To mums with teens ... have you ever been tempted to walk out?

[teengirlmum]

I've name-changed for this, as I have flaming fear!
I have 3 daughters who live at home; one is in her early 20s and she's a dream. The younger two are 14 and 17, and they are trickier.
I'm in my late 40s, I'm a single mum and I work full-time.
I am struggling with the younger two; I do my best to be a hugely loving, supportive and kind parent. However they're selfish and I really don't get much back. I've tried talking to them about my feelings, but nothing changes.
What I wouldn't give for a hug, uninitiated by me! For one of them to suggest that we watch a film together. Or the offer of a cup of tea.
I'm fucking sad, weary, sick and tired of it all.
I have a fantasy. I fuck off for a few days and leave them to it. Let their bloody father cope with them for a bit (the one my 14 year old threatens to go live with, whenever I call her out on anything).
Has anyone ever done this? I know I won't, as I care too much as don't want to traumatise them, but the thought of them waking up to the situation we're in fills me with a certain albeit morbid sense of glee.
Knowing my luck though, it would have the opposite effect!
AIBU?

For a second yesterday I thought about booking a hotel room for the night.

DS teen hormones and my menopause clashed.

We both apologised in the end.

My DM once told me that when me and my 2 siblings were teens, she faked passing out upstairs, fell to the floor with a bang and just lay there! Not one of us noticed she was missing (to my shame)!

We do laugh about it now but there were many times, through arguments with each other, we made her cry.

Had this for a while with one of mine between 14 and 16/17 and we all get on really well now too!

The adolescent egocentrism stage of development doesn't pass until the late teens, so it is pointless right now trying to get them to think about anyone other than themselves. It will pass though.

@teengirlmum I think there is a lot to be said for modelling looking after yourself and taking time for yourself when you need it. It's such a big change between childhood and adulthood. Apparently there is a lot of 'rewiring' going on in teenage brains.
I tried very hard to stay solid and reliable when my teenagers were whirlwinding around me. Trips in the car when I had them one at a time were the best places for letting them chat while I listened. Difficult when they won't get off their phones though. Try to take nothing personally, and make sure you do get time away. They will press buttons, and you need to spend time looking after yourself and build up your own resilience. Friends with similarly aged children, or better still a little older, can be a godsend! They get it in a way that mothers of younger children can't.
Also, pick your battles!
Hugs and solidarity from one who is out the other side!

You sound like a great mum. You obviously are as the first child turned out great.
Your youngest is being an ungrateful arrogant little shit who needs putting in her place. She is 14, not 25. She doesn’t get to decide or threaten anything.
no doubt she will come crawling back when something happens and she realises the only one who lives her enough to sort it out and be by her 100% is her mum.

This is really sad. The other comments I agreed with as a mum of 2 teens 16 & 14 but this made me stop.
Are you a single mum? Do you have any support? I just feel someone needs to say something to them. Would you tell them how much it hurts you? Although teens do think we have no emotion and just take it all and go to work with a smile.
How old is your other daughter?

Wrt my teens I really try to pick my battles, we have good days and bad days and I know when to stay clear of them. My ds 14 still gives me a cuddle and is quite aware of how I am feeling, so will ask if I am ok and make me a cuppa. Just when I breathe a sigh of relief he won't talk to me for some school based injustice that I am clearly responsible for. He slams doors and gets all moody.

My dd 16 appears to have little awareness of how hard I work and does absolutely nothing to help ever. Teens just don't see their parents as humans nothing you have ever done, or are doing can possibly be as hard as what they are going to through.

To be fair though I do think it is tough to be a teen, so much more pressure than I had and dwindling prospects.

Love the post but also, your username is going to keep me laughing all day!!😂😂😂

I too have this fantasy! Sixteen year old mess making, lazy, cheeky, contrary little dictator resident in my house - I honestly have wild thoughts of bludgeoning her with her own left-at-her-arse Converse! Past three years have been VERY TRYING. It’s been like herding cats. However, slight improvement recently - got herself a part time job and miraculously I am seeing a teeny bit of responsible behaviour creeping in. Also, do yours never have their phone ringer on but call you relentlessly when you do not answer immediately? Grr!

My dd can be awful to me at times, really condescending and nasty for the smallest thing I do. Obviously dh can’t see it as she’s an absolute delight for him.

