No idea. I mention my uncle a post ago, and by and large all of my grandparents children turned out great, successful people. My grandparents were quite wealthy, he owned a chain of pharmacies in southwest Virginia and was college educated as a pharmacist back when that was a very rare thing. He had five children, one became a lawyer, one became a pharmacist, one had a long career in State government as a civil servant (not financially all that successful but good in her career) one worked for ATT as an operator/HR drone but still did fairly well in her life, and one became a guy who went through like five wives (all divorced him after being repeatedly beaten by him), many prison stints, extreme drug abuse, and finally was found to have been sexually abusing his own children.
If it was solely nurture, I’d question how the same couple could raise five children the same way and one turns out a monster and the others turn out fine. Maybe they were different with their youngest son in some way and that’s what happened. Or maybe it’s purely nature, and he was born with something deeply wrong with him that no parent could have fixed.
I think what makes sense to me is maybe some people need different types of parenting. Since there are different types of people it would make a lot of sense to me that no singular parenting style will be ideal for all people. I think a lot of people when thinking of their upbringing look at where they disagreed with their own parents and universalize what they view as their own parent’s failings as lessons. That’s something posters in this thread who have gone down that path have done, they talk about the ways their own parents pissed them off/failed and how the OP shouldn’t do the same. But that may just mean that you as an individual were not well served by your own parent’s parenting style, it doesn’t necessarily mean that style of parenting isn’t good for some children (excluding abuse, obviously.)
My grandparents were very progressive/permissive parents. They gave their children room to grow on their own, room to make their own mistakes, and tried to educate/raise them to do the best thing for themselves with that freedom. Four of their children flourished under that style of parenting, one did not. It’s possible that he needed a different type of parenting.
I know my parents (probably influenced by my mother who I think felt her own parents were too lenient and that is part of what lead to her brother turning into a scumbag) were strict as hell. But what I’ve found is that the times in my life where I haven’t had some sort of structure I’ve fallen into bad practices with drink, over eating, bad relationship decisions etc. I think I probably was well served by strict parents even if I didn’t really appreciate it at the time. I did pretty poorly when I first left the military because that was really the first time in my life I had no structure, but I think my life experiences up to that point had given me enough imprinting to eventually recognize I needed to change how I was spending my retirement.
If it’s nature, then it’s still the parents’ fault indirectly through their genes, no?
The answer is a little of both, with more contribution from nature then most people are comfortable admitting.
In most cases, you can say that the parent(s) weren’t perfect, but that doesn’t absolve the kid of responsibility. In other cases, the parents share more blame.
Cognoscant, your story is extremely touching and I sincerely hope the best for you. I wish there was something I could do to give you hope and something to live for, but others here have said more than I ever could. Your son’s life is not over, so don’t give up on him. Between his biodad and his mom, it sounds like you are the most positive influence in his life. So please don’t give up.
I’m so sorry to hear your marriage is struggling and that work is a source of nothing but stress. But things can and do get better. I hope they get better for you soon. Many people make it through difficult times in marriage to be happy again either with their spouse, on their own, or with someone new. People get through bad times at work too. It all feels so bad and hopeless now and I know words from an internet stranger are probably worth less than the electrons used to present them, but I just want you to know that I care about you and want you to feel happy and feel better soon.
Welcome to 3 years ago? I’m not the same person I was when I started posting here. I live with my amazing boyfriend and have been continuously employed full-time making more than twice the minimum wage for years, although I will always be a fatty fat fatty. I am mentally fucked-up and was bad with boundaries for a long time because my dad molested me when I was 11 years old. It’s a miracle I didn’t kill myself in my early twenties. But you know, keep fighting the good fight I guess.
Cognoscant, having read your last post, something’s pretty clear to me. You think your mental health issues are a secret from your son. They’re not, whatever else he is he’s not an idiot. It would not surprise me if at least part of the reason he hides in his room taking drugs is because the atmosphere in the rest of the house is so toxic.
Now, that may seem like an attack on you, or an attempt to blame you, and that may be partly true, but that’s not the reason I make the point. It’s because, in my opinion, the problem ultimately isn’t drugs, or your son as an individual. It’s that your whole family is no longer functioning. Any solution to these problems will involve you, your wife, and your son all working on it, both together and separately.
If you can’t do that as a group, your priority must be to sort yourself out, because, by the sound of it, you are in no state to provide the support anyone else needs.
It’s possible. But it’s a real shitty (and selfish) excuse for standing by and doing nothing while he fucks up his life. Or letting him get hydroponics kits in the mail because – oh no – you might not trust the kid lying to your face if you open the box.
And it’s no comparison to dying your hair blue, dating someone or listening to that devil’s rock & roll music. The kid is doing illegal drugs, and fucking up his life in the process in numerous ways and in ways which will likely compound themselves as he gets older. That’s a different standard than spending too much time on Facebook.
Based on this post I think you need to prioritize some kind of mental health triage for yourself before you get yourself so wound up in your stepson’s drama it precipitates your mental or emotional collapse. Googling "Klonopin " it’s apparently for some pretty heavy duty mental disorders, I’m guessing it’s working because your posts come across a eminently rational. Your kid’s pot problem is annoying, but IMO it is* way, way* down on the list of things you need to be paying attention to or worrying about at this point. If your mental cliff collapses and you can no longer earn everyone is going to be in the shitter, and his teenage pot problem will be very small potatoes at that point.
