I don’t really talk about myself much but for this post, I need to explain a few things.  About a year ago (almost exactly now), I woke up one day and noticed the world sounded very funny.  I thought maybe my car needed a new muffler because it sounded like the sound was going loud and quiet and everything was off.  Within two weeks, I was in layman’s terms, deaf.  For the hearing community I’m “late-deafened” and / or hard of hearing since my hearing is not stable and some days I can hear a little bit and other days, not at all.  I’m sure you can imagine the nightmare to be hearing one day (and a musician at that) and not the next and I’m not going to kid you, it really has been tough.  I have not picked up my guitars once.  Last year was an extremely difficult year for me on many levels and no longer being able to hear certainly didn’t make it easier.

Adjusting to a life of no sound requires adjustments you don’t think about as a normal hearing person.  For the first month or longer, I couldn’t sleep.  The reason I couldn’t sleep is because I knew that if a person broke into my home they could literally walk right up beside me while I was in bed, and I wouldn’t hear them.  That is not a normal thing I would think about under other circumstances but when things change like this, your world doesn’t feel safe at first.  That’s very unnerving.  Combined with the fact that you get used to house sounds in your sleep and your brain constantly processes those sounds and it doesn’t wake you up.  For the longest time, it was waking me up because when I did hear something, I couldn’t tell what it was because everything sounded different.  I have hearing aids but they only work so much because they can’t make you hear what you can’t hear (only amplify).

I also run an organization where I need to be able to hear people and I could end up unemployed if the government chose to no longer fund the programs we provide.  As such, I’ve gone back to school online because my qualifications are awesome for what I do but not awesome for finding a new job as a deaf person and unless I win a major lottery someday, I’m far from being able to retire.  I’m very, very lucky that my board of directors and my staff are so willing to make adjustments and compromise to keep me where I am.  So, I’m back in University part-time and I’m also driving to another city to learn speech reading (also known as lip reading) and when I get through both levels of that I’ll learn sign language next.

This is my long-winded way of saying, I am a busy soul.  I work over 50 hours a week in my regular job and now I’m coming home and doing a few hours of homework or driving to the next city over to attend classes.  To say I’m tired would be an understatement.  At first it never occurred to me that writing a blog two times a week would be a problem but I have to say, I found it tough.

This blog has been really good for me to work through issues of raising a couple of kids that are technically not my own.  I thank you for hanging with me while I work this stuff out and I hope I gave you cause to laugh or even things to think about.  I will keep my blog and keep it online and even occasionally post about the kids but it will be very occasional at this point.  As the last kid standing moves on this fall, maybe I’ll switch to a blog about being deaf or something silly and fun or maybe not at all.  I have no aspirations to be a writer on any level, I just appreciate the opportunity to work stuff out in my life in this way and I thank you for being with me on the journey.

The thing with “re-parenting” an extra child is that you don’t just bring them home to teach them right from wrong (or in my case, they come through the front door, plant their foot on the “soil” in this house and yell the equivalent of refugee); you let them be kids on many levels.  That’s the only way it will work.  Focusing on rules and privileges and consequences are hugely important but so are all the little things like practicing driving around the block (god help me now), having friends over for all night movies, chips and sleepovers and letting kids pick the color on the bedroom wall.  It’s the little things that give that sense of security and trust that allows the kid now living with you to learn from the consequences and privileges and invest in themselves.

So pick buddy-child did.  Being the girly-girl that she is (and partly reliving some little girl pieces of herself that I think were possibly denied many years ago), buddy picks hot, neon pink.

What am I going to do?  Say no?  I’ve never said no to any of the other kids so it’s not exactly fair to say no to her now (even if she is leaving for University in a couple of months).  Maybe it’s a test?  Or maybe she’s laying claim to the room so that no one else gets it while she’s gone?  Or maybe she just likes pink.  Either way, her original goal was to paint it ALL bright neon pink – every single wall.  After some careful negotiations, we settled on a chalkboard wall, pink on either side of it and a light steel grey on the rest of the walls so that her pink and black furniture would have a chance to stand out!   We still have the trim to paint and then accessories to add but we can do that this weekend.

