Page 4 | 18yo doesn't value my time - AIBU?

Mediocrates · 2022-04-09T18:35:51+00:00

Wrote a long post and it didn't work - probably no bad thing! Long story short, 18yo DS (whose journey to and from work I facilitate Monday to Friday) was disgusted today when I suggest he gets the bus all the way home from his football game today, rather than the 45 mins quicker bus which requires me to drive 10 mins each way to collect him from. So I couldn't go off out for dinner with DH, or have a glass of wine in the garden while it was sunny, because he expected me to plan my afternoon around his needs. AIBU? I'm trying very hard not to model martyrdom in order not to raise martyrs, and I'm always clear that while their needs are a priority, the DCs wants don't trump my needs (or even my wants, on occasion) because I don't think it's helpful for them to expect the world to bend to their every whim.

Nelliephant1 · 10/04/2022 06:24

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Discodancinggiraffe · 10/04/2022 06:27

Stop pandering to him. He treats you like dirt because you let him. Being lectured about my tone would be a line in the sand for me and we would be having a good talk about how things will be changing now he is becoming an adult. He should be using buses or walking and have some independence from now on. If there is something he wants to do. He needs to arrange his own way of getting there with out assuming you will take him.

My parents went for the 18 is an adult approach and did not help me with anything. When I was 18 I went to college full time. I had to get up at 6am every week day to get two buses to get there. I went straight from there to my evening bar job. I eventually got home at about midnight I had a second job at the weekend. I had to give up because the college was a specialist one out of town. I had worked out the travel and costs involved before I started the course and knew I could not rely on anyone else. He can get himself to football.

speakout · 10/04/2022 06:29

We are a family of lifters- sorry not much help.
Whether it's me getting taken to the gym and back when OH is around ( even though I have my own car), picking up a teenager at 1am from a party, fetching my mother from shopping ( even though there is a good taxi service).
We live rurally so need a car to get most places, but I would always prioritise givig someone a lift over wine.

speakout · 10/04/2022 06:31

My parents went for the 18 is an adult approach and did not help me with anything.

Mine too- and didn't have much of a relationship from then on- still don't.

PinkSyCo · 10/04/2022 06:37

You are being completely unreasonable. Your child comes long before a glass of wine for goodness sake!! I feel sorry for your son, he should be able to depend on you and not have you being utterly selfish.

I do hope this is a joke!

itsgettingweird · 10/04/2022 06:45

I'm getting that impression. When he came home he dumped his collection of dirty dishes beside the sink because the dishwasher was full of clean dishes. I asked him to empty it and got a lecture about my tone 🙄

Definitely time for him to start taking himself to and from permanently and have a list of chores expected of him.

The best way to discover what people do for you is seeing for yourself what they are doing.

PinkSyCo · 10/04/2022 06:48

18yo, on my 18th i got to hand back the spare key and was told to find my own way in the world..think the same needs to happen here

Fucking hell that’s just cruel!!!

axolotlfloof · 10/04/2022 06:53

@PinkSyCo

18yo, on my 18th i got to hand back the spare key and was told to find my own way in the world..think the same needs to happen here

Fucking hell that’s just cruel!!!

Would you do that to your child? If you want a good relationship with your adult child then there is some give and take. Your son sounds lovely OP and like he will mature into a lovely man. If you think how much many parents do for their uni student offspring, continuing to help your working 18 y o isn't unreasonable. Of course the OP doesn't want her 18 y o to move out.

PinkSyCo · 10/04/2022 06:54

Basically he has a slightly higher disposable income than you and has free bus and car rides. Then thinks he can tell you off. This sounds very imbalanced and something you should address.

He has 18 times more disposable income than OP, hardly a slight amount!

BoffinMum · 10/04/2022 06:57

I would just say neutrally that I wasn’t free that day to do the Mummy Taxi, and by the way had he thought of saving up for a moped now he was old enough.

