to let DS (17) make his own way home from work?

[VelvetSpoon]

My DS1 has just started a part time job, working 10 hours a week. Tonight he was working til 10.30.

DS phoned and asked for a lift, as the bus wasn't coming for 20-25 mins (it's a 25 min walk home, or 2 mins on bus and a 10 min walk), and it was raining and he only had a thin, non waterproof coat, so didn't want to walk.

My bf (who would have to have gone and got him) said no, as earlier we'd had to give DS a lift to work as otherwise he'd have been late (no reason, he was just faffing about).

I agreed with this, especially as DS had already had a lift today...but equally he's still not home and has to be up at 6.30 tomorrow for school...so was I BU?

Well, I'm not a seventeen year old boy, but I frequently walk for twenty minutes in the rain, in the dark, sometimes late in the evening. Sometimes because I'm on my way home from work. Which of you is going to volunteer to come and give me a lift when I want one?

Or, as a competent adult, should I be responsible for getting myself to wherever I need to be?

I think your partner was perfectly entitled to not want to give your son a lift OP.
Despite the "ooh what a horrible boyfriend he must be" type comments from some posters .
He gave the lad a lift earlier to save him from being late which he didn't have to do and there was a bus coming along soon for the return journey.

it was the DS's own choice not to take a decent coat like every other teenager on the planet and he had the choice to wait 20 min for the bus.

I don't think the OP's boyfriend deserves a slating for taking a perfectly reasonable stance - maybe he wanted to get home/get to sleep because he had an early start next day?

I would have done the same.
I was lucky enough to have very supportive parents, they did a lot for me. However they were perfectly happy for me to take two buses for a 2 hour journey to get to my weekend job and the same on the way back. People have asked what not picking him up was teaching him. I think it was teaching him what's entailed in having a job and managing adult life generally: you need to plan; things take effort - although a 25 minute walk barely qualifies as effort; it isn't other people's job to bail you out from minor inconvenience.
In a year, this boy might be starting university, his mum's bf won't be there to ferry him around.
When my daughter was about 15, I reduced the amount of taxiing I did and she learned how to use a bus. I'd always pick her up from parties, late at night, or from friends' houses when there wasn't a bus. When she went to university she was a lot more savvy than some of her mollycoddled friends. It wasn't laziness or meanness, it was a considered decision. Friends of mine who insulated their DCs from all knocks and hardship are now paying rent for them in their twenties as they float from one thing to another, whereas friends whose DCs had jobs, irrespective of their parents' wealth and were expected to look after themselves a bit seem to have more successful and happier adult children.
I'd probably give my DD a lift now in the same circumstances because she's the finished article, - but then I think she'd just wait for the bus or walk anyway, as would I.

I agree with 19, I think you were a bit mean

Wait, working til 10.30? So he won't even be home til gone 11. So in bed by midnight?! That's way too late for someone in school :( education is so important

I am very thankful that if it was dark and raining and I had 20 mins to wait for a bus then I could phone DH ( or DS if home) and they would give me a lift and not a lecture! Or tell me that they don't believe in mollycoddling.
DS had travelled across US alone aged 17 yrs- it doesn't mean that it isn't nice to offer a lift after a long day when he had to be up early the next day.

He's only working til 1030 one day a week.

He's rarely asleep much before midnight anyway, so I don't think this job is likely to affect him. If anything it might tire him out more and make him sleep better.

i think a lot of u parents are lovely but too generous in taxiing your kids around, i think kids today are over protected. 1 parent said her chd was independent catching buses at 15. This made me chuckle because i was using buses from 12 yrs old had no choice is it really cruel lots of kids catch a bus or 2 to school my sis caught 2 everyday from age of 11/12.

My PFB...

I'd have been sitting in my car with a blanket on my lap outside his work before he even called

I remember using buses on my own when I was still at primary school, and walking home in the dark and rain from youth club at age 10. It was another era, though. Gravel for tea and all that.

lineyrebornwe used to walk home from primary too i think iwas 7 but id walk with siblings 1 younger and 1 older just by 1 year. Our house was 1 street away but ours was a main road. I dont think it was safer we just thought it was because crimes against children were hidden more now things are in the open and ppl are more aware to the dangers.

What about the environmental impact of all these short car journeys just "to be kind"? A 25 min walk is less than 2 miles! There's no need to pick up a fit 17 year old, the walk will do him good.
No wonder there's an obesity crisis if everyone is driving such short distances. And the cost soon mounts up as well.
My 17 year old cycles home from college in the dark and the rain. Often he takes no coat. He soon dries out when he's home, he's not made of sugar

I think it also depends on where you live - we have a shit bus service, getting to anywhere you'd actually want to go results in about 3 changes for a shortish trip it's also horrendously expensive. Inevitably we and others therefore drive most places, the roads are busier and less suitable for cycling on. There is more traffic than when we were kids and cars travel faster.

Statistically,, young men are more likely to be the subject of a random attack than any other group.

They have replaced all our street lights with new energy efficient bulbs and quite frankly you can see fuck all.

I pick DS1 up from college in broad daylight if it is hammering with rain. I'm available to do it at the moment so why wouldn't I? It would be mean to let him get soaking wet and cold when I didn't have to. He walks the rest of the time and only texts for a lift if it's really bad, a light shower doesn't bother him. He is nearly 17 and yes he is my PFB! (But not an only child, I have two under 5's too)