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SS is smarter than DH

notsobad's picture

SS(24) and his gf came to visit this weekend. GF had a class she needed to take and so DH and SS got to hang out. I had plans with my friends on Sat and SD(25) was out of town at a game.

On Sunday SS came to our house and we discussed moving SS's phone off our account and on to his own account.
SS graduated in April, has his own place, a good job and has done a great job of launching. His phone is the only thing we are still paying for and it was decided that since it was a present from last Xmas we'd pay for it till this Xmas.
As SS and I are talking about the different options he has with our phone carrier DH pipes up and says "we'll lets go to the sports bar and watch football" I said we can do that but lets go get this phone thing done first. DH makes a face but off we go.

At the store we had to wait, DH says "Do we have to do this now?" I just looked at him.
He calls SD, who is back and says he'll go pick her up and then we can all go to the sports bar.
SS and I have a great chat while we wait. SD and DH get there and again DH is saying why do we have to do this now? Can't this wait? NO, it can't SS lives 3 hours away and both of them have to be there to move the account!!

SS says, Dad it's time I pay my own way and am responsible for my own bills. I love this kid!

Last night I asked him why he was such an ass about moving the account. We had talked about it and it was him who said it had to be done at the beginning of the year.
He said that when we actually went to do it he felt like it was taking too much time and because he doesn't see SS very often he didn't want to waste their time together doing chores. Besides it's only $60 a month, we could keep paying it, it wasn't a big deal.

I'm so surprised by this. DH isn't usually a Disney Dad but it seemed like he wanted to keep SS dependant on him on some level.

Comments

notsobad's picture

You know, I never thought about that. Skids never lived with us, so I didn't think of empty nest syndrome.
But Yes, it could be. SS is now completely on his own, this bill was the last tie to us.

kathc's picture

That's WONDERFUL!!! I'm dealing with a teenage SS who thinks we're made of money and thinks nothing of calling to tell us what he wants all the damn time. It's nice to hear about a skid launching and not expecting to suck off Bank of Dad forever.

notsobad's picture

Interestingly I think his launching has a lot to do with BM and the negative talk that she did about other people and their kids.

I overheard her talking to SS about his best friends father 3 - 4 years ago.
She was saying that the dad needed to stop coddling his son so much, that he needed to stop trying to get jobs for the son and stop trying to make life perfect for the son or the son would never grow up and be a man.
SS tried to defend the dad and said but you do all those things for me. She said but I'm your mom. Moms always help, dads need to back off and let boys grow up. (This was also a dig at DH, that SS didn't need to listen him, that DH should back off)

I need to explain that she HATES SS's best friends parents. She thinks that they undermined her parenting. SS spent most of his time at their house after the divorce and she trash talks everything they do.

So she thought she was changing the way that SS thought about his friends parents BUT what he took from it was that he had to man up and make his own way.

Thanks BM!