When i was my Skids age....
My SD is 13, will be 14 this fall. Every day i am blown away at how irresponsible, immature and stupid she is.
1. At 13 i was petsitting, housesitting, and babysitting for houses in my neighborhood. I banked as much money as possible as i knew i wanted to go to college and that my parents were not going to pay 100% for me. My SD does absolutely nothing to earn money, and any she receives for doing nothing, she blows as fast as she can on stupid items. She must own 30+ iphone cases, for example.
2. I got a PT retail job under the table the summer i turned 13 and the following summer got a better, FT summer job at another store in town. See answer to #1. In addition, my SD sleeps until noon in the summer then must spend all day texting and watching netflix.
3. Had a checking account since age 12. To this day i have never bounced a check and know how to balance it. I dont think my SD even has a bank account. She surely would not know how to put money in or take money out. Her mother once said to my fiance "i dont know how the money gets there, i just stick the card in and bills come out" when discussing bank accounts and ATM machines.
4. I helped my sister organize and plan a surprise 25th anniversary party for our parents (party was thrown shortly after i turned 14). I dont think my SD even knows the date her parents were married, the date of her father's birthday or the date of her precious mother's birthday for that matter.
5. I was (and am) pretty good in the kitchen. My SD isnt allowed to touch the stove at either residence and she once made brownies at her mothers house (from a mix) without adding any liquid to the mix other than the egg.
6. I knew school was my responsibility and my parents by this age never had to remind me to do homework, sit with me to do my homework, or run me back to school for needed books or assignments forgotten in my locker. My fiance and BM all but do her homework for her and she STILL has missed assignments/incompletes/bad grades.
7. I was not allowed to quit anything. SD is constantly changing her mind abotu social events (after an answer has been given to the host), takes up a sport only to quit mere weeks in because she "doesnt like it", and the latest is she signed up for and money was spent on a week long camp that she now doesnt want to go to because a girl she doesnt like is going. Fortunately it wasnt our money.
I could go on and on.... what place in society will there be for these useless creatures? How do these parents sleep at night knowing they have created non-producing, non-contributing members of society?
Preach it, sister!!!!
Preach it, sister!!!!
EXACTLY THIS !!!!!!!
EXACTLY THIS !!!!!!!
OMG, I completely understand
OMG, I completely understand where you're coming from!!! My skids act like opening a bag of chips is a major feat, much less putting the empty bag into the trash. I had better table manners at 3 than SS12 has now. The boy is an absolute PIG. I swear, if he LOOKS at a potato chip, he gets chip dust on his face. SMH
Ding, ding, ding! You've hit
Ding, ding, ding! You've hit on a huge issue.
The special snowflakes must not be treated like WE were! Heavens no! That would be cruel. Letting them work or experience something possibly unpleasant? No, no, no!!! They must be sheltered and pampered so that when they grow up they are hugely disappointed that the rest of the world doesn't give a crap.
Fantastic post. #7 My SD
Fantastic post.
#7 My SD NEVER socializes outside of school. She has some kids that she apparently interacts with AT school but never wants to see them outside of school hours (we've tried!). So imagine how pleased (and shocked) we were when at the beginning of 9th grade she got invited to a birthday swim party for a girl. She actually wanted to go! Yaaahooo!!!
That Friday she and her mother arrived at our house to drop off the brother, then BM was going to drop off SD at party. Instead, foully tempered SD announces she's NOT going to the party because the venue was changed from swimming to skating due to weather.
DH encouraged her to still go because the party was NOT ABOUT HER. That she was leaving her "friend" in the lurch by not showing up and the poor girl needed her guests to show up and celebrate her birthday. BM paid this some lip service and off they went but texted 20 minutes later that they would not go to the party after all.
Just one of many incidents where SD, same ages as OP's, is not required to think about anyone but herself and never does HER part in social interactions but loves to criticize and denigrate everyone else who does. Had never written a thank you note in her life till I came along. She still doesn't, but her little brother happily does so.
Same thing with all your list items. MAKES. ME. CRAZY.
DH and I discussed SS15
DH and I discussed SS15 trying to get out of going to a paintball party. I said to DH that SS15 already has social anxiety issues and if we cater to that and allow him to stay home, they will only get worse. Heaven help us, DH made SS15 go and he had a BLAST.
Damn, I wish we'd been able
Damn, I wish we'd been able to do that. We seem unable, at least when BM is involved, to force SD to do anything. It's always "what SD wants" to do. Yeah, that's why you have a 15 yr old kid with no social skills, no friends, no hopes-goals-dreams, and flunking all her classes.
Finally got her to therapy recently when they couldn't ignore the horrendous report card again and what was the first thing counselor keyed in on? Social Anxiety.
I've thought that all along. Don't know how much of it might be inherited, but I do think they could have made life a lot better for her if they'd taught her basic manners and social skills from the beginning instead of waiting till she's nearly grown.
Personally, I also think it accounts for at least half if not all of our alleged "stepparent" issues. Kid just doesn't want to deal with an extra person. She used to rule the entire family with an aggressive, mean fist until I came along. I wouldn't take it and she has no idea how else to deal with a person.