BoffinMum · 10/04/2022 07:00

Nellie, he’s got easy alternative transport, she’s not exactly leaving a family member stranded on the Orkneys so she can go in the lash. She just fancied a night off from being his free Uber driver. She should have done this long ago.

speakout · 10/04/2022 07:02

had he thought of saving up for a moped now he was old enough.

An 18 yo on a moped- what could possibly go wrong.

Fadeout83 · 10/04/2022 07:02

Geez the posts calling a teen kid sexist and a dickhead are just a bit wtf. Some people obviously either don’t have children or have Saint teens who never put a foot wrong. Sounds to me like typical teen behaviour but the way you’re dealing with it enables it. Sorry mate, busy can’t pick you up. He strops? Fine, strop away. Lectures you about your tone? Tell him to stop being a disrespectful git and to unload the dishwasher while he’s at it.

Geez Louise. Sounds like a good kid, teens considered, but you need to draw some boundaries. Fearing that he will stop loving you and move to his dads speaks more about you than him. Is there a reason you fear this and are insecure about his love for you?

Original poster

Mediocrates · 10/04/2022 07:48

@Nelliephant1

You are being completely unreasonable. Your child comes long before a glass of wine for goodness sake!! I feel sorry for your son, he should be able to depend on you and not have you being utterly selfish.

Why should my adult child, who was off at a football match having pint and using the season ticket which he chooses to buy, come before me doing something I want to do on my day off? Fuck that.

Of all the posts on this thread, this one has done the best job of showing that I am not unreasonable, so thanks

OP posts:

Brefugee · 10/04/2022 07:52

You are being completely unreasonable. Your child comes long before a glass of wine for goodness sake!! I feel sorry for your son, he should be able to depend on you and not have you being utterly selfish.

haha - do you have sons? can't wait to see the posts from their partners in a few years.

so, OP, have you had a discussion about respect and entitlement?

Namechanger0800 · 10/04/2022 07:54

he's 18 - I think this is totally normal and not the symbol of raising a sexist twat. i have a 19 year old DD and can quite imagine a similar scenario.....in fact there's been similar scenarios. She used to tell
me she'd finished work earlier than she had because she didn't want to wait for me and so I'd be there waiting for her to finish for 20 mins with a moaning toddler in the car. One time I just drove home and she had to get 2 buses home which took 90mins for a 10 minute journey. She stopped that crap after this and now understands i will get her which may mean she has to wait 10 mins or more sometimes for me.

They just need reminding sometimes that parents also have a life which isn't all about facilitating theirs. You should have held your ground on this one - totally reasonable suggestion and he'd had got over it. if his dad is a selfish twat he'll know this and also which side his bread is buttered.

Autumn42 · 10/04/2022 07:55

@Fadeout83

Geez the posts calling a teen kid sexist and a dickhead are just a bit wtf. Some people obviously either don’t have children or have Saint teens who never put a foot wrong. Sounds to me like typical teen behaviour but the way you’re dealing with it enables it. Sorry mate, busy can’t pick you up. He strops? Fine, strop away. Lectures you about your tone? Tell him to stop being a disrespectful git and to unload the dishwasher while he’s at it.

Geez Louise. Sounds like a good kid, teens considered, but you need to draw some boundaries. Fearing that he will stop loving you and move to his dads speaks more about you than him. Is there a reason you fear this and are insecure about his love for you?

Agree, he’s a teen and he’s learning, Some people like to weave politics into everything. Let him be annoyed at you. He’ll get used to the new boundaries. You’ve got to let him grow up

HarlanPepper · 10/04/2022 07:56

£900 per month disposable income???!!! He can pay for driving lessons and buy a car then (or contribute to the insurance on yours). Bloody hell.

Original poster

Mediocrates · 10/04/2022 07:57

Too many replies for me to respond individually, but let me answer a couple of questions.

