I don’t get it. 
Most 19yo’s are full of crap sometimes. So he is being a jerk? You just up and take off on him?
This doesn’t make sense.
If he deserved this kind of treatment I wish you would clue us in…
No, NO, NO!
Anita Vacation has already been assigned Legendary Super Hero[sup]TM[/sup] status around here. There are many of us worshiping at a hastily constructed alter devoted to her, and there are plans being made to buy lots of beer and construct a more elaborate structure to glorify her. This should be in place by midnight or daylight, depending.
Please don’t demean our new idol with talk of an address exchange.
This happened to my father. He was about 19, going to CSU and went to California for a short visit to check out schools that he was thinking of attending over the summer. When he returned, his mother had put one of his brothers in a boy’s home, taken his sister and left. His house was empty, and he ended up staying with an aunt and uncle until the end of the semester. It actually took him a while to find the rest of his family.
It added more fucked-upness to his already pretty fucked-up view of women. My mother used to say that if it weren’t for my dad’s grandmother, he would hate women altogether.
So I have to say, I don’t really find your post funny. I realize your situation is probably not the same, but still, you are laughing about something that really has had really fucked-up repercussions in my family to this day, affecting several generations. I hope this is not the case for your family.
Home Alone, anybody? Only with parties.
Oh, I didn’t mean soon, I meant, like, maybe after he gets married or something.
Ghanima, I’m sorry about your family history. This OP was meant to be light-hearted.
To the other posters who have expressed concern, please do not worry. Note that he and I both have each others cell phone numbers. Also, he and I both know where the other works, so we are able to find the other if we so desire. We just don’t have that desire yet.
Anyone feeling sorry for the young man have misplaced their sympathy: If he hadn’t been at the beach, he would have had to help me move. He was getting a tan while I lugged boxes, the rat!
But every word of the OP was true - I have witnesses: RTFirefly, Ultrafilter and Huggybear helped me move and can attest to the fact that I said “The stuff in that room is the kid’s. Leave it!” And it’s true that he doesn’t know where I live now, only that I’m still in the area. [sub](Which reminds me, it’s outside the beltway. I’ll have to change my location.)[/sub]
To those who revel with me in my coup, thank ya, thankyaverymuch!
I think that’s great.
I don’t understand why people are so upset about it.
He’s 19. He’s an adult and should be able to take care of himself, and if he can’t, he’d better start right quick.
Good for you Anita.
Unless Kyle Vacation is a total repetitive screw-up and/or dangerous, I’m going with “inexcusable” here. I hope you never hear from him again. If my parents ever did that to me (though my parents never would have), I would start my life over, write them off and hope to my lucky stars that I would never see them or hear from them again, and good riddance.
Are you going to tell us what an unforgivable fuck-up your kid is, so we can at least have some sympathy for you?
Oh, I know. My parents did the same thing while my 20-year-old brother was off in Europe. He found us anyway, unfortunately.
So is this why you won’t be coming to the party?
You’re on the run?
I don’t feel sorry for the young man, as such. Having helped raise two step daughters and currently going through the throes of teenagerhood with my oldest, I understand the frustration and the appeal of up and leaving. But… he isn’t the one who’s supposed to be teaching you how to be an adult. It’s the other way around. And up and leaving, thinking “This’ll teach him good! Now he’ll learn!” Just doesn’t seem to be the way to do it. He’s not gonna thank you for this. Not even when he’s thirty and fully capable of supporting himself.
I think it would help if you’d clarify one point – did your son leave for the beach with the expectation that you’d be there when he got back? Had there been discussion of you and he parting ways?
Yeah, what Eve said. There just seems to be a little too much glee at having “dumped” the kid. If this were truly a “tough love” situation, or an escape from threatening or illegal behavior, I would think there would be at least some regret. On the other hand, the disappearing act in retaliation for “He’s got a smart mouth and an attitude and he went to the beach instead of helping us move, the rat!” seems mighty harsh.
Add to that the coy withholding of details, despite requests for same, and then telling us “you don’t know the situation, so don’t criticize,” and this whole thread just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I’m confused. You moved. Does that mean he has to move to? Like, he has 2 days to get all his crap together before the house is officially sold, or what have you really dumped on this kid?
I’m with Eve. Were you renting your other place? Will your son now assume the lease? If he cannot, how long does he have to move?
What the OP did sounds positively awful and the complete opposite of funny. If that means I have no sense of humor, then so be it.
I think that some things need to be said here… like… he knew she was moving and it’s been in the plans and discussions for months now? It’s not like she just snuck off in the night out of the blue or something.
I could be wrong here, but I think that Anita is just playing lightheartedly with the fact that her son hasn’t asked for her new address or seen her new place yet.
Anita, this thread reads like a private in-joke between you and a couple of your pals. No offense intended but if you never cough up the details and only reply with flippant one-liners, everyone will think you are a jerk of a mom.
Disclosure - I am the parent of a highly-troubled 17 year old and these threads always pique my curiosity, so I open them. But this one is on the level of a 3 year old’s “Guess what - what? - that’s what!” game.
I don’t know about that.
When I was almost 18, my mother moved out of her house, and put it up on the market to sell. She paid the bills and the mortgage, but I seldom saw her.
She moved to another town, 15 miles away.
I had a 2 year old son. I was left to take care of myself and him, as I should have been.
The house sold a month after my 18th birthday, and I was left to find an apartment.
I thank my mother in my mind nearly every day for that. I had to do what I had to do. Sink or swim. I have issues with my mother, but not one of them is based on her expecting me to take care of myself and my own child.
I see adult children struggling all the time when their parents try to ween them into their 20’s and up.
I think it makes them expect to be taken care of by someone. Bottom line, unless you are very fortunate, no one is going to take care of you except yourself.
I don’t know the back story, but I can imagine it. And honestly, it doesn’t matter, he’s an adult. She didn’t abandon him, he has her cell #. She’s still his mother, she still loves him. What is so awful and evil about expecting an adult to make their own way in life? I don’t get it.
I’m fast approaching a similar situation with my own son, who will be 18 in March. I won’t be moving out, and I won’t literally toss him out on the street, but the boy will be working and/or going to school, and paying rent, and doing chores, and obeying house rules, or he’ll be looking for someplace else to live.
Judging by Geobabe’s remarks of
And not to mention the follow-up several posts up by Anita Vacation, my assessment was that he went on vacation at a beach instead of helping her move in a planned move that he knew about, and he simply doesn’t have her new address yet. Maybe I’m dense or something?
My father kind of did the same thing to me. He sent me away to a private boarding school when I was 16, that he could barely afford. My sister was married and moved away, my mom was living 80 miles away in a semi- nursing home. When I went home for Christmas break, there was a “For Sale” sign in the front yard. He had sold our furniture to an auction place and put everything else in storage. He’d even GIVEN my dog to the people who owned the auction place. And he had moved across town to a 1 bedroom apartment. The only reason he wanted me to come home, was so I could let the auction people in to get the furniture. After the furniture was gone, he let me sleep on the couch at his apartment until the end of Christmas break.