Jane's Posts

Apr 22 2004 1:21 am

I would appreciate hearing from anyone on this group stories about 18-year-olds, girls in particular, making their own ways in the world.

K.

When I turned 18, I was in my 2nd semester of college. 7 Sisters. Dean's List.

It bothered me a lot that I had no clue what I should major in and also that I could not remember life without school. So, I dropped out of school, moved to Hollywood, and got a job at an insurance company. It was a lot of fun.

My father didn't speak to me for years, but I didn't really care because I knew that if he were speaking to me he would be telling me everything I was doing wrong. Eventually, LA and the insurance company gig got old, and I went back to college.

jane

Apr 22 2004 1:41 am

I think as parents we owe it to our children to help them into a place where they have a chance of making it, and they don't always get there at age 18--that's pretty young still.

This is such a foreign concept to me. I left home when I was 16. I look at Lee, and I'd miss her if she left now, but I'd be confident that she'd be fine. Really, I see the next year or two as gravy.

We all have our own pace for growing up and if I were your DH, I'd leave a good safety net in place while still allowing his daughter to make some of her life choices, decisions and mistakes.

I'm with you on that.

jane

Apr 22 2004 9:06 am

Is she hanging around with drinkers and druggies? Has she been caught with pot? Is she having sex with her boyfriend after school in his empty house?

Yes, no, no. I'm sure some of Lee's friends drink and smoke pot. I can't really drum up all that much concern. After all, some of my friends drink and smoke pot. Some of her relatives drink and smoke pot. Some of her teachers drink and smoke pot. It doesn't make my heart race. Nor does sex.

And where do 16-year-olds live? They can't sign leases, and flipping burgers won't pay for an apartment anyway, not if they want to eat, too.

You know, I think they can sign leases. Realistically, finding a lessor who'll rent to them is difficult. IME they live in roommate situations with teens over 18. Flipping burgers won't pay for much, but it will support a single young person.

jane

Apr 22 2004 9:50 am

I don't know. I hope my kids don't make the same choices I made. I don't want my kids, at age 33, to be sitting at home wondering how much more they could have done to feel satisfied with life.

See, I don't think that has anything to do with the specifics of what you have done in your life. Whatever side of the fork you choose, you miss out on the other. By 40 (maybe you're precocious) you can't help feeling that you missed out on a whole totally different life. And you did. So did Julia Roberts.

If going over stuff and looking at the choices you made and their consequences helps you figure out what you want to add to or subtract from your life now, I'm all for it.

jane

Apr 22 2004 10:52 am

It puzzles me that she can't see that all of this is a consequence of her own behavior.

Does it help that I don't see it as a consequence of her own behavior either?

I don't want to come home from work to find her in bed with her boyfriend and joints still smoldering in ashtrays. I don't want to worry about her getting caught up in a raid at a party and being charged with possession just because she was there.

Vicki, I've been having a hard time figuring out what to say to you about this. Confronting the reality as you prepare yourself for the challenge is all well and good. I want to be supportive of your visualizing potential problems and beginning to solve them ahead of time. OTOH, I'm getting anxious waiting for you to stop borrowing trouble and slide into that confident acceptance that it will all work out find in the long run. I'm impatient for you to drop the reins here and accept the reality that huge chunks of what you're worried about is completely beyond your control.

See, I know that you'll be fine. Of course you don't want to walk into an orgy, but if you do, you'll handle it with grace and integrity. The party raid thing is just nuts. However, if it did happen, she'd be deported and you'd be off the hook.

I can support her in her choice of school tracks, her desire to have a paying job and her wanting to socialize. But her choices in so many other areas are not only immature, they're self-destructive and destructive of my home and potentially destructive of my own daughter.

You know the other thread about August going to court? Something she said reminded me of this. You can figure this out so that every eventuality is covered and you, DH, BM, GPs, and all the girls are totally clear on everything. You can negotiate an arrangement that everyone agrees on. I guarantee you will all be surprised and see things differently once you are living it. That's what I didn't understand when I went through this. That's what I wish someone could have explained to me.

Try to come at this with a little zen. Yes, there will be challenges for all of you, but those challenges are potential for growth and success. You will find many things that you cannot change, and they will help you see what you can change. And all that other zenny stuff. I keep telling Anne to look at this stuff as a high-growth experience, and she just swears at me. But really, if I skip into a year of discovery I do much better than when I psych myself up to fight a year of misery.

