my oldest kid, total momma rant

[Zoe Girl]

So this is not the wonderful 'i am sure they will get it together' kinda talk, this is the 'my kid is a lazy idiot' kinda talk. If you don't think we don't do that as parents then maybe your kids are smart or young. Grr.

My oldest (24 year old, not the addict) called me, they spent their entire tax return on catching up bills. They still didn't have enough to register the car so apparently her BF was pulled over, had an old ticket with a bench warrant and went to jail. I am still a signer on my daughter account from when she was younger so I can directly deposit money into her account, and I have been putting most of child support aside in savings. They pay what i do in rent, about $1,200, and they are working basic low wage jobs, have pet snakes and a hoarding habit. They have this weird seriously co-dependent relationships so her BF is on someone's electric account because they have a bill they haven't paid, they got the house while he was running an illegal grow house in the garage, he helped his mom for years and then I made my daughter leave (the 3rd time) for refusing or being incapable of just doing dishes or other crap so they moved in together. I ALMOST feel bad about it, but this situation does not make me feel guilty. It just validates that my daughter needs to get her sh** together.

So I told her I would help and they HAVE TO move, I told her to call her dad who has a 4 bedroom house. They have a horrible relationship, who cares. They will have to get rid of snakes and do things around the house, who cares. I then called their dad and told him the situation. I know he is NOT interested in having anyone live with him, who cares. I even talked to him about being able to reduce how much I get in child support so that the money can go directly to them. . That is what it is for even though she is 24. This crappy relationship they all have (kids with dad) is simply not my fault, if they economy sucks, if you can't make it, then you have to get along with people. My parents are willing to take me in if I can't manage financially in a year, but I would not be able to bring my cats, I would have to limit my stuff, and live reasonably with them (no leaving dishes overnight, my bad habit).

On a side note, their dad found out about middle daughter's visit to the rehab center and he was very good about it. He can be good with them, but then out of nowhere he is a jerk and hurtful. He was even good about the child support talk.

[kib]

I think you need to explore the line where other people end and you begin, Zoe. I know this is because of how much you care, but these folks need to own their choices and their mistakes, because that is the only way they will also own their dreams and successes.

[Packy]

Yah, kib is prolly right--your main concern should be looking out for yourself & minors under your roof. It sounds like your urban area is like this area. The sheriffs dept has 12-12,000 outstanding warrants & so does the city p.d. That is why they pull people over, for very, very minor violations--to check for outstanding warrants. A huge % of those are for failure to appear or unpaid fines. The young & poor people are getting caught in a revolving door of non-compliance, like never before. I would advise any young person that the strategy for staying free is to first: stop the use of drugs and alcohol. Yes, this means pot! Then, stay steadily employed, even at work that is not preferable or is very low-paying. Second, avoid entanglements, and by this I mean be darn careful with their interactions. Don't we all know, from news reports about THE most sociable, interacting group of folks on earth---who also have the most social problems, by far, of any group? But, I realize that adult children in most cases don't want advice from you. Still--tell them once, and then don't nag. If need be,throw them a life preserver, when you don't risk having them pull you in the water. They will relate to what you told them, way-back-when, & figure it out, eventually.

[Chicken lady]

I don't understand the child support part. Your xh is still paying child support to you for a 24 y.o. who doesn't live with you?

Also, what is she asking you for money for? I don't mean "why" I mean, what does she plan to spend it on?

[iris lilies]

Rant on, but only rant.

You taking action on her behalf is not cool. This is hers to solve. She can get herself out of it.

[Zoe Girl]

yes, I am ranting and pretty much only ranting. Thank you for understanding I just need to get this out of my system.

My x pays child support for the 18 yo and goes above that amount because the girls lived with me until the last year and I have certain expenses I offered to pay for (dental work is pretty much all of it). I am putting most of it into savings right now and it is intended for support with college classes or other training.

This is probably the only time my daughter has asked for any help, I don't think it is totally enabling to do it once, now on a regular basis is of course not a good idea. Compared to some friends I am one of the least enabling parents, I have told both of my girls to move out after all. But I am just struggling with where she is at and the general advice that she will someday figure it out. Some people do, however based on knowing her her entire life she tends to need very clear spelled out actions and consequences. So the deal is that I helped and I expect them to move out of the place they cannot afford.

Does anyone feel like saying anything like that sucks or it is good you care. I just am having a hard time. Being a single parent I don't have anyone to share this with really,

[Chicken lady]

it sucks and it's good that you care - really. I think it's great of you to pay for the dental work and I would also if I could, but I'm not so sure about putting conditions on it. you can't really control her, and then you could end up having to decide between backing down and not helping when she needs you. ymmv.

