Taxi service for teenagers

[Bleakmidwinter1977]

Frustrated with this situation. We have 4 older teens who we encourage to be independent. We have good public transport where we live, both buses and trains, and its a generally "safe" town, with low crime rate.
Eldest son (17) has GF (18) who is ferried everywhere by her parents: college, gym, friends houses, and back home again. She is one of 2 siblings. I have no issue with what her parents do for her, that's their choice, only DH has started mirroring their behaviour and has started going out of his way to offer not only DS lifts everywhere, but his GF lifts home from ours.
It's driving me insane. They both have feet and it takes them no longer to organise making their own way between venues than it does for an adult to take them here, there, everywhere.
Both are currently taking driving lessons, GF will be given a car when she passes, so will be "independent" at that point. DS will save for his own car and expenses.

I'm disgusted that DH accepts knowing his dad has enough on his plate.
I think it's a typo given the rest of the sentence and she's disgusted at her 17 year old for accepting the lifts. I can't see many teens saying no to lifts and this reaction to a teen being thoughtless and accepting what their father is offering feels a bit over the top to me.

I have absolutely no idea @MrsBennetsPoorNerves . I queried that too up thread.

Dd was quite independent early in secondary school - she taught half her class how to get the bus from school to the Westfield equivalent locally in 1st year.

She will quite happily get the bus or train, or cycle, many places.

But she is a hockey player with a massive gear bag (goalie) and as she improved, got her own(rather than school) gear, moved up the club teams and got onto provincial and now national teams, she had to get ferried around more and more. Gear needed to go into school and come home far more often, and as she does evening study to 10pm, DH is happier to collect her than have her walking at that stage.

So from around 15 to just turned 18, he was a massive taxi driver for her.

But she worked really hard on driving lessons and getting test dates (a neighbour is waiting more than 2 years just to get a date - she played the system and did her test within 8 weeks of being untitled to). And having passed, and now having access to my car as I have had to travel overseas for work - DH is off the hook except for petrol money as needed (frequently!).

I expect that she will go back, mostly, to cycling into the city for her summer job, as she did last summer. But if she drives, she will be paying for petrol and parking (and it will be because she's dashing to cycling training and events in the evenings).

I used to think it weird when I was a teen and some friends were given lifts to and from nightclubs, gigs etc by their parents. I guess my family never owned a car so it was alien to me not to use public transport since a toddler.
If DH is OK with doing this, then let him I suppose. As long as he's not doing it to get out of more meaningful tasks at home. You could tell him son and GF must pay for petrol? It won't be for long as they'll be driving soon. Your son's GF might end up being the one doing all the ferrying.

Is it that op is worried that husband has taken a shine to the girlfriend and is leaving himself open to something being commented on or something happening that's inappropriate? I did tend to give lifts as long as needed as when you have busy teens and reclusive teens it can be the only time you see them. But it feels unbalanced for this op. I think it's about the girl.

If there are good public transport options then they should be using those rather than encouraging car dependency and adding to pollution and congestion. Using the car when there are other, better options is just lazy.

You think she believes that her DH has a crush on his son's girlfriend? Blimey, that's fucked. She has much bigger problems than the lifts if that's the case!!

But she seems to object to the ds getting lifts as well, so I don't think that's the issue.

I’m ok to give lifts if there’s strikes, exhaustion, illness, darkness.

I think this time is precious. Giving lifts is one of the few times that my children talk to me properly, and it passes in a flash once they start driving.

If you don't want to be "stuck at home doing everything else" why don't you start offering some lifts too? Then DH can stay at home and do the other jobs.

My parents always gave me lifts at that age and I still appreciate it now. I remember my first job started at 6am and my dad used to get up to drive me so I didn't have to walk two miles alone in the dark.

Sometimes it's just nice to be nice. It's not babying someone offer them a lift and help them out when you can.

I’m also on the fence. DH is a “I’ll give lifts anywhere anytime” kinda person, I’m more of a “I’ll give lifts with enough notice, but not if there’s a reasonable alternative” kinda person. So I’ll happily give a lift to the train station with a bit of notice, but I won’t drop everything to take them to their final destination as soon as they demand it. And we live quite remotely.

