..to think it’s very lonely being the single mum of teenagers?

[Fleetheart]

..arrive home after a hard day! One teen says “when can we eat?”, and disappears upstairs. Other teen is in their room, doing their stuff. Kitchen messy, no conversation. Even the cats are out! Oh happy Friday

I would have asked the teen what are they cooking.
I love the teen years. As a person I get more free time.

I picked up 16yo and his girlfriend from 1st day at 6th form (on my way-ish home, to save them a 4pm finish but with buses not arriving home till 6.30pm ), they did chat to me in the car but I've dropped them both at her house and don't see him again until tomorrow evening as he's at his dad's tonight.

13yo was playing Mario Kart downstairs when I got home, but soon disappeared upstairs.

The dog loves me though!

Oh, 13yo had emptied the dishwasher though.

Surely it’s better than being pestered to watch Peppa Pig endlessly or aimlessly kicking a football in the park.
Make yourself a nice meal, pour yourself a glass of wine (or have a coffee if you don’t drink) & settle down to a peaceful evening doing what you want - read a book, tv, meet a friend, long bath. Sounds pretty blissful, no one making demands of you. .

Oh I'm sorry to hear that - mine spend alot of their time in their rooms, or pestering me for money or food too. I did go through a difficult patch with them (maybe hormones, or stress from exams or reaction to divorce etc?) but they are being much lovelier recently - one is even in the kitchen cooking now. I came home and there were a gang of them on the sofa (watching Glee, again).

I also make sure we sit down to dinner each day and its lovely. I like having teens - they're funny and interesting. yesterday we actually sat and discussed literature (they were probably humoring me, or buttering me up) and I felt so happy.

I follow them to their rooms if they hide there for too long.

Yeah, they can be nice sometimes but DS in particular is really tricky: he’s 15, we used to have a good relationship but he seems to never want to talk to me now, hates to be asked any questions but doesn’t volunteer anything.

I hear you. All those saying it’s blissful, it isn’t. There are only so many baths you can have and only so much tv you want to watch.

I’m not happy leaving mine in the evening to go out, and although I insist we eat together, as soon as they are finished they disappear again.

I work from home too so have very little conversation with anyone.

I’m currently watching the cricket and even that’s a bit slow.

So go to the gym, get a hobby, start dating, go out with friends. I can assure you it's worse for single mum's of babies and young kids. I didn't realise how lonely it was til I wasn't single anymore.

Sorry raspberryk but I don’t think you can just say it’s worse for single moms of babies and young kids. It depends on the individual situation surely.

Ah fleetheart, i feel like this...

16yr old DS and I used to watch telly together, but now he has a GF, parties abd lots of his own life going on.

Am happy for him, but also have a little sadness inside

Cutting the apron strings I guess! A healthy and normal part of growing up....

I go out with my own friends and do my own thing

Another one here! Dd 16 and ds 14.5 spend 99% of their time in their bedrooms apart from meal times. Dd will grace me with her presence some nights. Ds pops down every now & again to tell me he loves me out of guilt.

I do have a dp but he only stays a night or two a week. Most of the nights I spend alone on the sofa!

Raspberryk we don’t all have on tap childcare for tweens/ young teens who can’t be left on their own for long periods in the evening.

How old are your dc’s? I can assure you that as a parent of tweens, it’s much lonelier. I don’t even do a school run to talk to other parents.

Its soul destroying. Much preferred it when mine were small and wanted cuddles and attention.

It’s not a competition, but you can’t be so dismissive of something you’ve never experienced.

I think it's nice to hear that other teens spend all their time in their rooms - I thought I was failing as a parent a little bit.

I've made my downstairs sitting room into a den for them, and that's brought most of them down more of the time (the PS4 mostly and proximity to the fridge) - I've also banned food upstairs.

When I started dating to get out a bit, my dd complained - she said she'd rather I sat downstairs on my own rather than go out.

I have younger dcs too which help, and am currently exhausted from a really full on job, so don't really mind sitting on my own for a bit each evening. I try to go out once or twice a week at least and will also exercise in the evenings.

I have the joy of being a single mum to two teenagers age 14 & 15.. plus an 11 month old baby.. I’m physically drained most days!! All are at different stages, all need me for different reasons!
I’ve aged considerably in the last 11 months 😂😂

Mine is 15, in terms of having a life of my own, personally I prefer it to the peppa pig and tween ager years. I bumped into him as he was coming in from school at 4, I was on my way to the gym, had a quick chat He can have a few hours PS4, I'm sat in the coffee shop chilling out after my work out. We will have dinner together when I get in at about 8. We still have enough shared interests, I pretend to be interested in football, but we both like watching athletics ( we are planning a big weekend for the world champs in a few weeks), swimming, triathlon , Crystal Maze and UK Ninja Warriors.

I'm not interested in late nights out at the pub or clubbing but I can go to the cinema, theatre or a gig if I want to. At weekends I can spend as much time as I want down the allotment, or the gym, treat myself to a facial now and again.

I hear you OP I have similar DS and his evenings are sport, GF or room. My cat luffs me though

Other than feeding chauffeuring and providing cash I fail to serve any purpose in his life. However it’s probably karma as I was worse at 15

Can you find a joint tv show to watch? We like animal programmes strangely enough

Yeah, he like police camera action type stuff. I think it’s a good idea, but Friday night he is always seeing his friends; it makes me sad as we used to have a nice time together. I know it’s natural but it is still a bit painful. Also he is somewhat unpredictable so I don’t really like to go out in case he does something silly- gets drunk etc which he has done from time to time (he has adhd and is prone to acting impulsively and often foolishly)

I personally can’t wait until mine are teens as I think that’s when I will get my life back, i think it’s lonier when they are young but that’s just my opinion

Mine got the hint when I sang “all by myself” as loudly and badly as possible outside their bedroom doors
No longer single but I still do it occasionally for fun.