[Zoe Girl]

well she already brought me some of the money back, so i am not just enabling because i am not truly giving her money. and the conditions, my parents have helped me with things and they either say up front what they expect or that it is free for me to choose. when i was going to spend birthday money on a tattoo i let them know, if they didn't really want to contribute to that they could buy a different gift. my parents did certain things when i was in grad school that were very helpful, like one year my christmas present was a dishwasher! i just found out my daughter's job has been asking her to apply for a manager position but she won't because it is only a $1 more an hour. i asked her to seriously reconsider this. you don't just get to a better job by passing up opportunities no matter how small.

thank you chicken. i have been surprised over the years that when i do something for my kids, not things i complain about just things that may come up in conversation, how much negative i get back. even my mother responded negatively when my oldest moved back home a few months after the shooting. i hadn't had any issues with her at that point and she had a traumatic event. So i try to examine my part in it, and i hate it when i lose it and rant, but i also think we are a really negatively wired society in some ways.

i sat with this a long time, basically i got scared. parents get scared for their kids. and i felt like i didn't do a good enough job, parents feel that too a lot.

[Packy]

You know what? I think you ought to pack up, and leave Doo-Doo Town. You could move to Keokuk, Iowa, where housing is much more affordable. They have a Wal-mart there, too, so don't worry. A roomy, two-story home sold last winter for just $30,000. Taxes on it are around $588/yr. That equates to about $350-400/mo rent. I saw an inquiry, evidently from the one who bought it inquiring about Re: What is the history of this place, anyway? on one of the numerous Keokuk boards. One of the responses was: Got a ghost? Which is funny because there are a number of houses in the older-older-older part of Keokuk(all of Keokuk is old, to varying degrees) that are reputed to be haunted, and I saw something about it--that same place--being a little bit haunted. You don't mind some company(ghosts) if the rent is reasonable enough, do you? I think that what causes people to be creeped out is that the homes are Victorian-era and also, close to the mighty Mississippi where the Des Moines River joins it, and there are underground caves and all of that causes some subtle low-pitched vibrations that are perceptible at times--such as the still of the night. When I lived there awhile as a kid, the subject of haunted places got my attention. I read a book from the lirrarrarry in Keokuk called: "The Screaming Ghost Of Saratoga", by Carl Carmer. The year I left K-town, they replaced the 1870's Lirrarry with a new one, still in use. That same year, the city population peaked, and for the next 50 years, went into a decline. But, you can save it, and save yourself, by moving there. See? Check it out. Keokuk needs you more than DooDoo, I just know it. Hope that helps you some. Thankk Mee.

[Zoe Girl]

most of my family is in iowa, i think working multiple jobs is better :)

[JaneV2.0]

The BF seems to have a rather cavalier relationship with the law; that would be concern for me. But I would think with his pot-growing experience, he could get a legitimate job in what has got to be a (forgive me) growing field.

In general this should be a learning experience (isn't everything?) for both of them. I don't blame your daughter for refusing the promotion; I always refused management jobs too--they're usually far more stressful than they're worth. But she should consider changing fields, more training, etc. because she's clearly not making enough money to sustain herself. She's facing some hard truths.

[ApatheticNoMore]

My thoughts are couldn't they just get a cheaper apartment? I figure I'd do that long before moving in with someone I didn't even get along with (her dad). I've turned down management before as well.

[Zoe Girl]

i realize this is hitting some buttons, and it is mentally becoming a little of my own issue. but as mom who has money to pay (and has paid ) for some college and training i do have a say.

the management thing, great if you are making enough. however the experience in management can help her get a better job somewhere else as well. she has been saying she needs a different job for over a year and nothing has happened, meanwhile they have talked to her about management a couple times and she always says no. i have taken the management route because it was the way to work towards a living wage, that is (fill in bad word here) reality. second jobs which she also has never done are a reality. going to school and not failing is a reality.

i have a feeling i won't hear from her for awhile, i already don't get answers to my calls or texts. the last time she was here i kinda told her off, she complains about her 9 hour shifts and her younger brother often works 11, i work some 10-12 hour shifts. so i told her we were too tired to hear about it, and she said okay but she worked on her feet so it was hard. and of course her job sucks and the people aren't doing things right, and she does not have time for laundry or answering a text because she works 40 hours a week. i just don't think i like her very much right now, and i reacted and told her all that because it is probably the only time i will talk to her in a month. total honest mommy moment

[kib]

"but as mom who has money to pay (and has paid ) for some college and training i do have a say."

. . . I hate to be the bearer of (insert bad word here) reality, but no, you don't, unless she has been deemed unfit by a court and you are her legal guardian. You have the right to withhold future money, but you don't have a say in what happens to money / assistance you've already given out, or the choices she makes about her life, and I think you're going to have to accept that unless you write up legal contracts, the strings you attach to your assistance are only as good as her feeling of duty to uphold her word ... which appears to be something she can manipulate in her mind until it goes away.

