A few weeks ago, I went on a four day mini break with my girlfriends, leaving behind my son, Leo, who is 17. I gave him full control of the house, including care of the dog, Buddy, and the cat, Flo. Buddy is a Lhasa Apso and needs barely any attention, mostly due to the fact that he’s 13 and incredibly stubborn (anyone who is au fait with this breed will be aware of this) and Flo is a British Shorthair and therefore a law unto herself. Due to the fact that I didn’t trust Leo to a) get out of bed before midday, or b) remember that they even existed, I asked my daughter, Ella, to come back from Manchester where they live and do a tag team for two days each to make sure that all ran smoothly. Max was to do Saturday to Sunday, Ella Sunday to Tuesday. I was due back on Wednesday so Leo would only be in control for one solitary night.
Ella is 24, Max is 22 so I felt much more confident in their ability to run the home in my absence than if Leo were to attempt it alone. Surely, I thought, there could be no problem if there were two of them there at a time? I boarded the plane to Marrakech on Saturday morning feeling free as a bird, ready for four days of shopping, eating, drinking and being inspired. What could possibly go wrong?
I mean, nothing did really go wrong, tbh. Everything was pretty much okay. There were a few dramas - someone locked the cat in the courtyard for the night by accident (she’s a house cat), it was so hot the animals had maggots in their food bowls, I discovered that Leo had received his Mock A’Level results and kept them from me for over a week whilst telling me that he hadn’t. But that didn’t stop a barrage of WhatsApps and calls asking querying everything from car insurance through to dishwasher function.
I posted some of these on Instagram - just for fun, really - and there were quite a few who were shocked by the incapability of my children. It made me think about WHY they felt the need to WhatsApp me on the regular and how I felt about that. Were my children ACTUALLY incapable or did they just rely on me for help? I have brought my children up to be confident with opinions and I have never, ever babied them. When they were little, I didn’t constantly amuse them (there was no arts and crafts in my house, that’s what school and nursery are for and also, THE MESS) and they were very good at entertaining themselves and each other. We talked to them like little adults, not like little ones, and made sure that they were able to form their own opinions about stuff and not necessarily go with the flow.
As they have got older, this has increased. They might often be an absolute pain in the neck when they’re with me, but put them into company and I can 100% rely on them to be sociable, chatty and polite. I might have to loudly instruct them to be so prior to events, but they’ll do it and they’ll do it well. They are self confident because, I like to think, I pushed them to do things themselves. The two older ones manage to live perfectly well in their own flats (Max has even stopped bringing his washing home), they drive cars on motorways, put food in microwaves and even in ovens and manage their own finances. So why are they texting me in Morocco to find out how the dishwasher works when a simple ChatGPT enquiry will tell them the answer pronto? Sigh.
Let’s look at the science. The brain doesn’t actually finish developing and maturing until the mid to late 20’s and the last part to mature is the prefrontal cortext which is MOST important for skills like planning, prioritising and making good decisions. I mean, this is a great excuse for my kids, but facts are facts, I suppose. But I also think there’s an element of me always having done things and that I am their automatic fallback for questions. Either way, I have to admit that I don’t really mind the barrage. I want my kids to feel that I am always here for them, no matter how trivial a matter. We’re a close family and that’s important for me and for them too. So naysayers and perfect parent critique can do one, quite frankly.
Anyway, the post went viral and some of the comments regarding other parental experiences were so funny that I thought it would be worth listing them here for you for comedy purposes. And to confirm that however useless you think your children are, you can rest assured that most other peoples kids are EXACTLY the same. So don’t read it and weep, read it and PRAISE BE that in the words of Michael Jackson, you are not alone.
I once came home from work to a terrible smell and eventually located cats poo in our black kitchen sink. When challenged, my youngest son said ‘yeah, that was there this morning so I left it’.
My all time favourites from my son include ‘Mum, I can smell burning in your bedroom’ and ‘I’ve been sick in the street’.
