Apod Shape Production. Welcome back to another episode of Am I A Bad Mum Podcasts? The question we constantly ask when I start these. I think back to when we first started this podcast, and I was like, it's been years and we have still got content.
I always drive here, Katie, and you always go you got some content? You know, like what have you got and what? Like? We sit in, we debrief and half the time I'm still in a yeah. I mean I've got plenty, Like so much shit actually went down in the last week that life becomes a blur. Kids just
are the gifts that just keep on giving. I like to sayda, seven days week, three hundred and sixty five days a year, and then count down the until they're what, oh well, people say eighteen, Oh you're staying there thirty.
Someone this morning said to me I was talking about teenagers, and they were like, oh, yeah, it gets better when they're about, you know, early twenties. I was like, what the fuck, I'm in my mind, I'm checking out at eighteen. I've done that, job's done. See you later, spread your wings. I'll see you for Sunday lunch.
Exactly. I think because naturally people when you have a child. They go, oh, eighteen, here's a headier, and you're like, okay, yeah, alright, well I'm at eleven now, so I'm just counting I can do that.
And then when people then start throwing twenties.
Twenty five, I'm like, no, thirty, why is your child still at home? They're forty three.
I have mom for having despair. This is something I feel like everyone relates to. This is not just a me thing, but this is kids having any kind of urgency to get anywhere unless it's something that they want to do. Yeah, I was going to say, and even then, if you've booked them in for like a play center or a birthday party or some sort of fun activity,
there's a time you have to be there. Yeah, I'm sure they're still not racing out the door with their shoes on and everything ready ten minutes before we have to go. That doesn't happen.
It's a mom thing. That's a mom thing. That's what they say. My two are like, oh, that's a mom thing. Like I'm doing me, But that's a mom thing. You've got to organize that part. I already told you four times that we've got to leave at this time. If you want to be there, and how much more is that a month thing? I know, but rag Mine a fifteen.
They're going to be sixteen in a few months time. And there was an incident the other day where Jay had to get to work a little bit earlier than usual, so he said, we just need to leave for school ten minutes early, ten minutes range.
It's not hard, quite achievable.
He got so stressed on that trip to school and then work that he ended up saying to them, right, that's it. You're getting the bus to school every day this week. And you're getting the bus to school every day this week. Because and we talk about, you know, throwing the multiple punishments out, it wasn't just that. It was you're getting yourself up in the morning. I'm not even getting up.
You're getting up.
You're getting up, you're getting yourself sorted, you're feeding the animals, you're walking to the bus stop, and you're getting on the bus. And that's what you need to do every morning. Because this morning was not enjoyable because I needed to get to work a little bit early. We needed to leave ten minutes early. It wasn't much to us. No, Jay will wake them up at seven. It's not an early time, right, you have seven. He wakes them up
at seven. They lay in bed till seven thirty. We're both at them probably about five times in that space of half an hour. Get up, get up, get up.
Yeah that's a long time just laying though.
Then there's a race to get ready to leave at ten to eight.
That's fair enough, Like you've just given yourself twenty minutes. Yeah, you've given you minute. Not my problem.
What actually happened is so throw that out there. And then there was a situation, I think in the afternoon. I was like, no, absolutely, I want this amount of time for you to get ready, and we're leaving it this time, and I'm not going to remind you. I'm not going to throw out any reminders. Literally, they had
enough time, started getting ready. It was all going great, and then before the shoes went on, merely sits down on the lounge and next to herself for I've got all this time now, like I'm ready, I'm ready to go. It's all good, everyone's going to be happy. But yet she sits there and starts scrolling on her phone. So then there's a mad rush at the end, still to go. We need to leave right this second. Hang on for a sec. She's like, finishing off whatever message she's sending
a friend. I'm like, no, not hang on a second, because you started off well.
The intent was there.
Then you start scrolling and as we know, screens they turn kids into like.
Yeah, horrible, horrible, horrible things. I can't get them, just like the adults. They do the same thing.
Yeah, but my thing is, at what point do we go okay?
Cool?
They understand it because we know we've got phones, we like to scroll, we get distracted. However, you know what time you need to be at work?
Right?
You're not late to work, are you? And this is talking about you everything late to work.
It is the one thing I can't be late for because otherwise I've got people standing there waiting for me, and I hate that. But at the same time.
So you've got pride in your job, I know you have to be there.
I was like, I don't want to be rushed either with that sort of stuff, Like with work. I don't want to be rushed to go like frazzled and out of breath and then kicking off the day like that. That's just not what I do. But at the same time. Yes, in terms of real like just me just not work, but me, yeah, I tend to run about ten minutes late for majority of things. That's not really from scrolling, that's just but they're planning.
