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Reporting in on the effect of letting go and believing for the best. IT HELPED :O)
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<blockquote data-quote="scent of cedar" data-source="post: 606619" data-attributes="member: 1721"><p>husband and I are beginning to understand that the true cost of difficult child kids is time. One way or another, the money thing works itself out. Time, we cannot recover. Hours spent crying or worrying or regretting are just...gone. Living life distracted by difficult child oddities and demands finds you, ten years down the line ~ or twenty ~ wondering where that time went and why you didn't accomplish the things you'd planned to. But...the time is gone. The memories are made, and they aren't good ones. Hours on the phone, hours crying, nights you don't sleep, times with friends when you were too distracted to be present...classes taken or therapy undergone to try to find answers, when there aren't any.</p><p></p><p>Times when we were too ashamed to have or to be friends, because our reality was so different from the realities of our peers, whose children were doing well.</p><p></p><p>Hours in our own lives together when, night after night, we were too distracted to be present for one another.</p><p></p><p>I agree with your husband on this one. Keeping difficult child a state away is worth almost any amount of money, Kathy.</p><p></p><p>Life passes so quickly. Parenting adult difficult child kids gets to be an exercise in acknowledging and proactively defending our quality of life from the sort of hovering blackmail threat our difficult child kids represent. There is always the threat they will move home. (With all the kids, if they have any ~ and who knows how many of the children will actually be leaving with the difficult child when she finally decides to go? Which is how I wound up homeschooling two of my grandchildren. Twice. "No legal guardianship, no registering for school." said the principal, handing me a phone number for homeschooling resources. husband and I had just taken early retirements, when that happened. That time, those years when we might have been traveling or simply, staying home in the hot tub with a bottle of champagne or a Manhattan, are gone.) </p><p></p><p>That is what husband and I are trying to come to grips with, now. For the past twenty-five years, we have suffered and questioned ourselves. We have not been legitimately present in our own lives, because we believed we had gone wrong somewhere, and that our children were suffering for it. </p><p></p><p>We tried so hard to figure out what it was.</p><p></p><p>We've lived a snippet at a time, lived more in anticipation than in fact, because the reality of whatever the dream was would be destroyed by difficult child kids turned difficult child adults. </p><p></p><p>And I'm talking some pretty nice dreams, here. </p><p></p><p>:O)</p><p></p><p>But...we are taking a good look at that, now. We need to figure out how to lay legitimate claim to the happiness possible in the lives we have created. And it's tough to do that when we feel guilty that our adult, difficult child kids have nothing. (This is a funny way I heard one mom describe her difficult child son's situation in life: "He doesn't have a pot to p*** in or a window to throw it out of."</p><p></p><p>Ha!</p><p></p><p>:O)</p><p></p><p>And the grandchildren? Have been turned into pawns, the poor little buggers. </p><p></p><p>For too many years, we have suffered BY CHOICE. We put our lives on the backburner because we were so certain our primary responsibility was to get the kids on their feet. That belief was buried so deep we never thought twice about what we were doing, what we were giving up. We are both in our sixties, now. And you know what? It's almost too late. I am so happy husband made us do the Manhattan thing, the Happy Hour thing....</p><p></p><p>So, I'm doing a little bit of a rant here, Kathy. I know you don't have any grandchildren, yet. But maybe the lesson applies, even so. There comes a time when we parents need to reclaim the legitimacy of our own capacity for joy. Somehow, we need to learn to stop feeling sorry for our under-performing kids; we really do need to stop blaming ourselves for their continuing failure to thrive.</p><p></p><p>Here is a true thing husband and I (well, mostly husband!) have been thinking, lately. Had we chosen to fritter around instead of working, had we chosen to live our lives differently (as our difficult child kids are doing), we wouldn't have anything, either. We parents need to learn to place responsibility for the kids' situations where it really belongs, once the child is say, 14. And that is...on the child. Whether the identified problem is drugs or mental instability or laziness or whatever it is, once they are out in the world on a regular basis, we cannot be there with them to help them make a better choice. <u>But we did raise them to make better choices, or we would not all be here, trying to figure out where we went wrong.</u> </p><p></p><p>So, it begins to look like we have done our part, after all.</p><p></p><p>Cedar</p><p></p><p>I wanted to add this. Yesterday, on Book TV (Yes guys, I am a geek :O) Anyway, someone had researched chronically troubled families. The kinds of families where there are generations of people imprisoned or addicted or both. Here is the interesting thing: In the family the writer explored most thoroughly, there were three generations of extreme poverty, prostitution, addiction. The addict, prostitute mother shoplifted as a matter of course. She sold heroin, using her children to deliver it. She had her kids shoplift, and prostituted her own children for money. There were eight children. Six of them followed in the mother's footprints. becoming addicts and criminals. <u>Two of the children, both males, never became involved in drugs, never shoplifted, never were arrested. They grew up, got jobs, and lived their lives. </u> Now, if a child becomes a difficult child because of something the parent has done...what happened to these two young men? I've been thinking about that program quite a bit, since I saw it, yesterday. If you want to see it, put Book TV into your search engine. Their programs are taped and can be viewed, for free, online.