Am I doing too much for our children? My husband thinks so

[vjmousey]

We have a DS (15) and DD(13). Both play football outside of school and 6 says out of 7 I am ferrying them around to get them to training and matches.

My DH is very upset about this as he says we have virtually no time together.

My daughter struggles with friendships and football gives her (IMO) a positive hobby where she spends time with other girls outside of school. She plays most Sundays and does 3 training days too. My son loves football and plays and/or refs on Sundays too, plus 2 training days per week.

Is this too much? DH feels I don't want to spend time with him as I actually don't spend time with him apart from working together from home (he doesn't want to go out after they finish training during the week).

It's become a massive problem in our relationship. I keep saying that it isn't forever, but he disagrees and says our children should be more responsible for themselves and get to and from training themselves.

DD is 13. DS is 15. They'd have to cycle between 15 - 35 mins each way in the dark to get themselves to and from training. I'm totally against this.

Lift sharing isn't realistic more than once every 2 weeks for one day. My in laws may be a possibility to take and pick up once a week after Christmas, though it feels like a lot to ask as they're not really hands on grandparents.

I'm just not sure there is a compromise here as he won't go out after, or come with me to training so we can spend time together.
Do I stop one of my daughter's training sessions? Am I being unreasonable?

That is just life with children doing different activities. However there is also time while they are playing sport, after they come home, at the weekend. If both parents work from home they aren’t spending time commuting which frees up more time.

That is just life with children doing different activities.
Correction, that's just life for families who choose to create a family schedule that looks like that.

There's a lot of families who don't spend all their non working time ferrying teenagers to activities 6 days out of 7.

@LolaSmiles and your friends are lucky that none of their dcs have decided to do a hobby that is both time consuming and needing parents involvement.

It’s great that their dcs are still happy to do stuff with their parents. Not all teens do. They are teens. They want independence. They want their own choice. And they will have taste different from their parents.
Thats normal and healthy.

Seriously, my two dcs have just left for Uni. If you have children who are keen, independent and wanting to be involved in their hobby, whatever that hobby is, you end up ferrying them around. And this happens until they can drive.
Mine had their own sport, then the Bronze and Gold DoE, some volunteering, etc etc
Im delighted I have two dcs who are happy and taking initiative, getting stuck with things. I wasn’t going to stop them. Who would??

That’s nothing to do with one person dominating family life - unless of course you consider that any parent who support their dc competing (regardless or not they will become ‘professional’ - many sports don’t really have those like swimming, gymnastics etc etc) is wrong to do so 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️
No Olympic sport people though.

There's a lot of families who don't spend all their non working time ferrying teenagers to activities 6 days out of 7.

They are also more likely to be the teens who have stopped exercise/hobby in favour of friends.
And certainly those who don’t wish to participate in a particular hobby and get really involved in it - as in taking it seriously.
(fwiw most teens who were doing a lot if exercise, competing as children etc… stop when they are about 14yo. If a15yo carries on with that level of involvement, it’s because they want to.)

And it’s fine.

But the fact ‘most families’ do that does not means it would be the right thing to do for the OP’s family.

The OP isn’t spending all her non working time ferrying children around though, and given that both parents work from home, they have more available time than many families (and the opportunity to catch up at lunchtime).

There will always be things that you have to work around - a job that dictates where you can live, children with additional needs, parents who need care, children who have interests and talents that need more support, health problems etc, etc. Really a few years supporting children doing sports isn’t much in the big scheme of things. If one partner can’t deal with something as minor as that good luck when something actually difficult happens.

He sounds really wet and selfish.

Instead of moaning to you, what's he doing to solve HIS problem?

Newsflash: you have 3 children....