Work full time with teens?

[HappyKoala56]

AIBU to consider a full time job with a teen and pre-teen (13 and 11)? How do other ft working parents manage with kids of these sort of ages? They are ok to stay home on their own for short times and neither are anxious with this, but it would mean 2 hours on their own after school until I get home which feels like a lot. And then what do I do in school holidays? It's a long time to be by themselves, but they don't appreciate all day clubs. I feel stuck in this middle ground of they are too old for childcare but too young for prolonged periods on their own. What does everyone do?
For context I don't HAVE to work ft, hence why I'm not sure if iabu. I have my own business and work part time currently, but I have put all career progression on hold for the past 14 years to be around for the kids and I'm eager to get back on working on myself. Do I leave it another year or 2?
YABU - stay home longer
YANBU - go get that job!

OK I have a go at this as well.

FT nursery is what about £1000 a month ? And some of this often tax deductible so let's go with £800 + say £100 for nappies, extra food and clothes so £900.

I am going to take a 14yo as an example.

Clothes
Dd needs: school shoes (adult sizes, likely £60-80 twice a year), then trainers for P.E (£60), something to wear on her feet at the weekend (be lucky to get it for less than £80) these all need replacing 6 monthly. School blazer can be £100,uniform skirts are £45 and she will need 2, the blouses are £15 each and really we want 5, school jumper (I got 2 another £25 each. Then P.E kit (hoodie £45, I bought 2 in case of loss/ laundry crisis, culottes £25 and polo shirt £25X 2, tack suit bottoms £20). She needs hockey boots for just 1 term,so that's another £50). Remember growing girls need proper bras last time I checked they are best part of £20- she'll need at least 3, at 14 you are likely need to replace these at least once, maybe twice a year. Under wear obviously and tights, which regularly get holes/ladders so I'd be buying a packet most weeks in the winter (£20 pm). Sports socks in regulation colours which get lost almost weekly £9 a throw and white socks for the summer uniform. Oh yes 2 summer dresses (£65 each).

At 14 Dd need women's clothes and as an absolute minimum needs 2 X winter casual bottoms (trackies or jeans), 2 warm tops (hoodie or similar) and 7 or 8 tops. She will also need something to wear to a party and possibly shoes to go with (she won't want to wear her school shoes) total £200. This wardrobe will be outgrown in 6 months. In the summer she will need a swim suit (again I got 2) and sliders this is at least is cheap possibly all in for £60. Really she needs casual socks as neither of us want her wearing her school socks " out" so that's another £10 2 or 3 times a year.

Essential equipment

She needs a school bag obviously and stationary (parents are often expected to buy "set texts") a bells and whistles calculator (£35) which may not last the year. My experience this about £50 a month. You could I suppose not get them a mobile phone, but most do and a " basic" package is about £20 a month (again assuming no breakages/losses, which not a given). Then there is equipment for things like D of E/ field trips. Remember they are growing quickly so for example a sleeping bag which was OK in yr7 is likely out grown by now, they may also need specialist clothing (and/ or shoes ££)

Transport
You might be lucky and get a free bus pass but often not and they need to be able to get from A to B specially as you are working, you may need to pay for odd taxi this easily coss £75 pm.

Personal items
OK you could make your 14yo daughter wash with plain soap and wear no make up. But a reasonable budget for cosmetics might be £10-15 a month. It is unlikely they will be happy without a professional hair cut every 3 months (£50) but I suppose you could try. They certainly need to be provided with sanitary products and hair removal equipment (I'd want my daughter to have what she wanted/ needed in this reguard) this probably add £5 a week to my shopping.
Food
School lunches are £20 a week assuming no free school meals and I think another £10 for snacks/drinks out of the home is reasonable given they are making independent journeys. ONS suggests the cost of feeding a teenage girl is £42 so let's take that total £72 pw.

Activities
OK let's take the school ones first, a trip to Yepes in Belgium for history is £150, Thorpe park with the school was £45, not counting things like skiing or theatre to see GSCE texts. Let's say £50 pm

Then extra curricular again parents are working ft or even if not it is likely you want your 14yo to do something outside of school, these are generally an average of £150 a term (this is how much a "bog standard football or swimming club costs, dancing or riding is obviously much more). Ditto musical instruments.

