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

[bbcessex]

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!

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

I would have said the same until I met DS1 and DD1. If I only had my third child I'd have a completely different take on school.

I am trying to rear independent children (and your sound great motherinferior) but I found the daycare years were less stressful for my children-they were basically in a loving kind environment being encouraged to play, go to the park, being read to, napping etc. School is just more stressful and I found it harder to have them in after school because the days were just too long for them. As teens they could certainly be home alone but now I can see the years of them being at home dwindling-realistically I have about 4 more years of current family life before the last one leaves for college, so I like being home in the late afternoons/evenings, and I like driving them places because
often it is the best time for conversations.

Most, or many let's say, teenagers don't want or need the amount of support, hand holding or interference from their parents that people on this thread seem to think they do.

My three are out a few times a week straight from school (13, 14 and 16). Yes they do need us, they do need to talk about stuff, they do need feeding and ferrying (though even that they can manage themselves), they love to be with the family and do stuff together (as long as it's away from their friend's eyes as that's embarrassing!).

But I think some people are justifying why they want to carry on being SAHP. If that's the case, why justify it? Your choice. If it works for you and your family then just do it!

Actually most people on this thread are working , that's the premise of the OP . My teens are actually quite independent but nevertheless I have found it harder working full time with teens than I did with under fives in full time childcare .

A young child is happy enough left with GPs or CM to tend to their every need. When a teenager needs you they need you , whether that's for emotional problems, to chivvy along with school work or simply to pass on some good news.

erm..It's called parenting. Seriously. If you're only intending to farm out the responsibility, what is the point of having them??! Genuinely confused.

As for this:

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!

An hour a day. An hour. That's all your kids had from you? That's actually really sad. Am I the only one who thinks it's much much better for your kids to have less money, less gadgets, less posh holidays, less public school, less fancy clothes and more time with their own parents?

I'm sure you are all really senior/important/rich, but my gosh. What a way to bring up kids. Sorry. But the whole OP post smacks of, kids are hard work, why can't I still farm them out? It's starting to affect my life.

Bizarre.

Wow. What an amazingly helpful post.

Blazing You have done a fair bit of editing of the OP's posts there! You could consider that as a skill when you decide to go back to work when your DC are fully independent

Ooh can I join in with the helpful comments?

Here's one I saw somewhere else "if you weren't going to bring up your children yourself, why didn't you get a goldfish instead?"

Sits back smugly, hoping I've ruined someones evening :)

Ignores minor detail that I work too, but why let a small thing like fact come into it!

No Blazing Not interested in farming them out. Opposite really.

I didn't get that from the OP post at all. Didn't find it Bizarre either. Found this conversation very very interesting.

The cajoling and pushing isn't necessary, bass, and some would say counterproductive.

From secondary school age I was pretty much left to my own devices, and was responsible for arranging my own time, doing my own laundry, changing bedsheets etc.

I did very well academically and now have a professional job.

In the last nine months I have had two emergency trips to the minor injury unit with sports injuries happening at school and two emergency rushes to the GP with very serious tonsillitis, suspected glandular fever.

I am so glad I do not work out of the house, fulltime with teenagers. It is a bit better now one of them can drive, but even so, there is always something that seems to require my support at no notice at all.

Something that seems absent from this thread is the mention of grandparents. When DCs were young they were all working and couldn't cope with the physical demands of babies/toddlers.

We have so much more help now they are all older- GPs retired and dc's who just require taxiing and feeding!

Between them gps take DCs to quite a few after school activities and weekend birthday parties sometimes. They will spend a few days with them over the holidays too.

For us life is much easier now. (So much so we are having another)

In a couple of years I'll have a teen and a toddler so will be in a good position to make a direct comparison!

As for homework/uni, I buy the workbooks and order the prospectuses. beyond that I expect them to take responsibility for themselves. DS tells me he does his homework in the school library at lunchtime so me supervising isn't really an option!

I do make sure I talk to him about 'issues' though eg sex, porn, drugs etc. he says none of the other parents talk to their DCs about this stuff.

Indeed, JackieHarris. And it can also work the other way: our DC got lots of GP input when they were little but decrepitude and death has put paid to that (and at various times GP illness has sorely eroded our own time).

jackie my Mum would be super helpful if she lived closer, but she doesn't. Sadly.

I remember very fondly as a teen, going to my Nan's for tea, after school if both my parents were out. No notice required. A warm welcome and Cod In Butter Sauce always at the ready .

