How much driving around of teenagers do you do?

[ColouringPencils]

Trying to decide if I am being moody or if I deserve a break!

I have two teens. Older one does fewer activities and mainly gets herself about. I give her a couple of lifts a week. She's fine!

The younger is 13 and most weeks has an activity 3 week nights, plus Saturday morning and Saturday evening. Two nights plus Saturday AM are for the sport he plays. He trains for 2 hours, so I drop him off, go home, pick up. It feels like it takes over my whole evening. Then he goes to a youth group one night and Scouts another night. These both last two hours too, so I can't hang around then either. I do usually share lifts with another parent for these.

In the context of him having three hobbies, I don't think it sounds that bad. Also one of the sports sessions is him volunteer coaching, which counts towards his Duke of Edinburgh award.

On top of this he will get the bus from school to the gym and ask me to collect him once or twice a week. I also take him to the gym on Sunday. This has only been since the summer when our local leisure centre closed. He used to walk to the gym, so I feel bad saying no to that. We also live very near a park and he goes there a lot, although less so when it is dark in the evening. At the moment he can still get an hour or so in after school and often meets friends there on the nights he doesn't go to the gym (ie before he goes out to other activity), as well as both Saturday and Sunday for several hours. Every couple of weeks he has a match with school, but he gets the public bus home from those, unless another parent offers him a lift. He also does a couple of after-school clubs and gets the bus home.

This weekend he has two extra, fun activities, that I had already said I can take him to. This will take up Friday night and Saturday afternoon (on top of the usual Saturday morning and Saturday evening!). He has just asked about a third extra activity, where I would also have to pick up other kids, and I feel murderous!

For context, I work full time and DH is both unwell and unable to drive, so all the lifts are on me.

Now that I have typed this all out I feel absolutely sure IANBU and also that he is doing way too much stuff. Is anyone else in the same boat? Help?

None really - DD19 is at uni and DS16 works fulltime in town and gets the bus there and back. He isn't really social apart from seeing the odd friend at the weekend and they do a lot of walking rather than getting dropped at parties!

Other way round here, I had lots of downtime and that age and while I wasn't bored because I knew no different it was a real surprise when I went to uni and found that so many of my fellow students played sports competitively, were in orchestras and choirs or danced to a high standard, they were all so confident and straight into equivalent uni clubs. I did nothing like that as a younger teen (money wasn't an issue but all we did was Scouts/Brownies) and it is the one thing I really wish my parents had done differently.

Lots of driving here 😬. 17yo DD dances two evenings a week and works both Saturday and Sunday but can’t get there and back without a lift (it was a struggle to find a p/t job so it is what it is). She gets the bus to and from school, but two mornings a week needs a lift in as she does AS maths as an extra with classes at 8am. Then two afternoons a week she finishes at lunchtime so we normally collect her then as she prefers to study at home. We are both semi-retired and work flexibly from home, she is the only child left at home and so we are able to do it without it being too much of a pain. Also her older siblings are able to pick her up from work if necessary (one is in easy walking distance) which makes it less of a tie. Our view is it won’t be for long and her time is far more pressured than ours. Driving test is booked for February 🤞

Depends.

Explorers are car-shared with 3 other parents so not too bad, just every two weeks one leg.

Tae-kwon-do - we drive and hang around in a pub nearby as there is no way she can go there on her own and back at 8pm - 9.30pm

Drama club - we drive and she goes back by bus, she does take the bus to get there if we can't make it but the timing is really bad so it's for emergencies only.

Volunteering with the Beavers - she often walk there but we collect as DH is the Chair and uses the opportunity to check with leaders and parents. There is also a supermarket next door so we plan our top up shop around the meeting day.