Lo and behold the wonder of a pink room;

The chalkboard paint is actually really neat stuff.  Stinks but what a cool surface it leaves.  I’m conveniently blocking out all thoughts of what it will be like to paint over this stuff but I figure the chalkboard will stay regardless of what the room becomes after buddy is gone for good (in about two or three more years).

We know way too much now to pretend that this is just a “choice” for people or to foolishly think that LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender and Questioning) individuals are the ruination of society or are going to corrupt our children or whatever other foolhardiness that people used to think.  I have strong thoughts on this and they aren’t necessarily pretty.  This is a waste of time and effort and money for everyone and is, quite frankly, a human rights issue and I am personally offended by and resent the idiots who are trying to use religion as their reasons for all the opposition and the hate.  What is the matter with you people?

One thing I will be clear on, you don’t need a traditional mom and dad to raise good kids.  Being raised by a same sex couple does not cause one iota of harm (other than the potential bullying from good religious folks who like to share their hate with the world).  There isn’t a single shred of evidence out there that supports that being raised in a same sex environment causing anything bad or harmful or anything at all.  Period.

One other thing that I will also be really clear on since this is about teenagers.  There is a disproportionately high suicide rate for LGBTQ teenagers.  The reason isn’t because of them, it’s because of you.  The way they are treated by their family, friends, neighbours, teachers and mentors is why those statistics are the way they are.  And that is not right at all.  We all know that you can’t make a person who is gay “turn straight” no matter what you think the magic cure is anymore than you can make a straight person “turn gay” so what exactly are you trying to do when you try to deny these kids the opportunities to grow up to be who they are (and ultimately, healthy, happy, contributing members of society).  I really don’t get it.

Surprised? – don’t be.  It happens all the time.  I could tell you story after story of kids who have been assaulted, beat up, raped, harassed, humiliated, stalked, threatened and tortured and have the choice between going to school and sitting in the same class with their abuser or, you know, dropping out of school or switching schools or whatever.  Why does the victim have to rearrange their life and give up their friends and be scared to go to school and compromise their education in order to protect the assailant’s right to get an education?  What about the victim’s rights to an education?  Preferably one that is without harm and risk of getting your head beat in.  Apparently if you’re a victim, you don’t have one.

This is something that makes me beyond angry on so many levels.  There are a million issues here.  One, the school is worried about making the accused person’s parents angry.  Really.  Why does our society reward aggressive and violent behaviour like this?  And don’t kid yourself because that is exactly what’s happening, over and over again.

How long do you think before someone says, “I wonder what ‘x’ did to deserve that?”.

We LOVE to blame the victim, look for fault, look for an excuse, look for the reason.

I get it.  We’re taught from day one that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people.  The princess always gets the prince in every single children’s story and the bad guy always has bad things happen to him.  It’s drilled into us from the minute someone opens a Disney story.  We like to believe, in fact, many folks NEED to believe that these random acts of abuse and assault have to happen for a reason because the world is too scary and unpredictable otherwise.  Hey, I watch my CSI and Criminal Minds shows, I know there is always a motive but in the teen years, the motive is almost always centered around the assailant, not the victim.  The victim is just ‘there’.  Kids are far too ego-centric at that age to move beyond themselves and their own issues and needs and wants and will project crap onto other kids.  For some reason, our generation of adults seems to like to reward that behaviour by looking at the victim to accommodate the assailant because god knows we wouldn’t want to make anyone upset now.

Our teenagers are still children and they need us to help protect them when they get hurt.  Sure the world is not fair and that is a lesson kids learn quite a bit in high school but they shouldn’t have to learn that the adults around them suck at taking care of them and helping them to be safe from harm and abuse.  It’s our job and we have done a really crappy job of it when it comes to not holding kids accountable when they should be and being part of the group that looks at the victims as the reason for the abusive behaviour.

I hope the next generation gets it better than we have.

