Losing interest in raising kids

[Anonymous]

Teens can be pretty distant and interested in screens even when you WANT to spend time with them.

I am interested in parenting and yet my life doesn’t sound markedly different from yours—my same aged kids aren’t interested in hanging out or being parented.

It sounds like you need a break but the kids are basically okay. Can you take a couple days off work and do something restorative? It sounds like you are starved for social life and fantasizing about escape.

[Anonymous]

Is there any extended family on either side? Grandparents, aunts , uncles, cousins?

[Anonymous]

Get screened for depression.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get screened for depression.

+1
To me, it sounds like it's oozing through your every word. You seem burned out and depressed. You're looking at your work or some fantasy city life as a possible avenue for fulfillment, but it sounds like it might be because your job forces you to keep busy and the second you don't have that structure you're sort of limp and uninterested.

[Anonymous]

My dad had a disinterested single mom. Not an absusive one, just very hands-off and clearly didn’t care too much for her (6) kids. Aside from royally screwing him up (he still has depression/familial issues), she died alone last year in her house - wasn’t found for over six weeks and that was by the mailman. Your fun friends won’t be the ones cleaning your bedpan in 40 years.

Make your bed and know you’ll lie in it when your time has come.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know where to post this.
Long story short, I am raising my tween and teen while their dad is overseas. We’re divorced.
I work full time from home. Just 40 hours a week but it’s a critical position on understaffed team and every minute counts and we are doing big things, so when I am working I am 100% focused on it. At the end of the day after work and chores I am exhausted.
I am already doing the absolute minimum when it comes to things like cleaning, laundry, self care, yard work, making sure there is food in the house. I do cook a few good meals each week with extra for leftovers. I take the kids to their sports practices and meets but minimally involved with the team. I am minimally involved in their schooling and not pushing extracurriculars other than their sport. When we are all at home, and they want to Zoom or play computer games with their friends for hours, I let them, so that the house will be quiet. When they are not on screens, all they want to do is play and roughhouse and aren’t interested in much beyond the dogs and my daughter’s art.
I’m just not that interested anymore. I want to move back to the city, throw myself into my career, date, and go out with friends. Which is kind of what I’ve been doing. I wish someone else would raise them for a while - someone with the patience to help the kids disengage from screens (we try to be screen-free one day each weekend but I’m finding it’s getting harder) and someone who actually wants to engage with them. I just don’t. I want to to other things. I have no energy for this. When they were little I was a SAHM, maybe even a helicopter mom, but now I don’t care so much what they do as long as they are basically happy and healthy.
I totally wish I could afford boarding school for the older one. He’s an extrovert and that’s one reason I let him play online so much.
That’s it! Vent over.

Lady, you need indepth professional help immediately. I had a parents like you and was put in boarding school at age 5, a year after my mother died. In that year he put me with my aunt. We did not ask to be born and you have responsibility to your children before anything. My father doe when I was 27 and from she 5 to his death, I doubt that I saw him more than a 100 times. I yet to shed a tear for him. Your children know how you feel
Maybe their father loves them because you don't

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My dad had a disinterested single mom. Not an absusive one, just very hands-off and clearly didn’t care too much for her (6) kids. Aside from royally screwing him up (he still has depression/familial issues), she died alone last year in her house - wasn’t found for over six weeks and that was by the mailman. Your fun friends won’t be the ones cleaning your bedpan in 40 years.

Make your bed and know you’ll lie in it when your time has come.

Sorry but even if your MIL was the opposite, I dont think your husband or any of her children would be cleaning her bedpan either. You're projecting that because she was A, B happened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, it sounds like you're a great individual, as well as a great parent.

Can you explain what you think you're missing?

She is a horrible parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My dad had a disinterested single mom. Not an absusive one, just very hands-off and clearly didn’t care too much for her (6) kids. Aside from royally screwing him up (he still has depression/familial issues), she died alone last year in her house - wasn’t found for over six weeks and that was by the mailman. Your fun friends won’t be the ones cleaning your bedpan in 40 years.

Make your bed and know you’ll lie in it when your time has come.

Sorry but even if your MIL was the opposite, I dont think your husband or any of her children would be cleaning her bedpan either. You're projecting that because she was A, B happened.

I just watched my grandparents - very dearly loved - die within months of each other. Their kids and grandkids rallied to help with whatever they needed in order to keep them out of hospice. Some of the grandkids hadn’t been seriously in touch for years but when push came to shove they were there. Not out of guilt or obedience but love. That’s what family is. The good, bad and ugly. I really hope everyone gets to experience that, though you only get what you give. OP’s choices are more damaging than what meets the eye.

[Anonymous]

Honestly everything sounds fine with your kids. Your kids do school and sports. Their down time is spent on things they like (dogs, art, socializing with friends online). Are they happy? Do they have behavior problems? The only thing I would change is make sure you are doing at least some things together as a family. Dinner together most nights. Some type of outing once per weekend. You disengaging from them is really the only potential problem here.

As for your personal needs, you need to suck it up. Send the kids to their dad's here and there so you can have some time to yourself. But you just need to accept that it is not possible right now for you to have a completely different life.