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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBUto think it's actually more impossible to work full time with teenagers than younger children?

377 replies

bbcessex · 18/03/2015 17:44

Just that really. I work (more than) full time; I have a high profile role in my area of specialism.. I work long hours, I travel, I have a lot of tight deadlines etc. I am fortunate because I can to a large degree dictate my own schedule, and I can work from pretty much anywhere.. I have very much a role measured on success rather than input (although it needs a lot of input to be successful).

I've seen a number of threads on MN recently that have made me realise that maybe I'm not alone in thinking that it actually gets harder to hold down a demanding job when your DC are older...yet every headline or article on the 'working mum / parent' front seems to centre around availability of childcare / cost of childcare / guilt about 'leaving' your children etc. etc.

I've never once seriously thought about cutting back or stopping work before; but my DC are 15 and 13 now and I'm currently dropping the ball in numerous areas.. none of which I've done when they were younger and it IS all child-related stuff.. I've always been fortunate enough to be able to pay for the exact sort of childcare I wanted.. but now - I don't really need 'childcare' and I should be experiencing some 'freedom' at this stage - or at least I thought.. but looking back, when then most stressful part of my day was getting to the nursery by 6om and getting them into bed by 7pm, I'm thinking that those were the golden years!

AIBU to think that actually - it's much, much harder to work long hours in a demanding role when your DC are revising / taking exams / needing you to push them / arrange tutors / challenge them / cajole them / threaten them! / console them.. none of this can really be done by a childminder / nanny / third party..

AIBU? or am I doing it wrong? HELP!

OP posts:
Romann · 19/03/2015 20:14

For you Jilly. Lucky you.

spiney · 19/03/2015 20:15

wow Zing. Can't imagine how much they all eat!

I find feeding (3 teens + 8 yr old) a massive thing. They eat so MUCH. Gallons of milk. Just getting it all in is a task. The days of a boiled egg and soldiers are long gone. That would be a mini snack in between meals.

Original poster
bbcessex · 19/03/2015 20:18

Romann your experience of teenagers matches mine.. I thank god information is now available on the school site because for the first 3 years it wasn’t and school was like a black hole.

Blazing.. you’re being silly. If you were one of my kids I would GrinGrin

I feel you are deliberately missing the point, but please do continue because this thread has been incredibly civilised and informative and I hope it continues in that vein.

OP posts:
ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba · 19/03/2015 20:23

spiney

locusts i tell ya, bloody locusts!Grin

ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba · 19/03/2015 20:24

bbc

oi, chuck me some dollars my way. Grin

Original poster
bbcessex · 19/03/2015 20:27

Zing.. catch!!!

OP posts:
ssd · 19/03/2015 20:39

my kids have no grandparents and we've not had any help since they started school 13 years ago, so its just been me..and dh...

there are just so many various issues to understand before we judge others on here, whatever your perspective comes from..

its easy to tell others their kids should be more independent and take the bus if there's a bus to take

its easy to say kids should be better organised if your child is naturally so

and the toddler years aren't easier than the teenage years and some kids aren't happy to be left in a childminders all day, they want you then just as much as the teens do (if not more I found)

all in all, this parenting lark is bloody hard!!

if my kids are semi organised and most homework is done on time and they are well behaved and polite outside the house, then I'm happy

ssd · 19/03/2015 20:45

I agree with Jilly about the benign neglect thing, its something I've always failed miserably with and I know things might be a bit better if I could get my act together a bit, but I blame it on always working around the school days as no one else ever met my kids from school or had them in the holidays unless they were going for a play, it was always me, I've always been here and its so bloody hard to stop being there and take a back seat...

Sapat · 19/03/2015 20:50

Are you me? I think in the younger years it is the logistics that are difficult and stressful, later on it is meeting the emotional needs.

I think though that as teenagers they also need to be inspired. My parents both worked full time in academia and their dedication was inspiring. They still managed to be emotionally present and supportive.

JillyR2015 · 19/03/2015 20:54

I always saw it as an absolute privilege I was able to avoid the dullness of collecting children from school. However I do currently drive the teenagers to school which works fine around work and we do talk a lot (or as much as teenage boys talk).

We all differ. Some parents want a kidult into its 20s. They want to do every last thing. Mine have been cooking for years and are very mature (although that is also due to having older siblings). Always get them to pass their driving test at 17 by the way too which we did with the older 3 - saves a lot of driving around and make sure you are happy for them to come back from London in the early hours by public transport and you don't wait up. Make sure they know how to let themselves into the house when you're asleep. never wait up for them. Works well and you get your sleep. (obviously not with 13 year olds, just older ones).

