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??

I think there is easily a compromise here. It wouldn't take me and another person a whole day to clean a house and do some washing. It would take a few hours max. I would be very specific and ask for her to be around between x and x so that you can do it together. And then I think going forward I would give her actual jobs that she needs to do each week and she needs to manage her time to do that. I think it's really really important that she sees your dp doing an equal number or preferably more though or else I too would feel resentful that the other adult is not pulling their weight. I think you also need to ensure you don't use her as childcare etc for your toddler.

Yanbu and people who go on about 15 year olds being children, implying that your re a big old meanie to expect anything remotely sensible, are part of the problem.

This is just so immature and petty that I don’t know what to say.

You were too unwell to do any housework yesterday that you demanded your daughter come home from a day out with her friends to do it, but you weren’t too unwell to spend the night arguing with strangers on Mumsnet.

Seriously, grow up.

And drinking wine....

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)

I saw the context of your post. I understood it. But what else is she supposed to do if she has a detention? Either she comes home by herself (is that safe etc?) or you do it but then you can’t use it as a stick to beat her with. Nothing stops you from saying “if you get a detention you will need to take the bus home”, or does it? I disagree absolutely with you and another poster who things “2 years away from adulthood” (let’s be honest nothing magical happens at 18 and children are really very immature until they are in their 20s for the most part) she should just be expected to pick up the slack because your sick when you have never made her do even simple or basic chores like put her own plate away.

this is all part of the same problem. You have set very low expectations for her and now you’re sick (not too sick to drink wine with a stomach bug?) you’re pissed off and you’re kicking off about it suddenly. Most people on here are agreeing YANBU in general about chores but YABU in you approach, and you are refusing to take this on board.

*you’re sick!

@Giraffesandbottoms

Getting a public bus from her school to where we live is a nightmare because we are rural (ish) and the school is a good 40 mins away. Hence why she gets on a private school coach that I pay for each month. So no, it's not easy for her to get home when she misses that coach and yes is creates a headache for me. Yet I still work around it for her.

I didn't say to her yesterday come home because I'm too sick to do housework today. If you read the Op, you will see that I asked her to please be around to help me at home tomorrow because I am behind with housework as a result of having been unwell all week. Yesterday I was able to eat small amounts and was feeling a little better. So I had a glass of wine. That ok?

@Vivi0

Thanks that's really valuable advice. Helps immensely.....

🙄

God OP, I'm really pissed off with these comments and I'm a random, not you!

You have every right to expect some help from a 15 year old. I have a 15 yo and a 17 yo and I would ask for help if I was sick. The 17yo would offer before being asked but the 15yo would need asked and directed: they're all different and it does not reflect on your parenting one bit. I can see me needing to spell out to 15yo exactly what was needed, so perhaps that's the same with you. He'd be off out and making demands without thinking, but would realise and then adjust only after I'd probably got annoyed. I can see it all happening.

So, ignore the bloody MN cool mums. I often raise my eyes and wonder what kind of self-entitled brats they're bringing up.

I hope you feel.a little better today and this coming week.

But don’t work around it for her if it’s a nightmare. If it’s safe and summer time etc she can deal with the ballache of waiting for buses. That’s the point. You’re doing things for her and then complaining about it, rather than just not doing them and her facing consequences. You need to just deal with things as they happen rather than retrospectively trying to fix problems. That’s infinitely harder.

it’s not my life but I wouldn’t have any wine if I had been so sick all week I couldn’t stand and needed this help desperately etc 🤷🏻‍♀️

@Puffalicious

presumably your children both help out with chores anywya though? They aren’t allowed to just do whatever they like/do fuck all at home?

Why the sarcasm?

It’s clearly not advice.

But it needed to be said.

it’s not my life but I wouldn’t have any wine if I had been so sick all week I couldn’t stand and needed this help desperately etc

My reference to struggling to stand was from earlier in the week when I was just coming down with the bug. I posted here on Saturday, a good few days later. Whilst I wasn't feeling 100% on top of the world yesterday and the morning was pretty ropey, by late afternoon/ evening I had been able to eat and was feeling a bit better.

Good god the things some people get hung up on on here...

@Giraffesandbottoms

Yep, Been there done that with leaving her to it on the buses home! Results in an inevitable tearful phone call at some stage in the afternoon saying "can you come and get me I've missed the connecting bus...." etc, and then we end up having to drop everything anyway! So easier to just agree to get the day before as - whilst that's also a pita - it's not as much of a pita as dropping everything on the spot is when she's meant to be getting a bus home.

With all due respect OP, you're martyring yourself here. Next to no-one is saying that a 15 year old shouldn't be expected to do chores around the house, and that the bank of mum could not be at least partially reliant on completing said chores. But if you haven't set the groundwork for this already then you are unreasonable to just expect her to "get it". Essentially you're pissed off because you've taken the path of least resistance until now with setting expectations about her household contributions, and it's come to a head all at once purely because you and toddler are ill. If you hadn't been ill you wouldn't have said anything, would you? You'd have just continued letting the resentment build until the next crunch point.

