Parenting---It's Not for Sissies

When the Aspiring Adult graduated from high school, we made the same deal with him that we made with our other kids. As long as he wanted to continue his education, we'd pay for it. We don't want him to start his life saddled with student loans. When he's figured he's had enough, he just needs to say so, and that's it.

Considering that his circumstances are different than with our other two boys (neither one of them can drive), we offered to let him stay here expense-free so that he could save up his money. The only caveat is that he had to follow the house rules, of which there are only a couple.

1). No phone calls on the house phone after 9pm. Call us old-fashioned, but both Hubby and I were raised to believe that is rude. No call late at night is a good call. It usually means a loved one is ill or there's been an accident. People who know us don't call us after 9pm. At least not more than once. ;-)

2) We have a curfew. 10pm on weekdays and 12pm on weekends. It's ok to call to let us know if you're running late, just call (one exception to the no phone calls after 9 rule). We have 4 very noisy dogs who go apeshit with people coming and going in the house, and since MOST of us have to be up very early in the morning, it's unfair to wake us in the middle of the night.

3) This is not a hotel. We know you have a busy social life, but you still have to come by once in awhile and stay long enough to take care of business. Meaning, the dryer is not the place to store your clothes, and we're not your bitches. Since you're here long enough to mess up the bathroom, you get to come home and clean it from time to time. Oh, and we'd like to see your face at dinner at least once a week.

Hubby and I are not ogres, but we expect the few rules we have to be followed. The Aspiring Adult seems to think differently. He argues that he is now a man and can do whatever he wants.

We counter with, "Of course you can, you manly man. When are you planning on moving out and supporting yourself like a REAL adult?"

So since graduation, needless to say, we've been having some issues.

I don't know if it's because he's been in and out of foster care for a good part of his life, or being a teenager, or having a character flaw, but the Aspiring Adult seems to have a need to feel like he's "getting one over on us".

For example:

One morning Hubby woke up and found that the kid's car wasn't in the driveway. Didn't he come home last night? He went out to get something from his vehicle and noticed that the kid had parked across the street in the driveway of our neighbor's vacation home. WTF was up with that?

He called down the stairs and told the Aspiring Adult that he'd have to move his car, because it was Saturday, and the neighbor's relatives from the city often came and stayed the weekend and would be a bit put out to find his car there. The kid came up, moved the car (backed it down to the side of our house, which was also odd), came in, took a shower and said he was leaving for work. Hubby came outside to catch him sneaking a girl out of the basement. ;-)

Now here's the rub. We don't actually care that he had a girl here, as long as he doesn't make a habit of it. They're both over 18. The girl lives about an hour and a half away, and after their date it would have been a three-hour round trip to take her home and he said he was too tired to make the drive. We understand that. In fact, we'd have preferred they stay here, because we worry about him falling asleep at the wheel.

AND HE KNOWS THIS. He could have brought her in and out the front door. So why all the sneakiness?

Because he enjoys it.

All summer, he's been coming in at curfew, telling us good night, and then going out the basement to hang out with his friends until the wee hours. Some of the time he's been caught, and is completely unrepentant. It wouldn't be an issue if he told us that he was going to stay at a friend's house all night. He could just stay out. We don't require that he tell us who he's staying with or where he's going, so really it's a non-issue. We explain this over and over and he gets it.

He just enjoys being sneaky.

Since he totaled his car, we found out that the week before he had received a ticket for going 60 miles per hour through a stop sign. He is going to lose his driver's license, most likely for a year (he doesn't seem to think so, but then again, he's young and foolish). When we found out, we took him off our insurance as an authorized driver of our cars, because our rates were going to double. Plus, since he's turned out to be such a bad driver (went through two cars in less than a year), we don't want him anywhere NEAR our vehicles.

As a consequence to all that, and since he is a man and all, it is his responsibility to get himself to and from work. If his schedule happens to coincide with times that Hubby and I have to be in town, it's all well and good. If not, then he has options. He could catch a ride with a friend. He could walk a half mile down the highway and catch the bus. He could ride his bike. He could pay for a cab.

Not very palatable options, but options all the same. What isn't an option is expecting ME to be his personal chauffeur. I've done that for years with the other kids, since they can't drive. NOT going to do it for someone who pissed away his license by making a lot of bad choices.

Anyhoo, last week Hubby did what he frequently does---ate a bunch of crap before going to bed. He woke up with heartburn at about 2:30am and went in the kitchen to get some Tums. As he was heading back to bed, lights flashed through the living room window. A car was coming down the driveway.

My car.

Except I was asleep in bed and he knew this because he tried to play footsie with me.

That little shit.

Hubby confronted him, took the keys, and told him we'd deal with it in the morning. In the morning he was so furious that he asked me to deal with it and went to work.

At 8am I woke the kid up (like I was going to let him sleep until noon?). It went like this:

Aspiring Adult: I don't see what the big deal is.

Me: You stole my car!

AA: It wasn't stealing!

Me: Is your name on the title? No. Did I give you permission to use my car? No. That is called stealing.

AA: No it isn't.

Me: Then what would you call it?

AA: I borrowed it.

Me: Borrowing is when you ask someone's permission to use their stuff. Did you ask? No. It's not borrowing, it's stealing.

