There’s always the possibility that she really doesn’t realize the extent of what’s going on with Mom. Many girls that age are really self-centered and tend not to see beyond their own little circle. She may well see the illness as more of a major annoyance to her social life than as something potentially catastrophic. We had a situation like that in our family last year, and neither teen ever realized the seriousness of it until they were sat down and had it explicitly spelled out for them, despite two hospitalizations.
Can your wife become more of a presence in her life? She sounds like a great role model. Can you include her in more of your family outings if they’re to places that she would enjoy? Maybe take her to some plays?
Are there any stables in the area? Caring for and riding horses is a great activity for teen girls and helps them get outside themselves, in addition to taking up free time.
Yes, I agree. Unfortunately at the moment, it seems like she derives her self worth almost entirely from her looks and her popularity. Hmm, that makes me wonder, could it be that she is pursuing more occasions where people will show her they think she’s beatiful and popular, hence the focus on the social life as a means of boosting her otherwise flagging self-worth? Ideally, we would find something else at which she can excel, but at the moment, that would seem to be limited to applying make-up and soccer. She can be quite the athlete when she wants to. She’s starting a whole bunch of electives this semester, including cosmetology. Maybe something will come out as a new passion.
You’re quite correct here. In the spectrum of human tragedy that has been displayed on the dope, this is still rather mild. Rather, the concern on our and the parent’s part is that she seems to be at the fork in the road described by Justin Bailey:
Yeah, that pattern is easy to see. Hopefully we can avoid road a).
The father believes he should not tell either of the daughters about the mom’s real health situation so they won’t be distracted in their school work or whatever. I don’t think that’s fair, especially to the older daughter.
If mom does die they are both going to have guilt and regret over how they treated their mom during her illness. The older daughter is going to wish she had come home to visit more, or called on the phone more and the younger daughter is going to wish she had skipped some of the partying and contributed less stress to the household.
The dad really needs to be honest with both daughters to give them the chance to spend more time with their mom. Maybe the younger daughter will still act out but certainly the older daughter deserves to choose what she wants. A break from school, if she chooses it, is much less damaging than knowing you missed valuable time with a family member.
Teenage girls tend to feel self-conscious about everything and constantly need attention. They may feel they aren’t good at anything or pretty enough or whatever, but the one thing they do know is every teenage guy wants to fuck them. So when they are going through emotionally stressful situations (like a father distracted by a sick spouse) they may act out by becoming permiscuous and experimenting with drugs and alchohol in order to gain the attention they crave.
Underline mine. It doesn’t, not if it’s done well, and from what you say your wife sounds like she can do it in a way that even increases the kid’s respect for Dad.
I’ve told before the story of that time my Sunday-school class of 4th-graders brought the homework done. Behaved perfectly. Bunch of little angels. Until I asked “ok, what gives?” Well, what gave was that Hitler had been a lot on the news recently (his fake diaries had just been “discovered”) and they could see it was some sort of big deal, but nobody would tell them anything and their parents totally clammed up, and they’d thought of asking their teachers but then they realized, I had never refused to answer a difficult question, so… would I please tell them who this Hitler guys is and what’s the big deal? I explained it in terms they could understand, but I also made sure they understood why their parents thought it was something for the “you’ll understand when you’re older” drawer, and that I wasn’t giving them all the details because those could get real nasty and scary. “Who was Hitler” was not part of the Sunday school curriculum, but hey, we did make it clear both to the parents and the children that the kids could ask anything… The kids understood “your parents didn’t want to scare you”.
I don’t want to bore you with the details, but there have been times I’ve had to prod Middlebro and my sister in law in the right direction: they don’t understand their eldest (my godson) at all; both of their children play them like violins, but the boy does it in an agressive fashion because that’s what he’s learned from his mother’s family (they’re always painting the world in black and white which doesn’t convince Mr Analytical at all, issuing threats which aren’t even a threat such as “if you go on misbehaving, you, you… you’ll see!”, trying to trick him, the grandmother and uncle think it’s jolly good fun to have the 2yo hit the 5yo and don’t understand why my side insists that’s not acceptable).
I understand why you want your friend’s explicit agreement before disclosure, but as godparents, you sometimes have to go against the parents’ small wish (of what to do at that exact point) in order to serve the greater duty bestowed upon you (of helping them raise that child to be a happy, well-rounded grown-up).
Thanks for that Nava; after much mulling this over quite a bit, I had been reluctantly going in this direction anyway, simply because my friend the Dad is seeming too overwhelmed at the moment to get into this with the attention it deserves. On top of the mom’s illness, his work benefits are refusing to cover the (prohibitive) cost of the meds because it’s a rare disease instead of cancer, and they’ve got financial worries to add to the pot. I just don’t think he has the emotional bandwidth right now.
Your example of how this can be done without undemining the parent is reassuring. I’ll make a point to share your post with my wife.
As an update on the situation for everyone:
After consulting witht the family doctor, partygirl has undergone drug testing, which came out negative accross the board. Parents are much relieved and this has helped build back a measure of trust in the family dynamics.
She is showing a significant amount of talent and skill in the hair styiling / make-up / beauty side of things. Mom is starting to cut her hair shorter and shorter in preparation for chemo that will make it fall out in March before the transplant. Partygirl cut and styled it in a way that made mom very satisfied. (and more than a bit surprised). This is with very little formal training in the field so far. I thought this was very encouraging in a number of ways: it gave Mom & party girl a chance to female bond over something positive; in addition to a sense of accomplishment, it gave partygirl a tangible indication that something serious is happening with mom’s health, which I hope can prompt some more honest talk (and can serve as a great lead-in for my wife) . On top of this, it’s making partygirl consider the financial implications of working in this industry, in contrast to the lifestyle to which she wishes to become accustomed. This was the first sign of thinking beyond next week in what feels like years.