Was I too harsh on teen daughter?

[MumofTeen22]

NC for this.

Backstory: teen DD (15) - a few months off turning 16 - is really, really lazy. I have to beg and bribe and nag to get her to help with the smallest of tasks at home. It's draining. All she wants to do it be out with her mates and asks for cash and lifts everywhere etc.

This whole week I've been off work sick with an awful tummy bug / virus. It's absolutely wiped me and youngest DC out (toddler who I am home looking after whilst trying to keep on top of household tasks etc). DH has been working long hours all week. I've had to hold onto kitchen counters at points to steady myself and try not to pass out whilst trying to get jobs done and look after my youngest, I've felt so ill with this bug. But I've had no choice but to keep going.

Teen DD has not offered much by the way of help despite seeing how unwell me and her younger sibling are. At a couple of points I begged her to help as I was really struggling and she did so, but very reluctantly.

Yesterday she announced "I'm out with my mates tomorrow, I'll get the bus to meet them" (bus to the nearest major city from where we live). I said that was fine so long as she didn't rely on lifts from me as I'm not well enough. She said nothing about Sunday and to be honest I was distracted with bathing the youngest so didn't ask what her plans were on Sunday.

So she went off out this morning before youngest DC and I got up. DH at work doing overtime as we need to money. So as per usual I'm just getting on with it all - housework and looking after youngest etc. But still struggling as not feeling great.

Teen messages me about holiday clothes purchases so I reply. I then say "by the way please don't make any plans for tomorrow as I'm going to need your help at home, I'm really behind with the housework this week as I've been ill and DH working again". She texts back: "I've got plans tomorrow with my boyfriend, it's been arranged for ages". I replied: "well you're not going, I need your help".

She then called me saying how it wasn't fair, this has been planned for ages etc. i just snapped at this point - probably a combination of feeling so rough and her selfish lazy attitude all the time. I would never have agreed to todays outing if I'd known she had plans Sunday - I'd have made it clear she needed to be around on at least one of the days to help out.

I said to her "Listen to me - you either get yourself home before 5pm today (this was at 2.50pm) and pull your weight and do some jobs, or you can forget about going out tomorrow and help me then instead. You've got just over 2 hours to get here. Your choice. But don't think I'm going to change my mind - one minute past 5 and you're not going. I'm serious."

Then i hung up.

By the way 2 hours is plenty of time on public transport to get home if she had started to make her way home straight away or within the next 10 mins.

So AIBU to have given her this ultimatum of making a choice: she either loses her day out tomorrow and helps out at home, or gets herself home at a reasonable time today and helps out, and keeps her outing tomorrow?

She's since messaged to say she's on route and it will be "just past 5" when she's home, followed by a "sorry".

Was I harsh??

Hope you got some rest last night @MumofTeen22 and are feeling brighter. 💐

I am referring to your text asking her to not make plans for the following day so she can stay in clean the house. More notice like I said in the week would've been more than reasonable.

Ok.

I shall do this from now on then. And I shall assume it's a two way thing.

So when my DD texts last minute any of the following requests of me with ONE days notice, I'll say no.

"I've got a detention tomorrow, can you pick me up as I'm going to miss the school coach"

"Can I have some money for tomorrow as me and friend are going out again"

"I need my blue dress for tomorrow please can you check if it's washed"

"I've gone overdrawn on my account, don't know how, please can you ring them with me tomorrow and help me sort it??"

Just a few examples of recent texts. Instead of being accommodating at one day's notice of her requests , I'll remind her that we don't do requests on one day's notice, we need at least a week.

Thanks for the tip.

FYI - I sorted ALL of those requests for her, with either one day notice or less.

So no, I don't think my request was too much to ask. In fact I'm even more sure now I've listed all the times I've just dropped everything to help her with no notice!

Looking back I was pretty selfish at 15. I think it’s natural that teens are because there’s so much going on in their own life.

OP, I think I’d leave this conversation with her until you feel properly better and then explain that you and your husband a paying a lot towards her fun and you’d like to feel that she was contributing to the household, not just because you need help but because she lives there and has a responsibility. Then you can set some expectations around what you’d like her to do going forward and ask her if she feels that’s fair and if not, why not?