You have the right to be angry and disappointed ... and anything else you might feel. Yes, IT SUCKS! It totally sucks, that for all your good intentions and direction and hard work, she's still suffering from her own immaturity and the crap life throws at all of us. It sucks that she's made some bad choices and will probably make some more. It sucks that maybe she's taken advantage of you. It sucks that you don't like her much right now, but that is also totally ok. It's fair that you don't like someone who has treated you this way, but I hope things turn around for you.

ETA: you're right, this does push some buttons for me, because I had a mother who seemed to feel both great resentment and a sort of martyred self righteousness in turning my problems as a young adult into her problems, her shames, her disappointments. It did several bad things to me: it took away my sense of self authority and left me paralyzed. It made me feel guilty and responsible to her, not to myself, about failing - she wouldn't accept imperfection, my standards for my own work were unacceptable and irrelevant, and that made it more important to hide or run away from mistakes than improve them, made loving my life some kind of shameful shortcoming. It exhausted me emotionally to have to reach some consensus of agreement about whatever I did, to make sure Mother approved. It made me so resentful and frustrated, in fact, that I became blind to the gifts she'd given me. It eventually drove me into hiding and lying and, even now, to a very superficial relationship in which I give away nothing about my real life.

I know the situation isn't the same for you, your daughter appears to be asking you to fix her problems, but the tone of responsibility from you somehow triggers those memories for me - so, sorry if I seem overly involved here, I honestly do hope you can soothe your hurts and get some peace in this situation.

[Zoe Girl]

I understand kib, the parent/child relationships bring up a lot of stuff. I am in the middle thinking as a mother and as a daughter. There is a good chunk of an ex-wife in here, and between it all I am just trying to make a reasonably decision of what I want to do with some support instead of judgement, just like my daughter wants and my mother wants.

I worked really hard to parent differently. There was a time my daughter did not go to math class for a month! So I had her go in and talk to the teacher herself, take care of it, and i emailed the teacher so that she could not wiggle through, but she took care of it. The attitude from me as I recall and she expresses was that sometimes people do these things but you need to take care of it. And that is my parenting style. When the relationship between her dad and I, and also between her and her dad, became intolerable I left. I did everything in my power to do it well, but a lot of the way she acts towards me feels like it is a reaction to the extreme criticism from her dad. The shutting down, not talking, and passive aggressive behavior. She can shut down and be totally unreachable. She had counseling and other help for extreme insomnia when she was younger but has refused any support around counseling or medication in the last 5 years.

The hardest was her pregnancy. I kept on being concerned but I told myself she was an adult (22) and managing. She seemed okay in some ways and then I asked about the dad coming to the baby shower, she said she didn't know. Super red flag. I called her best friend and found out he had basically abandoned her months before (she was over 8 months along at that time). I had not judged her pregnancy but I was concerned. So my sister and I sat her down, told her that she had options like adoption or what we could do to support. She chose adoption and I helped her choose the family, we had an adoption ceremony when he was 5 days old and handed him to his parents. I still often think about what would have happened if I had not confronted her with the reality and then been supportive through her options. I had been prepared for the dad to drive her to the hospital and she was not able to tell me anything on her own. When she went back to work her second night back was the mass shooting. She went to a few group counseling sessions with her coworkers and one counseling session through the adoption agency and has had no medical treatment for insomnia or ADD.

I respect your story but mine is very different. I believe there is some functional mental issues that are not getting better with time and her support system does not seem to support (or is just not getting anywhere like me) counseling or medication or other options to deal a little directly.

[JaneV2.0]

Isn't the child support money legally hers? If you turned it over to her, would she sink or swim? That would solve her problems short term, anyway.

[iris lilies]

I agree with Chicken Lady, I'd pay dental costs if it wasn't a hardship for me. But you know what I thought of before the OP's last post? Birth control. I'd pay for really excellent, super-duper extra fine birth control first, before dental work. Preferably the kind of birth control where it is stuck in her arm and she doesn't have to think about it for months or years.

But the rest of it--nope. Although if she is only borrowing money, and it seldom happens, and she is reliable about paying it back, I'd lend it if it was an amount I could easily lose.

[mschrisgo2]

Wow, this struck a chord with me "...I'd lend it to her if it was an amount I could easily lose." That is exactly where I've gotten to with my daughter, who had 3 children by the time she was 20. She's in her late 30's now, the boys are about to launch, and she's back to being irresponsible with money. Three months ago, I loaned her $300. Yes, I could afford to lose it. Two weeks ago, I loaned her $100. Ditto. Saturday she invited me to have dinner before a movie, she paid for all of it, and paid back the whole $400! I guess what I'm saying is that I let go of the expectations, and she pleasantly surprised me!

[flowerseverywhere]

ZG, What response were you hoping for?

