AIBU to think no one warns you life with teens is tiring

[Blendiful]

Lighthearted but..

You know when your kids are younger people warn you how tired you will be, but no one prepares you for being equally as shattered when they are teens!

In a perfect world I need to get up at about 6am to be able to go to the gym (something I enjoy for me), walk the dog, eat a decent breakfast.
Working full time now the kids are older. Throw into this endless tasks for school, washing, food shopping for the bottomless pits, trying to provide a decent diet 75% of the time. Ferrying to friends/work/college/partners houses/social events some of the time when they can't get themselves there or I'm feeling generous or transport/timings won't work x2 for the amount of teens.

Messages about things forgotten/asking for help/advice about various things. Trying to spend some time together, chasing up homework/course work etc.

Then ideally I need to be in bed by 9pm to get a decent nights sleep, but I have to partake in a fight for the bathroom (we only have 1!) and the teens don't go to bed until later than this! Add in toilet trips/sneaking downstairs, nighttime wandering from the eldest and it can often be 12 before I can drift off.

I am tired! I thought I would be in the stage of doing less and enjoying more now, but it doesnt seem on the horizon.

As I said, lighthearted. I love them and realise some of it I could just leave them to it, but they are both ND and so need that bit of extra support or things just don't get done/get missed or get worse.

Anyone else with teens in this stage and waiting for a good rest

We're not there yet (DD are 10 and 12) but we live in a city and I do hope my kids will not need ferrying around constantly - sometimes, yes, of course. DD 12 has ASD but is learning to get around independently and take the bus. I also wouldn't be letting them do so many activities that it caused stress for DH and I. But easy to say, I suppose, before it actually happens!

I once found a huge pile of my son’s dirty hoodies stuffed by his bed. Filthy with toothpaste stains, food etc. That was a terrible day.

Needless to say, I made him wash them all. I can handle one hoodie and one pair of jeans in the family wash. Any more and they need to do a load themselves.

People often say London is an awful place to raise kids. It’s been a dream for us. Our kids were taking the bus and tube to friends’ places, shops etc from age 12/13 onwards. So we never needed to be a taxi other than occasionally after a big night out when my husband would pick them up from the tube station.

I sound smug but I found the teenage years easy, we moved to an area with really good buses and they each had TV XBox and or PlayStations in their bedrooms. As long as there was plenty of pasta and anything with melted cheese available life ran pretty smoothly, I have three boys.

Well, maybe your friends lived in the same town because you went to school in your local town?

My kids commute 40+mins to their 6th form college in another town, where their friends commute similar distances from other towns/villages, often with only the one ‘school’ bus at 8am and 5pm. This means if they find somewhere equidistant to meet for the cinema/pub they are all commuting via inconsistent - non-existent at weekends - bus services and trains that are continually cancelled or on strike. Blame the unions, the conservatives, the CoL crisis, the war in Ukraine… whatever. But there is no longer an infrastructure that supports teens getting around easily on their own. And at £60/hr for driving lessons (and an 8m wait list to get those where I live), there are few alternative options that DadCab or Dial-a-Mum.

So it’s lovely that wherever you grew up you didn’t need to do this, but it’s not what many teens have to contend with nowadays.

It depends where families live. The UK has pretty awful public transport other than in London.

My 13yo gets herself everywhere, she and her 12/13yo friends even took themselves on a trip to Disney recently. We are in a city where PT is very good though. I appreciate it’s hard in most of the UK. And bus services have really deteriorated in the past 30 years. Driving lessons and insurance seem to have massively increased in price in the past few years.

@FinchontheAtticus
My dd gets the train to and from school and is fairly independent. Her sport means they have to arrive pool ready and not allowed to change after (all since Covid). I wouldn't fancy getting a bus/train there in a swimsuit and dry robe and then a return journey wet. Plus when sessions end at 9pm she needs to get home quickly to shower and get ready for bed.

It is important though to remember that many of these issues are optional with teenagers. I might choose to pick my dc up and let them practice driving home rather than make them wait an hour for a bus, but if I was not available they would be fine to navigate home alone and social services would not care. I choose to sit and watch what they want to watch and have a chat with them. I choose to discuss career options and test them for an exam. Feeding, cleaning and supervising a young child is not optional.

I never understand people who make wildly inaccurate and ridiculously stupid assumptions that everyone lives near their friends or somewhere where there is plentiful public transport.

Is it beyond your imagination to understand that some of us live in villages without bus services between them and with roads without pavements or street lighting?

DD caught a bus to school - a school bus because there was no public transport to the school.

