Sure. I understand completely. Such a person can cut you deeply in places you didn’t even know you had feelings.
I’m fully aware that it’s stupid of me to hate him and that furthermore it makes me a Very Bad Buddhist and that I’m “letting him live rent-free in my head” - I’m just not mature enough to let it go just yet.
Oh, and it turns out that some of our math problems (no pun intended) lie in that whole “did the work and didn’t turn it in” thing. Which, hell, I can’t tell you because I did that at that age. I tried to talk to them about, you know, what would work for you to make you actually turn it in… not sure how much headway that made.
True. And boiled potatoes are also pretty easy (though usually requiring peeling). Then boiled potatoes can then be mashed with butter, spices, and sour cream. And teenagers may enjoy the physical effort of ‘mashing’ them – I do, and I’m far from a teenager.
Also, leftover mashed potatoes can be formed into patties and fried for breakfast the next day. Learning about the creative use for leftovers will be very useful to them.
My mother used to be able to stretch a over-large Sunday beef roast nearly all week: open roast beef sandwich with mashed potatoes & gravy (‘roast beef commercial’) on Monday, roast beef & ketchup sandwiches for Tuesday lunch, Wednesday beef, potatoes, & onions hash, Thursday vegetable beef soup.
Sure you can - you’re a smart, self-aware person. I know you don’t want to hate your brother, but you do, so just accept that feeling, put it into a little barbed-wire-lined box, and put it to one side. Every time he makes you feel aaargh grr eugheuhewwrghgrrr!, add it to that box and then ignore it. Open the box now and then when the kids etc aren’t around, if you need to. I bet even Gandhi saved things to his aargh box now and then.
Once things have settled down, could you maybe have a schedule? Like where you’ll pick the kids up from school/cook dinner/do general kid stuff every Thursday, and then take responsibility for them every second Saturday or something?
The kids’ll do better knowing that ‘oh, this is Thursday, and my Aunt Zsofia takes me to karate every Thursday then takes me home’ than ‘my Aunt Zsofia picks me up sometimes when I’m too much for my grandparents to cope with.’ And your grandparents will cope better knowing that they can down tools one day at least.
Another kind of food that’s very good for leftovers is meat roasts and stews: dice up the leftovers, serve over pasta - yum! Depending on what else went into the roast/stew (marinades, sauces…), it works better using the liquid from the meat to boil the pasta, or adding it along with the meat after the pasta is drained.
Oh, and pasta and rice are pretty much interchangeable.
I don’t think you should separate the sin from the sinner. Actions make a person. Sure, I wish I were 15 pounds lighter, that doesn’t mean anyone is obligated to “see” me as that. Same principles apply. You should hate him - he’s a vile, worthless human being.
But the upside is he’s created these kids who are not, not at all. Perhaps his only redeeming quality is that while he’s a loser, his kids are bringing you some joy and a novel experience you otherwise never would have had. These kids are partly you! They’re your grandparents too. They have your traits and wonderful qualities. My SO’s father has had 4 wives and cheated on all of them with reckless abandon. Loses jobs for sleeping with grad students. My SO is a loving, wonderful person, possibly the most gentle man on earth, who lives like his grandparents and mother. His paternal uncle calls him on his birthday (father’s only brother), took us out to museums and lunches and sends Christmas money. You are that uncle in this situation. And the kids do and will continue to adore you - for the example you set and the human being you are.
And hey, I’ll finally get around to learning how not to fake quadratic equations, so when I get to the damned gates and St. Peter asks me about them I’ll be ready.
(And I guess they’re “partly me” by raising, but they’re not actually blood relatives - their dad is adopted. Which sounds like a dumb thing to give a rat’s ass about, but it’s kind of a relief to me that if his soul-rot is genetic I don’t have to worry about it with any kids I may have.)
I disagree. Hate is a destructive, toxic emotion and only serves to hurt you - the hater - it does nothing to harm the hate-ee. Hate is counterproductive to evolving into a better person. Hate is bad for your health and bad for your spirit. Zsofia has already mentioned that she realizes the hate is not something she wants to keep around.
