Taken for granted - or is it me?

[Carwoo1175]

This is the first time posting, please be kind.
I have 2 adult children. 24 ds, 19 dd.

Dd is becoming a problem, and to be fair has always been a handful. Not in the way that most would expect, but it's driving me to distraction.

Dd is a uni. She comes home at the weekends for a driving lesson (that we pay for)
This is what's really getting my goat. The driving lesson is at 9am. She rolls out of bed at 8.55 brushes her teeth and off she goes. Her driving test is this week.
There has been weeks where she hasn't got up. We've been at work and we can't wake her. She finally did get up the last time at 9.10. So was very late.

All we ask I'd that she preps herself before. Get up, shower, eat. But no.

And don't get me started on how she is shes here. She collects pots in her room. Wet towels , doesn't put anything away. Everything is in a minute that turns into hours.

She catches the train home from uni, but will regularly change the train time with an hour's notice, when we've made arrangements to pick her up and have a meal ready for when she gets home.

Ds is almost as bad though he stays at his girlfriends most nights. But his room, always has cups, plates glasses.
I ask nicely, I plead, I threaten. It's ignored.

Dd works. She doesn't ask for money - never has, neither of them have. But we will do whatever to support them both, all I ask is when at home live by our rules.

This morning there was a blazing row with dd. I'm off work this week.
Her alarm went off at 7.45.
She promised, as she has her driving test this week she'd get up and be ready, having eaten and had a drink.

At 7.50.still in bed, alarm going off and being snoozed.
I went in and asked her to get up. In a minute.
At 8am, still in bed.
8.15 still in bed.
At 8.25 I lost it, went into her room, took her phone and vape downstairs.
That's when I get the abuse, that nothing is ever good enough for me. How she hates coming home.

Is it me? Am I expecting too much?

It sounds tough but I agree, if you want them to act like adults then you need to treat them as such. You can't confiscate a 19yr olds vape and phone like she's 12!
My DD paid for her own driving lessons and although she'd get up in plenty of time, she'd faff on her phone and then be rushing around brushing her teeth and getting her shoes on etc while her instructor was sat outside (he did turn up early to be fair). At first I nagged her but it was a waste of time, so I gave up and left her to it.
I wouldn't tolerate the plates and bowls etc upstairs though. If they take anything up, it has to come down the same day or the morning after.

Let go of all the things that are their responsibility and cut your dd some slack about the slow processing, she needs to learn strategies around it but she doesn't need to be criticised, she probably already feels crap for not being able to do these things.

Why were you trying to make her get up and hour before the lesson and then taking her stuff off her as punishment?

If the adults dump your kitchen utensils in your sink tell them not to. It's their problem to sort.

I didn't confiscate the phone a vape, just took it downstairs to make her move.
Sounds unhinged now, but at the time I was at the end of my tether.
Constant alarm going off, I'm on holiday from work, I'm a minute attitude grrrrr

To all the people who say not to let kids take bowls and plates in their room, and you need boundaries around that - I laugh! What do you do when they cross the boundary? Ignore the boundary? Don’t even detect the boundary? What then? What’s your leverage?

In any case OP, best thing you can do is reset your expectations or you’ll blow a gasket. Either pick the bowls up or close the door and don’t look, for your own sanity. Ignore her time keeping, and stop paying for lessons if you’re feeling resentful.

Some of this is just very normal late teenage stuff and I think you have to take a bit of a step back. Does it matter if DD rolls out of bed at 8.55 as long as she's in the car for her lesson at 9? Teens don't seem to need to eat in the morning like adults do. Changing train times and not being back for dinner is annoying, but again, it's just what they do. Can you just get on with your evening, put her dinner portion to one side for her to reheat later, and just tell her to let you know when she's at the station (or give her some parameters: I am happy to collect you if it's before 8pm, after that you'll have to get a taxi). For context DD22 is supposed to be coming home tomorrow, and whilst I would LOVE to know what train she's getting and whether she'll want dinner, I accept that this is more a me problem than a her problem, and I'm trying not to hassle her!

Precisely this. We've tried the no food upstairs. But when you're at work, how do you police it.
Or when they go get food when you're at home and they're wandering back upstairs, we say no, but how do you physically stop them?
As everyone says, they're adults. But we (oh and me) don't take our meals upstairs and we don't want food stinking out rooms and plates festering and growing mould.

I've decided to stop caring about it. I won't be saying anything about any of it to her or him.
Let them crack on otherwise, like you said, I'll just send myself mad.

It is what it is.

They did have to wash pots when they were younger, they have always had the responsibility of changing their own beds and putting their own laundry away. It just seems that as they've grown up and started to spend less time at home Ive let them get away with not doing these things and now there's push back when I try to impose these rules.

When our kids were little they were given chores, when they were teens and young adults they stopped doing them, and didn’t start doing them again until they moved out. One willingly moved out, and the other was pretty much turfed out! Kids are arseholes. Save your sanity! 🤣