Finally independent socialising again you could say no, but personally I think going to the pictures with your mates on a Friday night is something I want my 14y to do-£20 after popcorn/McDs etc.

This doesn't include spotify/ Netflix which many people would consider essential.

Now tell me that adds up to less than FT nursery with your child care vouchers.

I am simply highlighting the importance of present parents full stop.

Well here's one example. Your 15 year old has a girlfriend.

This ^ the loss of earnings and childcare costs of toddlers and then needing breakfast/after school club during primary school is unbelievable when you add it up.

It’s good to talk about the issues

Loss of earnings is completely contextual.

@Hastingsontheup I totally accept that that is what you are paying.
But some of it sounds like you move in circles where a certain lifestyle is "expected" - £50 haircuts every 3 months for example, and £30 a week on school meals and snacks (2 course meal at DC's school is £2.50, and if they want snacks on the way home, they buy them themselves). Our entirely weekly food bill for 4 is just over £100, and we eat healthy food, cooked from scratch - £72 on one person would nearly triple it. I doubt we've ever spent £50 a year on stationary, and a single calculator lasted from Y7-Y11. And teen DC have managed quite happily on a monthly allowance of £50 which covers socialising, cosmetics, random items of clothing, phone etc. But none of their friends have more (until they got to 16 and got jobs) so it's not expected.

Even with that said, I still think your monthly costs are less than for a toddler (over £1200 a month for full time childcare round here, and I'm not even in very expensive SE/London). Plenty of things you didn't include in your toddler list - shoes, for example are still expensive even when small, and more quickly grown out of. Most people take their toddlers to extracurricular activities as well, and things like going to soft play soon add up.

From my perspective, we have way more spare money with 2 teens than we did with 2 toddlers, even with the increased cost of living these days. And our salaries have gone up by less than inflation.

My parents worked FT but were still very much present be that in person or at the least at end of the phone. I’m one of 4 (2 siblings went one secondary school and other 2 at a different secondary school) and they made sure one parent was there in the morning to send us out to school and the other there in the evening when we returned from school yet still maintaining FT hours. It was rare we would arrive home to an empty house but it certainly wasn’t an issue for me or my siblings if we did, it was usually as they’d be picking up and dropping off another of my siblings at an activity or just hadn’t quite got home before us but we knew we could get them at the end of the phone if needed at any point in the day for whatever reason. I regularly rang my dad when he was in an important meeting at work to say he needed to pick me up after an afterschool club I’d forgotten about or whatever and he’d always answer and sort it so I was there and never missed out. They always had tea on the table for us to eat together and we had 1:1 time with them in an evening for homework/ tv/ family time or if we’d had a hard day/ fallen out with friends/ feeling low etc. Just because parents work full time doesn’t mean they can’t be around for their children or know what they’re up to or if they’re not managing etc

Again mine is boggling at some of the prices here.

Haircut for my ds is £12

School meals and snacks £3 a day

You can buy a good quality scientific calculator for under £10 which should last for years.

The whole point is what I posted isn't what I spend (you really, really don't want to know) . The £42 is from the ONS £72 is with the school meals. As for buying snack with " their money" where does a q4yo get money ?

You can buy a good quality scientific calculator for under £10 which should last for years

Please link my DCs do further maths

Ditto.
School shoes, 2 pairs of trainers at £60 a pop? Can easily get trainers my DS is happy to wear for half that.
If that was the cost of raising teenagers for everyone, most wouldn't be able to afford it.
I can give him £25 a month pocket money because that's what I can afford. If he wants more than that he'd have to get that paper round I told him about!
So yeah, you can spend that amount on a teenager but I don't think its standard.

I've worked FT since DD was 9 months old. Been a single parent since she was 3. Paid a fortune in wrap around care throughout primary school. Now she's a teenager she has her own key and lets herself into the house if I'm in the office. Thanks to the pandemic I do now WFH more than I'd expected but it never occurred to me that she wouldn't be ok home alone for a couple of hours after school. She gets on with homework and it's all absolutely fine.

