Marguerite
Active Member
Good for you, for seeing the way your daughter controls your strings. Recognising the source is also important.
Once you get there, you can finally begin to grow, as you never had the chance to before.
I also strongly agree with the principle of treating your child as a tenant or a flatmate once they are old enough to begin to clash with you. A lot of the rules we require our children to comply with, are basic courtesy requirements in a tenant or flatmate. Are you going to be home for dinner? In other words, do I need to cater for you in considering how many people I'm cooking for? The flip side of this, is if she wants to bring a friend home and she gives you enough notice, then she can. Similarly, YOU have to give HER notice (if she's ever home long enough to hear it!). Drawing up a meals roster is good, especially if she complains about hwat you cook.
Considering the REALLY BIG BUCKS she is making (not) then she is going to eventually need to come home for meals. She will soon exhaust the hospitality of friends, if she fails to pay her way or reciprocate.
As individuals, we have basic requirements - we need shelter, we need food, we need water. We need sleep. We need clothing. Built on top of this as a scaffold, the expectations can ramp up - our clothing and our bodies ideally should be clean and in good condition. This requires some level of management and maintenance. We need to be contactable, which means we need to pay our bills and keep our affairs in good order, attending to our paperwork.
So at some stage - she needs to know how to feed herself, to keep herself and her clothes clean and presentable, pay her phone bills and find ways to earn money. Education is probably coming a long way last at the moment but this also will need to be considered at some stage - if she ever wants to try for a decent job, she will need to know what she needs to do in order to get such a job and keep it.
She will need your help for a lot of this - you have the upper hand. Don't give it away. Quid pro quo - she has to acknowledge she needs this help, or she will not value it and will instead squander it (and along with it, squandering your hard work and her chances).
So back off now, make her work for what she needs above and beyond basic requirements. In life, she can't treat people as she has been treating you. YOU must teach her how to treat other people, by standing up to her as you would stand up to a tenant behaving this way.
She is not your mother, to be placated and soothed in order to gain her love. She is close enough to an adult for you to treat her as one. It may improve things between you - it certainly would surprise her! Imagine trying to pull the strings on a puppet and find the strings just come away in your hand!
Way to go, Pinocchio!
Marg
Once you get there, you can finally begin to grow, as you never had the chance to before.
I also strongly agree with the principle of treating your child as a tenant or a flatmate once they are old enough to begin to clash with you. A lot of the rules we require our children to comply with, are basic courtesy requirements in a tenant or flatmate. Are you going to be home for dinner? In other words, do I need to cater for you in considering how many people I'm cooking for? The flip side of this, is if she wants to bring a friend home and she gives you enough notice, then she can. Similarly, YOU have to give HER notice (if she's ever home long enough to hear it!). Drawing up a meals roster is good, especially if she complains about hwat you cook.
Considering the REALLY BIG BUCKS she is making (not) then she is going to eventually need to come home for meals. She will soon exhaust the hospitality of friends, if she fails to pay her way or reciprocate.
As individuals, we have basic requirements - we need shelter, we need food, we need water. We need sleep. We need clothing. Built on top of this as a scaffold, the expectations can ramp up - our clothing and our bodies ideally should be clean and in good condition. This requires some level of management and maintenance. We need to be contactable, which means we need to pay our bills and keep our affairs in good order, attending to our paperwork.
So at some stage - she needs to know how to feed herself, to keep herself and her clothes clean and presentable, pay her phone bills and find ways to earn money. Education is probably coming a long way last at the moment but this also will need to be considered at some stage - if she ever wants to try for a decent job, she will need to know what she needs to do in order to get such a job and keep it.
She will need your help for a lot of this - you have the upper hand. Don't give it away. Quid pro quo - she has to acknowledge she needs this help, or she will not value it and will instead squander it (and along with it, squandering your hard work and her chances).
So back off now, make her work for what she needs above and beyond basic requirements. In life, she can't treat people as she has been treating you. YOU must teach her how to treat other people, by standing up to her as you would stand up to a tenant behaving this way.
She is not your mother, to be placated and soothed in order to gain her love. She is close enough to an adult for you to treat her as one. It may improve things between you - it certainly would surprise her! Imagine trying to pull the strings on a puppet and find the strings just come away in your hand!
Way to go, Pinocchio!
Marg
