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!

Yes I was a Nurse when my older two were teens, I was intending to try and stay full time but it was not working for them at all! I had to go part time as the wheels were falling off for my 2nd ds in particular. The teen years are full of bloody pitfalls. So I put them first and don’t regret it for a second. They are adults now and both acknowledge what I did for them.

MissyB1 sounds like we were in similar jobs / situations . !

Icanstillrecallourlastsummer i found work much easier when dc younger than when they were teens.
Teens can be quite a complex mix... independant yet vulnernable, hormones, exams, peer influence. They are ace . I fee they are wonderful and complex and take more parenting than say 5 year old s.

Costs associated with university students:
Assuming high income family so minimum student loan, parental contribution is expected to be £6,359 per year for students in London (less for the rest of the country). Add in 'doing a big shop' for them at the start of each term (say £200 3x a year), a laptop (£1K once in first year), a shop for towels, duvets, saucepans etc in their first year (£1k) a couple of shopping trips a year to make sure they have a warm coat (£150) and a decent pair of shoes (£150). Then feeding them when they are home in the holidays (£50 per week for 28 weeks). Assuming higher than average costs due to high income family and of course no loss of income due to working PT. So about £11k in the first year at uni and £9K for the second and third year or £800pm averaged out. Which is less than just nursery fees for a toddler.

For our teenagers they get £40pm pocket money (covers all their socialising with friends), £50pm school dinners, £50pm swimming club fees, £50pm second activity, school uniform averages out to £20pm (but all bought in August so feels expensive then), cheap smartphone is bought outright and lasts a couple of years and they have a PAYG deal with minimal data (wifi at home and school) so averages out at £10pm, haircuts £20pm (cut 6x a year), clothes are a mix of charity shops (bought by them from pocket money), hand me downs from family (the advantages of being short), a couple of decent training swimming costumes a year, and trips to H&M with me a couple of times a year. Coats and shoes are the biggest expense but I spend less than £1000 on clothing per teenager in a year so say £80pm (not including school uniform). I don't buy makeup and skincare for them, they buy that out of their pocket money, they use period pants rather than disposable sanitary wear so pennies per month, they didn't get any school trips because of Covid but we'd said back when the eldeststarted secondary that they could do 1 big foreign trip each which would have been~£800 once while at secondary school so that's equivalent to £6pm. Theatre trips 3-4 times a year ~£5pm. Their share of family holidays costs ~£80pm. Assume £160pm on food and we're talking under £600pm which is much less than the childcare costs of a toddler. And I don't think I'm describing a particularly frugal lifestyle, we've got a high income and while there's certain things I won't pay for (iphone, balayage) my teenagers don't feel particularly hard done to. It's a 'bumpier' expenditure than toddlers so you probably feel it more at certain times of the year but it's still much less and of course there's no loss of income due to working PT.

As far as parenting goes I think different parents find different ages easier. I found the preschool years exhausting and there's a lot of mindless drudgery and doing boring activities. My teenagers are helpful round the house, enjoy doing the same activities DH or I enjoy, are doing well at school and have nice friendships. They are a delight and worth the hard work when they were younger.

Well my niece has just gone to uni and it is 10000 for first year accommodation alone. My boss who has put 3 kids through uni, the last one is still there an is average £9000 a year outside of London accommodation- both cases no help financially.

With full-time childcare you have maximum of 2.5 years full payout and you can get tax relief so how does that compare with 3 years of uni outgoings.

Where do you go to the theatre where it is £5 per month if you are going 3-4 times a year? So it is £200 pm for food for the teenager in our family. The allowance is 80pcm. He doesn't have hand me downs as like I said one of their activities is buying secondhand retro clothes, that is something they do in the peer group he is in, a friendship activity that if he only had the basics he'd have no friends. Friendship is very much ann emotional need a teenager requires way more than a toddler. I don't know why people don't get that this isn't about money and therefore can't be discretionary. I don't think the lists of expenses are relevant, suggesting certain expenses for teenagers are discretionary so for example pp said about a teenager baking bread rolls for their lunch for the week, totally missing the point that food and where and what is eaten is a social activity! If these activities are facilitating an emotional need of teenagers they are not discretionary. If we are talking in extremes like that, change your lifestyle as full time child care is ultimately discretionary. Hell, if you think about it, having children is!!

Your accomodation costs are at the top end of London costs and you are not factoring in that the minimum maintenance loan a student will receive is over £6K assuming a high family income.

I'm happy to concede that sending your kid to uni as a high earner is probably more expensive than the toddler years. I must admit I wasn't including that in my thinking as I think that childcare costs are more of a certainty and more consistent than uni costs, which varies so much.

