Sdwd

[Serrin]

I hear you Cmom. But I have to try something.

I certainly didn't raise her to be this way. What is with kids these days? Maybe I should have home schooled her. Things were fine and dandy when she was still a pre-teen. Ever since she turned 13, it's been a constant battle. *sigh* Someday, she might grow up. I just hope I live long enough to see it!

 

[cmom]

I hear you Cmom. But I have to try something.

I certainly didn't raise her to be this way. What is with kids these days? Maybe I should have home schooled her. Things were fine and dandy when she was still a pre-teen. Ever since she turned 13, it's been a constant battle. *sigh* Someday, she might grow up. I just hope I live long enough to see it!

You are right, you have to try. Mine has acted like a teenager and still somewhat. Good luck... If you ever need an ear you can always PM me. I'm here for you...

 

[rancher hicks]

Beware, sometimes tough love doesn't work. I tried it on a daughter. She got into drugs. She eventually got caught and ended up doing time in prison. She is now 47, and this just happened about 6 years ago. I want to believe she is clean but I don't know if I will be able to trust her again. I keep telling her she has to get her life in order. She is on any public assistance programs she can get on and she does work but it is under the table so she doesn't have to report any income so she can keep her public assistance. What kind of life is this and since she isn't contributing to any retirement program it looks like this is the way she will be for the rest of her life.

Now don't you two go blaming yourselves. There comes a point when kids have to "own" the results of their foolishness. They and you may look for someone or something to blame but in the end I suspect you both taught them right from wrong and now it's their choice to either line up or pay the consequences.

There's a reason for the saying. "you made your bed and now you've got to lie in it".

Trust me I've got four and I've cried far to much over them. I just keep praying.

 

[rancher hicks]

I'm about to get out a big old can of "tough love" and open it up on my grand daughter!

Dang kid! Twenty and a half years old and she's STILL acting like a teen ager!

There are days I really regret stepping up to the plate in raising her!

If you mean tough love by getting out of her way, then I'm all for it. She's old enough to make her own decisions and live with them.

 

[finnfur]

If you mean tough love by getting out of her way, then I'm all for it. She's old enough to make her own decisions and live with them.

Yep been there and done that - each one is different but at a certain point you got to cast off the lines and let them tread some water to find they didn't have it so bad after all and that staying afloat is going require some effort on their part.
My wife and I decided we are not going down with the ship. We are sailing to retirement.
A little nautical advice there LOL

 

[Serrin]

No problem Tom. I speak nautical fluently! Maybe a little too fluently at times. Yeah, I can make a sailor blush when I get on a verbal tear over someone who has fouled my lines royally!

Denny and I had a long talk this morning about Annie and where she's headed. At least we're of a like mind on the subject. She'll be 21 in June. It's time to cut the apron strings and let her find her own way. One can lay only so many opportunities at her feet, and help her out so many times, only to watch her founder through her own bad choices before we say enough is enough. Stand or fall kid, it's your life and your choices to live with. We're pretty much done.

Certainly we'd help her in times of crisis that are not of her making. But we're not going to coddle her along any more. Truth be told, I never really have coddled her. That has been Denny's department. I think he's finally getting what I mean when I say "As you sow, so shall you reap"

He planted these seeds of her thinking she's such a special little snowflake. Now he gets to be the one to pour a bit of weed killer on such foolish notions.

Though we will always love her, niether of us is wanting to lay aside the planned activities of our golden years to accommodate her. She has her whole life ahead of her. It's high time she get busy doing that and let us do the same with ours.

 

[cmom]

No problem Tom. I speak nautical fluently! Maybe a little too fluently at times. Yeah, I can make a sailor blush when I get on a verbal tear over someone who has fouled my lines royally!

Denny and I had a long talk this morning about Annie and where she's headed. At least we're of a like mind on the subject. She'll be 21 in June. It's time to cut the apron strings and let her find her own way. One can lay only so many opportunities at her feet, and help her out so many times, only to watch her founder through her own bad choices before we say enough is enough. Stand or fall kid, it's your life and your choices to live with. We're pretty much done.

Certainly we'd help her in times of crisis that are not of her making. But we're not going to coddle her along any more. Truth be told, I never really have coddled her. That has been Denny's department. I think he's finally getting what I mean when I say "As you sow, so shall you reap"

He planted these seeds of her thinking she's such a special little snowflake. Now he gets to be the one to pour a bit of weed killer on such foolish notions.

Though we will always love her, niether of us is wanting to lay aside the planned activities of our golden years to accommodate her. She has her whole life ahead of her. It's high time she get busy doing that and let us do the same with ours.

Your story sounds so familiar. We had an apartment we let our daughter live in rent free and we paid the utilities. We finally told her it was time for her to move out and gave her 30 days. In 40 years she had always had a family member take care of her and she had never paid a penny in rent. She didn't even help us out in taking care of the place doing any chores around it, she just lived there. I am in my late 60's and my husband is in his mid 70's and daddy was the one mostly always helping her out. She wanted to start her own business and he financed it. She ended up loosing everything. We bought equipment for her and gave her some start-up cash. We were having problems and arguing a lot and I finally told him she had t go. I actually had to serve her with an eviction notice. For the first time at 47 years old she is paying rent somewhere. I told her she was not ever going to move back into the apartment. She does say once in awhile she misses it but I think what she misses is living there for free. Since she moved out she found some places to live for free as a caretaker for the properties where she was living but the properties eventually sold so she had to move. I am still a little bitter that she would not lift a finger to help us when she was living here. Good luck... Enjoy your golden years.

