Teen strop this morning - Am I being unfair?

[leyla1985]

Teen DD 16 wants to go and see her friend today as they are doing a secret Santa gift exchange. Friend lives 30 mins drive away, so 1 hour round trip if I take her.

She has the option to get the bus, she doesn't want to. I've said I'm happy to do one journey but don't want to do both, ie I'll take her but not doing pick up (or vice versa). She's upset and annoyed with me, asking why I can't pick her up later.

The options I've presented to her are:

1. I'll take you there and you get the bus home later
2. Get the bus there and I'll collect you later
3. I'll take you there and you can wait for DH to finish work later (9pm) and he will collect you (he works nearby to friends house)
4. Stay overnight at friend's (has been offered by friend).

She's rejected all of those. She wants me to take her this afternoon around 2pm and collect** her a couple hours later around 5pm. She says 9pm is too late for DH to bring her home, she doesn't want to get the bus, and doesn't want to stay overnight.

AIBU to not do both trips? That's 2 hrs out of my day when she could just as easily do one of the other 4 options. Is she being stroppy and unreasonable here or am I mean? 🤷‍♀️

Ha, I used to have this with my soon to be 16 year old. She learnt pretty quickly not to ask me a third time once I'd laid out her options, as she knew that she'd be going nowhere.

Well there you go. Your imaginary time, your imaginary petrol, your imaginary choice. Most other people think the teen has been offered a number of acceptable real life options which don’t involve her mother spending hours of her day ferrying a demanding and ungrateful child about.

I actually agree with you

When they are old enough to get other methods of transport on their own.

It's great for building up independence

I would have offered one way, as op did. No way would I do two round trips of an hour each within a relatively short period of time.

My eldest was due to get picked after a day away at a football match. Roughly 40 minute round trip for me. No problem, as that's what was arranged. He phoned me to say he had checked the bus times and just got dropped off at the bus stop as the bus was due in 5 minutes and it would save me having to come get him. He can be a typical teenage brat in some ways but is also independent enough that he can think about others and the time/cost of journeys. Especially as we are in Scotland and he gets free bus travel.

I would say to get the bus there while it is light, but would pick her up after dark for safety reasons. Or alternatively stay the night which is what mine used to do all the time when they were this age.

I think she is being an entitled brat tbh.

She’s trying it on assuming you’ll give in for an easy life (and an easy one for her too!). Just ignore her, she has viable options she can take.

I wouldn’t if I had more in my life than running my kids round.

@leyla1985 offer to pick her up. Otherwise she will let you take her there ‘then miss
the bus back’. Don’t do both.

You are not being unreasonable at all. Stick to your guns and let her getbonnwith her strop. Go and do something nice for yourself!

I found when my DC were this age, they had no thought for the journey I was doing alone.
Don't do it.

Well if your that easily amused @Blueberrymuffin03 Mumsnet must give you no end of joy

🤣

We live in a semi rural area too and the busses are rubbish. They do try to use the buses - but several of the places they go aren't even on a bus route and even the buses that there are don't run reliably. Realistically - if my teens want to go anywhere their only real option is for me to give them a lift. It does get annoying sometimes when I spend too much time driving them about. I do try to restrict it - but the alternative is that they don't go out. And after 2 years of them being shut ins during Covid (It's left them both with issues about socialising) to be frank I'm mostly happy to seem them going out and about with mates like normal teenagers again.

You’ve been fair and she’s being tricky. I’d have offered to collect her so she’s not coming back in the dark. Ask why she doesn’t want to catch the bus one way, if she gives a glib answer just keep asking.

Update: currently sitting outside the house - it's been 2 mins and counting 😂

Good job for achieving a peaceful compromise, however I am on your teen's side. You have chosen to live semi rural. It comes with the commitment to drive them around.

I think your compromise is totally fair, as in fact were the original options, but I freely admit that I'd have taken and dropped my DS1 both ways if I wasn't doing anything else and if he asked me to. I don't think a 30min drive is far at all, and I've have my DS's company for two of the trips, which to me would be a bonus (he's shut up in his room most of the time lol).

Have you agreed a maximum waiting time? I'd have suggested 10 minutes then leave her there.
I think you've been more than fair.

Tell her that's her option end of. If she's not happy don't go. You've been more than fair OP. Xxx

Not unreasonable at all. She can suck it up

You are not being remotely unreasonable but my DH is like a PP and happily ferries the kids around all day just so he can spend time with them. He will leave work if necessary to take them anywhere they want. They have far less luck with me.

@Blueberrymuffin03 how do children learn independence if you ferry them everywhere? Also once DS passes his driving test I will be expecting him to give us lifts once in a while

God, those teenage years were insane weren’t they?! Such strong feelings about EVERYTHING.

My time is coming with a just turned tween. I learned this on Monday when she accused me of treating her like a SLAVE because I asked her twice, within 30 mins, to go put the top back on her toothpaste tube and pick her dirty clothes off the bathroom floor!

She is 16, not 6.

in winter, all kids go to and from school in the dark.

Yanbu.

I'd have suggested bus there and you'll collect her because then she's not travelling home in the dark by herself.

However I've often taken my ds longer distances like that and found something nearby to do rather than come home and go back if it's just for a few hours - but I wouldn't do it unless I made that choice to!

I would take her and collect her, don't know what the big deal is...