Ok, I got a lot of negative backlash on this thread yet my “done with my sons” thread was refreshed due to an opinion I had posted on a different thread re:telling a child’s future at 16.
I had posted yes, IMO, you could. And that I had adjusted my expectations for my sons based upon their drug use in teen years.
Strange because I think parents readjust expectations on the regular with their offspring.
Ex. Star athlete on track for college scholarship or NFL or NBA and there is a debilitating knee injury in high school. Readjust. And different outcome.
Ok, I got a lot of negative backlash on this thread yet my “done with my sons” thread was refreshed due to an opinion I had posted on a different thread re:telling a child’s future at 16.
I had posted yes, IMO, you could. And that I had adjusted my expectations for my sons based upon their drug use in teen years.
Strange because I think parents readjust expectations on the regular with their offspring.
Ex. Star athlete on track for college scholarship or NFL or NBA and there is a debilitating knee injury in high school. Readjust. And different outcome.
Wow. It’s like you’re just begging to write your kids off.
Those are two entirely different situations.
You really need to get your head right.
Not that different, imo.
Athlete on track. Derailed by injury.
Kids on track. Kids have affinity for drugs.
Derailed by their affinity for drugs
Your opinion is wrong.
Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
You seem to feel like his worth as a person has been derailed. Like you don’t love him as much because you think his potential is less.
I mean, if someone said they needed to “disengage” from their kid because they were now unlikely to be a star athlete, that’d be appalling to.
If you son ends up less successful than you as an adult, will you maintain a relationship with him? Celebrate Christmas together, call him once a week, visit? This is a serious question.
“now that he can no longer be a star athlete, I’m just supposed to have a loving relationship with him? How can my husband watch TV with these non athletic children, and interact with watch???”
Interact with WARMTH
I guess you all missed the point.
I was asking if you ever adjusted your expectations
Shouldn’t have used athlete analogy cuz now you’re all choosing to focus on that.
Yes in a way Manda Jo
Using drugs has changed their course in life most definitely
Nothing to do with potential success-wise
I would rather they be less successful work-wise than be drug-abusing millionaires
So if he does drugs as an adult, you will cut him off? No Christmas, no visiting your grandkids, no calls on his birthday?
Here’s what I find disturbing about this.
I DO know parents that have cut their kids out of their lives because of drugs.
I happens after the 10th or 12th or 20th time they’ve stolen money from their parents. It happens after the 4th overdose. It happens after they financed 5 expensive rehabs, only to see the kid relapse after 2 days. It happen after their kids have assaulted them in order to steal stuff to buy drugs. And even then, even after all that, parents (especially mothers ) find it difficult.
They find it difficult because they truly love their children. They feel their pain and suffer with them. It usually takes counseling to even convince the parents to cut the kid off. Most parents find it really difficult to give up on their kids, even when, to the outside observer, there’s no hope left. And even then, they still love them.
You caught your kid once. You had no inkling of a problem at the time, IIRC. Which seems to indicate that he is holding his own at school and socially. And, because of this one incident, you’ve decided your child is irredeemably broken and not be worthy of your love.
Your shocked that we think you should still love him as much as he did before.
This isnt about our disparate position on marijuana. I’m not getting on you for overreacting. If you had told me you were grounding him for a year and cutting off his internet and making him take a drug test every week and sniffing his hair every time you hugged him - yes I’d think you were overreacting and I might try to convince you to lighten up. But I wouldn’t be in the Pit.
I’m pitting your emotional reaction - the fact that your maternal bond was so tenuous that this incident seems to have affected your ability to love your child, and that you somehow think this is OK.
See, I once had to cut a kid out of my life. He wasn’t even my biological child, I fostered him for several years. And I had to cut him out because he developed a psychiatric problem and thought I was poisoning him and spying on him online and all sorts of crazy stuff. And I still needed a therapist to help me cut him off and I slipped up a lot, because he had good days sometimes. And then my therapist had to remind me that the next time he might try to kill me.
And it still fucking hurts, I’m crying as I type this. Because I still love him.
You’re saving yourself a lot of pain, I guess, but you are missing out on so much. I just have no more words.
I’m so sorry, Ann Hedonia. You’re enduring pure torture.
And I am doing that. Saving from the future pain.
No, I do NOT adjust expectations of my children or grandchildren or any other child I might have an interest in–because all I expect of them is that they will grow up to be their own person, to make their own mistakes and recover from them, to seek out their own version of happiness, their own version of success and just in general become the people they want to be. I don’t HAVE to adjust expectations, because absent something going heinously wrong, this is what kids do. And while they’re doing all this it’s my job to love them and care for them and help them when they’re struggling and listen to their concerns and love them even more.
If you’re “adjusting expectations” that tells me you had unreasonable and unworkable expectations to start out with and that’s YOUR problem, not theirs. YOU need to fix what’s wrong with you rather than standing there with your arms folded and your mouth pursed up waiting for your kids to please you. That’s not their job.
I’m so sorry, Ann Hedonia. You’re enduring pure torture.
And I am doing that. Saving from the future pain.
You’re doing no such thing, in fact you’re CREATING the future pain with your behavior and your unrealistic expectations. Seriously, shame on you!
I have no interest in drugs.
They have an unhealthy interest in drugs.
I have my view. They have theirs.
And never the twain shall meet.
When they are out of the house, I will not seek them out. Because they will be doing drugs. And I will not.
No reconciling the difference there.
I’m not interested in Christmas with weed vaping in the air.
And God forbid, if they had a family then I would see them spend money from their budget on weed instead of saving for braces, or college for their kids.
Nope. Will not be around for that.
If you offered them love and compassion, maybe they would be more likely to make the right choices in the future. By pulling yourself away and refraining from offering love and compassion, you are making it more likely they will make bad choices.