I got home from work on Tuesday after leaving the teenagers in charge of the animals to find the front door wide open and both dogs excitedly greeting me by the main road as I pulled in.
I received a text asking ‘where are the pans?’.
My 14 year old made hot chocolate using the kettle.
My son worked on the hot dog stall at Legoland and called me in Ibiza to say he felt sick.
My daughter FaceTimed us in Paris as there was a spider in the downstairs toilet.
I received a WhatsApp saying ‘the dog pinched KFC chicken bones from Beths room and Eleanor has had a tattoo’. When I asked how my son was, they answered ‘none of us have seen him all week, I don’t think he’s here’.
I was away with work a few years ago and my 19 year old son sent me a message saying he’d run out of clean forks and what should he do?
We arrived home from holiday to discover the entire top floor had flooded and the teenager hadn’t even noticed. Plus the immersion heater had been on for five days as he thought it was the cooker switch.
We left our two teenage boys for the first time and went to Norfolk for two nights. They forgot their keys, my 83 year old Dad had to get a £50 cab to let them in with his set as he’d had a couple of drinks.
We went for five nights in Marrakech. He lost the cat and booked himself a holiday.
Four nights away with a 23 year old in charge. ‘There’s cat sick on the carpet’.
My daughter: ‘I’ve walked Alfie and I’m with him now’. The Ring doorbell: She walked him for four minutes and she’s somewhere off the Goldhawk Road.
Left my teenage son alone for one night. Arrived home to find no sign of him or his girlfriend, but my living room rug, cushions, candles and empty champagne bottles were in the garden. He said it was the builders who were working on our house.
Mine had a party a few years ago and they all kept feeding the dog because ‘she seemed hungry’. She was visibly bloated but survived.
We left our teen in charge and came back to a fly infestation. We eventually found the source, a dead bird that the cat had brought in.
Mine left the car unlocked and the front door key in the lock.
‘Can you send my Vinted?’.
We’ve had a locksmith out for a broken door, video of the cat panting and the dog who had developed a severe limp (which then vanished), an alleged ‘flea invested’ carpet and screenshots of a suspect called on the Ring doorbell who turned out to be the window cleaner.
I have my mother messaging me asking ‘what time will C be home from work?’. I don’t know Pam, I’m in Greece, maybe ask her yourself.
Left the 17 year old with the dog overnight and returned to find the dog had poo’d all over the floor after being fed a mountain of food and cheese.
We went away. Phone call one, I crashed my car. Two, there’s a leak upstairs and I think the ceiling is coming down. Three, Michael got a vomiting bug and it’s all over the wall.
Why am I sorting out Lido tickets, ice cream money and bus timetables from Italy when one of their parents is in the UK with them?
My son is 23 but I still received a message saying ‘FFS Daisy (Maine Coon cat) has thrown up her breakfast’.
My son texted me when I was on a Police shift asking if I could turn his wifi on. My husband was home
My teenager hadn’t noticed the alarm was going off even though the box was next to her bedroom window.
My teenage daughter made toasted cheese in the toaster.
Left our youngest at home with instructions to empty the bin. He did, but he left them in the utility room and we came home to a maggot infestation.
We went to Australia for seven weeks and our 23 year old set up a WhatsApp group called ‘help me, I’m still your baby’.
Yesterday I came back to an empty house, the aircon hose out of an open ground floor window, the back door unlocked, three lights left on.
The first time my parents left us home alone, they were in the pub having a meal when the landlady came over and said my brother was on the phone - he thought he had shot an intruder in the garden with his air rifle and the Police were on the way.
We went away for one night. Messages included ‘my new toilet brush has broken, can you get me a new one’, ‘the cat has got out of the top floor window and is stuck on the roof’ and ‘the cat has bitten Max and is now inside’.
Came home from work yesterday to find the back door and side gate wide open, teenage son gaming upstairs.
I left my grown up married daughter and her husband house sitting for three days. They left the BBQ gas on and burnt my bay tree in the process.
My Mum asked me to look after her house and four of the fish died. I replaced them and bought four more before she got home.
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