I am not trivializing the damage being disengaged can do to a teenager. My 23 year old son was addicted to video games and indulged by my ex-wife for over 8 years. He barely graduated high school and spent literally years in front of the PC playing Warcraft , but now is finally back in the real world and seems to be moving forward. I understand your frustration, but you HAVE to prioritize.
IMO you need to drop obsessing about his prospects, and just put some emotional distance between yourself and his issues as difficult as that may be to do. You HAVE to compartmentalize this or you are going down the mental rathole. Just put his issues in a box and put it on the shelf with a “Handle Later” tag on it until you can get yourself healthy. A pot smoking 16 year old is aggravating as hell, but a grown man, and the primary support for a family on the edge of nervous breakdown is a hell of a lot more important and dangerous to the viability of the entire family than his bud problems.
Probably because that’s total bullshit. Yeah, it may further alienate the kid, but it’s certainly not the only outcome. I thank my lucky stars that my parents set up firm rules for me when I was a teen. If you don’t forbid certain things, you’re likely a shitty parent.
I think the approach to this ignores the drug use. Being open and honest about your own personal issues helps. And I think the way to attack his issues will be through things he has a passion for. I think finding common ground in music/art will be a much better approach. At this point it’s got to be better than a “dad/son” relationship. 16 is too old, especially without a real blood relationship.
Whatever path you choose, I think focusing on the drug of choice, particularly when the drug is THC (I can see a more urgent need if the drug were meth or something), isn’t the right way to help him.
This highlights another important point I think you (the OP) may be missing in the context of your blended family. He is NOT (really) your “son” no matter how fervently you may wish him to embrace this role. Unless you got him as a toddler you are basically the man his mother lives with. If you are pressing for him to see you as “dad” (and you appear to be) you are likely to be bitterly disappointed. Regardless of how much of a shit his bio-dad is, if that’s the guy he grew up with that’s his dad, not you. This probably seems completely unfair given you are doing all the on-site dad stuff, but this is not an issue of fairness it’s about how he feels.
If you will embrace that reality and back off of trying to be his “dad” that’s a significant stressor that will be removed from your interactions. It would make more sense IMO to relate to him like a young adult, be supportive, but with some emotional space. Imagine you’re his uncle, not his dad and let that color your interactions.
Wasting your life away smoking weed is actually a lot like wasting your life away on Facebook. Yeah it’s illegal but it’s not that illegal. If he gets caught he’ll probably just be forced into treatment.
Sometimes it’s the old “Do you want to have a friend or be a friend?” issue. My son’s two, so it’s all hypothetical, but I’d always, always, always prefer him to be alive and healthy and happy–even if it meant he hated me, never wanted to see me, cursed the ground I walked on–than have him be a miserable, dysfunctional adult who had a great relationship with his mom.
Now, I will agree that you have to chose your battles, and sometimes that means tolerating things you don’t like in order to keep the door open for future influence/support. But you don’t make your decisions about your kid based on what is best for you and your own future happiness.
And, perhaps most importantly, you never let the kid see his relationship with his parents as a trump card to get what he wants. That’s not healthy for anyone.
He and my daughter were (and are) living with my ex. She has no rules or expectations regarding their performance as children or adults. As long as they are home by dark she is content. They are effectively pets. He has been living with her exclusively since the age of 9.
Just to add to the pile-on, nobody seems to have picked up on this:
That right there makes any attempts at discipline futile. If the kid knows that you (collectively) are not serious about punishments and therefore the consequences for any misbehavior will be half-hearted and brief, where’s the incentive not to misbehave? Never mind your stepson; it sounds like your wife is a big part of the problem.
One of the things my wife and I agreed when we had a child was that we would present a united front on discipline. Even when we think the other is being too harsh or too lenient in a particular instance, the other does not undermine that decision (although there’s usually a later “discussion” out of earshot of the child). And it works - my daughter knows she can’t play one of us against the other and that what we say we mean (we also never promise anything we can’t deliver, which is a whole other headache).
Whatever the problems with your relationship are, if your wife is not willing to at least help deal with this problem in a consistent way, you can’t solve this on your own. You just can’t. Your stepson will always default to the more lenient parent.
as a topic of conversation, just drop it.
Don’t give him any grief if he shows up to do “stuff with his mom and his sister and [you]”. Encourage the behaviors you wish to see more of and let go of trying to discourage him or scare him. Resort to a mere lack of cooperation with the behaviors you wish to discourage.
No need to add to w/e the hell the kid is going through. If you need to cut off his allowance or w/e in a civilly disobedient way to keep him from buying pot, offer to spend the equivalent amount for him on things he needs.
Try to avoid making a confrontational relationship.
It won’t get you what you want and it won’t help him.
Be clear about your disapproval and refuse to cooperate as necessary. But don’t seek to punish/discourage/teach him a lesson. Help him learn the lesson he is learning.
You will have to accept that he is the only one who has control over what he does. No, really just him. Really.
Don’t be angry.
Be patiently on his side encouraging the good stuff.
I think the point is the shrink’s job, to them, was akin to that of a mechanic. “Here, this kid is broken. Fix him, we’ll be back in an hour.” Fucked up kids is a two way street to varying degrees, and if the parent’s don’t own their share, or even care enough to get some tips from the brain mechanic for ongoing care of their broken kid, then it’s all a pointless exercise.
You can sometimes make someone do something you want them to do, but that won’t make them care. And if someone doesn’t care about what they’re doing, they may as well not be doing it.