on how much tidying she is doing, whether it's putting some toys away and sweeping/dusting or having to wash up last nights pots and pans plus breakfast things, clean high chairs, etc. It just depends on how dirty your house gets I suppose. Normal tidying round is perfectly fine but when I was a teenager my mum would ask me to tidy the kitchen every day and it was such a mess! Tons of washing up, nothing out away after being used, dirty surfaces etc. That wasn't fair.

I can see why the school run would be a pain, it's smack in the middle of the afternoon so she couldn't go out for the day without knowing she had to be back, but then again she doesn't go anywhere anyway and just stays in bed so can't see why she would complain to much.

I'm a single mum to 4, they are 12, 10, 3 and 1. My eldest will watch the youngest whilst I put the 3 year old to bed, which can take up to an hour, or I will ask him to be in the same room as them whilst I put dinner on or wash up. He's pretty good to be honest but sometimes will complain if hes at an important stage of minecraft or something. They don't do any chores, I've half tried to get them too but then I think they help me out enough as it is. Plus they miss out on so much with me being a single parent as it is. Things like seeing a film at the cinema because the youngest wouldn't sit through it, or swimming lessons because they clash with the youngests bedtime (no child card, no car and ds4 is high needs under assessment for autism and has GDD so routine is so important and he would scream constantly)

It's hard being a single parent to so many, I didn't chose to be, but it's the situation that I've found myself in and we all have to make the best of it.

When I was 17 I had already moved out but until then I was a typical lazy teenager, I would've stayed in bed all day to and hated being asked to do anything! My mum was pregnant and worked, looking back I was incrediably selfish (her husband worked away mon-fri) and didn't do anything to make her life easier. It's only as an adult and parent myself that I see that though, it just didn't sink in at that age.

Not unreasonable to expect DD to help but... do you have a partner?

No one is saying that household jobs and chores get in the way of children succeeding, just that those shouldn't be the biggest thing she had to think about on the five days off a week that she has. I expect my 12 year old to clean up after himself, sort his own laundry and help me put with a few other things here and there. That's not the issue.

The issue is that she has nothing else going on in her life apart from two days a week at college, when there's better things she could be doing with her time than housework. If you can only get your teenager to do one productive thing a day, then that is because of the way they have been living for years, and the one thing they do should be about bettering themselves, not cleaning up after or collecting another persons children.

Everyone in a family should be pulling their weight. My 16yr old DD will (for instance) watch 2 of her brothers while I take the other to football. She is responsible for helping clean the house, as are her brothers, myself and DP. She will run errands here and there, iron her own stuff, make her siblings supper and so on. I do not pay her for any of that.

The only thing that makes me uncomfortable with the OP is that the daughter seems to be relied on so her Mum can work. It is not what she is being asked to do, or for how long, its the fact that she is expected to prioritise these duties over everything else. That is not about the DD learning responsibility or pulling her weight exactly, that is about the DD facilitating her mothers life and the consequences of not doing so are presumably that her Mum can't work etc, her siblings won't get home. That is perhaps where the resentment is coming in?

I am not a lone parent but I was raised by one, I have no axe to grind here when it comes to anyones choices, just my twopenneth worth

Surely your daughter should be working and not expecting you to fund her?

I had a job from 16 onwards and there's no way my parents would have paid my phone bill and given me extra on top of that!

I sometimes wonder what world some people on here live in.

In the world where I live most if not all my friends expect their children to help out at home.

Reading this my parents must have been really bad as I was babysitting/looking after my sister since I was 13 and cooking dinner every night as both my parents worked ft, as well as going to school and doing other bits of house work.

OP post I don't see anything in what you are expecting you daughter to do in the house while not working or studying.

Phew, finally read the full thread! I don't normally comment here, but felt compelled to offer a friendly voice to hopefully help drown out the sheer bitchiness on here!
OP, you are not expecting too much of your DD as far as I can see. I don't (yet) have a teenager, but it wasn't that long ago I was one. At 17 I went to college 5 days a week, worked the other 2, had homework and chores around the house. It meant when I left home to go to uni I could look after myself and had good time management skills to get through my degree. I was the youngest, so no siblings to look after. But I can see that by asking your DD to pick up kids you are teaching some kind of responsibility. At least when she has her own children she'll know how to care for them.
Life skills are just as important as academic skills. I think people forget that! I'll never forget teaching a friend (at 18 years old) how to make cheese on toast because she didn't know how to cook! Yet she was a straight A student....
I would suggest you talk to your DD calmly about her aims in life and how she plans to get there. Then say to her she either does the household chores or gets a job. If she does neither she has no money, simples!

Yes Clutter I cooked dinner every night from 13 and took younger sibling to school and back. The OP's daughter doesn't sound like she is madly interested in academics, I would have thought some chores and a sense of responsibility would do her the world of good. A part time job would be even better, if she can get one.

Do you get any help from the dad op? Have asked this previously and of course if you don't want oy go there totally understand but just wondered if you could access more financial/practical help.

Does your dd see her dad?

The ones criticising you op must have bloody perfect lives. Still they never know, smugness can be short lived.

I think on a whole we are doing ok. its not about me not coping because i do manage quite well even if there are some hicups. but then everyone has them. asking a teenager to do a bit of house work and picking siblings up from school 3 days a week is nothing compared to other 17 year olds.

on wed,thurs,fri i have to work 15 mins later. so it makes me late for the school run which is why she picks them up after school club. is 7 pounds weather its for 10 mins or 2 hours. that would cost me 14 pounds a day. so yes she does pick them up to save money

Op you really don't need to justify yourself, some peoples comments are horrible.

Unless she has some sort of SN, she needs a major kick in the ass. College for two days a week is nothing.

If she obviously doesn't care about furthering her education, as demonstrated by failing out and refusing to go, why are you making her waste her time to attend? Stop calling the school, stop wasting energy. She's an adult now and can make her own decisions. A few retail jobs will hopefully make her see why she should aspire for something more.

Part of being a family is helping out when needed. That includes chores, babysitting, putting in a little extra if parents are sick, and contributing to a smoothly running household. I don't understand these attitudes that siblings shouldn't look after each other. It just encourages a "me, me, me" attitude. If she doesn't like it, she can get a job and leave. It's not like she's 8 and having responsibility she's not ready for thrust upon her. As long as they're not the primary caregiver or taking over the mom role, it should be expected of them. A little responsibility never hurt anyone, and your daughter very clearly needs to learn it.

If you treat her like a child, she's going to act like one.

That said, the growing pains between teen and full adulthood are painful on both ends. I gave my parents grief and I felt they were being unfair too. It was so much better on both of us when I moved out and learned independence through experience.

theres no reason she should not be helping out. I rang the college because of the situation her not being at college has a knock on effect with other things. like im having housing problems if we end up homeless it say that they will help familys with children. and children over the age of 16 if they are in education. so if shes not in college and we end up homeless the council do not have to include her when it comes to housing us.

Also whilst she is in education i still get childtax for her so that pays for things. if she left college i would loose that money and whos to say she would get a job... As i said before she seems to be settling at college a bit better now so maybe she will be ok and hopefully get a qualification.

Does she actually want to go to college or does she have no choice as you don't want to lose the benefits?

Not sure why you are so fixated on the two day thing when you can't work more than roughly sixteen hours a week in your job so it's not much less than you are doing and she's a child not a mother of four.

I think she's likely doing much more than ten minutes babysitting after school and clearly resents it and now there's no escape with another on the way.