to want my space in the evening?

[cakedup]

I do feel a bit bad having just snapped at DS(13) but the thing is, after a day at work, then coming home to clean and cook, eventually only sitting down at 9pm, I just don't want to interact. I just to wind down on the laptop with some peace and quiet.

There are opportunities for DS to speak to me earlier on in the afternoon. Sometimes he does, mostly he chooses to play on his ps4. However, we do eat together. Sometimes he is chatty, sometimes I literally get a few grunts so don't bother. Today we took the bus to the dentist. He barely said a word there and back.

Then 9pm, I sit down and it's chit chat this and chit chat that. I wish I could have unlimited patience and be that mum who always has time for their child. But I have my needs and limits. I need to wind down at the end of my day. AIBU?

Op see when he's not talking to you,is his head glued to his phone? My son does the EXACT same....chats away and expects full attention when he's feeling up for it,but barely responds when I speak about anything. Unless it's of interest to him. I find it truly quite selfish

Yes. You are. If my father (my only parent) had snapped at me when I was at such a vulnerable age because he wanted 'space' from me i would have been very hurt.

If he can't play games why on earth can you sit on your laptop ignoring your child? Jesus wept.

Jesus wept? 😕I thought Jesus didn't carry judgement

The whole situ makes me feel desperately sad and so grateful for my own (now v elderly) Father. He brought me up alone and I was like an alien creature to him as a damaged teenage daughter but the one thing he always, always did was listen. Occasionally when I was about 16 and found talking too hard I would go to his room (my mum died a few years before) and wake him up and just talk. It meant everything knowing I had that unconditional love and 20 years later we have such a great trusting relationship.

op is completely right, kids need to be taught social skills and 1 of them is that they must take the tone of the company they are in. Sometimes ppl are tired especially after work and do not want to talk and kids need to be shown this-that it is quiet time and they need to leave other people to their own devices. Nothing wrong with that. I have a mate who never gets this q and it drives me mad.

@Amomentofbeauty that's sad. You sound like a teenager yourself, so focused on your timetable and your wants and your needs

I’m 35 and I still remember my mum shushing me because some shite soap or other was on when I just wanted to talk to her. It really hurt then and it still makes me feel sad now. She worked full time, had a disabled child and was beyond stressed, but it still hurt.

My mum is sadly no longer with us. I’m sure on her deathbed she wasn’t thinking back to all those soap storylines she sat through.

I feel very bad for the teenage you who was shushed but given your mum's circumstances and all that was on her plate it is highly likely on her deathbed she thought "god those soaps got me through times when I thought I just couldn't go on and wouldn't be any use to any of my children".

OP, like others I think you are both being and not being unreasonable. I can completely see why you need time to decompress but with teens you need to take the chat when you can. Can you reconfigure your day so there are no games before dinner so you chat and prepare dinner together and then after dinner you sit together - you read or go on mumsnet and he plays a game for 30 minutes?

It is hard. Today I spent most of my waking hours supporting/talking to 2 of my teens (one more than the other) as well as trying to get everything else done. Dh is travelling at the moment and I told him on the phone tonight that I was exhausted and bored by my teens. It was the truth. Luckily I had someone to say it to who understood and didn't judge because he knows how much I love them and sometimes feels the same. I think it is harder when you are on your own and don't have anyone to hand off to or even vent to.

Best of luck OP.

@ThinkingQueSeraSera Its heartwarming to hear you have such a great bond with your father,truly sounds like a magical man and heartbreaking as it is,your mums passing no doubt brought ye closer. But I truly don't think at 13,(unless something is bothering him/her) it should be a case of my needs far out weigh yours,on a daily basis. Unless of course something is uprooting op's sons life and he needs extra tlc,which really doesn't sound the case.

You sound like a teenager yourself, so focused on your timetable and your wants and your needs

Actually she sounds like an adult rearing a child by herself.

What is wrong with a grown woman focusing on her timetable, her wants and her needs? Why is that a bad thing?

This kind of angel in the house view of women as endlessly self-sacrificing - and the rearing children as essentially self-sacrificing (for women only) does my head in.

Can’t believe the negative comments.

I’m introverted and need my space. I give my kids plenty of attention but I do not exist solely to be their mother.

I am so loving the supportive comments. I was a single parent to two and worked full time with a two hour daily commute.
Enjoy your space OP

I think it would be good for you to apologise and explain to him what you've explained to us, but in a totally neutral way.

Take the angle of "we've got a mismatch here, so how do we go about finding a solution, together?".

Don't put pressure on him to feel bad or make all the concessions, but don't do that yourself, either.

Any SN aside, 13-year-old is easily old enough to understand the idea that some people need time alone, and that that doesn't mean they don't care. What shows you care is how you handle it, within any other limitations.

The best ways of showing the other person respect over this is to be honest about where you stand - rather than expecting them to guess when you're not up for a chat and why - and to bring them in on finding a way forward.