But I would say that stuff that isn't necessarily no urgent, like lunches, you're going to lose your job by you know, and most people don't mind, and all the rest of it. And everyone's kind of in the same boat. But my thing as well was when we were on holiday is I said to the girls one night we had a flight to get to the next day, so we had to get to the airport, as we know as adults, right, and they should know, they should understand as teenagers. Flights don't wait for you.
They don't.
Oh that makes me, you need to be at the airport at a certain time. And so I said to them the night before we were flying, I said, okay, this evening, before you touch any laptops, TVs, phones, whatever it may be, you pack your bags so that you just have what you need for the morning, which you can then throw in and get out the door. At this time, I got my own bag packed, Jay got
his bag packed. We're also doing the communal stuff. For some reason, we bought freaking inflatables for the pool, which were which were full of air, and so you know when you just like you're in such like I was super organized with it, like my bags were packed, everything was done, but it just ended up being a last
minute stress. I'd left them open overnight so that the air could come out of them, but then there was the last minute, like I was sweating, raged on it, squeeze the air and roll of these and then trying to fit them in the luggage because our bags were just not being enough for the ship we brought back. And I walk into their room and they're sat on their phones, and I go, guys, are you ready? Yeah, yeah, we're ready. Yeah, they're so chilled.
Yeah, we're ready.
I'm like, but what about all the stuff in the bathroom that's still there. You haven't done the bat Oh yeah yeah, no, we'll just grab the toilet trees. But they're finishing off what they're doing on the phone. I'm like, no, now, now that stuff.
Needs to be in there.
Then they've put the stuff in a suitcase where the zip was broken, which we were actually going to leave that suitcase there We're going to get rid of that suitcase. We'd had the conversation about putting stuff in the other luggage that we had, because that is all in there, so I've got to take it all out of there
and put it in. I was so stressed, so stressed, and I got in that uber to get to the airport and I went, I don't understand at what age we get to the point where there's some kind of urgency about where you got to get to.
It will happen when they miss something. It'll happen when they do not have you there and they miss something, and there's nothing worse than missing a flight, or there's nothing worse than needing to be on a bus and missing it and you've got no one else to blame. Mix up for yourself. I need a few of those.
At this point when they're kids, like at least a your normal.
This is the thing.
At this age, it's actually impossible for you to enforce that message because you can't be late for the flight because you're I'm fucking baying.
For the next And that's the other thing that I was trying to have, Like in my head, I was like, oh, what do we do? We went to Sydney not long ago, the girls and I. Our flight in the morning was something like ten thirty, so we had to be there by nine thirty, so then our transfer was to us but nine so then you're okay, Like it was an okay morning. But my whole conversation with the girls was pack your bag tonight, leave your clothes on the out.
Then in the morning, all you have to do is if you have a shower or you don't, whatever, your clothes are going straight on, your pajamas are going straight in your bag. We're ready to roll. You're not going to miss out on your My kids, you know they love a buffet. I don't know. I don't get it. Your kids used to love a buffet or you did, but the kids wouldn't eat. My kids go and eat and I don't eat enough. So it's like they loved it. And I said, well, if you want that, so that's
the reward. If you want the buffet and you want that, you have to do your bags tonight because we will not have enough time. But they were quite responsive to the reward of the buffet and not missing out of the buffet. Their eyes is light up.
So that's like that my eyes light up when I see a buffet.
I was like, somebody, just get me along. Black police has been anyway. They did exceptionally well under the pressure of that, but there was a reward in it. You know, you've got made. What the reward is, I don't know. They just don't care. Take the phones off them, you're not allowed to have them. I do do that a lot.
I know it sounds like I don't. I do. I do take the phones off a lot.
They're just at that age, Katie. Yeah, they're just gonna have to learn from their own.
Yeah, because they know I'm not going to not.
Make one hundred percent, and they know that you're going to come in and rip around in the last twenty five minutes and save everyone's asses because you are in Hawaii. But maybe like whenever you go on that next trip, I don't know where you're going to go, but you'd be willing to leave them there. Maybe the sunshine goes No, just from that, get the bus home, or they've caught the train up there before there's a train home.
And they said to me the other day because I threatened the other day, I was like, you could just get out of the bus, and they went, we don't ever go card like, looks at me like real smartness, don't ever go Coti. Don't you worry.
I'll get you on. And it's fifty cents now, isn't it fifty cents now? They can travel for fifty cents per ride, even cheaper than to fuel. Katie, get them on the bus. Yeah, don't worry. I love it when they're on the bus. Yeah, thoroughly.
In fact, I've been known to drop them off the bus stuff and go, don't worry. You haven't got a go card?
You ever got money?
But that's fine because they're not allowed to leave kids at bus stops anymore.
Bye, have a great day. How'd you put your window up?