[Songbird]

Zoe Girl, I wanted to offer you some support with no judgement, as parenting is the hardest job in the world in my opinion. And the worry, caring, and concern never end....

[Zoe Girl]

thank you, i guess i just wanted a discussion. i don't have a lot of people to talk to (i don't tell my extended family all these things because it is her privacy in my opinion). maybe just an understanding that we don't stop caring and being concerned at a magic age, and we all need help at times also.

[rodeosweetheart]

I think there are several different things going on here. It might be really helpful to go to counseling together and try to negotiate a relationship going forward.

The biggest issues I see are that you are not in position right now to help anyone out financially, and you are at a personal crisis point with your own living space dilemma.

Child support is usually intended only for the benefit of the minor children, so I don't get why child support or the ex is an issue right now, other than emotionally with issues of parity, and survival of abuse, etc., and that is huge and grounds for seeing the counselor. BTDT.

At 24, she is a grown up and thus you can choose to answer the call for monetary support or not, and past track record of choices does factor in. But more importantly, so does your current well being, financial and emotional.

She has more earning years than you do at this point.

I think her past difficulties and heartbreaking circumstances are blinding you to how you can realistically help at this point.

I can see that you would not want to invite her back to live with you, given the history of kicking her out, but I've thought about offering that to my children when they are down on their luck--no money bailouts, just 3 hots and a cot sort of thing while you (the adult offspring) figure it out.

I had to completely let go of my desire for my one son to return to college. I had to also ask myself, realistically, why I thought I knew better for him how to make a life than he did, and the world has changed, so that college can be something of a financial trap for the unwary or ill-prepared.

Out of my three kids, one has adamantly refused to go to any kind of college, after one semester. The other two graduated. One that graduated with a BA in psychology works in a factory, after being downsized by state cuts in social work programs. The other, the academically gifted one, has never gotten any work due to his college degree and is waiting tables and freelancing.

So I have gotten wary of recommending college to anyone, although it's great if that is where their desires, aptitudes, and vocational prospects take them. And I have made my living teaching at the college level.

I have a crazy idea--why don't you ask her to help you find a place for you to live? Equal to equal, adult friend to adult friend. Say, "honey, I have no place to live and you have to help me find something." Let her be the expert for once. Equalize the relationship a bit.

[Zoe Girl]

yes lots of things, i think that many of us have those. i think what is really important to me as i reflect on this conversation is to have people know i have been a parent who raised kids to take care of themselves. i have done this very different from my family and i have had a thick skin over a lot of years, while trying to see everyone else is also trying to do their best. So having the oldest grandkids in my family and having all my kids having various issues on top of basically battling for my style for years is coming to an exhaustion head. and yeah, i would really like something to show that my different choices were valid. i am incredibly thrilled that McDonalds is losing money!!! i never took my kids there and my mom used to go buy coffee and purchase the happy meal toys so my kids wouldn't be 'deprived'. the one thing all my kids can do is cook really food and they eat healthy.

the helping me is a good idea, just anyway to transform the relationship to one of adults. oops gotta run and thank you for the conversation

[Karma]

You said "who cares" about a dozen times in your post, the answer is you. What is the cause your suffering, you (I don't mean that in a mean way but in a we are all in control of our own suffering). You need to let go, this girl is an adult who does not live with you. She picked her boyfriend and lifestyle. You need to stay out of her business and your ex husbands, stop getting in the middle of everything. Help if you can without being a part of the drama. These are hard lessons to learn, we learned after about $20,000 that we were not helping my stepson but making things worse. We can't fix people who don't want to be fixed. I hope you and your daughter find peace and happiness and learn from my own mistakes.

[Zoe Girl]

in an odd way i am feeling much better, my biggest issue seems to be my reaction and various feelings. However when i look at my actions compared to some stories i feel pretty great. i am talking about a $500 loan to a young adult that is already paying it back. that means that she was taught well to take her own responsibility. My middle daughter checked herself into rehab! she realized she had a problem. Pretty big deal for a 21 year old. and i found out she was not fired from any job, she quit when she realized she needed to go to rehab so her work record is pretty intact (she already has a job). i have not enabled them, and i have not disconnected which naturally has some chance of pain in it.

yeah i am emotional and i have high expectations for my kids and i get very frustrated because i am not ready to let go of my own expectation that my kids at least attempt to do more than low wage, no career job. Part of it is i simply can't relate. i have no clue what it is like to not keep working towards something, or just not studying, it does not compute that people exist without studying a topic of interest. i know there are people who are not driven intellectually, i just don't know how to relate. i am still deciding how much of this i want to let go of. i work with a population where i see exactly what can happen with no support or high and encouraging expectations. A very sad recent incident with some middle schoolers i used to have in program, they are in the juvenile system now. 2 years ago all they cared about was legos. And i am going to be really emotional, i will just try not to share it here necessarily