in light of the making a mess thread...teens and full-time work. Am I mad???

[hatwoman]

that thread is both terrifying the pants off me and reassuring me that we are not a family on the brink of complete meltdown likely to only produce permanently fecked-up adults, but that we are, in fact, normal

dds are 10 and 8. so we're not even at the teen stage yet but dd1 is rehearsing for the role already. periodic strops, declarations of hate, and - tbh worst of all - continued niggling rudeness and complaints: we never have enough food in; she's got NO clothes ; all her friends have got xxx; she put her footless tights in the wash a WEEK ago and they're not clean. (this latter complaint is utterly unfounded btw. I verge on being ocd about washing. NOTHING stays unwasked for a week. Just so you know)

I currently wfh, self-employed, totting up about 30-35 hours a week. 2 days a week I pick dds up from school. 2 days a week dh does and I carry on working. 1 day a week dh and I swap and change.

I'm contemplating a career change which entails 2 years of study, followed by full-time office based work. when I start working dds will be in secondary school. dh works away 2 days a week and then school hours only, from home, 3 days. am I mad? will it be very awful?

As long as someone is around most of the time it should be ok which your dh is after school and you will be in evenings. They just need someone to bleat at at that age and the presence is enough, judging from my stepsiblings... The main thing though, is, will you really enjoy the job?

dd1 is 11 and is also intermittently vile, then lovely... etc etc. Not a lot we can do about it though... I posted about it recently and have learn to take the "fuck it" attitude with most stuff and not respond if she's rude. I often think my dd is almost playing at being a cow. She can have an almighty strop over tiny things, like she's just been waiting ALL DAY for an opportunity to storm off dramatically... Then she's fine again...