Though to be fair working ft when they at Uni should be totally doable.....

Well my niece has just gone to uni and it is 10000 for first year accommodation alone. My boss who has put 3 kids through uni, the last one is still there an is average £9000 a year outside of London accommodation- both cases no help financially.

It is really not a normal or common expense for parents to pay the full accommodation costs when their teenagers moves away to uni, surely you aren’t arguing that it is?
I only know one single person who didn’t take a loan for fees or living.
Sure if the student gets the minimum loan many parents top it up, however to calculate the full costs of halls and make out it is a necessary parental expense is again a flawed argument.
“No help financially” is not a thing, students even from higher income families are always entitled to a maintenance loan. It might not cover all costs in more expensive cities or accommodation but no parent has to pick up the full cheque.

Most people do not pay full accommodation costs for their kids at uni. I do not know any parents who have done that.

It's pretty typical to provide each uni aged child with 6-8k parental contribution though. Which can be tough if there is only a year or two bw them, just like it is when they are tiny and you need nursery fees.

It's pretty typical to provide each uni aged child with 6-8k parental contribution though.

Is it? None of my friends at uni had parents who could afford that!

That's what's recommended. In practice, of course, parents can afford varying amounts. Although I still find it strange that student finance (for adults) is based on their parents' incomes. As well as parents that can't afford it, some can afford it but just refuse to pay.

There is no way on earth we'll be able to save that much money! We're lucky if we have a hundred or so left each month. And the increase in petrol etc is making quite a dent in everything. We're on about 65 between us, so I suspect we'll be in that position (as always) where we're above threshold, but not comfortably enough to actually spare any money.

I’ve worked since mine were 2 and have been lucky enough to have been able to not have to pay for childcare as my dm helped me a lot, but she has since changed her job so can’t be around as much.

They have now just moved up to secondary school and I am seriously considering leaving my job, although they are more than able to come home and be by themselves, my whole working hours have changed and I’m not usually home until at least 8pm.

I don’t like leaving them and feel it is really unfair that they come home to an empty house, with a plate of dinner on side to warm up and eat by themselves.

Today after school, all the buses had been disrupted due to the Queens procession and they waited almost 45 mins then started to panic as they couldn’t get home, so had to go to a friends house. I need and want to be there for my dc, as a single parent it’s hard and the worst part is their dad lives round the corner from their school yet couldn’t be arsed to go and meet them.

It's not typical at all for people I know. Nobody can afford that.

What is your definition of pretty typical? I certainly don’t know more than 1 or 2 people who got close to that from parents, and one father was a multimillionaire. Ordinary family certainly aren’t giving their children 6-8k a year each for uni.
www.savethestudent.org/money/asking-parents-for-money-university.html

This national student money surgery found that the average amount given from parents is 120.56 a month, certainly nothing like full time nursery fees for most parents of uni students.

I don’t double some parents give their kids thousands, just like some young adults might get £100k for a house deposit but it certainly isn’t the norm.

You clearly don't have a clue, they absolutely are as the maintenance loan is means tested and there is a calculator to work this out, there is the issue of that paying your rent and then the parents providing more as rent is obviously not the only outgoing. I don't really understand your multimillionaire person other than maybe they just refused. It is nothing like when you give hand outs for house deposits, the application for maintenance loans is means tested with your parents' income unless you can prove you have nothing to do with them, like you have divorced them.

Goldenbear telling everyone who doesn't agree with you that they don't have a clue is getting very old - you are not the only parent of teenagers in the room.

This is originally a thread about time not money. If teens are expensive (and they potentially can be money pits) this is a reason to work instead of staying at home - in reality most people are more able to afford to pay for things for their children if they both work than if one parent gives up their salary. This is completely obvious - if the argument is that teens are expensive and that not finding them to the tube of ten plus thousand pounds per child per year is neglect, then both parents of teens in ordinary families will need to be working full-time.

If what teens need is time, requiring the sacrifice of a salary or the restriction of one parent's earnings to whatever can be earned in the hours the teens are at school, then in ordinary families the money will not be there for all the optional extras.

I have three teenagers, so your virtually yelling that nobody but you has a clue is making my eyes roll excessively - there are phases which are expensive, and phases when one or other needs more emotional support, but the time intensive phases do not require anyone to stop working (that's an extremely unusual situation which sadly can happen when children have serious mental health problems or obviously serious physical illness, but it is absolutely outside the normal parenting teens experience) most of the expense could be reduced if actually necessary.

Driving teens around if you live somewhere with poor public transport and where things aren't walkable is a big time and petrol commitment but public transport to school, cycling to sports training and friends' houses, and car pools and lift shares for fixtures further away definitely are the way most families we know do this. We've been involved in football match lift sharing for over twelve years now - it's the only sensible and practical option when three children sometimes have separate matches in totally different locations on the same day!