Your remark about the weight makes no sense. “Actions make a person” - being 15 pounds overweight isn’t an action.
Being 15 pounds overweight is a choice made through a series of actions - just as he makes choices every day to be a toxic human being. I’m not advocating devoting lots of time to it - I’m just saying she should not feel bad for feeling the way she does. It’s entirely justified.
Certainly she’s justified in having those feelings (see post #81). I took exception with the statement that she “should hate”. I don’t think anybody ever “should” hate.
C’mon, people, it’s more important she concentrate on helping her parents help those kids right now than work on her feelings towards her brother. Her brother is toxic and will likely remain toxic regardless of how she feels towards him, but right now she might potentially do some huge good for the kids. Focus on where her effort and energy will do the most good. Priorities, people, priorities.
Nah, it’s okay - I know hating his guts isn’t doing anybody in the world a lick of good, including him, and isn’t harming anybody but me, including him. It’s just not something I’m willing to let go of right now at this moment. Especially, childishly, because my dad gets all upset and tries to tell me how I ought to feel about him.
I do welcome input from everybody on my relationship there - I appreciate the sentiment, really.
I think hatred can occasionally be a useful emotion–if it serves to spur you to action.
Oooh boy, first problem. We evidently have a Bad Friend. The girl had a friend over last night and planned also tonight, a girl somewhat younger than her (she’s 13, my niece is 15.) If it were 1962 I’d call her “fast” - lots of eye makeup, dressing way too old, etc. Found out in the car that she’s homeschooled not because they moved but because she got her ass expelled (and you should have heard the story she told about how they write you up for “nothing” at her old school.) But hey, whatever - I don’t think that’s necessarily awful, especially since my niece seemed to think she was really silly and “boy crazy” on the car ride.
So I take the two of them to the grocery store and we pick up the stuff for the niece’s first weekly cooking thing, and then I went off to the hardware store until it was time to start cooking. On my way home I saw the two girls and the middle boy a block away coming home and assumed they had gone to the park, but once we got them inside the boy ratted them out and told me they’d walked to Hardee’s. (Oh, and “made him go”, of course.)
Well, the lie is the big thing, obviously (they’d asked my dad if they could go to the park and justified it as “we went to the park first!”). But the Hardee’s, while a short walk away, is not where I’d have kids going - right by the interstate, scarier busier streets, semi-industrial, you know. And then I find out that the Bad Friend’s mother had asked what they’d be doing when she dropped her off and made sure they wouldn’t be “roaming the streets or anything”. The boy did tell me it was my niece’s idea, however.
So there were Firm Words and the Bad Friend who was supposed to spend the night suddenly found out that “her mom was sick” and her dad came to get her - I strongly suspect she didn’t like the fact that she got spoken to very firmly (not yelled at, but obviously embarrassed.) And there was some sullen shit from Niece as well, who ended up cleaning up as well as cooking because she abandoned me to “go to the bathroom” for twenty minutes and I had to go upstairs and get her after I got tired of cooking her meal myself.
So, no big tragedy, but urrrrgh, teenaged girls. I’m sure her brother is going to catch a ton of shit for ratting her out, too.
Not a huge deal. Nobody was at the park so the kids checked out Hardee’s. Unless they were specifically told not to be in that area, they probably don’t see why what they did was wrong. And “roaming the streets” can be interpreted in different ways, especially by teenagers. “We weren’t roaming – we knew where we were going!”
I was expecting something worse. My daughter’s “bad friends” were druggies and shoplifters.
Nah, they knew they weren’t supposed to go anywhere else - they got rid of the evidence on the way home. My mom and dad were furious because of the “lying about where you were” thing, which IMHO is something of a big deal, but also because lying about something instead of just asking for it is totally the sort of thing their dad does. Any kind of subterfuge understandably sets off their alarm bells. (And they all have cell phones - they could have called.)
