Party time

April 30, 2012 4 Comments

I guess it’s two posts for the price of one tonight!  Last week’s post never published for some reason and I just never quite realized it.  I only now found it was still in draft format so my apologies.

Tonight buddy-child and I decided to go out for sushi.  It doesn’t take much to convince me to not cook dinner and go there to eat instead.  In fact, it’s usually my idea!  Don’t feel like cooking – sushi night.  While there we spent almost the entire time talking about the upcoming prom.  It is coming up fast.  At this point, buddy is going to have to really crash and burn to not graduate.  She just got her mid-term report card and she is passing and doing well.  She’s focused, she’s motivated and she has a brand new prom dress hanging up in her closet just waiting for the perfect pair of shoes.

Aside from the logistics of who is getting their hair done where and how that all is going to work, the conversation largely centered around her two main buddies and the issues they are facing with their parents and getting permission to go to the prom party.  The way they do it around here is the kids buy a ticket, they all get bused to someone’s field and they bring tents and the bus returns them in the morning.  No one is allowed to drive to and from and the ticket money typically is used to buy kegs of beer.  Notices are sent home to parents and guardians making sure that they realize that alcohol will be there and that they give permission for their child to go.  There is supervision but it’s just to make sure no emergencies happen and that no one drinks their way into a hospital stay.  Right or wrong, I get why they do this because kids used to die doing it themselves without supervision and while trying to hide what they do.

Her two main buddies are having a hard time getting permission.  But here’s the thing.  Both of them are allowed to sleep over at their boyfriend’s on the weekends (as in, sleep together not just stay at each others homes) so worries over staying out all night with their boyfriends (and 300 other kids watching… ) seems to be a silly thing to be worried about.  Both parents know their kids drink and have known that for quite some time so worries about them drinking seem kind of silly too.  In both cases, it has become a control issue and you have to wonder what on earth the point is.  I’ve mentioned before that her and step-daughter’s friends all have crazy parents (or parents with issues at the very least) and it’s coming out once again at one of the biggest events of the girls’ lives.  I’m hoping the kids manage to find a way to make it work with parental support since these are memories that should have them feeling good about the upcoming transitions in their lives, not angry and resentful.

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Acting my age

April 30, 2012

Post-secondary education is such a great time for kids.  I highly recommend that most kids should go away for school and experience that type of independence.  Nothing like having to make meals for yourself every single day without mom or dad there to feed you, or do your laundry, or put gas in the car for you or whatever.  Obviously, not every kid is going to do well away from home but for those that have that option, it can be good.

Neither of my kids wanted to actually leave home.  Oldest girl-child kind of went off to school because that’s what everyone else was doing and of course, she flunked out as I mentioned earlier but managed to get herself back on track.  That was a great albeit stressful learning experience for her.  She never wanted to actually live by herself but she went from residence to a crazy roommate to her own apartment to living with her boyfriend (now husband).  I don’t think she actually really lived in her own apartment but rather humoured me a little bit more than anything else.  I think it’s important for kids to know they can live by themselves if they need to and not be scared of the prospect.  She never did learn to cook or anything like that and she absolutely hates living by herself but you know, we tried.

Boy-child, he knew what he wanted to do and worked really hard to do well in school but the poor boy was so scared.  He was about 6 hours drive from home and he would drive home every weekend for the first 6 weeks.  I had to tell him he had to stay there for some weekends.  He said he didn’t leave the residence room for the first few weeks he was so freaked out.  This is a very large school and boy-child is the little nerd that grew up in a rural location.  Totally out of his league.  He ended up immersing himself in residence life and had a fabulous time, never wanting to leave.  As with most kids, he picked up some bad habits, one of them being around drinking alcohol.

Now it’s not like this is the first time my kids have drank booze but when you live on a very large university campus that has multiple residences, it’s not uncommon (or so I’ve been told), to walk from one location to another while drinking or carrying your beer in your hand.  No one really stops you.  It’s illegal to have open liquor but on campus I think they make some exceptions on occasion.