I am normally the queen of natural consequences – kind of to a fault.  If the kids miss a class at school, they make up the full 90 minutes at the dining room table under my supervision while they work on school work (not listen to music or play videos or play with phones or watch television).  Didn’t bring home any school work?  Sucks to be you kid because you’re either going to sit there for 90 minutes staring at the wall and then you’re going to re-make up the time the next night with your actual school work or I’m going to assign something myself.  I’ve done both before and it’s really depended on which would be the bigger consequence for the kid in question.

For the most part, if there is any way I can connect the consequence to the “lesson” or misbehaviour or whatever, I will go out of my way to do that.

Except for this time.

Buddy-child has been warned and warned and I’ve tried to motivate her, convince her, talk her into it, whatever and this kid still won’t bother to go and find a job.

If she gets a job – we go car shopping!  She has enough in her account to buy a very cheap, university worthy (code word for piece of shit) car!  Even that’s not enough to get her ass in gear.

So now, visits with boyfriend on the weekend depend on how much active job searching happens during the week.  And I’m talking daily activity.

It’s all I’ve got and quite frankly, I’ve had enough.

Jobs for teenagers in these parts are kind of scarce so I’m not expecting miracles but I am expecting almost daily searches of the various job banks and applying to the bigger corporations online (like Wal-Mart and Michael’s and Winners) as well as applying everywhere in person with your resume and filling out applications etc. etc.

And wouldn’t you know, now that she has to do this, she’s doing a really good job at it.

Sometimes, you’ve just got to use whatever you’ve got available to you.

We managed to fit all the adults around one large extended table (the small kids always eat in another room unless they’re in high chairs) and there are often numerous conversations going on at once.

My oldest sister has three boys.  One of her boys was a real problem child for her.  He has a few different diagnosis and I think bipolar is his main one but I’m not sure at this point.  They spent many years going from one doctor to another.  Now don’t get me wrong, this boy struggles.  He came and stayed with me for a while when he was a teenager (doesn’t every teenager that knows me???) and he definitely has OCD, as well as possibly Tourettes.  He struggled quite a bit growing up and was always very angry and his behaviour sucked.  But, he’s not alone in this.  His parents really struggled with figuring out how to raise him and one of his parents have employed parenting techniques that run the risk of getting your kids taken away and likely did not help this kids brain development in any way.

This kid was in trouble A LOT.  Some of it was his impulsiveness; some of it was his choices; some of it was his lack of ability to fit in with his family.  Their lifestyle and parenting and interests were not conducive to this kid feeling stable or secure or being able to regulate his behaviour.  Many years have passed since then (they’re all adults now) and things are definitely much better than they used to be.

At one point near the end of the meal, my sister jokingly raised her voice at this kid because someone changed the music and she obviously thought it was him.  I mean, really, he was always the one in trouble.  But it wasn’t him.  I think his uncle was the guilty person at that time.  My other nephew (his brother) made a comment to some of the guests that his brother ‘A’ was the default ‘in trouble’ person since he was always in trouble so much.

You know, this kid will never outgrow that reputation.  He will always be the default “in trouble” kid in that family and will always struggle to feel accepted and a part of that unit – like he’s on the fringe or maybe he doesn’t really fit.  Unfortunately, even as an adult, that is likely to still hurt him on many levels and cause more struggles.  From what I’ve seen, that is the norm for most families.

For whatever reasons (there are probably quite a few) one thing families are often not really good at, and that is seeing a family member in a different light.  We all take on roles in our family units and patterns of how we interact form and opinions and feelings about the intent behind another person’s behaviour is formed and sometimes, they never change.  This is really not fair to a kid who does change or simply grows up and isn’t the angsty little trouble maker they used to be.  I know this family unit won’t change, I hope I have enough sense to not do this to my own kids as they all hit the adult world.

I couldn’t sleep last night she tells me.

In fact, apparently she fell asleep, woke up again by midnight’ish and then didn’t fall asleep until around 5 am.  The alarm goes off at 6 am for a bus pickup around 7 am.  I guess when the alarm went off, she just couldn’t do it and stayed in bed.

