new raspberry; �HATES technological I am sick to death of erectile dysfunction, pass the tampons please |
The reason for my silence� The reason for my silence� Yes, it's Friday the thirteenth. If I was superstitious I would have just stayed in bed today. But I'm not so here I am, sitting at the computer, writing a blog entry. It's been raining since late afternoon yesterday, so now is the perfect time to park in front of the pc and pour out my heart. My internet friend Will, wrote an email asking me how I was. Maybe he has a sixth sense, maybe he just noticed that I'm not blogging and photographing and doing all that internet stuff I normally do. Granted, with Spring here, the yard has required more of my time and I did go away for a weeks vacation, but the fact is, I've just been too depressed to do all this with the upheaval that's going on in our house. The Kid, the little rug-rat that we've been raising because his mother is not capable of raising children, has decided that he doesn't like chores and he doesn't like going to school and he doesn't like the rules that make it so that we can all live in peace and harmony in our home. And that's just normal teenaged shit, I can deal with that. What I can't deal with is his complete and utter disrespect of us and all of the above when we are the people who have spent the last ten years of our lives sacrificing so that The Kid has a good home, a good life, and will go on to be a successful human being. The only mitigating factor to his behavior is that I know he is influenced by The Evil mother in law from Hell who hates us and is constantly undermining our authority and telling him things like, "She isn't your mother, you don't have to listen to her." And this is who The Kid wants to live with. The woman who raised three people who were so mentally damaged by her 'mothering' that they made many wrong turns in life. Some of them came through the fire better than others, but none of them came through without lifelong scars. We are the ones who showed up at the trailer park when he was three years old and his birth mother's neighbors called at 2:00 am to let us know that The Kid was wandering around outside while his mom was high on meth-amphetamine. We are the ones who have been there in the middle of the night when he spiked a fever and needed to be cooled down or taken to the hospital. We are the ones who watched his early rage come out in fits where he would bang his head against the wall so hard we thought he would seriously injure himself. We are the ones who feed him, clothe him, and help him with his homework or get him tutoring when we can't help. We are the ones who attend the school concerts, sports meets and parent-teacher conferences. We are the ones who have comforted him as his biological father has drifted in and out of his life with his bizarre behavior. We are the ones who have taken him on family vacations, gotten him counseling, and been the ones to answer his terrified call when the power goes out. Ms., aka my better half, is the one that turned down promotions for years because they would require more travel or a move to another state and she wanted a stable, consistent home life for these kids (Kids? Yes, we used to have The Kid's older brother too, but he's an adult now and doing very well in spite of our alleged bad parenting). I am the one who walked away from a 30K a year job because The Kid needed a parent more than we needed my paycheck. We are the ones who have hosted sleep-overs, chauffeured fishing parties and school dances. We are the ones who have ripped out flower beds for a basketball court and sent him off for summer vacations to spend time with relatives and friends back on the west coast. We are the ones who have provided him with his own bedroom and bathroom and a great room filled with video games, air hockey and computers. The only thing he doesn't have down in his basement 'apartment' is a kitchen. Please tell me how many children have such wonderful things in their lives. Most importantly, we are the ones who love him. Whether he's been good or been bad, we are the ones who have always loved him. But because we are only legal guardians, he's always thought he had the ability to play all the various family members off one another to get what he wants. And we could ignore it when he was a child, but he's a young man now, and his attempts at manipulation must end. So this time when he got pissed off at us and he said, "I'll just go live with The Evil mother in law from Hell," we called the bluff. Threw some luggage his way and told him to pack and go. We are tired of fighting for what's best for The Kid. We have spent ten years fighting for what's best for The Kid and when the battle was an occasional skirmish against a woman who is 1500 miles away, it was not that difficult. But now the battle for what's right for The Kid is on our doorstep, inside our very own walls, and we are tired. We are tired of his biological mother, who is clean and sober over five years now, yet has done nothing to reclaim the four children she 'lost' to her drug abuse. She has a nice job that she loves. It involves travel and she's told us flat out she doesn't want to quit her job and settle in one place so that she might have the opportunity to raise her children herself. And why should she? Somebody else has been raising her children for more years than she ever had 'possession' of them. We are tired of his biological father, who never attempted to see the son he knew existed until The Kid's paternal grandfather tracked The Kid down because he wanted to know his grandson. We are tired of the biological father who has cut off all contact with The Kid not once, but twice on some convoluted twist of his drug-addled brain. His most recent appearance in The Kid's life is because the government is going after him for 13 years of back child support. And his most recent rejection of his son came when The Kid called him the liar he is for trying to blackmail The Kid's grandfather by saying that if Grandpa did not give the biological father money, he would tell the police that Grandpa sexually abused him as a child. It's not the first time he has made this threat. We are the ones who had to investigate these allegations because The Kid spends time with Grandpa and what sort of parents would we be if we did not investigate such a possible threat to our child? We are tired of his maternal grandfather standing mute while his wife does everything she possibly can to undermine the hard work we've done in trying to overcome the bad start The Kid got in life from having lousy birth parents. We are the only parents he's ever known. We know that the teenage years are a tough time for kids and parents. All I have to do is think of my teenage years. I put my parents through hell. But in all fairness, they put me through hell too and while that doesn't excuse my atrocious teenage behavior, none of the factors that spurred my actions are present in The Kid's life. We are not substance abusers, we do not neglect even one aspect of his life, we do not physically or mentally abuse him. We are so tired, that we have given up on the idea of adopting him. Why go to all that time, effort, expense and scrutiny when all it takes is one stubborn child to stand up and say, "I don't want to be adopted," while his psychotic grandmother cheers him on? Every person The Kid has asked about this change in living arrangements, every single person save the maternal grandparents have said he is best off where he is, but the only person he wants to listen to is The Evil mother in law from Hell. Why? Because if he lives with The Evil mother in law from Hell he thinks he won't have to do chores, and there will be no rules and no one will nag him about getting good grades in school. Well I don't think that's going to be the case. I think he will discover that there are always rules and expectations no matter where you go in life. I just think he's going to be learning this lesson the hard way, and much later in life than need be. But you know what? I'm tired. There is still time to undo this tragedy. The Kid will spend the entire summer with his maternal grandparents. At the end of that time we will respect his wishes (unlike his disrespect of ours) and if at that time he wishes to make the living arrangement a permanent one, we will go to court and relinquish the guardianship we've held for most of his life. We will no longer be obligated to be his parents. We will no longer be required to care, which will be very, very hard to do. Listening to: dogs scratching Smelling: ozone from the thunderstorm Reading: jonathan kellerman cold heart Mood: spiritually bankrupt
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