I think you will need to be calm and loving during this conversation. It’s time for her to step up a bit into the next stage of growing up, which is taking a role in making life clean and comfortable.

You sound resentful of your daughter, but how much of that is because of her attitude/general behavior, and how much of it is because you seem to have an issue with her growing independence?

You were very unfair to just “drop” those jobs on her like that. It seems like you want her to be available whenever it suits you; as if she shouldn’t be having too much fun. This really reminds me of my own mother and the way she parented me. There was never any communication about when I was allowed to go out or anything like that - but if I made plans that she didn’t like because there were chores to do, she would make me cancel them.

You need to give her a list of chores and make sure she completes them, after which she can see her friends. Why don’t you have a system in place like that already? If you’re not communicating clearly, you can hardly expect your daughter to do the same in return.

Your illness and the fact you have a younger child aren’t really relevant either, why is that her concern?

@ChiefWiggumsBoy

Stepdad does loads for the family (works long hours, cooks, cleans, gives lifts etc). He is also the one picking her up later today from her boyfriend's as the buses are crap on a Sunday, so he offered to do this. After he's finished yet another overtime shift.

Yes I did thank you.

Thank you for all your support on this thread, too. It hasn't gone unnoticed

I think you are just really unwell and feeling at the end of your tether with a difficult teen.

Yes, there are probably better ways of dealing with it but you are only human and teens have a way of exasperating us to the point we finally snap.

When you are feeling better perhaps agree some responsibilities in return for her allowance/transport.

The fact that she said sorry shows she's a nice girl, well brought up and knows she was out of order. The fact that you feeling guilty about snapping because she was being unreasonable shows you are a lovely mum.

Try not to be so hard on yourself. With a teen and a toddler count it as a win that you get through the day !

You sound resentful of your daughter,

Resentment can arise from feeling you've been treated unfairly for a period of time. Let me see...

Over many years, I have bent over backwards to ensure my daughter has not only a comfortable life but a better than comfortable one, where she has at least 5 times the amount of monthly spending money I was ever given at her age; she has lifts to various places to see friends from us both despite there often being buses available; she has things bought for her that she asks for (generally with few exceptions); I allow her to go most places that she asks so long as she lets me know who is with and her she is due back so she has way more freedom than I was ever allowed at her age; I adjust my own plans last minute if she gives me a day's notice of needing something (as per previous examples I've cited); we save like mad to accommodate her change of heart about wanting to come on holiday last min, etc ,....

And all I ask for in return is some help with a few chores around the house to make my life that tiny bit easier. That's all. And it's too much to ask.

So yeah. I fucking resent that.

Someone suggested hiring a cleaner with some of the money I'd usually give to DD each month. I'm giving that some serious thought.

I would have given her more notice that you needed help.

She won't have been thinking at all about helping since she doesn't help the rest if the time anyway.

Get her to start helping more generally.

Also I think for one weekend the normal chores like hovering and dusting could have been left (although ideally she would have done it but see above)

Thank you, that's a lovely post.

And it's nice to have someone comment who "gets" the challenges of parenting teens (and toddlers 😫🤣)

This is what I did with DS (although never gave him money to start with so this was from scratch not a change). Told him that I’m either getting a cleaner or can pay him to do it, but I will only pay him if he does it without moaning or nagging because I wouldn’t have to do that for a cleaner. If he helped out he got money, if he didn’t, he didn’t.

wasn’t perfect but he got the message.

For me it’s the fact that you’ve changed the goalposts suddenly with no warning, you’ve been building resentment about her behaviour but never changed your behaviour to make that change happen. Lots of harsh posts on here but there is a definite sense of externalising any control about this. If you want things to change, you have to change what you’re doing.

Hi OP x Glad you’re feeling better, and I’m still rooting for you - I think you’re handling some of the more unkind posts here admirably x

Sending you best wishes for the future - this too will pass x

Just a few examples of recent texts. Instead of being accommodating at one day's notice of her requests , I'll remind her that we don't do requests on one day's notice, we need at least a week

this is deeply unreasonable. You are her mother she is 15 and you are an adult. Your job is to respond to these things instantly. It’s not her job to suddenly drop her plans and come home to clean. You need to make a proper plan going forward with the housework so she knows what she needs to do and when. I can’t believe you can’t see that and what the difference is and are still arguing that things a teenager needs from her mother are in some way equatable with your expectation of her this weekend.

