My nineteen-year-old son went to the beach and while he was gone I moved away

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

I agree with Scarlet about the witholding of details. Mainly, “What did he do to deserve that?” Makes me assume there is something you are afraid to admit.

On the one hand, he is an adult, you raised him this far, and that fulfills your end of the deal. On the other, most parent’s like to think they’ll have a loving relationship whith their adult children. I’d say you don’t seem to be in that category. If that’s your position, well more power to ya. But if you think he will take this as “Boy, I should have asked mom before I went to the beach! She sure knows best. I should be more helpful to my family.” … I hope you have another thing coming.

I hope the kid takes his own life in his own direction. If my parents did that to me… the hell if I would ever have contacted them again.

42

[QUOTE=BMalion*“Guess what - what? - that’s what!”* game.[/QUOTE]

In my house (which contains no 19-year-olds nor 3-year-olds), it’s:

“Guess what?”
“What?”
“Chicken butt!!”

:smiley:

43

What she said. Y’all are a little quick to assume the worst.

44

I’m not surprised that some people don’t this the idea is funny, rather, I’m glad that this warm, helpful community is jumping to make sure my son is OK.

Explaining all the details does ruin the humorous element of this OP, but since caring individuals seem to think that I’m guilty of neglegence, I will put your minds at ease.

My son is a good guy. I love him, he loves me. About three months ago I was discussing the future with him and he said that he would prefer to live with friends. I thought it was financially ill advised but said that it was his decision. I put a contract on a condo and asked him if he was interested in seeing the place. His lack of interest was impressive.

The date of my move was up in the air when he made plans to go to the beach. When he drove away, he knew that I’d be gone when he came back. He has since moved in with friends and he and I have talked on the phone. He still doesn’t know where I live because he hasn’t needed me yet. He has a job, he is responsible for himself, and for this, I’m proud of him.

45

OK, well, that’s the huge missing piece of the puzzle I needed to hear!

46

“some people don’t think this idea is funny”
[sub]Stupid fingers :::grumble grumble:: [/sub]

47

Yup, I was right, pointless and mundane. Good forum choice.

48

It’s a relief to hear this. It sounds like this is more or less amicable, and that your son is more self-sufficient than most 19-year-olds. certainly more than I was!.

49

Okie doke. Thanks for the clarification.

50

Fair enough. I’ll work on shaking off my pique at how the story was presented.

51

I’ll be over with Scarlett in the pique-shaking area.

There is nothing in the world more obnoxious than someone trying to spin a complete piffle of a non-story into some scenario which makes them look like a badass when in fact, they’re just a halfass. There was no point in posting this except self-aggrandizement.

52

Except, you know, to be funny. Some of us got a chuckle out of it. If you knew Anita you would have known that it had to have been a joke as she isn’t a mean person and she has a good relationship with her kid.

53

But how many people here know Anita, or could reasonably be expected to?

I think that there’s a tendency for people here to forget that just anyone can read what’s posted here, and that most people who read what’s posted don’t know much about the poster. This is a tight-knit community, but it’s an open community, and it’s important to remember that when you’re starting threads where a joke depends on what people know about you.

Mind you, I still don’t like how quick people were to assume the worst, but I can understand why they might.

54

Yeah, this was pretty mundane, pointless stuff. Too bad she felt she must share it with us. :wally

55

Oh come on! I recognized Anita’s name, but that was it, and I got the tone of the OP right off the bat. It was obviously a lighthearted “one less or maybe even the last kid out of the house, yipee” post, with nothing to indicate that either party was mortally wounded by the situation. The “cool” smilie alone should have been a clue, let alone all the exclamation marks!

56

More backstory, if it helps: Anita had wandered into that netherworld of having a son who had graduated from high school, wasn’t interested in college, but was still living at home, with mother and son getting on each other’s nerves.