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="scent of cedar, post: 606619, member: 1721"] husband and I are beginning to understand that the true cost of difficult child kids is time. One way or another, the money thing works itself out. Time, we cannot recover. Hours spent crying or worrying or regretting are just...gone. Living life distracted by difficult child oddities and demands finds you, ten years down the line ~ or twenty ~ wondering where that time went and why you didn't accomplish the things you'd planned to. But...the time is gone. The memories are made, and they aren't good ones. Hours on the phone, hours crying, nights you don't sleep, times with friends when you were too distracted to be present...classes taken or therapy undergone to try to find answers, when there aren't any. Times when we were too ashamed to have or to be friends, because our reality was so different from the realities of our peers, whose children were doing well. Hours in our own lives together when, night after night, we were too distracted to be present for one another. I agree with your husband on this one. Keeping difficult child a state away is worth almost any amount of money, Kathy. Life passes so quickly. Parenting adult difficult child kids gets to be an exercise in acknowledging and proactively defending our quality of life from the sort of hovering blackmail threat our difficult child kids represent. There is always the threat they will move home. (With all the kids, if they have any ~ and who knows how many of the children will actually be leaving with the difficult child when she finally decides to go? Which is how I wound up homeschooling two of my grandchildren. Twice. "No legal guardianship, no registering for school." said the principal, handing me a phone number for homeschooling resources. husband and I had just taken early retirements, when that happened. That time, those years when we might have been traveling or simply, staying home in the hot tub with a bottle of champagne or a Manhattan, are gone.) That is what husband and I are trying to come to grips with, now. For the past twenty-five years, we have suffered and questioned ourselves. We have not been legitimately present in our own lives, because we believed we had gone wrong somewhere, and that our children were suffering for it. We tried so hard to figure out what it was. We've lived a snippet at a time, lived more in anticipation than in fact, because the reality of whatever the dream was would be destroyed by difficult child kids turned difficult child adults. And I'm talking some pretty nice dreams, here. :O) But...we are taking a good look at that, now. We need to figure out how to lay legitimate claim to the happiness possible in the lives we have created. And it's tough to do that when we feel guilty that our adult, difficult child kids have nothing. (This is a funny way I heard one mom describe her difficult child son's situation in life: "He doesn't have a pot to p*** in or a window to throw it out of." Ha! :O) And the grandchildren? Have been turned into pawns, the poor little buggers. For too many years, we have suffered BY CHOICE. We put our lives on the backburner because we were so certain our primary responsibility was to get the kids on their feet. That belief was buried so deep we never thought twice about what we were doing, what we were giving up. We are both in our sixties, now. And you know what? It's almost too late. I am so happy husband made us do the Manhattan thing, the Happy Hour thing.... So, I'm doing a little bit of a rant here, Kathy. I know you don't have any grandchildren, yet. But maybe the lesson applies, even so. There comes a time when we parents need to reclaim the legitimacy of our own capacity for joy. Somehow, we need to learn to stop feeling sorry for our under-performing kids; we really do need to stop blaming ourselves for their continuing failure to thrive. Here is a true thing husband and I (well, mostly husband!) have been thinking, lately. Had we chosen to fritter around instead of working, had we chosen to live our lives differently (as our difficult child kids are doing), we wouldn't have anything, either. We parents need to learn to place responsibility for the kids' situations where it really belongs, once the child is say, 14. And that is...on the child. Whether the identified problem is drugs or mental instability or laziness or whatever it is, once they are out in the world on a regular basis, we cannot be there with them to help them make a better choice. [U]But we did raise them to make better choices, or we would not all be here, trying to figure out where we went wrong.[/U] So, it begins to look like we have done our part, after all. Cedar I wanted to add this. Yesterday, on Book TV (Yes guys, I am a geek :O) Anyway, someone had researched chronically troubled families. The kinds of families where there are generations of people imprisoned or addicted or both. Here is the interesting thing: In the family the writer explored most thoroughly, there were three generations of extreme poverty, prostitution, addiction. The addict, prostitute mother shoplifted as a matter of course. She sold heroin, using her children to deliver it. She had her kids shoplift, and prostituted her own children for money. There were eight children. Six of them followed in the mother's footprints. becoming addicts and criminals. [U]Two of the children, both males, never became involved in drugs, never shoplifted, never were arrested. They grew up, got jobs, and lived their lives. [/U] Now, if a child becomes a difficult child because of something the parent has done...what happened to these two young men? I've been thinking about that program quite a bit, since I saw it, yesterday. If you want to see it, put Book TV into your search engine. Their programs are taped and can be viewed, for free, online. [/QUOTE]
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Reporting in on the effect of letting go and believing for the best. IT HELPED :O)
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