Apod Shape Production. Welcome to another episode of Am I A Bad Mum? A podcast?
Kids.
This is what we talk about, kids and kids, kids, all ages.
We've got a friend, you know, a mutual friend that's got a near one year old, so we go through that. I've got a three year old nephew. Yeah, so I'm in that mix with him. And then we've got my girls nine to eleven, then your girls fifteen on that spiral.
Yeah, And I kind of felt a bit like this would be the kind of time where, you know, this podcast content would wrap up a little bit because you know, fifteen, you know, nearly able to drive. I said to the girls the other day, I said, next four months, you can draw, you can have sex. I don't even feel confident with your crossing the fucking road down your own without looking at your phone, so you can actually move out. They asked me to do something for them the other day.
It was like it was open something, it was something really like that. I just went. I looked at them like would just complete shock in my face, going, you know that you could move out in four months time, live on your own legally, and.
Not be able to even open this can.
To eat from like, what the hell, I've literally no hope, no hope. Am I bad mum for clamping down on teenage privileges. This is a topic that I have been obsessed with the entire time that I have been a
mum my kids, and that is sleep. And I know we've spoken about sleep often because I was just always obsessed with how much sleep they'd had when they weren't asleep, what time they got to sleep, what time they wake up in the morning, what the next day was going to be like probably like neuonically, Yeah, we've got to
the stage where the girls the other day. So their routine at the moment is on weekdays they need to handle their screens in at nine o'clock and then they can go up and read for a little bit if they're not tired yet, but generally just in your beddream quiet and then go to sleep. The other day, rate I decided to go to bed super early, and I was just getting frustrated because I could just fucking hear
them still up. I was in bed at like eight thirty and I was like, Okay, I want to go to sleep, And I was like, girls, can you be quiet because I want to go to sleep, and you should really start, you know, wrapping stuff up too. Ten to ten, I could still hear them chattering in the bathroom, and I was.
Like, good out of the like get to bed. You need to go to bed because tomorrow morning you've got to get up early and get yourself ready for school, and you're gonna be tired all day. Like it's nearly ten o'clock. So if it's nearly ten o'clock and you're still in the bathroom, you know we're probably looking at
least ten thirty before you're actually going to sleep. It got to the point where the next day and I just let it be, like let it go, let them And the next day I had to take them ice skating in the afternoon and I picked them up from school, and how they were on the way to ice skating with me in the car, how rude they were, was just next level, arguing with everything I said, and to the point where I went, I have just left work early to pick you up to drive you to ice skate.
None of this is about me, None of it none, None of it is about me. I've got nothing in this Like I could be at work because as it is, I'm going to drop you off. Then I'm going to get my laptop out. Then I'm gonna do some more work. Then I'm gonna do some more work when I get home. It's a real inconvenience, this whole thing to me. Holly turned around and when it's your duty, I went, excuse me, what, it's your duty. It's your duty to my gosh, take
her from school to the after extracurricular whatever. She said to me, it's your And you know, when just something tweaks in you like you just flip from going okay, I'm going to be really quite reasonable here. To know, I've lost all sense of being reasonable and I just throw out all that. I was like, next week, you're going to get the buts. You're going to have to because their problem is they can't take their ice skating bags with their skates and everything to school. I'm not
supposed to. And so I was like, I'm going to email the teacher. I'm going to tell her that you're taking your skate bag to school. You're going to struggle with that. Then you're gonna have to walk up the hills get the bus. Then you're gonna get the bus.
You know what's happened here. He's basically I've gone from looking forward to seeing you after school to wanting to take you to have fun, to going I don't want to do this, like there is no enjoyment in this whatsoever, and so I've become kind of sleep obsessed again.
Well, I think you can see why. I think the end result is you can see why they become chitty versions of themselves, and then that's why that's why you look at them and you're like, actually, no, I don't appreciate who you are when you've got no sleep in you know nothing, because they're not usually like that, are they.
No.
No, they have moments where they give you grief, as every teenager does to a parent figure. Yep, but they're not like those girls constantly, so you can see where it's coming from, which is like.
Of sleep exactly. There is always that correlation to lack of sleep, and they will argue till they're blue in the face about the fact that it's not because they're tired, and I'm like, mate, I've known you for fifteen years. I know you better than you know yourself, and I can absolutely see how that adds up with lack of sleep and then how you are the next day and how rude that you can be.
The difference, though, Okatie, is that they think that you've known them for fifteen years, but you still no fucking nothing nothing.
I've got no knowing about that idea of what it's like to be a tea or what it's like to be them. I just have no. They're not tired. You've never been tired. You've never You've never once said to me you're tired in fifteen years. Never, never, You're never tired. So what I've done is I've gone back to that. Okay, if we're not going to behave respectfully, then we're gonna
lose our privileges. Yeah, a bedtime. So I said, now it's bringing your screens down at eight, which I absolutely fucking hate because eight o'clock is just early, like when they talk about what their friends do and the kids that are allowed their phones and are scrolling still at midnight, and I'm like, it's not good for you. They might be allowed to do that, great, but it's not good for them.
Yeah, this is that part. You don't understand why they're doing it.
So I was like, bring your stuff down at eight, and then you've got an hour to get yourself. There's no messing around in the bathroom at ten to ten because you've got all your shit done and you can get there.
Yeah, that helps you. At least you won't have to listen to them at ten to ten or ten past ten in the bathroom just pitching and mining to each other. That's good. This is what's going to happen. Are they sort of adhering to this or then it's not going well?
No, because last night was the first night, rach and five past eight, like, this is where the hitler comes in, right. I was like, I went into both of their bedrooms and I put my hands on my hips. I went well, And they looked at me and went, what, Oh, it's five past eight, I said, first day, first day of it. It's only five past I went, it doesn't matter. It's the principle. Yes, it's five minutes past. Shouldn't be five minutes past, If anything, you should be coming down earlier
to go. I've got this covered. I want her to change the rules tomorrow.
But they're just really pushing it. Oh, well, that'll carry on for a bit longer. Then. Best of luck with that and the other thing that I was going to question was does that mean that it also brings forward all their homework time because they technically work off their laptops so much for homework.
Or I've even been known to say to Holly, She'll go, I haven't done my homework. I have to have it to and I'm like, no, too late.
Now.
I even say, hoped can't do homework, and she'll go, but I have to blah, And I'm like, what about it three hours before where you were scrolling on your phone? Yeah, you should have done it then. And I will absolutely say to your teacher, she had plenty of times she's just scrolled on her phone for three hours. So if she's telling you, Mom said I couldn't do my homework, yeah, but that was when it was too late. She's had the three hours before, it'll be good for them and
start doing experiments. And I'll start doing experience experiments on when they have a really long, great sleep, and then I'll do that whole rewarding good behavior thing we do when kids are like two too, yeah, and go, you were really lovely today. Oh look at that. You went to bed at eight thirty last night. Funny, isn't it, it's weird.
I don't know anything, absolutely nothing, but I do know that you slept a long time last night and today you've been quite lovely nice.
So oh they're gonna flip it and they'll have a long sleep and then there'll be absolute assholes on purpose just to do a point.
Yeah, maybe you just don't give in on the great advice. Just go you've been really nice today. I'm not telling you why, no, because I still don't know.
I don't know why you've been hate thirty