[HappyMomAnna]

I think it is so hard to parent our grown children...... We want the best for them and we want them to be safe and OK.....

I just got off the phone with my mother. She is crying again. After 12 years and thousands of dollars, last March she advised my brother (34) that in July he would need to assume responsibility for himself and the three children his wife abandonded..... My mother has co-signed for their rented house, paid move in costs, given him a washer, dryer, fridge, all the furinature, filled the cupboards with food, and then paid his rent for July, August, September......helped him get his real-estate license, and left him in charge of her business--the one she had spend 15-years building.....all this after nearly three years of letting him and his children live with her...........yet he has not even managed to find rent for a single month........even with paid child care, food stames and a check from the state of over $500.00 a month.....not one month has he managed to support himself....

How did this happen? How is it that one of three children could fail so hard......? Well, at 17 he lost his parents marriage---they were divorced and he suffered. He suffered every day. He married and had three children yet never kept a job.....because his mother felt such deep guilt over her own divorce that she always came running and helping........no questions asked. This man is ruined by the love of his mother. This mother has spend her own retirment. Run up all her credit cards, and is left crying over fear that her grandchildren may be spending the holidays sleeping in a broken down car...... How could this have been different?

I remember about the time my parents ---the same ones this borther has---divorced...I was young and married with two children under the age of 3.....and once needed the money to pay my electric bill and called daddy---who said NO. NO? how could he care so little? I sold one of my dolls from my collection and paid my own bill and learned that I had to be responsible for my own life.....The very best thing my father ever did for me. How easy it would have been to give me the $45.00 I needed.......and he knew I would repay....but, I never would have learned that day what clearly my brother has not learned......I have to do it. I have do what I have to do no matter what.....

Watching my brother and knowing my own life, I have learned a few things I might not have learned otherwise. I have had to learn to say, "No to my children" No I am sorry that is something you will not die without......no that is something I think you can figure out a way to accomplish.....no I don't have a $100.00 because you bounced a check....I can teach you how to balance you books so it does not happen again....but, I cannot bail you out. I am sorry tuition went up this year.....but, I can still only give you what I promised I would....isn't there a job you can do for the rest.....

We don't help our children by giving them the answers to their problems.....we keep them dependant. It is horrible to see a grown man begging and using his own children as pons in his game of dependance...... It hurts to know that the state is going to call me soon and ask if I can take in my nephews and niece.....It is going to be hard for me. Because I will do this as long as my brother cannot be here too....he needs a job and no more excuses for his own failures. He needs to be a man and as much as I love my mother--I blame her.

With my children I tell them exactly what they can expect from me. You may go to college and I will give you $1,200.00 in September and $100.00 a month that is all---find the rest if it is important to you I know you can do it. You will always have a safe place to sleep in my home--but, these are the rules you must live by should you choose to stay with me.

It seems like help when we do a good deed and give someone a break. We have to watch ourselves and not teach these young people to expect a break because they have a good story to tell. A 23-year old should go home to his parents before coming to a stranger..... We have to ask ourselves why he thinks it is so bad he cannot ask his own mother...... A common game with young people these days seems to be the story of how bad their lives have been and why they are handicaped. Why they cannot talk to their own families..... Yes, many children have bad relationships with their parents but, the question needs to be asked--why?

There are a lot of things our young peopel can do to get by. To survive and we need to teach them to think this way while they are still young. When my brother first ran home to mommy he was just 22 with a girlfriend--who was pregnant. Three kids later and 12-years he is still that same little boy.....with nothing to show for all the money and support that he has recieved--except for a bad attitude and an inability to even provide for himself.

Too many older adults are now in this situation. So many of us have raised our children feeling we have somehow caused them to have a striek aggainst them..... that we need to be responsible and help them to overcome.....to the point our own safety and security is risked. How many grandparents are raising not one--not two but, three of their grandchildren? I know a woman who has lived her life raised her children and worked hard and now because her children have sucked her dry she cannot even get a telephone..... she is bankrupt. she is too old to work and too old to recover from the helping she gave her children.....

We have to help our young adult children learn the same skills that make it possible for us to even be a source of help to them. It is like saving the drowning person--if we are not very careful we too will drown. I take this to every aspect of mothering my adult children. Values, morales, and financially---I do not compromise. I am always good for luch--but, not rent. Always a good ear to cry too--but, I will not turn a blind eye. My values made me who I am--the person you come to in need.... I want you to date a boy with the same values I raised you with.
You have a choice to join him in the choir of, "my parents did me wrong" or to stand up be strong and find a boy who is made of the same stuff you are. It is a red flag for a young person to not want to go home to his own parents....... maybe they know something you don't yet.

Maybe it is my son who knows I expect him to do what he has to do--sleeping on your sofa, not wanting you to know I do love him, but expect him to be responsible for the choices he makes? He could come home to me too---but, there would be work to do and responsibitlities here---it would be nice to have a warm sofa in the home of his girlfriend....and so much easier then answering to me......

Just wanted to share a little more....... this is such a hard part of parenting.