I think it’s tricky with a teenage daughter and there is bound to be resentment as there is a lot of “take take take” but that’s parenting teenagers!

re the using her pocket money for a cleaner: in some ways that’s fine but in other ways it’s not comparable, what a cleaner should do vs what a 15 year old. She’s not exactly going to be scrubbing the loo is she? I would probably half the amount of money or something. Or 0 money for 0 chores.

She's a teenager, not a demi god. There is no way OP should be expected to respond instantly to all her requests. What sort of preparation is that for life? "Oh don't worry DD, you just decide to do what you want, when you want. No need to share plans. Other people exist purely to facilitate your life..." What a rude awakening she will get!
And I completely disagree that when parenting teenagers take take take is appropriate and inevitable. When are people supposed to learn reciprocality with that approach? The answer is they don't, and some other poor person who eventually becomes their partner reaps what you've sown.
I honestly think some people are so frightened of their teenagers' rejection, they turn themselves into servants to avoid upsetting them.
I agree there should be a planned chores schedule so everyone knows where they stand.

@Giraffesandbottoms

You have selected one part of my entire response to that poster and taken it out of its original context, which distorts its meaning.

That poster was saying I need to give my daughter more than one day's notice of needing a favour from her. Yet, I am regularly asked to change my own plans last minute to accommodate things that imo are not just to be "expected", such collecting her from school due to last minute detentions (bearing in mind we live an hour round trip from the school and I also work FT, this is a HUGE inconvenience to my day). Yet I do these things as far as possible. So my point was, if I request one small thing back from her with little notice at a time when I am (quite literally) on my knees with illness and exhaustion, it's apparently unreasonable according to that poster. Sorry; but that's not on.

Are you honestly saying that at 2 years away from adulthood, my daughter shouldn't learn the concept of a bit of give and take? A tiny bit of giving something back to her mum when I really need it, after all I have always done and continue to do for her?

If so, I'm sorry but we will agree to disagree on that one.

You've made a rod for your OWN back. What posters are saying is at 15 she doesn't usually help out so the chances of your DD dropping HER OWN plans for you is unlikely.

And I completely disagree that when parenting teenagers take take take is appropriate and inevitable. When are people supposed to learn reciprocality with that approach?

Exactly.

I think you went about this in entirely the wrong way.

i doubt that it was your dds decision for you to give her a much younger sibling. That was most likely down to you and your DH and your dd just had to suck it up. You can’t really expect her to be responsible for the up keep of the house when you and that sibling are ill.

you should probably have made her aware in the week that you’d like a bit of help at the weekend. Maybe you could have asked her on say Thursday if she could put the hoover round etc before she goes out. That would have been reasonable.

it would also be reasonable for her to have regular household tasks to earn the hand outs she’s given. But it was unreasonable for you to expect her to drop her plans when you hadn’t previously asked her. It probably hadn’t even registered in her brain that you would need extra help. And to put anything about her much younger sibling on her is down right unfair. Most teenagers don’t really want a younger sibling like that. It’s a decision their parents make which often impacts them in a negative way.

@HTH1

cos everyone can just afford a cleaner can’t they?!

No! The daughter can pull her weight in the family home that she lives in. What is she gonna do when she’s in uni?! No cleaners then.

She’ll live in a disgusting mess as most uni students do. 🤷‍♀️

@Ohhelpicantthinkofaname

some are worse than others. The really bad ones who can’t wash their own clothes or cook a basic meal for themselves tend to be the ones who had everything done for them at home

it’s really not unreasonable for OPs daughter to start doing some chores (and be penalised if she doesn’t)

Your treating your daughter like a child but expecting her to respond like an adult. I also did the toddler/teenager phase at same time and it is fucking hard you have my sympathy's.

I agree. But they should be agreed in advance, not thrust on her unexpectedly with the expectation that she should drop all her plans to help out.

If they’d been agreed in advance then it would have been completely reasonable to say you can’t go out until x, y and z are done. But that’s not what happened.