You can help this girl in a limited way. You'll figure out how. And it will be good for you. You will know yourself better and like yourself better when it is over. It's an adventure.

jane

Apr 22 2004 7:39 pm

This is such a foreign concept to me. I left home when I was 16. I look at Lee, and I'd miss her if she left now, but I'd be confident that she'd be fine. Really, I see the next year or two as gravy.

You know, Jane, I think there's a big difference in comparing your experiences and feelings about Lee with how Vicki is seeing the possibilities with her SD

Dammit, Tracey, that is so not fair! I was replying to Deb, who was parents and children not Vicki and her SD.

not talking about her and, formerly, with how I was viewing the possibilities of my SS coming to live with us a few months ago.

I don't follow this part.

I don't remember what all went on when your SD moved in with you guys a few years ago (she did, didn't she?) but, IIRC, you didn't really share a whole lot of what was going on with her and with you and your husband at that time either. What you did share (here on the newsgroup) seemed very vague and nebulous to me at the time.

This, however, is fair. I am not, and never have been, comfortable trashing a kid on the internet. However, Vicki probably knows more of the gritty details than anyone else in the world. She was there with me through thick and thin, saving my sanity, and talking me through it. As far as my marriage goes, I sometimes consider writing on my tombstone Vicki's famous words: You should have given him a grocery list.

Anyway, I'm not saying this to discount what you're saying, just pointing out that the idea of having a stepchild with the personality and background and patterns of behavior that Lee has coming to live with me wouldn't be very much more than a blip on my radar screen. It's a lot different when the history of the child is the history that Vicki has related.

Okay, well Lee, as much as I admire her, would drive some people here right batshit. I have nothing bad to say about her SM because whatever my disagreements with her may be, my child is still alive, which shows that she has behaved with remarkable forebearance and restraint over the years. I have no doubt Vicki to do a year of Lee standing on her head. My SD OTOH is probably the teen that Vicki is most thankful her SD is not.

jane

Apr 22 2004 8:09 pm

But it won't be as bad as I fear, I suppose, and I have to remind myself that it really *is* DH's problem, not mine.
Vicki

Not only that, there are positives here. I've been thinking about this. Your DH is a man in a million and all that. However, I'm looking forward to him getting to see life and the family from your perspective a little bit. For all these years you have been the divorced and remarried custodial parent. He's driven up to see the girls and has been duly canonized for it. But he's never dealt with the NCP or the day to day stress of balancing the kids and the mate, and all the zillion details of custodial parenting that you do. That's one of the reasons I'm so firm on the "his problem" part, because I want him to apprecoate the job you have been doing all these years.

In certain areas, the ones that don't pop immediately to mind, this is an experience that you couldn't buy with all the money in the world. I'm totally there with you about wanting to protect Laura. Remember the "get your sick ass away from my babies, you diseased mutant" thread?

However, Laura will have a different relationship with her SS than she otherwise would have. And Lee's relationship with Tyler is a more important thing in her life than I foresaw. Also, Laura is not just a second child, but second to the supernova that is Stevie. Now she'll see a side of being the first, best, and brightest.

I'm just saying, Vic, there are all kinds of good things about this that haven't started coming to mind yet. Maybe you'll end up paying SD to clean the house and cook dinner. Maybe she'll do the shopping, too. Maybe you'll love the parents of her friends.

This is, BTW, my version of a pep talk. Melissa informs me that I have to spell that out.

jane

Apr 23 2004 9:27 am

>Your pep talks almost always freak me the hell out.
>Melissa

I know, right? :-D
Anne

You guys make me laugh like no one else.

jane

Apr 23 2004 10:24 am

I apologize for getting you upset, jane.

Oh, no, I'm not upset. I'm spluttering in outrage.

Okay, it seems that here and when I was going through my (hysterical) posting when my SS wanted to move in with us there was a lot of things that you said that was based on your experiences with a child (or children) who were more or less basically on a good track

I don't really remember. For the record, my experience is: custodial with a teen SS and noncustodial with 5 teen SSs, both with 1 teen SD. And then Lee. And, of course, myself and other people I have known as teens - friends, nieces, nephews, cousins, etc.

When issues come up here, I generally cast my mind around for similar situations. Generally, I hit in several categories. The teens are the teens, after all.

Just noting that if you *have* dealt with a stepchild that consistently steps waaaayyyy over the boundaries, I don't know about it.

You just forget, Tracey. SD moved out maybe 4 years ago now. Think back to the 90s.

jane