To think DD should get the rail replacement bus

[WrongKindOfWaterOnTheTrack]

DD goes to college in a city about 40 miles away from our home. Lots of kids from our area do as the college in town doesn’t have a great reputation. The city college also actively recruited, taking DD & the rest of her set to open days to talk about their Oxbridge scheme etc.

the commute is usually about 10 min drive to the station, and about 1h15 on the train. However the trainline is now in its 3rd week of closure due to flooding. This happened last year and actually also earlier this year, and sometimes DD has taken the replacement bus, but she hates it. She says she can’t get any work done, it takes much longer than the train does, & I think she finds the uncertainty stressful (it’s not clear always what times the buses will go or whether there will be space for everyone). She hasn’t gone into college once during this current closure.

It is true that the bus takes even longer than the usual commute would do, and I think she enjoys having time to fit in exercise etc without spending so much time on the commute. She is also conscientious and I think is doing all the work at home. But I feel surely she should be going to college, she can’t miss weeks on weeks of lessons?! I feel when she chose the college miles away, she chose the harder option travel wise & should be committed to the travel…

AIBU?

There's no way I'd be doing that.
And with a service so unreliable i would be asking for a refund on the rail pass.
She's doing the work that's what matters

Read the OPs posts.

It takes 5 hours at least per day to get to college that she can attend online.

It doesn't turn up to a timetable so passengers have to stand around for long periods of time not knowing if it will come, adding even more hours to the commute.

If it does come it can't accommodate all the people waiting, some can't get on and some can't have a seat - for 2.5 hours.

If it does come it may not get them to college in time for the sessions they could have attended from home online and not missed while standing on a bus in traffic.

If it does get them there there may be no way of getting home.

I think your sense of superiority is on shaky ground.

I would far rather have my dc stay home, not miss anything, not be exhausted and use the extra time for extra study.

It teaches young people they can make their own choices and have to deal with whatever consequences come from that. At some point, darling boy is going to have to get up and go to work without mummy being there to scold him in to doing so.

So she's doing all her work and being marked as attending but you would prefer she spend 5 hours commuting every day and still had to do work when she got home instead? That's insane.
I'd just leave her be as you have been doing and let her make her own sensible decisions.

Don’t stoop to that. It diminishes you and your argument.

She’s doing her work. College is ok with it. It’s a possible 5hrs wasted travelling time

it won’t be forever

and with today’s update then even more reason to study at home

She needs to get on the replacement bus. They are annoying, I get it, but I'd personally see it as "training" for adult life. She wouldn't be excused from work because she didn't like the mode of transport on offer.
At the end of the day, she chose the college with a long commute. I think she needs to learn that if you want to make more extreme choices, sometimes they come with harsher compromises.

What a waste of 2 hours there and two hours back ,that is 4 hours studying at home .if the work is on line ,I agree with your daughter,she can get an extra 4 hours studying done in that time , total waste of her time going in .

Equally she will mange to get to work as an adult even if she doesn’t use the rail replacements for college.

Plus it's her choice ..you can't very well make her go in

It's not training for adult life though - that would be realising that the bus is too unreliable and will arrive too late, so you need to make alternative arrangements or agree with your employer that you can wfh.

Standing at the bus stop and waiting for the bus and blaming the bus on your late arrival at work is abdicating personal responsibility

She needs to go, end of.
life is about making choices, and the dealing with the consequences of those choices
right now, she feels it’s optional. How the hell is she going to cope when a job becomes hard or complicated, just not go.

she needs to build some reillence.

I'm just picturing interviewing a candidate for a role.

"You're 20 minutes late."
"Yes, I did leave the house 3 hours ago but 2 buses didn't turn up and the third was late."
"You do know that you were offered the opportunity to do this virtually?"
"Oh gosh no, just because public transport is unreliable doesn't mean I'm going to utilise the available technology to get the task done! You have to crack on and live like it's 1983."
"Right. So, do you have any hobbies or personal interests?"
"Well, not really, college takes all of my time at the moment."
"Really? I can see you're predicted quite low grades for your course."
"Yes, well, some days I don't get in until 11 and by the time I get home I'm so exhausted that I just go straight to bed."
"After an 11-4 day?"
"I choose to spend at least 5 hours a day on the bus so I can demonstrate resilience, it means I'm quite behind on my studying, don't have time to stay fit and well and rarely get enough sleep but at least I can show I have strong moral fibre."
"I think we're looking for someone with better decision making skills I'm afraid, but thanks for coming in."

Personally I don’t think the bus is a reasonable replacement if it’s taking that long. I did a 90 minute commute to 6th form and I honestly was exhausted all the time. I think it damaged my grades.

I do 1hr 15 to uni now and it’s just about ok. But in a bus? I’d be vomiting everywhere.

Most jobs would just let you work from home for the duration of the disruption.

If you have time I would drive her. Year 13 is tough and it’s only going to be for a finite time.

No they would not!

bloody hell - snowstorm of 2010, I walked to and from work for a week. It was 4 miles each way and it took 2 hours. There was not an option to not go in.

i seriously worry about this bloody country.
we are raising people who have no resilience, no aptitude for thinking out of the box, and so centred around one’s own self and comfort - that they have no recognition of who they impact on others.

i bet the bloody teacher has made it in every day!

But what’s extraordinary about it, there is transport to and from her place of learning, it’s not like it’s been cancelled completely, or she is having to make a massive detour. She just doesn’t like the mode of transport. Hardly extraordinary.

The transport isn't suitable though - there isn't enough spaces for everyone that needs it, and it arrives too late - so sessions early in the day will be missed if DD manages to get a place on the bus in the first place.

I'm sure if the bus arrived reliably, had enough space, and got to college in a timely manner, DD would be much happier to take it.

I doubt she expected the trains to be so unreluable for so long though

So if you lived in say Northampton, and worked in Central London, and normally this was a hard and long journey but doable on trains....and the the trains aren't running but they put on a bus, once every few hours, and nothing like the capacity of the train...

You walked because it was 4 miles. Would you have walked if it was 14?

Everyone has a line.

She is not going to build resilience by spending at least 5 hours a day on a bus that may or may not come. She is just going to fall behind on her studies. My employer certainly wouldn't be happy if o i was turning up for work over 2 hours late every day due to an unreliable rail replacement bus.

Well it does take a detour actually - whereas it used to be a train that left once an hour and took 1hr 10 mins, it’s now a bus that takes about 2 hours & is unpredictable about when it leaves or if you’ll get a place on it. The timetable for Monday’s buses wasn’t released until 10pm on Sunday night!

I would actually describe DD as a hard worker, to be fair. She will fly in the workplace. In fact she has a part time restaurant job and they’ve asked her to consider doing her management training when she turns 18.

Tbf, no one would exactly love this mode of transport!

Well - you have answered your own question,