Work and teenagers

[JollySmartie]

I didn't want to derail another thread, but I'm wondering about both parents working full time when their kids reach 12+.
On one hand we read threads asking how at what age can kids be safely left at home, and on another I've just read about a mother being jumped on for not 'just leaving her kids to get on with it' so she can work full time. Kids aged 12-15.

In my experience young teens can get into all sorts of trouble if there isn't a sensible adult around, and so I want to ask what other MNers do with them in the holidays.

It's easier when they are young enough to go to a child care setting. How old are they when this stops? I did a lot of juggling when mine were this age (single mum at the time and with a very unhelpful ex so mostly down to me)

I guess I am asking if I am unreasonable to think it's a lot to ask of teenagers to be totally responsible for themselves and possibly tween-age siblings whilst their parents are working full time.

And what do/did other parents do really. I'm curious but also a bit shocked, especially when youngsters do get into a pickle, and people are all outraged and saying 'where were their parents?!)

Personally, I wouldn't want to leave my teens all day.
But, I can afford not to work full-time.

It is surprising as the narrative is that both parents need to work full time for economic reasons but this really annoys me because it blatantly isn’t true.

Yes, I didn't need to work full time until my eldest was 14 and youngest 10 but that is because we have a small house and we need more room, my DC wanted to take part in clubs that were more serious with proper commitment and corresponding fees and my eldest is 2 years away from uni (he wants to and is very capable so I would think he will go) and we need to sort out savings as we will not qualify for any help with the maintenance loan. Plus my term time job was a waste of my Masters degree and general work experience, it was really dull on the end.

I’m a lone parent to teens: I work 4 days a week with no plans to increase. I work from home most days so am physically present and I like having one day a week in the holidays where I can arrange days out with them or run them around to places. Most holidays apart from the summer when I take 2 weeks off, I tend to spread my leave by taking 1-2 days off most weeks which combined with my weekly day off I’m around a bit more.

Hmm. I don't know.

I know what you mean - these kids are occupied which is good.

But my kids play a lot of support, I'm on the road or pitch side 7 days a week, and often trying to juggle multiple clashing matches or training sessions.

They need bringing there - even when local, sometimes they still need a lift due to weather, other school commitments + time.

And they want you to watch! And I do too, it's there main love in life so I want to support them. But the time it takes! My DC will meet 1 hour before match time, play 1.25 - 1.5 hour match, maybe some additional time, post-match debriefing - it takes hours. And as they take it so seriously there's often the post-match emotions to deal with, or increasingly, injuries.

People don't believe me when I say I spend from 8 - 7 out of the house each Saturday but I do, and only marginally less on Sundays.

You do know that working full time doens't mean NEVER seeing your children right? It's not like they are being asking to live alone. And they are in school most of the time you are working, so we are talking a couple of hours between getting home from school (say 4) and the parent finishing work (6ish?). A secomdary school child should be ok for 2 hrs.

My original post was about the school holidays. There's no need to be defensive. This is a discussion.

I'm not being defensive - what an odd conclusion to reach. I don't have teenagers.

And thanks for the clarification 🙄

School holidays are a bit different, I agree. It's in some cases not ideal to leave a 12 year old alone for 10 hrs every day for 6 weeks. But, again, I doubt this happens much in reality. It's probably a bit of a mix. Especailly with home working.

Or are you just trying to justify being a SAHM with teenage children 😁

They have parents who take some time off to be with them in the holidays.
Go visit relatives
Still do hobby related activities /camps - not daycare but things like choir tour or a cadets camp.
Hang about not doing much
Work
Meet friends.

I am term time only and my teen still goes off to meet friends, so could still cause trouble despite me being home. I dont shadow him around town preventing poor behaviour. I just hope I did enough to make him not behave badly in the first place but my holiday presence isnt much part of that process.

My parents worked full time when both my sister and I were 12 onwards.
We walked (or cycled) home, made jam on toast drank sugary tea, watched Shangalang or Magpie and set the table for tea. By 14 I was prepping the evening meal including a chip pan (it was the 70s). We knew we could go to a neighbour in any emergency. Mum and Dad were home by 5.30pm I recall.

Apologies- i read it with the wrong tone of voice

No, I'm past all that now. As I said, I did a lot of juggling in order to work and be around for my kids. There was less of a working full time ethos in the 90s, which I'm grateful for. But we didn't have any nursery funding so swings and roundabouts. I worked evenings and weekends, and overtime if my mum was available to help.

My thoughts about this were prompted by another thread, where posters were telling the op that she was lazy for not working full time ( or getting a better paid part time job) when she clearly took on the bulk of family life/housework with a FT working DH and three teenagers. In her 50s.I wondered how easy it is to figure out what to do with them in the holidays etc. And also, but perhaps for another thread, just get a corporate job to earn more money.

I've been gainfully and happily employed/self employed, all my adult life, but I'd be hard pressed to stroll into something totally different to my current work in order to earn more money as well.

I don't think it is just being able to work at home, if I had to work 9-5 it would not be much better. It is also being able to work anywhere and also being able to work at anytime. I could work 6am-10am, go out with them and their friends for the day and then come home and work 7-11pm. Then the next day work 7- 7 and the day after that just check a few emails. Having that flexibility means I can work around their plans and they are generally also quite happy to have some relaxed / revision days. I still do lots of hours, it is just on my schedule.

