Thread 41 Corona Cohort - Autumn Adventures of our Adult Children

[CinnamonOrangeCremeBrulee]

This is a support thread for our young adults post GCSEs 2020, regardless of their educational setting, and their results ( or life updates for those who went into work or have had results earlier). It is respectfully requested that all are supportive and helpful to each other. If you want to start a debate, e.g state vs private, uni vs employment please don't within this thread.

Some of us have been here since first thread back in yr10, some will be new. Everyone has been friendly and helpful in the past. Everyone is welcome. It is hoped this will continue. We were previously on the secondary board and then further education, now we shall be here in 'Parents of Adult Children' gulp

Our DS/DD may continue down various pathways ( employment, apprenticeships, higher ed). Be warned there might be lots of 'Uni Freshers' chat this time of year. My experience is that everyone is welcomed wherever, whatever their child is doing we have some in work, gap years , apprenticeships etc too. Lots of contributors with different experiences and always sympathy and support to be had !

previous thread

Dd has always had that approach to life - make sure you've got a friend who's organised/in the know and rely on them for information!

Hmm, I'm that friend/colleague and it can get wearing. DH totally does this to me (he is, I think, severely dyslexic, possible ADHD, won't get assessed) and it is a cause of friction as he does it instead of developing his own coping strategies.

Yes @EerilyDevilled dh does that to me too. I think dd is attuned enough to know it would be annoying if it was always the sane person but she’s got a huge network of people to ask! To be honest, she’s not too bad at organising herself really, I think it’s just taking the easy option.

At home or out in the car though, it does annoy me how the whole family expects me to know things just like that! We can be in a new holiday location and they’ll assume I know where the bins on the site are located or where the vacuum cleaner is automatically!

I think it is worse in a 1:1 situation like a husband/wife or I have also had it with the person at the next desk at work at times. I'm definitely the go to person for info in one group chat I'm in too. But short term it is fine and if the organised person is also a bit shy it is a good way of initiating friendships.

And yes, I often want to say to DH "how the F* would I know" when he asks me something random like is there a farmer's market in town this weekend, sometimes even if I do know I pretend I don't to just to make him go and google it (obviously not with anything really urgent/important).

Yep, I can definitely relate! And I think my helpfulness over the years has made a rod for my own back… I quite like researching things and planning stuff in advance, hence the expectation that I will just know… pretty much everything!

Very similar here - in fact we both have colds at the moment (DS's parting gift) and DH asked me earlier to bring him a covid test, which I did. Then he said, "I'm not sure I can remember how to do this 🥺" as he took the instructions out of the box and carefully set them aside. I just looked at him and he sighed and said, "I expect I'll work it out -sniff-"
He doesn't have a dressing gown of doom, but he is sitting on the sofa wearing his coat 🙄

It sounds like we’re in danger of setting up a Support Group For The Pathologically Helpful here 😂 It’s amazing how quickly people work out that I’m the person who just knows stuff.

DD is not. She admitted at the weekend that getting the train home will be daunting as she always just follows people around, e.g. on her group holiday in the summer. But she’ll have no choice so she’ll do it. She’s actually pretty good once she’s got no choice but to do it herself.

@singingstones dh was the same last week when he took a covid test! Except he didn't even look for the instructions..

I am also the 'person who we expect to know everything and where everything is' in our house. I do think this role falls to the default parent in almost all cases. @EerilyDevilled I also now pretend not to know when I do.

I also pretend not to hear when DH shouts to ask me where utensil x is, when I am upstairs and he is in the kitchen, where said utensil will be either in the drawer or the dishwasher.

Ds2 is awful at finding his way around. When he first passed his driving tests he had to put the postcode in google maps to take him to the train station to go to football. I'd been dropping him at the train station for years....not regularly, but quite often. It's literally up onto the main road, first left, all the way to the very end of that road (about 2 miles) left again and the train station is on the right. So not a complicated city journey as we live in the countryside. I couldn't believe he didn't know the way. But he says he has never really watched where I was going. Apart from his journey to school he needs a satnav for anywhere else.

I like to be organised, check routes etc before going somewhere, I like to write lists too. Dh is even more organised almost military. He also has to leave somewhere at a set time...if the dc's weren't ready he would start yelling, making trips out very stressful with young dc's, especially with ds2 who is never in a hurry to do anything. DH is also the only one I know who will start worrying when someone hasn't sent him their bill after a week, like a mechanic or plumber. He will phone them up and ask for it. Then when the bill arrives he has to write a cheque immediately and take it to a post box. He can't cope with ds'2's attitude of "later" Ds1 always leaves doing stuff too. I think ds3 is quite organised.