Not everyone lives where you lived

My mum didn't drive and my dad worked long hours so I used thr bus/tube/walked to most things (school/college/shopping/concerts etc)
but I grew up in a London suburb with plenty of cheap public transport and accessible places. And I had a sibling close in age to travel with

My own DC are fairly independent but i do collect from parties or from town if its late as I don't want DD to walk back on streets with no streetlights

Its the food. The constant buying, planning, cooking of food. Presenting the food. Making sure it is optimally healthy for exams etc. If I do not do it, they do not do it.
The exams. The revision.

The asking for something to be done (shower etc) 20 times before it is done eventually at midnight.

It is the emotional drain. This is constant. Prediction of potential problems or issues. Constant.

I am EXHAUSTED (53, 16 yr old and she is very independant and sweet but exhausting but I am doing it all alone.)

@BlackStrayCat totally agree about the food....one of my teens is a gourmet with the highest possible standards, will even ask me how I seasoned her steak to make sure it's correct 😂My other is very into healthy eating. I'm always in the supermarket and feel like I'm running a restaurant most days

We live in the countryside with limited public transport and therefore we see it as our job to give lifts, just like we made sure we paid for our oldest to learn to drive when he was 17. It’s almost necessary where we live. Not everyone lives where there’s good public transport or close to kids friends. We can’t even see our closest neighbours house from our house.

I don’t see giving lifts as a big deal though. People are listing things on here as stressful about teens and I just don’t feel that way. Food shops, meals, lifts, helping with schoolwork etc, I don’t get stressed by them.

People are listing things on here as stressful about teens and I just don’t feel that way. Food shops, meals, lifts, helping with schoolwork etc, I don’t get stressed by them

I find them relentless rather than stressful

@Comedycook Yes! Exactly. No sandwiches for lunch like I used to have etc.
Always some home cooked delight. (I blame Masterchef and myself for making her watch it)

They seem very health conscious these days. But the hunger, from dawn to midnight. It is so, so expensive. I liked cooking, now it is a chore.

I often don't cook now. We do eat family meals together regularly and they are great to talk & connect, but if I don't feel like cooking I don't and the girls sort themselves out. There is food available and they need to know how to cook for themselves sooner than later.

Its a huge change after the relentlessness of cooking for younger kids.

Luckily everything in our town is 10-15 minutes away so the taxing isnt too bag - yet!

I am a bit more tired but that is more because I'm old with teens rather than the teens themselves.

DS (16!) called me at 8h15 am (so already 5 minutes late) this morning saying that he lost his uniform trousers, I told him that it must have been hard walking from school pant-less🙄. For the last 4 years I have always put the shirt with the pants, apparently he couldn't see the pants today 🤦🏼‍♀️. It is HARD!

Relentless then. I don’t feel that way and have found teens easy as have most of my friends. I think lots of people do and that’s why OP hasn’t had people warning her how hard the teen years were.

From when my kids hit 14 ish, they have cooked once a week and done things like put a wash on if necessary, walked the dogs etc. They clean up after themselves as I always expected them too.

Yes, 13 until about 6 months ago I was fine. My DD does all that. But:
GCSEs and I have most definitely hit a wall.

and do not mention the Prom.

Do you also work FT ?

I don't think I find it more relentless than being with a toddler but like @Fluffypiki we had a frustrating school trousers drama last week (how can you lose them?) and lots of huffing/sighing/eye rolling when asked multiple times to do something outrageous like put some washing out or hoover 1 room. If I ask them to go to the shop for something they want (about 15 min walk) you'd think I'd asked them to scale everest! 🙄

the Prom!!!

DD took it upon herself to find a prom dress - I was very proud. She chose 3 and I agreed they could go on my CC and we would return 2 (or 3) if unsuitable. All good. Her first choice fitted and was gorgeous & I went to return 2 that were too big - only then did I discover that the dresses were all from USA and I had to pay £18 to DHL them back to USA.

We live and learn - turns out there are many overseas sites selling into UK, where it looks like they are UK based/priced in pounds etc. Need to pay atteniton to the fine print. So my cost, but DD has learnt more abot internet shopping I guess. Plus she has picked a gorgeous dress so that jos is done.

Her Dad is covering the shoes - so thats his pain not mine :)

I just have now to source an acceptable "clutch" 😂

Very similar experience re:dress!

This is one of those threads with short-sighted people saying, it don’t happen to me so it can’t happen to anyone.

We live in London and sometimes go on trips to beautiful parts of the country. We look at houses down country lanes which are off country lanes which are off country roads and think, how on earth could teens socialise here without parent taxis? Of course teens who can’t drive need parental help. Decent parents will ferry their teens to places or bus stops so they can meet friends and have a social life. It’s an unavoidable reality for many.