In a less affluent area than the DC burbs, it would be a lot easier for son to get a place of his own on his pay from the sorts of unskilled jobs he’s qualified for, hence a lot easier for mom to give son 30 days to find a place of his own and move out, or else find his stuff on the sidewalk. Maureen rightly points out, “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 in a city where a young guy can find ways to scrape by on minimum wage, this is how the teaching would be done, if it came to that.

(How do you teach your kid to go out on his own, these days? I remember being the kid who didn’t know what to do with that shiny college diploma, and decades later I’m still not sure exactly what my parents were supposed to do to help me know how to use it to become an adult. Other than discourage me from continuing to stay under their roof. Ultimately, we have to teach ourselves to become adults, IMHO.)

At any rate, Kyle (who had been doing a bang-up job playing the prototypical uncommunicative 19 year old, around mom at least) had known Anita’s move from her rented duplex to her new condo was coming up, had been making noises about moving in with some friends but had been less than clear about it (but had indicated that he wasn’t going to come along to the new place), had refused all maternal help in finding a place of his own (IIRC), had been spending increasing numbers of nights away from Anita’s without entirely moving out (or moving his stuff out at all), and…well, if you’re the mom, how exactly do you get some closure here? Is this business going to just drag out indefinitely somehow, or what?

Apparently we have closure. Kyle seems to have landed somewhere else, and is attempting to make it without Mom’s help. This is good for all concerned. Understandably, Anita was reluctant to force the deal, but at least her move created a situation that made Kyle choose to get out for real. But it wasn’t a given that it would play out that way. Hence Anita’s relief.

There are no rules for this. There is no parents’ manual that tells you how best to push your child out of the nest when he needs to be out, but it isn’t clear how he’s going to make it on his own. So when one stage of it somehow just works out, I think a parent is entitled to feelings of relief, and even celebration. And I think that’s what Anita was trying to express here.

57

I’ll also vouch for Anita being a great mom. She obviously has much love for her son, but in typical 19-year-old fashion, he shuns it. He knew she was moving; he said he was moving too, but never communicated any details nor asked Anita for details. Anita has gone totally all out for this boy, and he seems ungrateful, IMO, and he seems to want to just be left alone. So what else can she do? He has his freedom now, and so does she. She deserves some “me” time, for real.

58

Jokes in this vein are common among people who have:

  1. Teenage children at home.
  2. Parents/Grandparents that have reached a certain stage.

A common question would be: “If I sell my house, will I have enough equity left to buy a one-way ticket to New Zealand?” There are a thousand variations thereof, but nobody really means it, it’s just a way to blow off some frustration. I guess if you’re not routinely faced with these circumstances, you’re not so likely to pick up on the joke.

Anyways, we’re still building the altar to ** Anita Vacation** tonight. We’re going to try to top the thing off with a statue that mimics Venus de Milo, except she’ll arms and stuff. Come on down, relax and pop some lids with us!

59

Oh, for heaven’s sake, you people are acting like she was gloating about really levaing her 10 year old behind at a gas station on a road trip.

It says right there in plain sight that he’s a grown man, and that he has the means to get in touch with her if he wants or needs to via her cell phone. If he was all that active a part of her life, he’d know she was moving–it’s not like you can find a place and pack everything up and move it overnight. If he somehow wasn’t aware that she was moving, despite piddly details like her packing, there’s a lot more wrong in the relationship than her moving out without a forwarding address.

Besides, it was pretty obvious that the whole thing was a play on the old joke about the parents wanting their own apartment away from the kids. Sheesh.

60

Birds shove their young adult offspring out of the nests. Bears and tigers abandon theirs. We should be able to do the same! Kids don’t know they’re grown, Anita just told him. “You’re an adult now, go act like it.”
When my husband was 17, he came home from school one day to a motorhome in the driveway and mom furiously packing it.
She told him “We’re leaving for a couple years, you’re in charge. We’ll pay the bills. We’ll let you know (eventually) where we are.”

  • They ran away from home!*
    He loved it ! How could he not?!?