I used to get really upset about it but listened to something with Mel Robbins - can’t remember if it was a podcast or an audiobook (I have listened to them all after hearing this) - where she was talking about her Let Them Theory. Essentially you can’t control anyone’s behaviour so there is no point stressing about things and making them your problem when they aren’t. So if your child is being snappy or they don’t want to get their bags ready for school the night before or they don’t want to clean their room, whatever they are doing - let them.

It’s difficult to put into practice and it’s not made her instantly wonderful again but I’ve found that I am far less stressed now that I’m essentially ignoring her behaviour. She’s also finding that if she chooses not to get her bag ready for school (and this is the difficult bit), I am not going to break my neck running around to help her, even if it makes her late. I never say I told you so or point out to her that if she’d done what I asked she’d be sorted, I simply crack on with my morning and let her sort herself.

She’s still not perfect, and I do still get snapped at when I dare to remind her of things but I’m finding that the ignoring is really helpful and the situations don’t seem to escalate as they used to. We’re getting on better and I am getting an occasional hug so I’m hoping that my lovely girl is coming back. I’m also feeling very ashamed at what a nasty piece of work I was at this age and how much I worried my poor dm. She’s no longer with us but I often think she’ll be up there pissing herself at the grief I’m getting.

Thanks again everyone! I really am blown away by your kindness.

I hesitantly approached their father recently to say that I was struggling slightly, and could he take them a little more. He has them every second weekend, which is definitely better than nothing, but they don't always want to go there. The 13 and 17 year old share a room (no choice unfortunately), which is just a nightmare, and they have their own rooms at his place.
I never approach my ex for help, so he must have known that my menopausal self was at crisis point!

His reply was no. However he did threaten to keep them full-time and stop my maintenance. It was done in a rather sinister 'think about what you really want' way.

So it was a no to the occasional extra night or two, but a yes to taking them away from me completely.

That is what I'm dealing with here. I don't want them to be with someone as controlling and emotionally unintelligent.

Thankfully my own dad is amazing, and will keep an eye on things if I need to go away. I'm not actually very martyred and am generally quite good at carving time to myself for survival's sake

It's more the constant moaning and selfish attitudes that get me down.

Sorry, 14 and 17 year olds. I promise that I do know my children's ages!

That’s very cruel of your ex. I’m glad you have your dad’s support

BlooBagoo I’m really sorry, you are in a really difficult situation. I’m really sorry your dc’s dad has let you down so badly too. I would really urge you, if you can’t get away, to carve out some time for yourself every single week doing a hobby that you enjoy. And go out with your dh too. I know it’s really difficult when you have a dc with anxiety but if you constantly put yourself last, you can’t do the best for them either as you are pouring from an empty cup. This period is a marathon not a sprint and you need to bolster yourself up to get through it.

My oldest was a nightmare as an older teenager. Violent, abusive, and if he had been a partner rather than a DS, he would have been out of the house and the police involved.
I would fantasise about moving out, would browse studio flats to let. The logistics of my much younger child and dog meant this never happened, but the fantasy was a sort of escape valve.
He's now grown up, moved out and away, and we get on fine. We don't talk about those nightmare years, and there is no way he would move back home now. Youngest DS is now the same age that he was then, and we have none of those problems. He's not perfect: he can be a little lazy and selfish occasionally, but he's very easy to live with - and will always offer to make a cup of tea when he's making himself one.

Hmmm if they did live with him how long before they wanted to move back?

He couldn't dictate where the eldest lived anyway and the youngest would have a say.

Jesus, a lot of the stuff on this thread is appalling and borderline abusive behaviour. It’s also demonstrating an appalling attitude by the young towards middle aged women.

What consequences are there when your DC talk to you like this? If I’d have spoken to DM like this I’d have got a hiding. (And no, I’m not especially old either).

I feel furious on your behalf about your ex op. As if raising teens wasn’t hard enough without him behaving in such an unsupportive and irresponsible manner. What do these useless fathers think they are doing? I can understand you not wanting them to spend too much time with him either.

I hope you can carve out some time for yourself and put yourself first on a weekly basis, even if it’s just for a couple of hours, to do something you really love and enjoy, it’s so important to keep yourself sane and happy. I used to wait and think “that time will just happen naturally when I can do something I enjoy” but actually, in reality, no one else puts you first so you have to do it yourself.

Also, to all the mothers of teens on here who are struggling, that wish to walk out of the door and never come back is a sign that you are not putting yourself first enough. Everyone and everything else comes before your needs.