On an average school holiday day my teens get up at lunch time and then head out with friends for the afternoon and I only hear from them before dinner time if they want a lift home. Or (in holidays before exams) they would be studying or (in holidays after they turned 16) they would be picking up extra hours at their part time jobs.
Not much advantage in having a parent at home.

Not at all, it's just that sometimes people forget that working isn't always a choice and that we aren't all 2 parent families. I'm not working for extra luxuries, I'm working to pay bills.

I think what's tricky about teenagers as they can REALLY need you, but you never really know when that's going to be. Often mine REALLY need me (to have a chat about something serious) at 11.30pm 😴

I like being around for mine, and am lucky to be able to work flexible hours and from home half the time so can do regular checking in, and just being around. I want to have some eyes and ears on the ground so I can ask questions and have a general feel of what's going on.

They are left a fair amount though, I do want them to have space to learn to look after themselves and have privacy, we live somewhere very accessible so I am not too often a taxi, though I welcome taxi opportunities as that's when you get the best chat!

I have no guilt or issue with working less than full time hours (though self employed so varies a lot) I think doing all the home stuff including being around for kids is valuable and due to our set up I am not missing out financially compared to my partner.

Its such a culture difference between being employed and self employed, I don't really have to consider a career path or promotion, or being "seen" to put in the hours etc etc the way I would in an employed job.

In my experience my teens have actually needed me around more than when they were little-or needed someone around more anyway and it's not like you can just pop them off to a childminder anymore.

Dd1 is sensible and would be fine practically but she doesn't actively enjoy being on her own and she likes to have me kicking about. She was fine to leave from the age of 13 and I did out of necessity whilst I worked but she felt a bit, I don't know-hard done by maybe?

Dd2 (16)is a more troublesome-poor mental health, (following a serious assault a year ago)likes a drink, likes a boy-I wouldn't feel happy leaving her for any length of time longer than an hour or two on a regular basis.

So it depends on the teen I guess

Continuing to read with interest but not had time to respond. I will look at the link you posted @karmakameleon Thank you for that. What you say about it aligns more with my own experience, but I'll read it properly when I get the chance

What kind of pickles are you imagining the teens getting into? They're on school most of the work day then have the holidays I suppose. But parents would normally have a bit of annual leave. Again it bit the full day either just until evening. It's nit like if you have to work you don't see the kids.

It was the school holidays I was thinking of mainly. And I don't need to imagine too much: I had a 14 year old who got into a 'wrong crowd' for a while and got stopped for underage drinking (while I was at work) for example. We're not in a particularly rough area but there was a stabbing when two gangs set up a fight ( we weren't involved fortunately, but it wasn't my imagination)
I don't know, also perhaps the potential of kids being groomed online, and maybe meeting someone unsafe.
I know these things can happen with parents about too, and previous posters have said how they handle the holidays, which has been interesting.
Again, back to thread i referenced, it was the attitude that three teenagers aged 12 up should just get on with it. I think based on many replies here, it can be more complicated than that

I found it really tricky when dd started secondary school, she was quite an immature 11/12yo and didn't like being on her own in the house.

I ended up changing my working hours so I could be home a bit earlier and then got a different job so I could work from home some of the time.

Teens ime knock all other parenting stresses out of the ball park and my dd has needed me over the last few years more than ever before.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

They dont need to be left alone all day to do that.

Are your teens supervised 24/7?

There are more reasons to work than financial.

It'd depressing as fuck that women are still disadvantaged and judged for having a career even when their kids are in their teens

When we didn't have the luxury of DH WFH, and my kids were tweens/teens, I did what my mother did with me.

Gave them a list of expectations as to what they'd get done in the day, free rein on TV and books, let them know there'd be merry hell to pay if I found out they'd been getting into mischief, stocked in their favourite foods and drink, and left them to it. I'd ring a couple of times during the day to find out how they were getting on, and if they'd killed each other yet, and that was that.

I loved those days as a kid, and my kids did as well, we knew it was a privilege to be so entrusted.

It very much depends on the kids. Mine were the type that if you pointed them at a book, and filled the snacks cupboard, moss would grow on them. Not for the whole of the holidays, obviously.

I'm a single parent and my dc are 11 ( year 6 ) and 14 ( year 9). I work full time as a community nurse but am often in from 4ish as I finish off doing my admin from home. In the school holidays I either take AL when I can ( decent entitlement 33 days plus bank holidays ) and then the younger one might do some days in a football type club, or they both stay home from this year with me bobbing in and out in-between my visits. I don't have any choice but to work full time though.

My eldest is 12 and I feel like this year he’s aged out of sports camps etc. which are p1-p7 generally here. To be fair he didn’t want to go last year either but felt too young to be left for a whole day. We are rural so he could stay home or if friends are about I could drop him at local leisure centre and prebook squash/ badminton/ basketball, mooch into town for lunch and swimming but Im half an hour away in an emergency.

It is tricky knowing what to do. Im taking two and a bit weeks off, ex has got two weeks so that leaves 8 working days to cover. I was wondering about a PGL thing for one week and then swapping with other parents for sleepovers/ day.

It takes a village etc.