First year of university, most of the kids have the same or similar break times.  Boy-child comes home from school for summer break at the same time as all of his friends who are scattered everywhere.  Much drinking and silliness ensues.  Not a big deal until they decide to go from one location to another and boy-child blissfully walks down the street in a residential neighbourhood with his buddies while drinking a beer.  There was some kind of ruckus nearby but no one thought anything of it until the police cars started pulling up.

Boy-child looks at the police officer as he walks up to boy.  He asks boy-child if he knows why he (the officer) is here.  Boy says that he hopes it’s for the ruckus that was going on.  Mr. police officer laughs and asks him what he’s doing.  Boy-child, trying to be ‘witty’ says “well, you’re just out doing your job, and I’m just out acting my age”.  Cute response that it was, it didn’t get him off the significant sized fine that happened for having open liquor.

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Heart of the matter

April 23, 2012 4 Comments

Buddy-child came home recently after spending three days with her bio-mom.  She had to leave bio-mom’s care when she was very young due to some big issues that meant buddy-child did not have a safe place to live.  It’s only since she has moved in with me that she has been able to re-connect with her bio-mom and get to know her again.  The parents she had before living with me didn’t allow any contact and censored all mail, telephone and email / internet communication to ensure the contact didn’t happen.  I fully understand why people were worried about buddy reconnecting with this person but it usually happens at some point along the way and I figured it should probably happen when there are supports around and in place to help her deal with what she finds.

At first it was all sunshine and roses.  Bio-mom and her connected via facebook and would talk to each other online or by text message.  A brief in person visit was planned and buddy took the train to the city where her mom and mom’s partner are and they had a great visit.  Mom had put together a photo album and they spent time getting to know each other.  It was a quick visit but it was planned that way since it was the first time they had seen each other in about 10 years.  Since then the visits have started to go downhill.  Momma puts lots of pressure on buddy to come and see her but when she’s there, they don’t do anything.  They sit around the living room staring at each other.  They don’t talk, they don’t ‘do stuff’, it’s just not always the best of times.  Recently mom has been known to stop “talking” to buddy if buddy says or does something that displeases her.  Since their communication is primarily by text message or facebook, she has to wait until mom responds again at some point in the future.

Everyone was very worried when buddy reconnected with mom.  There were some big and serious reasons why buddy wasn’t allowed to stay there as a child and there was a lot of concern that buddy would end up in a not safe place but maybe not say anything out of fear of having her mom visits cancelled.  There was also the fear that she would run off to be with her mom before they had a chance to actually get to know each other better.  There is also that on-going fear that her mom will disappoint her.

Recently one of my online peeps commented that people show you who they really are with their behavior, you just have to be “listening”.  Buddy is listening.  I came home from work late since that’s been the norm these days and she’s home and on the computer.  Before long she starts to spill the beans about her visit.  Mom and boyfriend are living with friends – gave up their apartment, it’s crowded and just not a good scene.  Mom and boyfriend aren’t working because they both quit.  Mom didn’t spend time with buddy and things overall just didn’t go well.  Buddy is now struggling to come to her own conclusions.

Good for buddy in a way but she commented that she noticed that everything that has happened, her mom and boy-friend believe it is someone else’s fault.  The problem according to buddy-child is that they have a lot of problems with a lot of people.  Buddy suspects that maybe the problem is her mom and the boyfriend because it seems weird that there would be so many problems with so many people (landlord, boss, etc).  Buddy-child was very disappointed and promises were made that she knows they won’t keep.  She’s frustrated and said that she is embarrassed to admit that her mom is her mom and doesn’t know how to deal with that feeling.  There is no real easy way to help a kid find a way to deal with all of this.  After losing her mom and having the opportunity to reconnect, her mom has thoroughly disappointed her.  Luckily, she is still here and hasn’t moved to her friend’s house because at least she has a home to come back to now and can start to work this stuff out.  She said she has never been so happy to be home before in her life.

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