You may have hit the nail on
You may have hit the nail on the head their! They can control their parents with manipulation and such, but when they can't do the same with us, they just don't want to deal with it! Because they simply don't know how to deal with people otherwise, we have to deal with crappy attitudes.
I'd say SS15 definitely gets
I'd say SS15 definitely gets if from DH, who was very shy as a CHILD, but NOT as a teenager. If SS15 had his way, he would never leave the house and stay glued to the computer/xbox/play station except when sleeping. Frankly, it was me telling DH it was NOT helping SS15 that got DH to tell SS15 that he had no option - he was GOING.
Social anxiety certainly doesn't come from BM - she's a social ho!
*nods* Yeah, when I was my
*nods*
Yeah, when I was my SS's age (14), I accomplished more in one day than SS does in a week;
Chores, sports, academics...
When I was SS's age, the teachers told my parents that I am destined to become an engineer (and I didn't even know what an engineer was at that time).
SS will be lucky if he completes high school.
The only real feat that SS has over me (aside from being tall) is that he has a girlfriend. My first girlfriend only happened when I was 16.
Don't feel too bad. My
Don't feel too bad. My SD24 is literally too lazy to replace a roll of toilet tissue after she uses the last of it.
If I didn't want to leave DH
If I didn't want to leave DH 'stranded', I'd take the tp with me when I was done...
i have my own roll!!!!
i have my own roll!!!!
(No subject)
Oh boy...here we go with the
Oh boy...here we go with the toilet paper again! Two months now since SD15 asked for a roll for her bathroom last.
My SD has quit gymnastics and
My SD has quit gymnastics and field hockey. lasted a few years at gymnastics but ultimately quit because its a very disciplined sport. since discipline is not a word in her parents vocabulary she simply couldnt handle it anymore. field hockey she lasted two weeks then quit because they had to "do too much running".
She bailed on the camp.
She bails on visitation because she doesnt want to go.
She RSVP'd "yes" to a very fancy bar mitzvah about a year ago. the day of she decides not to go because she "didnt want to sit thru that much church". her parents LET HER bail knowing that the kids parents probably dropped $100 per kid on this event. she then spent the better part of the day crying when she saw all of her friends posting pics of the event and all the fun they were having.
She got her mother to get her out of visitation one time on the auspices of going to her cousins birthday party. She ended up "not wanting to go" to that either but no one made her come on visitation so she got out of both.
Its all about what SD wants. Always. Life isnt like that! And she wonders why she has no friends, just text/virtual buddies.
Common theme, apparently!
Common theme, apparently! Whenever SD15 doesn't get her way with something, she quits. She already quit color guard once, but was forced by the band director to go back because she couldn't change her schedule out of band period, and he got tired of SD15 just sitting around the band hall. She is still in, but that was with hopes she would make captain. I don't know how long she will last into the year, since the captain from last year retained the position, and SD15 didn't so much as get an officer spot! None of the girls in guard like her, because she acts better than everyone else. SD15 alienates a lot of people that way!
Current parents who are the
Current parents who are the product of the hug it out parenting movement of the late 70s and 80s just raise bigger worthless pieces of shit than themselves. Hug it out evolved in to the esteem movement in California which turned in to the every kid is special and gets a trophy movement and unfortunately infested much of the rest of the country.
What all of these progressive parenting idiots fail to realize is that special is earned by character and performance. If there is no performance, there is no special even in children.
It makes one want to slap the idiot parents and put the evil little POS crotch dribbles over a saw horse in the wood shed and light their asses up with a razor strop. Or better yet do what my grandparents used to do. Make the kids cut their own switches and then have those switches used on some bare kid ass when necessary.
Historic strict behavior based parenting works. There is a reason why the bullshit pseudo science childhood behavioral syndromes did not exist before the products of the hug it out parenting bullshit had to make up jobs for themselves. They now are growing a self perpetuating bullshit industry to justify their own existence and are turning ever more generations of kids in to an artificial market for their pseudo science crap.
Just my opinion of course.
As much as me and my mom
As much as me and my mom still don't get along to this day, she probably did me a huge favor being more on the dictator side of the house than the "hug it out" side. I do believe there is a happy medium between the two...my kids are proof of that. I was nurturing when it was appropriate, and a hard ass when it was appropriate! My ex was being a jerk, that was the time to hand out hugs and remind them that I was there for them. If their team lost, I told them that was the breaks...can't win them all...just gotta be that much tougher the next time! They acted out of line, they got punished for it...and yes, I did spank when it was appropriate.
What I ended up with with my bios are hard working kids that I have have a great relationship with! Shoot, just the other day when we were picking BS19 up from work, his boss made it a point to come up to us and tell us what a great man we raised, and how much he will be missed when he leaves for college in a few weeks! His boss is an older gentleman, and said he felt it important to tell us, because he see so many young guys in this day and age with no work ethic whatsoever...it is rare to find someone BS19's age who will actually work AND be respectful to the customers...even when the customers are being jerks!
^^^^^^^Ditto what Rags said.
^^^^^^^Ditto what Rags said. I tell my DH that a little fear is a good thing, but nooooooooo........ *sigh*