They get a fixed allowance which they decide how to spend and may mean they have to make choices about what they want (so if they want the fancy makeup, they don't get to buy drinks after school). you may do this of course, but your itemisation of individual items gave the impression you give your DC specific money for specific things. My DC had allowances at 14, and I couldn't give you a specific breakdown of how they'd spent it in an average month - partly because it varied a lot.

Yes they have an allowance, but they don't need to buy food out of that. How many posters have teenage daughters who have £12 hair cuts I wonder ?

I hear you @Festoonlights a lack of parental involvement led me into trouble in my teens. I was insecure because I just felt no one as really looking out for me or noticing what was going on in my life. That can lead to low self esteem.
I think some parents can fall into the trap of assuming their teens know everything about keeping themselves safe. They assume their kids “know it all” and nothing bad could happen to their kids. They will probably feel smug about how independent their kids have had to be, and that “it’s the making of them”. Hmmm… my mum and dad probably thought all that too. They were wrong. I reiterate teens need a lot of attention and time from their parents. The one thing I’ve learned is never ever assume that everything is just tickety boo in their lives.

I think it is very normal for parents to work full-time. My 9 and 11yos mange to get off the school bus, make a snack, do their homework and generally occupy themselves until we finish work (albeit with an adult in the house but working) so I would have thought a teenager was more than capable.

I manage to spend time with my dc and to be involved with their lives despite working full-time. I think parental involvement is maybe more to do with your relationship. The image of the kids of working mothers turning into delinquents is very 1980s and I don't think it is true.

But the point is, parents can be uninvolved even if they're home 24/7. Being present after school doesn't automatically make you a good parent, just like being at work until 7pm doesn't automatically mean there's a lack of parental involvement going on.

Uninvolved parents are uninvolved regardless of whether they work full-time, part-time, from home or stay at home 24/7.

I think if your teen is going to get in trouble or up to no good, that couple of hours after school when you know there is no adult supervision would be an ideal time!
I say this as someone who does go out of the house to work FT and leave DS14 alone.
I am to some extent hoping for the best, but really don't have much choice.

Any chance of flexing 8-4 ? or WFH even a couple of days ?

I do two long days to get home a bit early, on those long days he is at his dads who does WFH.

So we manage ok.

I suppose I see both sides of the coin. It can all seem to be fine but teens have a way of springing things on you. And you can be fooled into thinking they don't need you because for so much of the day they seem not to!

How many posters have teenage daughters who have £12 hair cuts I wonder ?

I think you said your DD was 14? For a 14 year old, local salon charges £16. Mobile hairdresser charges less. They are basically where DD and all her friends go. Obviously if you are in an area where everyone pays £50 every 3 months (that's more than I spend on my own hair, never mind DD), you're going to think that's "normal". Do you feel you get £50 worth of value, compared to a cheaper cut?

The post is about a theoretical Dd. My Dd is nearly 16, I pay over £80 for her to have balyagge (sp) every 12 -16 week because I can afford it ,it makes her happy and I am doing everythingI can to support local businesses. I do not think that is normal or typical.

@Hastingsontheup - full time nursery is more like £1400 a month

And your post just underlines the discretion point - you seem to have priced the toddler as nursery and £100/month on food/nappies/clothes which is really the bare minimum (and doesn't include things like shoes which toddlers go through at quite a rate) but the teenager as needing £50 haircuts, socialising spends, activities which are totally discretionary spend.

Now I spend lots on my young kids which is discretionary - soft play, swimming lessons, mine would also try to argue for Netflix as an essential spend but I am not trying to argue that it's not discretionary.

Even with all the padding you have done for the teenager and minimising for the toddler, when I add that up on my £35 scientific calculator, I still don't get it up to over £1000 a month!

Tomorrowisalatterday

I fully accept I am out of date with toddler expenditure but are you seriously* suggesting *a teenager has no social spends ? Or activities ? Have you met many 14 year olds ?