Buddy used to have sleeping problems when she moved in.  In fact, she’s had sleep issues most of her life.  She has had a lot of stuff to deal with and sometimes sleep issues go hand in hand with past experiences of abuse and ongoing or chronic stress but it’s been a while since she’s had to deal with that.  Still, every once in a while, she has a night where she doesn’t sleep and really struggles the next day but because of her history, I’ve never really paid too much attention to it.

This time I was thinking back over all the nights she couldn’t sleep and it dawned on me that there was a pattern to this not sleeping thing that we had both missed.

Every night when buddy spends literally the entire day in her room, she doesn’t sleep that night.

Most teenagers spend inordinate amounts of time in their bedrooms but for buddy, it’s out of control.  I have to routinely push her to not hide in her room all the time but once in a while, she will literally spend the entire day there.

But now I have proof that it’s not just me assuming this is not good for her!!  It’s messing up her sleep cycles.

So now, no more spending the entire day in her bedroom.  She has to get out and hang out in the rest of the house (preferably where there is a window and she can pretend to be in the sunshine) and actually *do* something.

I vaguely remember my mom saying something like this to me when I was a kid in my bedroom reading book after book after book…

She laughed.

She doesn’t realize just how horrified she’s going to be when she sees herself twenty years from now!

Buddy has done remarkably well since moving in.  She’s definitely turned her life around and is well on her way to having whatever life she wants.  I’ve not made it easy but she’s done everything I’ve made her do (well, gave her hard choices but still) and she’s followed through with everything except for one little thing.

She still hasn’t bothered to find a job.

She was cut off from social assistance this month because money that was invested from when she worked in her younger years came due and found it’s way into her bank account.  The girl now has zero income.  That is a bit of a problem when you’re supporting yourself.

She has enough to live on for the next few months while she gets ready for school because I won’t actually charge her rent between now and then or anything like that but it will be tight.

So starting yesterday, I began the push (otherwise known as appropriate levels of threatening) in order for her to get off her butt and go find work.

I get that she didn’t have the head space before to work.  That was absolutely a necessary thing for her not to work while she went to therapy and worked on academic and drug – alcohol issues but those days are long past.  Now she’s not working because she doesn’t want to work at a crappy job that she doesn’t like.  (and that’s why you’re going to university darlin’).

So, I may or may not have threatened her ability to see her boyfriend (seeing as I’m their only transportation because he doesn’t have his licence yet either).

Coincidentally, she spent last night scouring the different job banks and tomorrow her and her friend are on their way to the Employment and Education Centre.  Wish them luck because they’re going to need it!

Buddy-child’s boyfriend took her out for a big fancy dinner where she had her first (legal) cocktail.  She has no idea what she had other than it was pink.  They came back here for cake where she blew out candles and opened presents.  Overall I think it was a nice birthday.  It’s probably not ever the same when you’re not with your ‘family’ but I guess we’re as much family as she’s ever had or likely to ever to get so that’s probably better than sitting somewhere by yourself.

Step-daughter had lots of plans that involved partying and drinking in bars.  Her mom and one of her mom’s friends took her out to one of the local bars for a night of celebration.  I know a lot of parents do that but there’s something weird about that when the relationship doesn’t have proper boundaries to start with.  It just seems wrong somehow.

The more time that passes, the farther apart these two girls lives become.

Buddy got her third university acceptance (go buddy!) and this is to the school she really, really wants to go to.  She’s excited and nervous and is ready to give her acceptance.  I told her to sit on it for a week just to get past the scared “what do I do” feeling before committing herself.  Her mind’s made up though.  Everything she does right now gets her one step closer to her goals.

Step-daughter is still not working and she’s not looking for work much either.  She’s committed to a life of drugs and drinking and not trying anymore.  She knows she needs medication to help her at this point because her anxiety and fears and OCD is completely out of control but she can’t quite bring herself to go to make an appointment and go to the doctors.  For a while she was on the fence and wanting a different life but now she’s turned away from it.  It kind of breaks my heart most days.  Everything she does keeps her from reaching her goals.

I wish I could make step-daughter come back and stay with me and somehow remove her bio-family from her life – just for a short while until she could get better but I know it will never happen.  Sometimes being a parent kind of sucks.