[quote=UCGal][quote=AN]
You still didn’t really answer my question. Would you kick out your kids if they’re deadbeat? I know plenty of people who live with their parents until they get married and are not deadbeats.[/quote]
I’m not Eaves… but I’ll answer for myself on this.
I know plenty of folks who live with their parents and aren’t deadbeats either… they work and/or go to school, they help with household duties. That’s a symbiotic relationship. Family working together…
Deadbeat by definition is a parasite… someone who takes, but doesn’t contribute. I’ve seen lots of grown kids in their 20’s who fit that definition. Any money they earn is 100% theirs. They eat the free food, have mom do their laundry, they don’t help with the day to day running of the household (financially or by doing chores.). In fact I dated a guy like that – at age 32 he was still living at home and had no concept of what it was like to pay utility bills… when he was laid off he was unwilling to get himself to interviews if there was the slightest bit of inclement weather… We broke up because I was unwilling to be his mommy.
We have a nephew who’s 31 and living with his folks. He’s working on his 2nd PhD in History as a way of avoiding getting a real job. He’s divorced because his ex-wife got tired of supporting him. (He got married in grad school – while still on the parents dime.) She was going to school and working… but he couldn’t be bothered to get a job.
So… would I kick out a deadbeat (by my parasitic definition)… Yes. It would be painful, but I’d do it.
But I’m hoping to raise my kids NOT to be deadbeats. They contribute now – even in 2nd and 4th grade. Chores are done… which helps them be part of a household AND gives them skills for when they’re on their own.
Would I kick them out if they were working towards goals and contributing to the household… No. I’m a big fan of extended family working together. Heck we wouldn’t have built the granny flat if I weren’t… But it should be a symbiotic relationship – not a parasitic one.[/quote]
Bingo, UCGal. Could not agree more.
Have to add…even if kids are going to college or working, that shouldn’t mean that mom is still doing their laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, cooking, etc. Perhaps it’s me, but how in the world are these kids expected to be able to take care of themselves when mommy is doing everything for them well into adulthood?
As to your question, AN. That’s a very difficult situation, and I have a very intimate experience with it.
My sister and I ran with some pretty wild kids when we were growing up, but by the age of 15, I had sobered up, gotten out of HS (California’s Proficiency Exam — the best thing I’ve ever done), and began working. The week after I turned 16, I started attending JC as a business major. Leaving HS (and all its bad influences — this, even in an “upper middle-class” neighborhood/school), working, and attending classes that I took by choice, are what made me succeed in life. My sister, OTOH, made other choices, and she never held a job for more than a few months, at most. She was an alcoholic, and bounced from house to house, as she wore out her welcome with anyone who tried to help. Why? Because she refused to help herself.
For those who’ve never experienced what it’s like to have an abusive, alcoholic/addict in the house, it would be diffucult to understand how destructive these kids can be to a household, and why some people choose to “kick their kids out of the house.” These parents are not being unkind, but often are led to this decision because they have been verbally and physically abused for years, or they have had their belongings stolen and/or sold off to raise drug money, or they have had shady drug dealers and other sorts brought into their home, even when they’ve asked their kids not to do this. They’ve picked up their kids at jail in the middle of the night, they’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars on counseling and drug rehabs, all to no avail. Oftentimes, their marriages have crumbled under the pressure of it all, and the relationships with their other kids (and the kids’ relationships with one another) are strained, or non-existent.
Anyway, my parents had done everything they could to help my sister, but she spent her life on the road,, and in and out of various people’s homes, and we only heard from her when she wanted money (once or twice a year). If her request was denied (because we knew where it would be going, and offered to pay bills directly, but not give cash), she’d go on a rampage, shouting “F— you!!!,” cursing us out in a mad rage.
Back in 1994, I came down from LA to visit my mom in SD, and we were up late at night discussing my sister’s situation. It was around 2:00 a.m., when I told my mom, “you just have to learn to let her go,” and she cried, “you don’t understand…it’s so hard to do that when it’s your baby.” Then, the phone rang, and without answering it, we knew exactly who it was. The coroner called to let us know that my sister was found dead on a busy road in Vegas. She was stumbling drunk in the middle of a busy road, when an innocent driver of a truck hit her.
Even with this experience, and similar experiences of other families with whom I’m very close, I would still elect to kick my kid out if they refused to be a contributing part of the family. Sometimes, the loss of one is better than the loss of all. Sometimes, a person is determined to self-destruct, and there is nothing in the world that can bring them back. If there were easy answers, there are hundreds of thousands (millions?) of families anxiously looking for them, but I have yet to see people successfully turn these kids around by enabling them to sit at home, drinking and using drugs, doing nothing at all useful (which I think is essential for the humand mind to remain sane), as the parents wait for that miraculous transformation that Eaves mentioned, above.
It’s a sad topic, but too many of us have seen it first hand. There are no easy answers.