It’s really important to make sure you are eating right, exercising and getting enough sleep as well as treating yourself to some activities that keep you buoyed up. It is so important. Step back from your teens a bit if you have to and put yourself first. It’s not selfish. Your teens will benefit indirectly. No one benefits if you as a mother are run down and emotionally drained or distraught.

Looking after teens is a tough, emotional marathon. In some cases it’s the hardest part of parenting you’ll ever go through. We mothers need to be in good shape to endure it.

So it was a no to the occasional extra night or two, but a yes to taking them away from me completely

I'd be tempted to call them all out on it

"Girls, you treat me dreadfully, so I'm afraid until you can treat me with a bit of respect, you are going to stay with your dad, as 14yo suggested would be best. I'll see you every other weekend, and we will re assess after the six weeks holidays. We will be sorting this out so that next Sat you stay there"

Fuck em. Fuck the lot of em.

I have vague memories of ds1 being an absolute toad as a teenager sometimes, OP. If it helps, he's 28 now and really lovely. And I think it's like childbirth- the memory of the worst bits fade over time.

But what stands out most is the memory of me calling him a dick one day 😳I don't swear, or call people names as a general rule and it totally shocked him. I said "You're being a real dick at the moment" and his jaw dropped. I think he was about 16 at the time.

He later told me it was that that brought him up short and made him look at himself.

Not saying you should call your DC dicks, obviously- but sometimes the shock of Good Old Mum acting out of character is what's needed.

(Of course, feel free to tell your XH he's a dick. You'd only be telling the truth after all)

3 teens here, eldest girl is 19 and boy/girl twins are 16. Last few years have been really (really) trying at times. They're coming out the other side a little now but still pretty selfish and largely don't consider anything /lift a finger to help out.

And yes, in my experience girls are much much harder work - more drama, more strops, push all your buttons.

I feel you.

I think it’s a real issue today. There’s so much misogyny and ageism present on social media.

Instagram for example is full of accounts where people are talking about narcissistic parents (of which I know there are quite a few sadly) but no one bothers to set up an account saying:

“let’s celebrate my mum who changed me out of 3,500 dirty nappies, did the school every day for thirteen years, washed my clothes and fed me nutritious food for eighteen years, encouraged me in my sport or hobby, hosted my friends, collected me from parties at 1 am when she has work the next morning and went without so I could go to uni.”

No. The world seems focused on how crap mothers are and how many inadequacies they have.

Edited to say: and the way we parent so much more permissively nowadays is much better than ruling out of fear, but my goodness, it makes the teen years so much harder to negotiate and in many homes the pendulum has swung so far that mothers become the person who everyone kicks at emotionally and she is not seen as someone who deserves even a modicum of respect.

Please do try to get some time to yourself. Please don’t send them away to live with their Dad full time unless you absolutely are at the end of your rope. It won’t shock them into not being teenagers anymore and it will just make them feel resentful and abandoned. It’s easy for us as adults to say that’s what they deserve but they are just children really, no matter how grown up they think they are. I say this with the utmost understanding because I have been at the receiving end of some hideous behaviour from my teenagers so I completely understand how soul destroying it is. Try to find ways to take breaks, see friends, go away for a few days in your own. You sound like an amazing mum.

Indeed. The thing is that the misogyny is perpetuated on this very thread with all the ‘girls are worse/drama queens/stroppy’ comments.

Females at every stage of life attract more criticism. I have a teenage daughter; I know how difficult it is. But I also know how difficult it is being a teenage girl (as do we all).

We have parents on here saying their boys are much easier than girls; I can almost guarantee that those girls are not causing drama at school though - they’ve got their heads down trying to avoid criticism/judgment from the boys, while the teachers are mainly dealing with male misbehaviour.

@StandardLFinegan

Excellent post

@GreenAppleCrumble
I think you've taken it a step too far. It's not misogyny to say that teenage girls can be hard work. It's a hard fact. And with respect, life would be a billion times easier with only one. It's teenage girls in their numbers that makes it such a challenge.
I work in a secondary school, with some of the most high tariff pupils there. Back in the day, I'm sure all the girls' heads were down, working hard and avoiding scrutiny from the boys. However I can assure you that some of our most challenging pupils are girls.
Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely fond of them all. And in some ways, dealing with them professionally is easier than dealing with my own kids at home! But it's a myth these days that bad behaviour in class is perpetuated by the boys while the girls look on.