We pay are paying for the second set of driving lessons now - getting three teenagers through driving tests beginning to end is very expensive BUT we don't actually have to pay for that, we see it as part of their education and "launching" our offspring as competent, self sufficient adults and so choose to be responsible for funding it - if we couldn't afford it we'd cut that expense out though.

Babies and toddlers have to be cared for 24/7/365 and either losing an income or paying for childcare or a mix of the two will cause an unavoidable family budget deficit (whether it's money not earned or money spent it comes to at least £800-1000 per month for the first/ oldest currently under 3 year old with potential temporary "free" siblings in a situation where the parent is caring for multiple children). It is difficult to understand why you don't understand that this is different to funding worthwhile and important but avoidable costs for older teens (and of course university is the very end of the teens plus 20+, most of the teen years are school days not university age, and in reality going immediately to university no matter what isn't actually the right/ most sensible/most long term financially astute choice for many/ most people at 18).

Well said!!

Mic drop 🎤

Well firstly, the thread got derailed by others, not by me. I work full time and have one 15 year old and one pre-teen. When the thread moved on to this point, it was suggested the teenage years are more expensive and if anything that cost has increased for us in our context, in older teen years. Posters of young children (mostly) have argued these costs are discretionary, I would argue that many are not as many are necessary to fulfill the developmental needs of an older child- i.e socialising and education. It is not a like for like situation as those with little children or those with teenagers that don't understand the developmental needs of the teenage years think that meeting friends, having money for record shopping for example or paying adult prices to do a sport activity like tennis, having a bit of food out especially in the winter so they can meet inside, these are necessary sorts of activities, socialising is essential in bringing up a well balanced teenager. Education for us and many people we know and we know alot of people with kids in the teen years or have exited them (so are giving us advice) 'is' an essential cost, it isn’t just university, the cost becomes greater the more important the education becomes for your future so paying out for musical instruments in our case as they are studying music, paying for the sports equipment if that is what is what they are in to, especially if they have a talent which isn't going to be the case in the toddler years unless they are Mozart! School trips are way more expensive than primary years. Logically, the teenage years are more espansive than two intense years of paying out for childcare for toddlers. You can't just dismiss that is irrelevant as it doesn't suit your argument! Ffs university is the biggest cost of teen years, not discretionary for many, essential for setting up your child for a good life which is what most people want for their children.

My point was how far do you take the argument of discretionary costs for teenagers- yes, they could sit on their own in their room night after night, pursuing no interests and having no tech hence using no electricity and eating toddler dinners whilst correspondingly wasting away, I suppose the lack of food would limit their growth so you wouldn't go through adult priced shoes and clothes at a rapid rate. Equally, context is everything, my DS doesn't need driving lessons as we live in a well connected city but he has to pay adult bus fare now and where we live there are no low cost council run leisure centre activities for teenagers, a PP stated that you can pursue karate for teens at their leisure centre for £2-5 - all I can say is, 'I wish!' Equally, my kids go to state school but it is pretty well off area and the school trips reflect that, so the only one we can afford is £800! Others are in the £1000s and you don't get any subsidises on our income. Clubs in school are £40 a term, other parts of the county choir is probably free for example. This is quite apart from clubs outside the school, drama club is £330 a term, if they are pursuing drama at a serious level, what are you supposed to do?

Pp have been very rude and name called me for an opinion which I find bizarre and arrogant as you really aren't living my life or others who are arguing that it is costly!

This is why kids who don't have the best trainers and clothes get the piss taken out of them. Because of parents like you. You probably judge people by what car they drive and it rubs off on your kids. Your quote if it's all you can afford.... I can afford to buy my kids trainers that cost over £100 a pair but I wouldn't because that's ridiculous in my eyes. They want expensive trainers they have them as part of birthday and Xmas presents. Every day trainers are £40 to £50 max

That is a bit of an oversimplified clichéd idea of how teenagers behave- nasty bullies take the piss. For lots of teenagers clothes and your presentation to the world is about belonging to a tribe. My DS annd his friends will got to a market that sells a bundle of retro clothes for £30, they sell individual stuff as well- he tried to recently buy an old Levis jacket but didn't have enough. It was the same when I was younger and I bought clothes that were alternative etc but they still cost money. My DS does have a pair of expensive Nike Airs but it is his overall look and he had those for Christmas. His friends are similar but where that isn't the case no one cares or mocks anyone because they are nice kids.

"eating toddler dinners whilst correspondingly wasting away" Oh the drama.🙄