Threads like this are terrifying as a parent. They also make me understand why my parents spent the first few years of my twenties repeating “We’re so proud of you!” in a surprised tone.
Sometimes the fuck-ups do pull their heads out of their asses and grow up, and I was one of those. Never a complete flake, really, just basically aimless, taking stupid risks and not doing anything with my life until an accidental pregnancy at 21 changed everything. I married the idiot, against everyone’s advice, and divorced him after a year of drama and I’m sure my parents figured I’d land back home and they’d wind up raising the baby for me. Hence their constant pleased shock when I didn’t, but found a decent job and commenced with raising him on my own.
I sincerely hope something similar can happen in your case and Miss Drama pulls a 180 and in a year you’re telling us about how wonderful things are going. Hope springs eternal, eh?
This girl sounds like my mother. She too didn’t want to get married and have kids, and that’s exactly what she ended up doing. She tried to get her children to live out her dreams that were squashed by having a family. That failed, because doing that almost always does, and now she makes sure we know how much of a burden we’ve been for the last 26 years. I feel bad for this baby.
For everyone’s sake, she should not marry this guy, and give the baby up for adoption.
I should also add that Hallgirl2 and my mother share the same type of personality. The irratic moodiness, the drama, denying things she’d said in the past to make herself look better…everything. It was kind of creepy to read, and it made me sad because it could also mean that she can turn out to be the same kind of my mother mine was, who holds grudges for years (even for things you did when you were a toddler), is resentful, and emotionally abusive.
I take back the adoption thing, because the father seems to be quite happy about this. Hopefully he will be a good father to the baby. I don’t know what I would have done if it weren’t for my dad.
I don’t know what to say, phall0106, except that I’m sorry for the whole situation.
My wife and I lived together for 2-3 years before she got pregnant, and it was already pretty much well understood we were getting married, we were just kind of waiting it out until we got more money for a wedding (paying for school, our home, and a wedding was a bit much on us two kids). When we found out, we kept it from our family. It was Christmas, and my family and I had some issues already. We just wanted a holiday to go by with no fighting. I told my mom in the first week of January, after an Art Garfunkel concert. She yelled at me to stop the car and let her out, that she didn’t want to be around me. I didn’t. She got home and yelled for a long time, then she didn’t talk to me for a week or two. She told me how I screwed up my life, how I through away my career goals, all kinds of stuff.
I’m saying this because I think my wife and I are proof that you can still have career goals while being a young parent (I was 20 when we found out, 21 when he was born - wife, 24, 25). I still had 2 years left of college, but I took extra spring and summer classes so I’m going to be done in spring. I’m possibly starting graduate school in the fall (depends on my decision, nothing else) and working while starting my own business as a freelancer. My wife is finishing her Master’s and debating the Ph.D. Even with all this going on, we are still home with the baby and everything is going well. I say this because a little over a year ago, my family (and her’s at times) was convinced that we were just going to live together and then it would end, that we were “crazy dreamers” and that we had no idea where we were headed. Now that we are still headstrong in our ideas, taking care of everything, we have shown them that we are dedicated to some dreams, but we are a family. I hope that your daughter and her boyfriend can say the same at a later time.
Good luck with the situation. I know it’s difficult to be supportive, but again, kids do what they want. It sucks sometimes, but that is the truth. No amount of nagging from a parent will stop a headstrong kid, and sometimes that is okay. I just hope the best for the baby, for them, and for you.