Uh, guys, even if it IS Rent to Own, and it’s an entire living room, according to “Bob” at my Local Rent-A-Center, his top of the line living room couch, loveseat, 2 end tables and 2 lamps would run $50 a week. That ain’t $500 a month. She’s lying about everything, methinks.
And where, by the way, was the $500 furniture mentioned? If it’s the LJ, could someone send me a link pretty please?
About the apartment-well, I can understand not wanting to lose one’s house. It’s your home, and you don’t want to leave it.
But seriously, what does Mr. Metal do for a living?
Shit she sounds like they have more money than we did-and my parents had two kids, which they put through Catholic school on my Dad’s salary alone until I was in high school.
She called her unborn baby “damn kid” because she is angry and frustrated with what?
Right. I can see if your kid played frisbee with your good china, you’d call him a damn kid in frustration.
This is an unborn, approximately three month old embryo/fetus. I’m curious what it did to warrant being sweared at.
“Damn kid needs a place to sleep, keeps me from playing Diablo on DSL…”
“Damn kid, making me look fat in my all-black clothes.”
guys, guys guys, you’re all missing the important thing here.
(I wondered at first how this thread got so long so fast, now that I know who the OP is, I understand).
Anyhow-
if she can’t afford cable maybe, just maybe she also won’t be able to afford internet service. !!
Wring are you kidding? If IDBB loses her Internet I’ll have to go back to watching the Soaps.
So where do you draw the line? Just how financially irresponsible do you have to be, just how emotionally disturbed, before you deserve to have your kids taken away? Just how are you measuring those things? Lots of kids grow up with financially irresponsible parents and are fine. Lots of kids have parents who are mildly emotionally disturbed. If perfect psychological health and finances were utterly crucial for a child’s well being, there’d be a lot more of us walking around gibbering mad, myself included. We have lots of evidence that IDBB isn’t particularly gifted intellectually, but not much that she’s physically abusive or dangerously psychotic. Once you go beyond the question of demonstrable physical harm or gross negligence, you get into dangerous territory. What’s “emotionally disturbed?” Does it include, say, homosexuality or any kind of non-conformity? Not that I’m saying IDBB is being unjustly criticized for her attitudes–it’s just that the idea that a parent you don’t think is perfect should give up their kids is a chilling one, to me.
And whether or not I think she’s got any grounds for being angry and frustrated (I don’t, as it happens), she is. You feel what you feel. Is it right to condemn someone for having socially unacceptable feelings? I don’t think so. You can’t really choose your feelings. You can choose your actions. You can choose to learn ways to deal with your feelings, and to learn things that will affect what feelings you’ll have in the future, but you can’t just say, “All right, I’ve decided. I will no longer resent having to lose cable.” And particularly when the kid is unexpected, there are lots of mixed emotions when you’re pregnant. While it’s obvious that no matter what advice she’s given she’s not going to listen, still I personally think it’s bad policy to attack a person’s verbally expressed feelings on the grounds that they shouldn’t be feeling that, or they’re a bad person for feeling that. In the extremely unlikely event that there’s some small chance the message could get through it just makes it harder for it to sink in. And are you that hard on yourself when you feel something you find inappropriate?
Please don’t get the wrong impression–I’m not trying to defend IDBB. I think she’s an idiot, I think most posters have evaluated her pretty accurately, I think if she’s not actively lying about her situation she’s pulling figures out of thin air. I don’t think she’ll be the ideal mother. But I do think there’s a chance that once she does have the baby she’ll realize at least partly just how much different life is going to be, and realizes how important she and the choices she makes are to the baby. Almost no one is actually ready for kids when they have them, no matter what they think beforehand. She may rise to the occasion much better than you imagine, and if she never becomes the ideal mom, well, who the hell is? Telling her to give up the kid because she can’t handle it doesn’t account for that possiblity, doesn’t recognize that none of us can handle it until we try it. If we only allowed people who were ready to handle it to have kids, there would be a lot of silent playgrounds around and they’d be closing schools right and left.
dammit Bren you snuck in here. the ’ ’ was for Tinker
Bren Cameron, if you had read her previous threads and her LJ, you would see that IDBB is seriously a dysfunctional adult. I do not see any ability to care for herself, let alone a child. But maybe she could overcome her lack of maturity. That’s why I and others spelled out to her what she needs to do in order to be a good parent. If she is willing to do those things, well and fine, If she is not willing to make those sacrifices, then I suggest that the baby would be better off with stable adoptive parents.
He works at Best Buy.
You heard me.