AA: I don't see what the big deal is. Cars are meant to be used by ALL the drivers in the house, including me. (Is he freaking KIDDING me?)

And round and round we went. I told him he was grounded for a month. When he wasn't at work, he was to be at home. He could continue to stay up all night if he wanted, but if he thought he'd be sleeping in until noon on his days off, he had another think coming. If he didn't have schoolwork to do, I'd find something for him to do. For a month he was going to be MY bitch.

AA: No. I'm a man and you can't ground me.

Me: Then there's the door. Use it. Now.

AA: I don't have to leave.

Me: Look at it this way. You WANT to leave. We allowed you to stay here contingent on a few rules. You've thumbed your nose at them time after time. The only conclusion I can reach is that you no longer want to live in our house. I am supporting YOUR decision. Door. Out. Now.

AA: How am I going to get into town?

Me: You have a phone, and you have feet. You're such a smart guy, I'm sure you can figure it out. Call us when you find yourself a place and you can come get your stuff.

So he left. I felt horrible about it, but there's only so much you can do. Our home is our haven and we don't want to have to lock up our keys and our valuables (we found out with Big Kid that someone who is willing to steal isn't often picky about WHAT they steal). The fact that the Aspiring Adult had completely justified the stealing of my car in his own mind was pretty disturbing.

And before anybody accuses me of being a heartless, rotten person let me say that the Aspiring Adult has a cell phone, a job, a savings account and a couple of credit cards. He knows how to rent a hotel room. He has skills. It's not like I tossed a puppy out of moving car.

He didn't speak to us for a few days. We called and left messages asking him if he was alright and if he needed anything. We drove around town looking for inexpensive places to rent that are in walking distance of his job. We did NOT call and ask him to come back. That ship has sailed.

However, as long as he stays in school and maintains a C average, we'll continue to pay for school and help him out a bit financially if he needs it. He's welcome to come over to do his laundry, get some groceries, and call us if he's in trouble. We love him and he's our guy.

And now he gets to find out what being a man is REALLY all about.

It's a Bumpy Road to Adulthood

Oh golly, what a weekend.

Haven't talked a whole lot about the Aspiring Adult lately. He's been busy working two jobs and taking a couple of classes online (His second job wouldn't give him a regular schedule until he'd been there for 3 months, and he didn't feel comfortable scheduling classes he might not make). So far he's got A's in everything.

If you all remember, when he turned 18, we provided him with a pretty nice car for his use, intending to sign it over to him when he started college. He blew out 2 engines in less than 6 months. The first time was because he ignored or didn't know what the oil light was for, the second was because he thought he could treat the car like an off-road vehicle.

We refused to replace the engine the second time, so he had to use some of his savings to buy a beater he could get around in.

Everything's been pretty smooth with that (except he got a speeding ticket).

Yesterday we invited Big Kid and Kitty up for the day. Big Kid was going to watch football with his dad, and Kitty was going to help me sort through some merchandise we're getting together for a large order the studio received. Then we were going to do the big Sunday dinner thing.

I heard the Aspiring Adult's alarm go off at about 6a.m. down in the bat cave. He's very responsible about getting himself up and out of the house for work, so I figured he had an early shift. I was in and out of the main part of the house and didn't see him leave.

Early evening, he hadn't come home or called, and I was getting a bit annoyed. If he's not coming home for dinner, I expect a call for courtesy's sake, and he's not always so good about that. So I called him on his cell. He didn't answer, but called me back about 5 minutes later.

"Are you coming home for dinner?" I asked.

Uh, I'm in my room.

"What?"

I've been here all day. Something happened, and I didn't know how to tell you guys about it.

"But your car's not here." Uh oh. No car. Not good.

"First of all, are you ok?" I can't believe we're having this conversation on the phone, fer petesakes, when he's one floor below me.

Yes.

"Were you drinking and driving?"

NO!

What happened was this:

He got a call at about 1am from a girl in the crowd he hangs out with. Not his girlfriend. She's still in high school, and was supposed to be spending the night at a friend's house. She had another guy friend who she feared was depressed and had taken some prescription drugs. Would the Aspiring Adult come pick her up and take her to his house so she could check on him?

Instead of doing the logical thing, like telling her if she was THAT worried, she should call 911, or maybe her own parents, he sneaked out of the house (his curfew is midnight unless other arrangements have been made) and went and picked her up. She didn't know the address exactly, but kind of knew where the house was.

So those two fools drove around in the mountains in the middle of the night, where there are NO streetlights, and most of the homes are set way back from the road and you can't see the house numbers. They got lost. Unfamiliar with the terrain, the Aspiring Adult took a curve too sharply, clipped a tree...

And rolled the freaking car.

Thank GOD they had their seatbelts on.

The girl had a bruised chest from where the seatbelt held her in, and went to the hospital in an ambulance. Her mother tried to have the Aspiring Adult arrested, but since her daughter was the one who initiated the whole event, the police refused. There were no drugs or alcohol involved, so he got off with a reckless driving ticket and a totaled car.

And Hubby will get an escalated insurance rate for the next 10 years.

Dumbass.

Oh, and the kid who supposedly took too many drugs? He's fine. Apparently he didn't really take anything after all.