[lucyjoy]

I met my 5 month old granddaughter today. She's really cute but mom is a major mess. Son just started getting visits. The baby's mom took the baby to a late night street fight recently, lives in a filthy home, and let her abusive stepfather babysit. Lovely. Sucks some of the joy out of seeing her realizing the way her life is going to be.

Son in Iraq's gfriend is stirring up lots of trouble and son cussed me out on facebook. I was less then nice in my response.

17 year old refuses to let go of 14 year old an thinks her parents are bluffing about charges. He says he is going to live elsewhere. I told him to take all of his stuff cause I'm not storing it.

12 year old is about to get booted out of after school homework program and is still getting tossed out of class for his mouth. Guess I get to try out 7th grade.

Baby A's mom is splitting from my son. She say her mom, a drug addict who lost all her kids to the state, is coming to spend a month with her then taking baby A back to Mo with her if I want to see him. Hello, baby A is not safe with this woman.

My mother had a bad weekend and I was really not up to handling it.

I'm so sick of being reminded that to my sons, I'm just some woman they had to live with. I hate seeing my grandchildren stuck in the same cycle I tried to stop for my sons. I should have realized that I was never mother material. I wish I could just forget it and walk away.

[aMarylandfamily]

Not sure any words here could help this moment but knowing others understand and care does - I hope.

Keep writing - we'll get you through this ...

[tybeemarie]

Oh, Lucy! I am so sorry! I'm glad you got to meet your granddaughter, but how horrifying to realize that the baby will be in danger. And poor A! You are living my nightmare--I really, really don't want this cycle to continue. I will say this: were it not for us, the babies would be even worse off. Cold comfort, but less cold than thinking all of this suffering is for naught. Which is how it feels, I know.

You are absolutely mother material! You are one of the mothers I most admire and whose opinion I seek out on all the tricky parenting questions. You endured where most people would have disrupted--if they hadn't been imprisoned first for murder.

Our children's poor decision-making is not a measure of our effectiveness as mothers. Rather, their poor decisions are a measure of the enormous damage abusive and neglectful birth parents have on their kids. The enduring influence of these deeply flawed people is awful, in the old sense of the word, filling with awe, like a giant expanse of prairie, or looking up into a night sky.

We have taken on a very hard task of mythical proportions, like cleaning out the Augean stables. It takes so, so long. I think with my oldest, and with a lot of your guys, we won't see the fruits of our sacrifice until they're in their 30's, which is quite a long wait, and for this to be true, they have to stay alive that long.

I honor your sacrifice. You cannot forget about all of this and move on, because your sons are your heart. Again and again I think of Simeon's words to Mary, "And you yourself a sword shall pierce, so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed."

None of this is much comfort, I know. It hurts very badly to watch your kids make stupid decisions, particularly those that hurt other people. Watching your grandchildren have less in life than they deserve must be exquisitely painful, a pain that obliterates all that went before. I am quite afraid of that level of pain. I want nothing to do with that.

I have been asking myself, in regard to my oldest, and what is the point of this, exactly? The point is someone should love this child of God. Thanks to my parish, my daughter has lots of people who love her. She has other mothers who tell her, "You need to go home and do that homework and get back on the volleyball team." And there are people who come and hug me because I have to raise her! And that's part of the point--I am closer to other people because she's my daughter, and we all grow. I wish she would grow at a rate that would allow her to avoid gross gang bangers and failing grades, but she is growing in her own way and at her own pace. Today, she spent hours reading a book she saw me reading--Crank, a book of poetry about a girl who falls into meth addiction--and wanted to let me know where she was in the book, and proudly showed me how far she had read. She didn't read in her bedroom, even, she read in the family room while I cooked in the kitchen.

Without me, there would be no reading of any kind, much less reading and sharing with another person. There'd be no one cooking for her. There would never be enough peace in her former homes for quiet reading to even be a possibility! She and I walked the dog today and, at your suggestion, I told her stories about silly stuff I laughed about with my best friend at her age, and she was delighted. No one would do that for her before. And I wouldn't have thought of that as a therapeutic subject of conversation if not for you!

So, looking at our lives as mothers, I think we have to consider all the memories we put in their memory banks. Lucy, your boys have SO much they wouldn't have without you. Your boys have one another, which is something they wouldn't have without you. Think of all the time your boys spent playing in the dirt, wrestling, riding bikes, taking walks with you, eating together as a family. All of your boys have spent time talking with you, knowing you are a safe place to land, a source of wise counsel and sympathy--in short, a MOM!

You deserve better external outcomes. You deserve consistently loving sons who are kind to you and one another, who have taken your counsel to heart and have made choices that protect their futures. I really am sorry about that, for you and for all the parents on these boards. But that cannot be the standard. The standard has to be, did we give our children an experience of love and possibility? did we show them how wondrous the world is? were we a rock in the storm? The answer to all of this really is a big, resounding yes where you are concerned.

At a spiritual level, this all has to make a difference. Certainly it has made a difference in our own spiritual development. You've made a difference in mine! My children have had better parenting because I've had you to advise me, and you know this stuff from long years of experience and heavy-duty suffering.

You are a wonderful person and dear friend. You DO make a difference. Without you, the outcomes would have been far, far worse. Hang in there, buddy. You are not alone! We are with you every step of the way.

[Lorraine123]

As usual, Tybee said it all so eloquently. I agree with all that she said. You are most definitely mom material. You knock the socks off me sometimes with your love for your sons. And just remember - without our kids, we would not have each other. I have met the most fabulous parents as a result of my daughter. My best friends are right here. Vent away. We understand. We are right beside you.

[momraine]

Um, yeah, what everyone else said!
You are an awesome mom. You are a hero to me, cause I don't think I would have lasted nearly as long as you have with your kids. My oldest son was yelling at me the other day. Later we talked about it, and he said he wasn't even mad at me, he was mad about other things in his life but he was taking it out on me because I was safe. I would not stop loving him no matter how badly he treated me. I think your sons feel the same about you. The bad decisions they make are not because of your parenting, they are because of the parenting they had (or should I say didn't have) in thier early years. Damage was done that even a super mom like you could not repair. Some of it was permanant, and won't be repaired in this life. You did all that could humanly be done. They have to decide they want the life that you showed them is possible. It's up to them now. All you can do is pray for them and watch them and be there when they are ready to talk and change. They do know you love them and even though they can't say it, they do appreciate it.

[crick]

Ditto to all of the above!!!! (((HUGS)))

Do I hear the sounds of "Calgon take me away??" My door is open!

[Perfect7]

I'm sorry you are going through so much right now! ((Hugs)). Vent away, it sounds like you deserve to scream for as long as you want. The trenches suck!

[Barksum]

Double (or is it now triple-quadruple??) what everyone said. Children are not necessarily a reflection of their parents, regardless of how they arrived in the family and any extenuating circumstances. Being a good mom is not necessarily measured by how your children are currently acting, but how you are responding to their actions.

As I'm typing this my youngest Ds has engaged me in battle. I'm going to have to go implement all the stuff I've learned from you and everyone here, and remind myself that I am not defined by my kids' behaviors. Sigh.

Continuing to pray for you and the family, and your mom and all the various stuff. (((hugs)))