So I have a female coworker at my job, her 2 kids are both mid teens.
She is hoping both will get accepted to a private boarding school so she can move several states away so she can live in (what she feels is) an exciting beach town.
this isn’t normal right? I"m not a parent, but something really feels off about this. Most parents I’ve met cried when their kids moved off to college, this coworker can’t wait for the kids to get accepted to a private boarding school so she can move several states away. The school has some mandatory time where the kids are supposed to visit their relatives, so I assume the mom will send them off to their aunt who is local to the area during those break periods, or maybe a few flights home. The kids aren’t adults, they’re still teenagers who have a few more years of high school left.
I mean, is this a normal parent attitude towards their teenage kids?
…you have to really define what is meant by “normal” first. She could be the most loving parent in the world, and she is just joking around at work. Or she could be Cruella de Vil (the original, not the reimagining.)
We have zero way of knowing if its one or the other, or something in between.
…I mean, are you sure? I know plenty of people would say stuff like this, and they would sound genuinely excited because that’s just who they are. And that’s perfectly normal.
Or maybe the kids are brats, and she’s happy to have time away from them, and that is perfectly normal as well.
Not a parent, but IMO, better to have an uncaring parent have their children taken care of someone else, even if it’s a boarding school than stay with them where some really bad things can happen.
I knew a divorced woman who had three boys ranging from mid-teen to 10 y.o who told me she never wanted them, but her husband forced her to have children and couldn’t wait until they left home so she could be by herself. The last time I talked her, her oldest son had moved out and she couldn’t wait for the other two to leave.
In all the years, about 10, I knew her, she never said she loved her sons. They were just there.
When I’ve seen the kind of wishful thinking you’re describing, it’s usually been from people who became parents very young and are now anxious to “get out there” and make up for all the fun and wild times they think they lost. I feel sorry for those people but even sorrier for their kids.
It’s definitely not what I felt about my own kids, but then, I taught teens all day. I like kids that age. The early teen years can be tough on parents, but if I understand correctly, your coworker isn’t talking about how she can’t wait to get rid of those PITA hormonal kids but how wonderful it’d be if she could live unencumbered in a beach town, so I’m guessing this is about her fantasy life, not her children.
I feel sorry for her poor kids, but I agree it’d be better for them to be at boarding school and with a relative who truly loves them than to be with a mom who, whatever her strong points, sees them as standing between her and Baywatch or whatever her fantasy is.
I think this is an accurate description of the situation, she views the kids as a barrier to some happy fantasy she has built up in her head. I don’t know if it’s because she had her kids young though, but the rest sounds accurate.
You do know that there are many boarding schools that collectively educate tens of thousands of students. Wikipedia lists over 300 notable boarding schools alone. All the children attending these schools are, by definition, boarding and not living at home. Do you believe that any parent that sends a child to one is not normal?
Perhaps her children want to go anyway. They may be motivated by learning or sports opportunities. Perhaps they are independent, responsible types, looking to get away from home and start leading their own lives. People I know that went to boarding school certainly were. And, if that is the case, why shouldn’t she see it as a chance for her to try something different?
I assume she’s sing;e at the moment. I also assume she has a lot of money to be able to afford a private school and to walk out on her job. Perhaps the stress of single-parenthood has got to her.
We did not cry when our kids went to college far away, and they didn’t either. They wanted to, they were old enough, and it worked out great. But high school seems a bit young to move away, though it is possible the kids will still visit her in her new home.
Still, it seems that parents kicking their kids out at 18 was a thing at our kids suburban high school, so it might be more normal than I think.
The issue here is not boarding school, it is the mother moving away. That’s the weird part.
I don’t understand. Why can’t she move to the “exciting beach town” AND take the kids with her?
Is she a single parent? Maybe she views the kids as a “bachelor repellant”.
And don’t underestimate the effect of kids passing through that age on their parents. Suddenly your best buddies are ashamed to be seen with you. Or, worse yet, treat you as the old fart WHO DOESN"T UNDERSTAND! “And why can’t I have the car tonight!”
This isn’t a single parent though, shes married to the kids father and has been since before the kids were born. I don’t know if the kids father is as eager to leave the kids behind as she is though.
It sounds TOTALLY ABNORMAL to me! I had both my kids before I was 25 and while there were plenty of times I wished I could launch them to Jupiter I never regretted having them or felt like I was missing out on life.
Chances are Mommy Dearest didn’t want to have kids in the first place and was pressured into it by either the husband or other family members and now she’s decided she’s done.
As long as the kids have a safe place to go during school breaks and holidays they’re probably better off there than with a mother who doesn’t want them.
Is it possible the kids wanted to go to boarding school and she’s trying to make the best of it? Did she say they wouldn’t have bedrooms in the new place?
I know a couple of divorced women who moved states away from their still minor children for relationship opportunities. Not everyone places the same importance on parenting. No, I don’t think it’s always because they’re overwhelmed or what have you. They’re just not as committed to their choices as they let on. People divorce on whims as well. Not my thing, but I can’t control other people.
My grandmother was such a person. My dad was born when she was 15 - and she had a short lived WWII marriage that ended in divorce. My youngest uncle was born when she was 32. She only had three kids (and one stillborn child), but the expectation was she would have kids and be a mother. And my grandmother was honestly a narcissistic party girl (there was a reason she got knocked up and had a shotgun marriage at 15).
When my dad had me at 40, she spent her life resenting me because I made her a grandmother at 40.
Once her kids had matured, she spent her time being very social and was involved in EVERYTHING. More than a decade after her death, I run into her friends who tell me how wonderful she was.
To be fair, she did grow up in a page out of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle - a immigrant family who worked in the slaughterhouse during the depression in crushing poverty, and her mother was an alcoholic. But I wonder if she hadn’t had my Dad so young…I don’t think she would have been happier, but she might have been less resentful.
Jerry Springer Show thought. Maybe her husband is abusive to her and/or her kids and this is her way to get away from him and keep her kids away too.
My ex-girlfriend’s Dad divorced his first wife because she wouldn’t let him discipline and raise them the way he wanted (he held a gun to my girlfriend’s head at one point). He had my ex, and two other kids with her Mom. His ex-wife was Auntie to them and she and her children were always welcome to family events.
I knew a Filipina (yes, this is relevant) who fell in love with me (that in itself puts her in wacko territory ). BTW, I’m a guy.
Anyway, she lived with her Mom and 12 Y.O. daughter. When I told her even if we got married, I wouldn’t let her daughter live with us. She said: “That’s okay, she’s old enough to take care of herself even if my Mom isn’t home!”. She also said she was forced into marriage in the Philippines, and in addition to her daughter, she had a baby boy that she left behind when she moved to Hawaii. I asked her if she didn’t want to go back to be with her son and she said no, she didn’t love or want him. She was forced to have him and he was better off with his father, who she ran away from.