Don't pressure them over school work. Don't know their teachers' names. Make sure you never look at GCSE course work or know the details of the elements of the subjects they are doing. Trust and love them. Talk to them. Encourage them to eat healthy foods which make them feel good. let them see you living your own life and soaring in your career and enjoying your hobbies - life is fun, let them see that joy in our own life. Don't be an appendage to them. Don't live your life through them. Utterly trust them. Don't snoop. Don't censor.

Enjoy the children. Learn as much from them as they learn from you.

On Children
 Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
NCIS · 19/03/2015 21:04

Blazing I'm a paramedic, hardly rich or for that matter hugely successful but my DC's are proud of me and I of them.

JellyQuivvers · 19/03/2015 21:19

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.

JillyR2015, beautiful words and sentiments.........welling up a bit (having a large glass of wine after a stressful evening of arguments with one of my teens)

irregularegular · 19/03/2015 21:25

"Added to this I spend at least an hour if not 2 every day keeping up with the bloody school website and answering emails from scouts and what not"

Come of it. Unless you actually mean that you are keeping up with maintaining the school website and running the scouts then you are either grossly exaggerating or doing something very wrong. Are you typing with your little finger or something?

Ragwort · 19/03/2015 21:31

But a competent secondary school student is going to see the results of not doing their homework properly, learn from it and improve next time.

But what do you do if your teenager is just not 'competent' or rather is competent but is lazy and unmotivated? I hate being the parent who nags about homework but I also don't want to have a lazy, unmotivated teenager living with me for the rest of his life and sadly I know quite a few teenagers/young adults who just seem to be happy coasting along and doing nothing with their lives.

It's easy to say 'it's their life, get on with it' but not when that means living off mum or dad and/or benefits in the future. Sad

Holepunch · 19/03/2015 21:32

It's the different degrees. When they're five and in tears (which is often) mummy (or CM or GP) can make it better in minutes with a rub and a biscuit cuddle.

At 13/14/15 the tears might not be so regular but they are so much harder to deal with, or even to have a clue how to help.

motherinferior · 19/03/2015 21:36

You also don't have to help out at a million school events. Or even attend them. I do some things, not others. What with having a job and everything.

I never said I knew 'all about teenagers'. But plenty of them do seem to be quite self-sufficient and resilient young people.

Holepunch · 19/03/2015 21:38

For me, it's not the school work and the running about that makes it harder to be out at work than it was when they were young, although that is certainly a factor, it's the emotional dependence.

I know this is no scientific study but a know a few parents of teens with eating disorders and other difficulties in the teenage years and they all say that if they knew then what the know now, they would have been around more in the teenage years. That's not to say that everyone who isn't will end up with emotionally damaged children, or that being at home will prevent it, but I do think it's important to at least know you tried.

Enjoyingmycoffee1981 · 19/03/2015 22:01

Irregular... exactly what I thought! An hour or two? Come off it.

bearwithspecs · 19/03/2015 23:32

Loads of people I know say it's harder. Little ones play in nursery while you work. Ks1 muck about in Afterschool while you work. By ks2 they really want help ..,

MsShellShocked · 20/03/2015 06:03

I'm going to change my mind and say primary is the hardest.

Preschool is easy.

At primary they can't do their hw without you. They want you to come to their class assembly. There's an awful lot more stupid things at school you are expected to attend.

You are expected to be a lot more involved with their education. And boy do teachers judge you if you aren't.

Once they're settled in Y7 a lot if that has calmed down.

ssd · 20/03/2015 07:39

the projects they got as homework in our primary school were off the wall ridiculous....create the Titanic from matchsticks and sellotape....WTAF??

they took my friggin ages

Grin
WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid · 20/03/2015 07:40

It's the different degrees. When they're five and in tears (which is often) mummy (or CM or GP) can make it better in minutes with a rub and a biscuit cuddle

I'm not finding this with my 4 year old. Admittedly she is a bit highly strung. We have had weeks of crying over - "is my tummy too big"
"Eva made a mean face at me"

Nothing in comparison to teenage issues I grant you but definitely not all over with just a cuddle.

ssd · 20/03/2015 07:47

its the rose tinted glasses we parents of teenagers wear, whenshewasbad

the toddler years are horrendous, but at least they spend time with you and go to bed before 9...

WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid · 20/03/2015 07:55

Smile ssd I'm really hoping there's a lot of rose tinting going on.

Agree with msshell about primary school. Getting a small taste of what's to come with dd's preschool. I have to make a bastard easter bonnet for next week and have been set home work of counting spring bulbs Hmm

ssd · 20/03/2015 07:57

lie, or go to B&M

no one makes the cakes or the easter bonnets, or if they do they end up going banana's