Dropping and collecting 18 year old to part time work..a mile away.

[aldischristmas]

My 18 year old is still at school.We are in the ROI.She works most weekends for a few hours on Saturday and Sunday.Those hours can be morning or evening but she expects a lift to and from work and is quite nasty when i complain at having to stay up to collect her at unsociable hours.I felt completely justified in saying no when I am not free as I have other kids and am a single parent.She earns plenty so could easily afford a taxi and she also has her Dad closeby, who is pretty useless but she won't even ask him. I was talking to one of my closest friends who then told me that she was changing her entire wekend plans because her own 18 year old daughter needed to be dropped and collected to/from work. AIBU to think this is absolutley ridiculous that our lives are now revolving around our 18 year olds needing lifts to and from work.I am beginning to think that we are our own worst enemies.

The only time I would drive her is if the weather changed and it was pissing it down on her way home in darkness. One mile is NOTHING, a 15 minute walk, or 3.55 mins if you're an Olympic runner. Tell her to get into training.

I would drive her in following in following conditions

Late shift and no public transport option

late shift and Rural road
bad weather
or if called me and not feeling well

When it comes to our teen girls? Alone. Late at night. Yes, I hold my hands up.

I would definitely pick her up and would much rather do that, than wait worried at home for her to get back.

At 18 years old, she's responsible for getting herself to and from work. Don't baby her. She's an adult.

Where’s all this young teenage girls walking miles along rural roads without pavements in the middle of the night stuff coming from? None of that is what the OP has said. It’s a mile. She’s 18. It’s the daytime or possibly evening. They’re unlikely to be very rural because it’s a mile away. Of course she should be getting herself there and back on her own steam. I just walked a mile home from school with my 4 year old fgs.

Very few. Because their parents are picking them up

A mile. 20 minutes walk. 5 minutes on a bike.
18 years old.
For goodness sake stop babying her! I’m sure I wasn’t the only one walking to school further than that at 8 years old , let alone when I was 18- I had a 2 mile walk each way for work, no choice.

Can’t believe the belligerent responses to people’s own children here.

I would drive my lovey 18 year old dd up in those circumstances and I do. She’s neither entitled nor scared nor a dependent baby. She works hard at college (for which she takes a bus) and her work (just over a mile away) is late evening work in a retail park for which there is no direct bus and if she walked or cycled it would be through dodgy areas and isolated streets.

She might be an adult but I wouldn’t let any of my adult children do that if I could easily give them a lift. I love them so why would I be so arsey about it.

A mile - walk or cycle? I might offer a lift after 10pm

UWhatNow - the beligerent responses are in response to the OP saying that her dd is an ungrateful brat about it.

Of course if the context is not suitable, most of us would go and pick up our dds after a late shift.
But if they are rude and stroppy and thankless?
Well then, no.

I think this very much depends on area.
I would have always picked up my own DC as we live rurally. A mile from home where we live is no streetlights, no pavements and single lane roads and a taxi would have to be called from the nearest town so the cost at night would be about £25.

On the other hand my parents would have made me cycle but that would have been late 70s, early 80s.

Are you living rurally on a road that isn’t safe to walk especially at night?
I can understand collecting when it’s dark and late, but other then that why can’t she make her own way there and back? It’s a 15 minute walk.

Your Daughter is an adult Make her be one.

@NumberTheory
One of the ways I would support my daughters in their first forays into work is to make sure they aren’t disadvantaged by feeling unable to work at a particular time or place because they feel it’s unsafe to get home then. And, assuming I could, I would do that at unsociable hours (which is, after all, when they are most likely to feel unsafe).
Getting two busses early in the morning is a completely different choice that I would not be offering support for.

What's the difference? You've just contradicted yourself. You wouldn't give a lift at 5:00am, but you would at 11:00pm.

Why is it unsafe? I wasn't disadvantaged (whatever you mean by that), but my parents let me be independent and learn some adult lessons early on in life and one of those lessons is to get yourself to and from work every day.
You have to take the journey times into consideration when you accept a job offer.

What's the magic threshold where early mornings (in this terrifying 'dark') aren't dangerous, but late nights are??

As another PP similarly mentioned, my in-laws cancel all their plans because their granddaughter might need to be picked up from somewhere.
I have put it to them that she's a 'big girl now' (she's 16 and has a part time job and a college course) and has to learn about getting the bus on her own, cos i don't think she's ever done it!

And my sister in law now has no free weekends, because they spend both days taking their daughter to/from work. It truly baffles me...

I said I’d support them by giving them lifts if they felt unsafe getting to or from work and highlighted that that was more likely late at night. Not giving them lifts because it was a particular time of day.

So if the route is safe at 6am (or 11 pm) they can do it on their own. If it’s risky I’d give them lift, but I wouldn’t give them a lift just because it was unsociable (or 2 busses, or whatever).

Why would you live somewhere where your teenage (and adult?) children are completely dependent on you to get home?

Not everyone can afford to live in places with good public transport, and with shops etc. within walking distance.

Indeed, why does anyone with kids not live in a city? Idiots. It's not like villages, small towns and rural places are also places that families live in. All of you move to London, losers!!

Teenagers are stroppy and thankless. That still doesn’t mean I’d want to abandon her to a risky journey if I could easily take her in the car. That makes me - the older adult - also stroppy and thankless. And a dick.

OP has said that her daughter's workplace is 1 mile away. You don't need public transport (or shops) to travel 1 mile.

Is there something special about London that means healthy young people can manage to walk for 15 minutes?

Teenagers are stroppy and thankless. That still doesn’t mean I’d want to abandon her to a risky journey if I could easily take her in the car. That makes me - the older adult - also stroppy and thankless. And a dick.

1. we still dont know if the journey is risky. Telling an 18 year old to get themselves 1 mile down the road in many circumstances is not 'abandoning them to a risky journey' at all. It is just less nice than a warm car.
2. teenagers may be stroppy and thankless, but in this house they soon get told that if you want the lift again, then you buck up your ideas and stop being an arsehole. That doesn't make you a dick, it makes you a parent, teaching your kids about the right way to behave.

For what it is worth, I am on my 3rd teenager and they have all managed to grasp this basic point, that please and thank you go a long way.
I do pick them up in risky circumstances (quite often actually). They also all cycle and take buses whenever they can to get to work/friends/social life. And don't give me a mouthful of attitude when asking for a lift.

@KettrickenSmiled Why take the risk or encourage young people to take the risk?

It's obviously less safe for a woman or girl to walk in the dark than in daylight. Especially at night when men are more likely to be pissed and act inappropriately etc.

I wish this weren't true, but it is.

Imagine how you would feel @aldischristmas if something bad happened to her because you couldn't be bothered that night to pick her up.