This article discusses how parenting a ‘young offender’ involves specific additional responsibilities for parents who are already under scrutiny for apparently not taking their parenting responsibilities seriously. With reference to empirical data, three specific parental tasks are considered: managing the family's involvement in the youth justice system, waiting on ‘standby’ for police and schools, and reporting the child's offences to the police. In doing so, this article highlights the ways in which gender is implicated, and performs a regulatory function, in the day-to-day lives of mothers and fathers who are parenting a ‘troublesome’ child.