And I just lost the last iota of respect I had left for Maven. $500 a month for FURNITURE? That’s almost my rent. I’m thinking if they took back all that shit and got some hand me down stuff, and put that $500 a month into savings, she could take some maternity leave.
Oh wait. That would take common sense.
:rolleyes:
You know, the fact that she would consider getting her phone and heat turned off before she would take back some fucking FURNITURE, speaks for her priorities.
Someone a little overly status conscious?
And I see we’ve fallen right into our little routine of abandoning posts that aren’t going our way, eh Maven?
What I’m not getting is that she’s too proud to live in an apartment, or even a smaller house, too proud to be helped, yet she is humble enough to take on a job in fast food. It really doesn’t add up.
I’m not saying that working fast food is a demeaning job. It just seems like something that would fit in with her personality.
well, Shadi,
if that is hard to picture, try this one on for size:
a goth.
who is a self proclaimed redneck.
who loves Disney.
who quotes Whitney Houston.
lezlers I can guarantee that the $500 is a number pulled straight out of her ass.
I’ve lived in some of the most beautiful apartments in Chicago, and if they weren’t beautiful to start with, I made them that way, with handmedown furniture and home made decorations. Everything was cozy and wonderful, and certainly big enough and warm enough for a baby.
Yeah, you’re probably right.
I was thinking about it and no one can possibly be that braindead. I’ve seen treestumps that can figure out keeping her shitty Sonic job is stupid.
And I can’t even imagine the type of guy she married.
gobear, this is what you said.
Now, what you said in the last post of yours I’ve read, that if she’s not willing to make changes the child would likely be better off with adoptive parents, that I’d agree with. The flat statement that the child’s best interests are that IDBB give it up for adoption–by you, yes, and also by others–is what I’m taking issue with. I’ve read too many of your posts to think you are unfeeling or mean or cruel, and I can understand the kind of anger that would impel someone to say things a bit more sharply than they might if they were calmer. I also understand that she never listens to advice, just complains endlessly. I just think that with as much criticism as IDBB deserves, we don’t need to go piling on more. And it’s also a personal sore spot with me. I’ve heard so many people judge others’ parenting abilities and techniques and, yes, personal lives, and say they shouldn’t be parents, or they’re hurting their children, or they should have children taken away, for the most amazing things–for putting kids in daycare, for not breastfeeding, for co-sleeping, for being gay, whatever. And to me, the most horrifying thing that could happen is to have my children taken from me. So my first impulse when I hear that is to question the grounds for the statement. And I’m careful not to say it myself unless I really, really mean it and believe it. If you really, really mean and believe it, I can respect that. I just don’t agree.
I’ve read her previous threads, though not her live journal. She’s determined to be held down and persecuted. Succeeding at anything would deprive her of that pleasure. She’s immature, no question. But she is taking care of herself, as far as I can see, at least well enough to have a house, an internet connection, cable, and a husband with a family that, thrillingly enough for her, she’s decided don’t like her. She has, in a perverse way, succeeded very well at the things she actually wants. And she wants this baby–why have unprotected sex otherwise, and why decide to carry it to term? I suspect that if she can figure out a way to stay home and improve herself that will get her frowned on by people so she can feel persecuted and insulted while at the same time holding her persecutors in contempt, she’ll hand in her resignation so fast it’ll catch fire from air friction and hit the books so hard the aftershocks will be rocking Texas for a week.
In fact, now that I think of it, maybe that’s the best tactic. IDBB, I am not lying when I say that many people look down on stay at home moms. Seriously. I’m not. People who formerly listened to your opinion will dismiss you as ignorant and uneducated. I tell you the very truth, as though it came from the mouth of the Goddess Herself. The indignity is only more deliciously intense when you actually have a respectable education. Think how surprised people will be when you actually get your degree–think of the new kinds of jobs to bitch and moan about. There’s more to complain about than retail, you know.
You could go for extended nursing, too. Good for your baby, good for you, sure to raise eyebrows and elicit snarky comments. It’ll be fodder for pages and pages of Live Journal copy. I could have filled several gigs of disk space with my own rants, but I have other hobbies. But you’ll be glad to know you can indulge yours and still do what’s best for your baby.
I mean the type of guy she married that would actually agree with her that it’s a good idea to go back to schlepping burgers a week after she has the baby.
Or hell, that would even allow (since she seems to get off on being the submissive wife) her to go back to work that soon, so he could keep enjoying his $500 a month furniture, dsl and cable.
Hey Babs? I guess it doesn’t help to remind you that you were right, does it?
Steven