Learning empathy and responsibility and habit forming takes time and effort and sacrifice from both of you, and although you have left it late to start instilling some of this in her, and far too late to start effectively enforcing it during your current predicament, you can start from now. Some parental duties are pretty non-negotiable, no-one's saying you should starve her or make her walk unsuitable distances or routes from school with no other options etc. But if she wants money to go to the cinema with her mates? Bathroom clean first. Wants to wear an outfit in the laundry basket? Wash it herself. Just start small with stuff you have the power to enforce.

And I'd echo other posters about your tone on here. The majority of people have offered helpful advice and perspectives, and you have been overly defensive and antagonistic to many of them because you don't agree with their opinions, or have read something into them that wasn't there. You came here asking if you were too harsh. I think you've ended up at the end of your tether in a difficult position which is partially of your own making. It is your inability to acknowledge your own role in this that makes you unreasonable here.

@Vivi0

Nothing "needs" to be said. Only people who enjoy the sounds of their own voices and imo are narcissistic and self important believe that.

I shall be disengaging from you henceforth as you're adding nothing of value.

If she misses the connecting bus she has to wait! Tough shit! she will not miss it a second time!!!!!!

@Giraffesandbottoms

Wait for what?! Night fall? They stop running after a certain time. Did you miss the part where I said we are rural and public transport from her school is a nightmare?!

@fpurplea

100% agree

@MumofTeen22

ffs you are just determined to be right. I don’t know your bus schedule but I highly doubt there is ONE bus and if she misses the ONE bus she is fucked. Maybe you get her a taxi and then that’s her allowance gone? There are plenty of options and this is ONE example you have given.

you have let her get away with everything for an easy life. We have all been there and we have all done it for one or two things. But you have allowed it consistently and it has come back to bite you on the arse and you’re just arguing blue murder on here with anyone who is trying to help or offer suggestions or another point of view.

@Giraffesandbottoms

With respect, your inconsistency on this thread is confusing me.

On the one hand you say:

You are her mother she is 15 and you are an adult. Your job is to respond to these things instantly.

Now you are saying I should adopt the approach of "tough shit" if she misses the last possible bus for that day and is stranded a good few miles from home?!

Which is it? Am I too harsh and should response instantly to her needs, or am I leaving her on a country lane as evening approaches to find her own way home?

I've only read OPs posts. First off I'm really sorry you and toddler are ill, OP. It sounds horrible.

As for were you harsh? in view of how you haven't enforced anything up to now and haven't trained her while in your house and therefore your rules apply to either do jobs for cash/phone etc, or because she's a family member or because she can see you need it - in that respect YABU to suddenly come out with this. (what she has or has not learned from her dad, if/when she's at his place is his issue)

What you need to do when you're feeling better is move your relationship on to the one of preparing your nearly-young-adult daughter how to run her own place, which means knowing what needs doing (bins out, empty dishwasher, how to use the washing machine etc) and how to do it. If necessary renegotiate the terms of paying for her phone etc.

Here are your other examples:

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

• answer: no. If you’ve spent your allowance then that’s it. Unless you want to do XYZ for extra money/get an advance on your next week (BUT THEN SHE DOES NOT GET MONEY NEXT WEEK).

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

• are your eyes broken? You check. If it’s not washed you will need to wash it as I’m not doing washing today

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

• This is reasonable as it’s not her fault she has somehow been able to go overdrawn by the bank and she’s legally a child so you should sort this out

the point is you need to actually say no and stick to stuff and deal with the tantrums. I fucking hate the phrase “rod for your own back” but my god it applies here!

you’re just arguing blue murder on here with anyone who is trying to help or offer suggestions or another point of view.

If you read all my posts you'll see that this is not true. I have had helpful input by a number of posters and I have thanked them for that.

I object to the shitty delivery of the comments of some posters, who are not in any way trying to help and are simply being antagonistic.

*With respect, your inconsistency on this thread is confusing me.

On the one hand you say:

You are her mother she is 15 and you are an adult. Your job is to respond to these things instantly.

Now you are saying I should adopt the approach of "tough shit" if she misses the last possible bus for that day and is stranded a good few miles from home?!*

this is fair, I’m being a little inconsistent because I’m not explaining myself properly. I think your tone comes across as you thinking you shouldn’t be doing stuff for her and you resent it. In reality you are her mother and responsible for her and some of it you should be doing. The stuff you shouldn’t be doing, you haven’t yet laid the groundwork to stop doing/ which is what you need to do now. Lay the groundwork. make her do the stuff you think she should be doing. Not just suddenly spring shit on her.