Time off for mums of teenagers? What a truly great idea!

THE chief executive of Co-op’s food division, one Jo Whitfield, made headlines this week for her decision to take four months’ unpaid leave to help her two sons prepare for their GCSE and A-level exams.

Opinion is divided. Is this a shining example of someone striking the perfect work/life balance, or a cop-out?

From my point of view, I’m just rather envious. Not only that she can afford to take unpaid leave in the first place (she earned £1.4million in 2020), but also because I wish I’d come up with the idea myself.

I had exactly the same scenario last year. My daughter was doing her A-levels, my son his GCSEs. Of course, things were a bit different: everything was all over the place because of Covid. My son didn’t sit any actual exams, but pretty much every school day was classed as a test, as he was being judged by teacher assessment.

My daughter, on the other hand, was sitting physical exams – although, again, a disproportionate amount of her grades were down to teacher assessment.

NONE of us really knew what impact it would all have on their results, and the general confusion only added to the immense stress of the situation (advice to would-be mothers: don’t have your children 16 months apart or else you will end up in double exam hell).

The tears, the tantrums, the anxiety. My mothering dial went from a comfortable five all the way up to 11.

I did my best, of course, but it was exhausting. Work inevitably took up a lot of my time, and I suspect I wasn’t the only one trying to spin a few too many plates. Parents up and down the country must have felt the same pressures.

Happily, maternity leave is now a well-established concept in the workplace, as is paternity leave. But while employers are generally sympathetic to the demands of small babies and children, once the kids are out of nappies the assumption is that you’re good to go.

But the truth is that while those early years can be physically demanding, the teenage years are also a crunch point. In some ways far more so.

Young adults may not require constant supervision and endless one-to-one attention. But in terms of emotional input they are almost insatiable. Mine certainly occupied – and continue to occupy – far more of my mental space as teenagers than they ever did in primary school, for the simple reason that they are now much more complex individuals.

And even though they may act all grown up and independent, it is precisely when they seem the most self-sufficient that they require the most input. Because that’s when they’re at their most vulnerable.

It’s not just that classic thing of picking them up from parties and making sure they occasionally eat broccoli.

It’s being there often enough to keep the lines of communication open so that when big, scary things happen in their lives – exams, yes, but also relationship or friendship traumas – they know how to ask for help.

It’s making sure they don’t disappear down emotional rabbit holes, or become obsessed with TikTok, or end up harming themselves in ways that can be very hard to spot.

Being a young adult is so much more fraught and complicated than it was in my day. There are so many additional pressures that simply didn’t exist when I was a youngster. They grow up much faster, but that doesn’t mean they need their parents less. If anything, the opposite is true. Of course, being a parent is ultimately about raising a child to be a successful, independent adult. But so many of us, as parents, make the mistake of assuming that just because they have their own front-door key and know how to microwave a lasagne, our job is more or less done.

Far from it. Those practical skills are easily imparted; the more nuanced life lessons take much longer to acquire.

That’s why I admire Ms Whitfield for her choice, but also applaud the Co-op for its vision in allowing it. We live in a time of rapidly declining birth rates. A population crisis looms – and parents need all the help they can get. ‘Teenager leave’ could be one way of providing it.

FOR once, I sincerely hope Princess Diana was right about the Royals being a frosty lot. It might mean Prince Charles – who has since tested positive for Covid – kept his distance when he saw his mother the other day. The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.