Dickhead? Yes he can be. No more so than lots of people though - the whole reason this situation with the lift and the dishes annoyed me so much was that it's not a daily issue.

Sexist? I mean he's grown up in a society that's misogynistic as fuck, but he's also been raised by a feminist so I'd like to think he's actually not.

Entitled as fuck? Probably.

I experienced abuse and neglect at the hands of my mother (and am still in therapy now!) so I've had to work really consciously as a parent at balancing the desire to give my children everything I never had, with the realisation that I actually matter too despite the messages of my childhood. On the whole, I'm pretty pleased with how I've managed that, but I've clearly got some work to do!

Wholeheartedly agree that I don't want some poor woman landed with my entitled son, but as I said in an earlier comment it's ironic how women usually get landed with the emotional labour of teaching the societal misogyny out of boys and men.

OP posts:

GeneLovesJezebel · 10/04/2022 07:58

I had this with my DD who stopped driving lessons because we gave her lifts. So the lifts stopped, and she soon started lessons again 🤣

Original poster

Mediocrates · 10/04/2022 08:01

@Brefugee

You are being completely unreasonable. Your child comes long before a glass of wine for goodness sake!! I feel sorry for your son, he should be able to depend on you and not have you being utterly selfish.

haha - do you have sons? can't wait to see the posts from their partners in a few years.

so, OP, have you had a discussion about respect and entitlement?

Yep, I sent him a text after I'd dropped him off to tell him that I was actually quite annoyed at his attitude and why, and then I used the time in the car when I picked him up(!) to have a conversion about it.

Haven't spoken to him about the dishwasher thing yet. He was knackered after an unusually hard week at work, I wasn't in the best place, and it would have ended in an argument. I'll speak to him today with a cooler head

OP posts:

rookiemere · 10/04/2022 08:01

DS is 16 so younger, but I've noticed that conversely the more I do for him, the less grateful he becomes and the more he expects.

So if I give him a one off lift to school - free bus pass, multiple buses that go that way - the next few mornings he seems confused that I haven't offered it again although he gets the bus all other times.

I find it's fairly useless trying to expect him to have empathy although he does express it at other times, therefore in your case I'd just state the facts and pour yourself a big glass of wine and not worry too much, I'm sure he'll end up just fine.

AmaryllisNightAndDay · 10/04/2022 08:04

I suggest he gets the bus all the way home from his football game today, rather than the 45 mins quicker bus which requires me to drive 10 mins each way to collect him from.

Don't "suggest" just tell him. "You'll have to get the bus home tonight, I'm busy". If you've been driving him home every Monday and Friday for weeks it would be fair to give him some warning - I'm not going to do this every time from now on, sometimes I will have other things to do so you'll need to see yourself home, I'll tell you in the morning / text you by lunchtime if I can't come and get you, I just so you know.

Suggesting sounds as if you don't mind either way and are leaving it up to him. Giving him lifts is you doing him a favour, but if you talk to him as if it's his decision he will answer as if it is. Have you ever done assertiveness?

He's old enough to figure out how to get himself home and keep some bus money or a card in his bag and to cope if he forgets. If he's kicking his heels for an hour or two before you're ready to pick him up then he wont forget again.

Mummyoflittledragon · 10/04/2022 08:05

@PinkSyCo

Basically he has a slightly higher disposable income than you and has free bus and car rides. Then thinks he can tell you off. This sounds very imbalanced and something you should address.

He has 18 times more disposable income than OP, hardly a slight amount!

I misread the £850. It happens to us all. I’d really rather have had that explained than post this comment.

Anyway idk how much rent you’re charging op and if it’s enough. But you should ask for petrol money now that it’s gone up. You should have more than £50 at the end of the month when he’s got nearly a grand.

AmaryllisNightAndDay · 10/04/2022 08:07

Your child comes long before a glass of wine for goodness sake!!

My son's needs come before my whims. But at 18 my whims come before his. He doesn't need a lift home every time.