We have 3 teens and one at 21. Eldest can’t drive due to a medical issue. Next eldest can drive and has a car. Youngest two are learning to drive, one has his test booked for a couple of weeks.

Eldest is a bit entitled at times. He took a job 80 miles away but still expects to be taken there and picked up (he stays away in the week). DH won’t entertain him having to get (shock, horror) a BUS from his accommodation, then a train home. That irks me a bit, but I also can’t really blame DH because he has had medical episodes before when travelling alone and would rather he wasn’t alone, so I’ve come round to the idea.

Youngest last night called DH and asked to be picked up in 10 minutes (just as we were taking the dog for a walk, at the same time we do every evening). DH initially said yes but I pointed out the dog needed walking and that’s our only bit of peace together, and we’d already planned to do it. DS was then most put out that DH said he’d have to wait until we got back, so DS rang his sister (who didn’t answer) then his grandparent (who picked him up). In that scenario he could easily have planned ahead and it wouldn’t have been an issue, but the expectation that he gets a lift at the drop of a hat is a bit annoying!

It sounds from your post though OP that it’s not the giving of lifts that’s the issue, it’s the fact your DH is prioritising his kids over you. If you’d enjoy being out of the house with the kids, why don’t you do the lifts and leave him at home?

I think kids feeling that they're entitled to lifts is a very different scenario to parents who voluntarily offer. I'm aghast at the idea of a 21yo who expects his parents to do regular 160-mile round trips to pick him up.

That's not how it works in our house at all. I do give a lot of lifts but dd never expects it or takes it for granted, and will get to where she needs to go under her own steam quite happily if she needs to.

The moment she started to feel entitled to a free taxi service would probably be the moment that I chose to stop tbh.

Oh my bad. I assumed they were all little.

I do very much care about how my DD's get home. I can't ferry around late at night because I can't really afford the extra fuel for the car. I also work shifts and often have less than 12 hours between finish & starts so I need to rest. I'm acutely aware that later this year DD will be living alone in a city and I've got to get a handle on the worry.

You might be right that some of them are little. The OP originally said 4 older children but someone else has pointed out that there are apparently 6 children altogether, so we don't actually know the ages of the younger two.

I do understand that, if you've got that many children, you're not going to be able to parent in quite the same way as parents with just one or two kids. It's inevitable that you won't have the capacity to do as much for each individual child, so the OP and her DH probably need to negotiate and agree what is going to have to give in order to keep all of the different plates spinning. Whether giving lifts is a part of that mix or not depends on what else needs to be done and how they want to prioritise.

you just sound annoyed that DG is getting out the house and you’re not - grow up. If you want to go for a drive then put your big girl pants on and go for a drive.

I also have 6 kids, 4 are teens. I give them lifts all the time. Granted, buses are crap where we live and stop at about 6pm, and going anywhere other than the town centre involves 2 buses. They don't insist I do it though, and it sounds like OPs kids don't insist either. They can and do get public transport regularly too.

Surely this is part of being a parent?! I'll never understand people who have kids and then moan about parenting.

I never learned to drive and have managed to get myself everywhere by public transport my whole life, teen DS does the same. We live somewhere with 24 hour bus services though for this exact reason (not London!) DS is planning on learning to drive himself though (he's just 16 so a year to go). I won't bother myself. In my close friendship group, only 1 out of 5 of us learned to drive and we're all in our 30s.

@Bleakmidwinter1977 I see from another if your posts yesterday that your DCs are 6 and 8 whilst your step kids are the 4 older teens.

Perhaps when your DCs are that age you might have a different view - 17 can seem very old when your kids are only 6. When they reach that age, you find that they need their parents just as much, but find it hard to ask. Being in the car together is one of the best ways of connecting with older teens - most find it much easier to talk in this situation. Perhaps check with your DH to see if he is worried about his DS?

Ah. That explains a lot!

If you can and want to, do it. If not, you know the anwer.

You'd love nothing more than to go off on a jolly drive every evening with a child of your choice?

Well why don't you offer to give the lift then instead of your DH? Sorted.