Feel sad for the August teens missing out on socials (last to turn 18).

[Bellini12]

DD is a mid to late August birthday. Most of her friends are turning 18 now and so are enjoying trips to the pub and some have gone clubbing. She of course has to stay at home. Things will slow down for a while during exams but by mid June most will be out all the time pubbing & clubbing.

Yes her time will come, but the pubs are extremely strict near us (check and scan ID at the door) and there’s no sneaking in even if she stuck with a soft drinks.

She won’t even be 18 on A level results day so can’t join in (hopefully) celebrating and I know it will feel like torture.

Just wondered if anyone else has this scenario with their DC and how they are handling it?

I was a late summer born but in our day you could hide at the back of the pub and no one asked!

@Bellini12 this won't help with your problem, but feel free to share with your daughter what happened to me on my 18th for at least some moral support.

Picture the scene - I had organised drinks with my friends, and we were happily sitting in the pub enjoying ourselves. My mother decided that she wanted to crash my party, and rocked up with an " I am 18 today" badge which she thought was great, and made me wear it. There are whole other discussions about what I could have done differently, but I put it on, and she accompanied me to the bar to buy her a drink.

All this sounds relatively straight forward until I add the vital piece of information that all the pubs in my town were over 21 due to a college being present. The pub promptly refused to serve us any longer, despite my mother's protestations, and me having ID to prove I was 18. We went to a different pub where it was the same story.

Eventually we found one who relaxed the policy to enable one last drink, but that scuppered an otherwise enjoyable evening.

I'm not still carrying that one around 40 years later, honestly I'm not 🤪

We're not in England!

@mondaytosunday ok ‘torture’ may be an exaggeration but yes, I know my daughter and it will feel pretty bloody awful especially on results day when all the pubs and clubs will be rammed with those celebrating and she is stuck at home. This is a relatively new, mixed friendship group and she can’t expect them to not join in (as explained we don’t live close to them).

She also has another friendship group 30-40 min drive away in another direction (old school friend) and they now regularly go to the pub so she doesn’t meet with them unless 1:1 for lunch or whatever.

She’s a social, fun girl who is really into her music and loves dancing so would have defo been to a club by now (if able).

@JuliettaCaeser the friends are nice… but they are a relatively new group of mates so perhaps don’t have that tight bond that you get having gone from age 11 through secondary together. But so far they have tried to include her where possible. But she doesn’t begrudge them going to pubs when she said she would do the same in their shoes.

Times have changed and fwiw we do live in a strict area (town in SE) surrounded by other equally strict towns.

Just going on older DD’s experience, the Spoons will ID at the door, at the bar and have even done spot checks on the tables! Our local pub has done spot checks in the beer gardens and pubs with DJ’s (not clubs) and have strict bouncers that scan the ID and blow up the photo size to really look at the picture! Older DD looks young and often gets full-on scrutiny of her ID!

So comparing our experiences in the 90’s is irrelevant really (I too am August born and looked so young but still managed to go to the pub every week from age 16!)

I just feel so sorry and frustrated for her.

If i look back i dont know if my DD actually enjoyed drinking or whether she just wanted to be cool/fit in. Her social life at uni is mostly based on dance, gym and creative hobbies.

DS is nearly 17 and hasn't expressed the slightest interest in drinking or going out, yet. Hes never been bothered about what's cool or doing something to fit in. He has a much wider circle of friends than DD but his closest friends are not fussed about drinking either.

The local town is also very strict about ID. When DD was 17 they were allowed in pubs until 10pm then only if you were 18 or over after 10pm.

As DD's friendship group were more into socialising at people's houses it wasn't really an issue for her.

This summer what’s she going to be doing stuck so far from her friends?

I'm August and now everyone is turning 50 before me, l love it!! Her time will come xx

I’m an August and I just got a fake ID and went with!

Spoons will ID at the door and confiscate if found to be fake. Our local security looks at it very carefully as we happened to be right behind some young lads trying it out and the photo was very definitely not of the one offering it & they were refused entry.

You fucked this, OP. Sadly, you starting her as a summer born has now ruined her whole life…

NOT. You did nothing wrong, and being disappointed at 16-17 may be a good thing, as it allows her to build her own resiliency while you’re still there to support her on a “bad” day. This is simply unavoidable with school cut-offs and starting children when they “seem” ready anytime after age 4; I have a friend in California who graduated secondary school at 16 and couldn’t legally drink until her first year in medical school! You daughter be a bit disappointed, in the same way that all teens have to deal with disappointment and eventually find friends with whom they have more in common than drinking. I myself couldn’t drink legally until my senior year of uni (uni in the US northwest). I think as mum, the best thing you can do is give her space to feel what she feels and then cajole her a bit.

The op doesn’t think she did anything wrong

but like most of us - we don’t want our teens missing out post a levels hence the op thinking what she can do to help

“There’s nothing you can do when your child is 17 to change when they started school and when they started school was your choice, so tell the child to blame you.” Is that a better, less supportive answer? As to how to save a teen from experiencing disappointment, you can’t do that either. If there was a magic “here’s what to do if your child feels left out post-A levels because they can’t drink” one-and-only-one right answer, I’m sure the OP would have already found it on Google or ChatGPT; people aren’t stupid and I’m sure the OP isn’t either. If you don’t want others to advise based on their own life experience, I’m not sure what to tell you? Perhaps I’ve misunderstood the purpose of MN? 🤷‍♀️

Only OP can determine why advice is useful and useless to her, and I’m sure there are many comments in this thread she’ll discard; I’m not hurt if mine is one of them.

What are you on about?

the op and no other poster has even alluded to this being the fault of the Op 😆

Follow the logical reasoning… you’ll get there eventually. 👍

Guessing you don’t have kids and so don’t know how it feels to not want them to miss out on things like this.

and post a levels summer holidays before jetting off to uni is usually a very sociable time!

I get it op. And certainly wouldn’t see it as a lesson in resilience! I’d be opening up the garden to her friends whenever, and driving her as much as possible if she’s out in the sticks

Whoa. That was uncalled for. My decision to raise my children differently from you does not invalidate me as a mother. But yes, my children are much older and it WAS a different generation of children that didn’t have constant worries about its resiliency. Not sure what to tell you, and doesn’t seem much point in engaging with you further.

So you do have children? That’s a surprise

and I guess you often say things as opportunities for a “lesson in resilience”

well the Op and I… don’t!

😂 You just keep being more and more awful; yes, shockingly, some of us may have children on here who are not 2 or 16 but rather in their 20s, who have already passed this age and therefore have different opinions than you.

I’m unclear what your issue is, as surely you understand both how opinions and this website work.

Anyway, apologies to OP for derailing her thread. I know I need to stop engaging honestly with people, I’m working on it, and I will not derail it further.

And everything was a lesson in resilience for your kids…. Got it!

When did it become a thing that parents sorted all their kids problems?? Can't she just sort herself a fake ID or deal with it. I'm an August born btw so had to do this myself with close friends turning 18 in September/November. I think one of my friends even wrote the permission letter 'from my parents' to allow me on the club 18-30 holiday. We used to be resourceful back then. Kids can't seem to do anything for themselves anymore.

My DC and a friend of his were drinking in a local pub at 17, no questions asked as his friend was friends with a couple of the bar staff. When they went to other places or other friends joined them in this particular pub, they just drank soft drinks. None of them went clubbing til the last of their year turned 18.

I think the illegality is in the establishment which serves the under age kids, not the young people having a go at getting an underage drink.

🙄