PS, I'm nautical too. We used to commercial fish when we were younger. I can also make a sailor blush when someone fouls my lines too.

 

[Serrin]

You really hit close to home here Cmom! And I think this is what bothers me so much about Annie's attitude. I firmly believe that this girl thinks the world owes her a living! I don't know how she came to believe this, as Denny and I have always been hard working people. Everything we have, we gained through the sweat of our brows and the strength of our backs. We're pretty strong folks, but neither of us is strong [nor wealthy] enough to carry her through her adult life. Maybe, if she were willing to pull her weight around our place, things would be different. Certainly MY attitude towards her would be!

While raising her, it was more important to us that she concentrate on her education. With great grades, we felt she would at least have a good shot at a scholarship to higher education. God knows, on a Coast Guard retiree's income, we sure weren't going to be able to afford it. [Especially not while building our dream home. We built it entirely on our own because we couldn't see paying someone to do what we were perfectly able bodied to do ourselves. Even if we'd had that kind of money] Perhaps that was where we laid the ground work for her notion that she's just such a special little snowflake!

So much for leading by the example of our own hard work.

She did get scholarships and grants to go on to college. She was even in a program in her junior and senior year of high school whereby she was taking classes up at the university that counted towards her degree, free of charge. She was definitely on the fast track towards a rewarding future. Then, in the fall of 2012 the wheels pretty much came flying off of her wagon.

There wasn't just one thing that caused it....I'm still not sure what happened, but, in a nutshell, she finished her winter quarter by the skin of her teeth and didn't register for the spring quarter. She's been working in the deli department of a local grocery store ever since. And now, things aren't going well at her job and she's in jeopardy of loosing it.

The up side to that is that she's talking about going back to school to at least get her Associates Degree. She was only one math credit away from that when she dropped out! It's so frustrating!

To see her that close, only to put it all on the back burner!

This kid is sooooo danged smart academically speaking. She could be ANYTHING she wanted to be. But, Annie has a number of fatal flaws. She's lazy, for one. She also has a real self confidence block. Despite repeated encouragement from us, she lacks confidence in herself that she can do these things. I don't know where the heck she ever came by that, but, there it is. Personally, I think her problem is really based more in fear of failure than anything else. After 20 plus years of urging her on, we're just too dead dog tired to do any more.

If Annie were the kind of person to jump in and help out around the homestead without being asked to, we'd probably be willing to let her come back home, while she gets her life back on track. But she's not and she doesn't. And that can get my temper up in a heart beat!

Example: Back in September, we were hit with a massive wind storm. We had what we refer to as an epic pine needle event. Denny and I put in 15 hours each in cleaning it up. Annie had come over before the storm hit, with the intention of doing her laundry. Before she could put even one load through, we lost power. So, she spent the night at our place.

In the morning,I asked Annie to vacuum the downstairs floors [power had come back on sometime in the night] She was laying in bed, reading, when I asked this of her. Denny and I had already been at the clean up for well over four hours at this point. I was going to be traveling to the western side of the state in two days and I knew I wasn't going to have time to do the vacuuming myself. So, I asked Annie to do it. Not a big deal, right? Right! Her reply was: **with a heavy sigh** Yeah.....maybe....if I feel like it....I'm kinda tired.....EXCUSE ME?!?!?!?

Long story short, she finally hauled her lazy butt out of bed around 4:00 in the afternoon, took a shower, made a mess in the kitchen and then came bouncing out of the house, car keys in hand, prepared to leave. I asked her if she did the vacuuming like I asked her to do. Nope, so sorry. [Of course not!] And she just had to run because her friend needed a ride to work!

She actually had the audacity to wonder why I was mad!! The girl is completely clueless!

Now, as I prepare the house for the holidays, complete with a three night stay of family from the other side of the state, she makes promises to come over and help me out. I ain't holding my breath! NO sir! NO ma'am! She's made three promises in just the last week and a half and each one has taken a back seat to her friends and their needs! If she hasn't figured it out by now, she probably never will.......and I'm just too tired to explain it to her!

 

[finnfur]

Serrin
My take is that a lot of it is taught in GOVERNMENT schools- And when they get to college they can go in conservative and in a year they are more worried politically about whether a womans going to get free birth controlls than doubling the national debt in 4 years . Its a uphill battle always .
THe new wave is there is a pill for everything and they are entitled. It use to be a few now its the majority .

 

[Serrin]

The key word there Tom is "entitled" or any derivation thereof! These kids think that they're entitled to a high paying job without qualifications. They think they're entitled to a house as nice as home was straight out of the gate. They're entitled to a shiny new car, the big screen TV, on and on and on......Somehow, they've missed the boat. I'm not sure who is to blame. The government? Perhaps. Liberal education? Maybe. Maybe even me. I just don't know. All I know is that she is not the person I thought we raised her to be. Yes, some of the blame can be laid at the feet of the people she chose to call friends. They have been the biggest influence with her. But who's to blame for her friends flaws?

Who knows. Perhaps it's all a part of the steady decline that all great societies throughout history have faced. All I can do is keep my own hearth and home in order and hope that someday she comes around to understanding the way the world really turns. In order for that to happen, she has to first discover that she is not in fact, the center of the universe!