DD got lost on several occasions walking home from school - a 20 minute walk down a long straight road. I wish I was joking...her sense of direction is so non-existent we've mentioned it on the PIP form.

DS has got himself a job!

Dd is the same with directions - has no idea where anything is, even if she’s been there hundreds of times and has always taken the train which doesn’t help. Whereas ds can find his way anywhere, by public transport or walking.

Ooh in Nottingham @JustHereWithMyPopcorn ?

Glad she's gone back BlueM. Sorry to hear of ds being ill Mummy.

I'm uber organised, so is Dh. It comes naturally and easily to me. I generally don't even have a to-do list because I just action everything immediately. Tonight I've sold something, bought something, and booked my covid seasonal booster. Ds1 is good, ds2 is still good but not a patch on his parents. None of us are late, ever.

That's good Popcorn, where?

DS is amazing with directions, he knows where pretty well every town in the country is, can navigate (on foot) all over the place but far too anxious for anything but the shortest journeys by public transport unless he's with another adult. I'm the same re sense of direction, it's just there, naturally. DH has zero sense of direction. DD is not great either.

I'm generally the organised one in our household but we all have different blind-spots. DD has been generally good! She's really settled in, she isn't hugely socially active but then again she never was. One or two evenings per week at societies or hanging out with friends... but that's one or two more than when she was at home.

She is loving the course. LOVING it. That obviously makes us very happy!

Not sure if I said this earlier but dd only has 9 hours lectures/seminars a week and nothing on a Monday, so pretty relaxed! She would have time for a job, although would she fit it round her socialising?! She’s applied for a seasonal supermarket job at home today though, so that’s good.

DD's plan was always to look for a job starting in the second term, once she had a handle on workload. She has 12 contact hours each week but is easily spending the same again on her assignments.

Her uni has its own agency which recruits for internal jobs, and also for local employers, which isn't something I'd encountered before (but is probably widespread?)

I'm definitely the organised one in this house! I don't think much life admin would go on without me.

DS has just unwittingly upset me, he called about his first day of lectures which went well and was a pleasant surprise to have the call. We then got on to talking about a sporting fixture that he and a friend are going to and DH and I are also hoping to go to, I said well we won't spend much time with you but it'd be nice to go out for a beer. (Both DH and I know his friend fairly well and have always followed the same team, plus this friend has been round our house to watch the team and all had a few beers together.) Anyway, DS said that it would be ok for him and his friend to go for a beer with DH but it would be odd with me. He then said it's not that I'm not inviting you but it'd be like going with my family and Friend. For more context the event is abroad, we will probably be flying to a different airport and staying in a different city to them and meeting at the fixture. Does he really think I would hang around a foreign city while DH has beers with him and his friend so it didn't look like he was with his family?? I mean I do get that it's a bit odd to be with your family and the friend as a hanger on but he knows us! I just said I hear you and then moved on and said enjoy his evening etc etc. I was upset though.

Just really thoughtless and particularly annoying as I'd just told him about a really thoughtful parcel I was sending him. DH's response when I told him was "He can be a knobhead sometimes can't he"...

9 hrs? DD had 7 hrs today alone. She has 23 hrs this week then between 18-22 hrs the rest of the term! Every week seems to vary. DD is going to be very jealous :-)

So DD needs to find a cleaner not so tight friend to make her do some laundry then ;-) i know it's expensive but that is why we have topped up her budget to £65 per week! DD was moaning that she can't afford to do laundry so will do it in the sink! And that the £25 on the meal card for lunch isn't enough. Probably isn't now they have to pay £5.80 for brunch but she slept through until 4.00pm on Sunday so brunch wasn't an issue (went clubbing the night before).

I haven't heard from her about today yet but expecting her to be knackered after 7 hrs of lectures today. A bit worried she won't have time to go over stuff (she needs to do it a few times for it to sink in properly).

In Nottingham, yes. Don't want to say exactly where but in a city centre shop. Quite a few hours which I'm not overly enthusiastic about but I've told him to play it by ear and if it gets too much to try and drop some hours or leave.

@278Newnames that was harsh. Something DD might say tbh but I would say something tomorrow about how it hurt your feelings and did he really expect you to go elsewhere just because he thinks it would
Look weird to be with family. Weird to who exactly? Def pull him up on it.