Everyone would have benefitted if my mother had taken that approach, instead of putting pressure on herself to be available the whole time. Because she simply couldn't be available the whole time. So she'd often respond inappropriately, because her social self wasn't "online". If she'd admitted that, I'd have felt safer trying to interact with her.

But instead, she insisted that it was always ok for me to approach. Which, as a child, did nothing but make me feel like I'd done something wrong when she reacted strangely or aggressively. If she'd said she needed time alone except for emergencies, but that that didn't mean she didn't care, and told me when, I would have understood that perfectly well, from age 7 at the latest.

I think by pretending she could always be mentally/emotionally there for me, she was trying to make me feel safe, but instead, the unpredictability made me feel very unsafe.

You sound nasty tbh. Plenty of parents would love to have a 13 year old son who wants to talk to them

Wow, CalF. I think YOU sound nasty

Do YOU have a teenage dc? No? Then maybe you'd like to think about what you're saying.

How come op's dc has the chance to play games and be on his phone and not communicate, yet the op has to drop everything and talk whenever dc wants to?? What sort of message is that teaching dc?

PLus, OP said she had tea with dc, took dc on the bus to dentist etc, when dc didn't say a word to her!! OP has not been ignoring her dc all day...

There are a lot of martyr mums on here

I actually think that the martyr mums are not doing their children any favours. It's a valuable life skill to learn to recognise when people have had enough of talking / when it's appropriate to engage in conversation and not just endlessly wang on about stuff.

It really does not sound like this child is being ignored and to be quite honest, at 9/10 pm, they should be in bed anyway unless they are towards the adult end of the teenage scale.

Thinking, your post about your dad is so lovely I developed leaky eyes reading it.

It's so tough, OP, I think there's so much going on in teenagers' heads that they really need to talk through stuff to make sense of it all. I can still remember that feeling where the slightest thing was massive and really needing to offload, and I'm 62!

I'd say do less housework, leave some till the weekend, maybe clear up together after dinner. I totally get your need for downtime, but I really get his need to talk, too, and one day you'll be grateful for it.

@ThinkingQueSeraSera Hahaha. This has made me laugh.

Up multiple times a night with a small child, endlessly chatting to my children about whatever they want, cuddling them all the time, telling them I love them, discussing emotions in depth, plus endless friendship dramas, listening to them when they re appear and then sending them to bed because that's where they should be. Yeah. I'm such a teenager. I bloody wish.

Also, when I say send to bed, I mean taking them back up and tucking them in. They are not being neglected by a selfish mother. This also does not mean that I don't need time for myself as a parent doing this entirely by myself.

You sound like a teenager yourself, so focused on your timetable and your wants and your needs

What's wrong with that? You can't give all yourself to other people all the time. Parents are allowed down-time and time to themselves as well - in fact I would say it's vital to have that time.

Yes you need to be there for your children but not day-in, day out with no chance of a break. What you say about your dad is sweet and obviously helped you, but if I woke either of my parents up to chat I would be sent back to bed very swiftly!

There's a time and a place. If OP's son wants to talk, maybe he should do so earlier in the evening, not demand attention at the end of a long day. He's not a toddler - surely he can understand mum is tired and needs to relax after being on her feet all day?

Your timetable doesn't allow much room for your son. I'd move things around- do less house work- cook quicker meals - whatever - so that I'm able to chill out sooner than 9pm

'My son does the EXACT same....chats away and expects full attention when he's feeling up for it,but barely responds when I speak about anything. Unless it's of interest to him. I find it truly quite selfish'

Yes well he is a child so what do you expect?

I'm a Mum to a teen DS in lower sixth I find we both need our own space so there is the occasional clash when our timetables don't gel so I do get it but yours is very rigid.

But please do keep speaking to him, my DS got very upset about something and told me a couple of months ago and did actually cry to me. Now when we do clash it can be quite the fireworks as we are too alike. But he always knows he can speak to me because I have told him.

Plus on the far more practical note, what is taking up so much of your time in the evening?

Write a list and be totally honest about what you do in the evening and the timings because with one child who is plenty old enough to be given chores I feel you should be having downtime before 9.

I do agree with PP's that there is no need to be doing housework until 9pm every night. You have one teen son, and you're both out of the house all day with school/work, so really, how much mess is there?

He's old enough to come home and run the hoover around, put laundry on or sort dinner (or at least pre-heat the oven for you). I don't believe household tasks require that much time in the evening, every day.

They talk when they want to talk. I am on my own with one teen still at home. He wants to talk at about 10.00. He is monosyllabic before that. I want to go to bed at about 10.00. We talk at about 10.00. I'll miss him when he's gone (presumably 😀).

I'm really surprised that so many people cant imagine what chores the OP is doing all evening? By the time I have finished work, taken and collected one or more kids from activities, cooked dinner, done washing up, a load of laundry and run the vacuum round (we have dogs, this is a necessity) its always 9pm or later and that's without me having stopped since I got in.