Zsofia - The girl is 15 years old - almost old enough to drive wherever she wants to go. So walking a few blocks away to Hardees (and if it’s only a couple blocks from the park, the park must be in the same dodgy area). Honestly, I think you’re making a mountain out of a molehill. I don’t see the “lie” they told. They went to a restaurant (if you can call Hardees that!), got a snack, threw away their trash and walked back.
By the time I was 9 I was packing a lunch, riding 5 miles on my bike to a friends house, catching a pony from their small herd, sticking a bridle on and riding bareback by myself for hours, eating my lunch in there somewhere. By the time I was 14, my whole family went out of state for a week for my grandfather’s funeral, leaving me at home to go to school and take care of the pets. You have to give them some room for themselves - she’s almost grown up. How will she ever learn to be responsible unless she is allowed to do age-appropriate things?
I’m not a parent, just a former child, so take my advice with a large grain of salt.
StG
I admit I snuck off when I was a teenager, misled my parents about my destinations and locations, and so forth. It’s really not unusual teen behavior. That doesn’t mean it’s OK, just that it’s something one should expect from a teen. There may also be an aspect of testing the limits here, trying to see if you and your parents will overlook this sort of thing or not.
The problem here is that you know these kids are from a troubled past and so there is a tendency to view everything through that lens. I think you and your parents should be careful not to over-react to this, while at the same time making it clear this is not acceptable or responsible behavior. As an occasional thing it’s normal teenage rebellion. If it becomes regular that’s a different matter.
I’m unsure about this.
I think the key thing is this “is totally the sort of thing their dad does”. So they think lies (or lying by omission – they went to the park, but then they went to Hardee’s, too) is a normal sort of thing to do. That attitude is what you want to stop. They need to learn that in this household, it is not necessary (or acceptable) to be less than honest.
On the other hand, this was a pretty minor ‘fib’, and nothing bad came of it. So try not to over-react.
I would set down with them the next day and say something like this:
*About going to the park & Hardee’s the other day: maybe we over-reacted, but we really care about you guys, and that makes us worry a lot – maybe too much.
What upset us the most was that we felt that you weren’t being honest & upfront with us. You had your cellphones; you could have called and said ‘Nothing’s happening at the park, so we’re going on to Hardee’s.’ Then it would have been OK, cause we would have known where you were. [This assumes that it would have been OK; that you wouldn’t have forbidden it and ordered them to immediately come home instead. Try to avoid that – if you always say no, they’ll find ways to not ask – like forgetting to take their cellphone with.]
Now your dad and mom are often not honest – not to each other, and not always to you guys. [Be tactful here!] But in this house, we try to always be honest to you, and we want you be honest with us. so that’s what upset us so much about that incident – not going to Hardee’s, but our feeling that you were less than honest about it. And we don’t want this house to be a place for that.
OK? Do you guys understand why we reacted like we did to that?*
Again, advice from a non-parent; worth what you paid for it.
Yep, learned it from dear ol dad. That said, it’s definitely minor, especially with the fess up.
Hopefully younger girl will disappear. Good on you for that. You definitely handled the whole situation well; sounds like the girl is starting to see/understand limits. She may still dislike them, but she gets that they’re there. And will continue being there. That itself is half the battle.
One thing I learned from Middle Bluth’s horrible years was to never, ever leave them unattended. That doesn’t mean be in the same room as them - the more they’re “on their own” but under your supervision, the better. They “feel” free but aren’t at all. So no no running about the neighborhood, no traveling from one friend’s house to another on bike or foot, etc. When the kids are in middle school that’s a perfectly fine idea, but in high school it’s a Bad Idea.
If they want to go to a friend’s house, drive them (not you, but grandparents too) whenever possible, because most of the trouble happens when they’re 1) outside on their own and 2) unsupervised. The unstructured environment is not good for those without a strong sense of right/wrong and of self.
And never hesitate to attempt to subvert the “fast” friend. If the friend has to babysit on a certain weekend night, push the niece to do something with other friends. And if she’s free, push for a family game night or movie. That way you block the friend as much as possible, and she starts telling the friend no on her own.
Any possibility for band/choir/drama club or sports teams for them?