I agree that teens need much less time - but they time they do need is unpredictable and often involves stressy and hard to solve problems, or eg complicated arrangements to try and get some family time - and no-one else can do that for you. So I think everyone is right .

I also think one person's nagging/cajoling/helicoptering may well be another's benign neglect/bit of support/taking an interest. Dynamics between parents and teens are complex and can't be assessed in bite-sized chunks, IMO. Like learning to walk, some children find growing up harder or slower than others but seem to turn out just fine.

My teens need very little ferrying as we live in London. They aren't great domestically but are very independent in other ways and manage quite complicated schedules and homework and whatnot. There are some things they find hard though, and I try to help and support them with those so they stick at them, find them easier next time, and the time after do them on their own. I suspect that is what most of us are trying to do, whatever we call it.

No GP's or family of any description here to help, so has to be me which is fine.

I don't agree entirely. But Blazing does have a point.

Saganoran... you refer to being 9 years old and letting yourself in and then looking after yourself until your parents get home. You then say "annoyingly times have changed".

I am gobsmacked. How can you think a 9 year old letting herself in to an empty home and then being alone, caring for herself, until an adult comes home. That strikes me as an unhappy and lonely life for a young child

I am gobsmacked. How can you think a 9 year old letting herself in to an empty home and then being alone, caring for herself, until an adult comes home. That strikes me as an unhappy and lonely life for a young child

I would have thought that was bliss! At 9 I would have curled up with a book until disturbed by pesky parents! I really don't think that's necessarily unhappy or lonely at all.

The only thing that would annoy me is that it's more likely to be computer games or tv that occupies their time now. And that's me being judgemental. Caring for herself? At some point children have to learn to take responsibility for their own amusement. Most kids don't need constant supervision from adults and are well able to keep themselves safe for a few hours at a time.

But it wasn't unhappy or lonely! I was - and am- perfectly happy with the situation. It was only probably for about an hour or two, my brother (younger) was around, we watched TV, read, played, possibly did homework though I don't remember much of that. My mum was on the end of the phone at work and I think that's the deal-breaker, I could and did call her most days for a 5-minute chat, which was what I needed. In the holidays, we went to grandparents.

yabu it is harder in some ways. Totally get being there, but a lot of serious helicopter parenting on this thread.

Not that I would ever have a job where I didn't get in till 8, you only live once.

btw I have a teenager and a baby and 5 more in between.

I doubt I will ever have it "easier" , because not only I have the worst best of both worlds right now, also by the time DS6 goes to secondary I could easily be a Grandma (possibly a few times over! ) and I expect I'll be looking after the next generation

I don't know if that's exciting or scary!

It seems to me a bit smug to say that you leave your teens to handle all their school work on their own and they have to learn by their mistakes. Lucky you if that works for you, but it's a bit like thinking you know all about babies because yours sleep all night.

What if you have a teen (like mine) who finds organising school work really hard, misses revising for tests through disorganisation, stays awake at night worrying because he's behind in certain subjects and he's afraid of going to the lessons? I would be a horrible mother and a horrible person if I just left him to work through his downright misery on his own! But helping him to learn to organise himself is a very long and time consuming process, and that's just one child.

When they were little I was more physically tired but less concerned as the problems were just logistical (for us).

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. Our weekends tend to be jam-packed with sports fixtures and play rehearsals, none of which happens much at primary school. We don't live near public transport so there's a lot of ferrying. And there are endless events and things that they all ask parents to help out at. Daycare doesn't do that!!

Ffs blazing it's hardly only people in senior jobs that pick up DC from childcare at 6pm!

I was a latchkey kid from 12, my younger sibling too, mum got home at 5.30, was great!

YOu need to practise benign neglect. It is what most teenagers need. They need like a hole int he head a parent who puts tracking devices on their phones, reads all their emails and helicopters them into a life which means they have no personal get up and go and are just a clone of the parent brow beaten into extra work with tutors. All 5 of mine including the current 2 teenagers thrive from doing things themselves (and no tutors). I've always work full time and it is much easier when they are teenager - this is my first stage of just having teenagers - when the older ones were teenagers we had babies so had a nanny still who met the teenagers from 3 school coaches and cooked their dinner.

| have today left work before 5 to get to their school but that is quite rare (parents' evening - utter waste of time those are too in the internet age. I will be glad when there are no more)

duck
me to. in Hungary, from aged 8 I think.
mum was working 8-4.30 I think, dad longer, neither rich nor senior jobs.
everyone did the same. meh