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Two letters about troubled young people
1. My partner and her son moved in with me at the start of the pandemic three years ago. She was getting priced out of her place, and was desperate to stay in the local school district since her son has special needs. I have a fairly large two-bedroom condo. I’ll admit the three of us went a little stir-crazy during the pandemic since I work from home, but it worked out. I’m crazy about her son.
I’m not so crazy about her daughter, “Sally.” Sally is 20, and she only cares about herself. She moved out to live with her permissive father as a teen and continues to break her mother’s heart to this day. She only calls when she wants money and thinks her parents exist to fund her lifestyle. She refuses to get even a part-time job. Last year, she threw a screaming tantrum because her mother couldn’t afford the increase in rent at the new place she wanted to get with her boyfriend (my partner pays her rent). She called my partner horrible things and said worse about her half-brother. Sally has also failed to attend a single lecture at school, so her father has stopped paying for anything. Her roommates are refusing to renew the lease with her in May.
Of course, Sally comes crying to mommy about her money woes. My partner makes good money, but even with me paying the majority of the bills, she can’t afford to fund another household. Her son needs expensive therapy. So, she wants Sally to move in with us. I told her no. We’re still arguing about it. Can you help us break this impasse?
—No Sally
Dear No Sally,
Sally sounds like she has been absolutely awful towards her mother and like she needs to grow up and get her life in order. However, it also sounds like she has no place to go, and it’s hard to imagine that her mother would be okay with that. Though she is an adult, Sally’s mother is going to want to make sure that her child is safe and has a place to rest her head. You may want to consider allowing her to move in temporarily—say, three to six months maximum—while she finds somewhere else to live long-term.
It should also be a condition of her stay that she gets a job and devotes time to finding permanent housing. You can also require Sally to do household chores and earn her keep. Let your partner know that Sally is only welcome to come if she abides by these terms, and that she is not to stay any longer. This will be a big sacrifice for you, and I realize that you’ve already done a lot for your partner and her son. But I don’t think your partner will be okay as long as her daughter doesn’t have a place to live. Let Sally know that her place in your home is conditional, and that if she isn’t willing to do what is expected of her, she’ll have to leave.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/06/adults-living-with-parents-daughter-move-in-care-feeding.html
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2. Dear Annie: I have two step-grandchildren, a 16-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl. My grandson is completely out of control and was recently expelled from high school for truancy and drug use. My granddaughter was recently caught vaping in the school bathroom and was expelled for a short period of time. There are days when she refuses to get up and go to school, and when she does, she often skips her classes.
My stepson-in-law and stepdaughter are at the end of their emotional "rope" on what to do with their kids. I resent the kids coming over to our home because of what they are putting their parents through. Any ideas on how to handle these two troubled teens? -- Heartbroken Grandparents
Dear Grandparents: It's common for kids this age to act out, but they can't rule the roost. They need to understand that their actions have real consequences. Discipline must start with your grandchildren's parents, and as long as they're teens living at home, they have to abide by the house and school rules, no ifs, ands or buts.
The way you're feeling -- frustrated and resentful -- makes sense considering the situation, but it might help your grandchildren to know they have you as a trusted adult figure in their lives at times they feel they can't turn to their parents. Attending family counseling would equally benefit the parents and children alike.
https://www.arcamax.com/healthandspirit/lifeadvice/dearannie/s-2839175
I’m not so crazy about her daughter, “Sally.” Sally is 20, and she only cares about herself. She moved out to live with her permissive father as a teen and continues to break her mother’s heart to this day. She only calls when she wants money and thinks her parents exist to fund her lifestyle. She refuses to get even a part-time job. Last year, she threw a screaming tantrum because her mother couldn’t afford the increase in rent at the new place she wanted to get with her boyfriend (my partner pays her rent). She called my partner horrible things and said worse about her half-brother. Sally has also failed to attend a single lecture at school, so her father has stopped paying for anything. Her roommates are refusing to renew the lease with her in May.
Of course, Sally comes crying to mommy about her money woes. My partner makes good money, but even with me paying the majority of the bills, she can’t afford to fund another household. Her son needs expensive therapy. So, she wants Sally to move in with us. I told her no. We’re still arguing about it. Can you help us break this impasse?
—No Sally
Dear No Sally,
Sally sounds like she has been absolutely awful towards her mother and like she needs to grow up and get her life in order. However, it also sounds like she has no place to go, and it’s hard to imagine that her mother would be okay with that. Though she is an adult, Sally’s mother is going to want to make sure that her child is safe and has a place to rest her head. You may want to consider allowing her to move in temporarily—say, three to six months maximum—while she finds somewhere else to live long-term.
It should also be a condition of her stay that she gets a job and devotes time to finding permanent housing. You can also require Sally to do household chores and earn her keep. Let your partner know that Sally is only welcome to come if she abides by these terms, and that she is not to stay any longer. This will be a big sacrifice for you, and I realize that you’ve already done a lot for your partner and her son. But I don’t think your partner will be okay as long as her daughter doesn’t have a place to live. Let Sally know that her place in your home is conditional, and that if she isn’t willing to do what is expected of her, she’ll have to leave.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/06/adults-living-with-parents-daughter-move-in-care-feeding.html
2. Dear Annie: I have two step-grandchildren, a 16-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl. My grandson is completely out of control and was recently expelled from high school for truancy and drug use. My granddaughter was recently caught vaping in the school bathroom and was expelled for a short period of time. There are days when she refuses to get up and go to school, and when she does, she often skips her classes.
My stepson-in-law and stepdaughter are at the end of their emotional "rope" on what to do with their kids. I resent the kids coming over to our home because of what they are putting their parents through. Any ideas on how to handle these two troubled teens? -- Heartbroken Grandparents
Dear Grandparents: It's common for kids this age to act out, but they can't rule the roost. They need to understand that their actions have real consequences. Discipline must start with your grandchildren's parents, and as long as they're teens living at home, they have to abide by the house and school rules, no ifs, ands or buts.
The way you're feeling -- frustrated and resentful -- makes sense considering the situation, but it might help your grandchildren to know they have you as a trusted adult figure in their lives at times they feel they can't turn to their parents. Attending family counseling would equally benefit the parents and children alike.
https://www.arcamax.com/healthandspirit/lifeadvice/dearannie/s-2839175
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The first is practical. LW should absolutely not, under any circumstances, allow Sally to move in. LW cannot enforce any rules against Sally, and will not find it easy to kick her out at the end of whatever arbitrary time limit is set up. This is a nonstarter. Sally needs to be told that this is not happening, in no uncertain terms. This advice is bad.
The second is... look, Sally sounds thoroughly awful. She also sounds unhappy - she can't hold down a job, she can't make it into class, she can't keep her friends - who'd be happy like this? Sally does not want to be like this. She sounds miserable, and at a pretty young age. Of course, I'm not the one who has to deal with her, but what I *would* suggest as an alternative to letting Sally move in is to continue to pay her rent on the condition that she goes to therapy. That might or might not help - therapy is one of those things that works if you're willing to do the work - but I honestly can't see how things can get worse for Sally with this deal.
The third is that LW needs to seriously reconsider how these family dynamics are playing out, because it reads like LW is blaming Sally's "permissive" father for Sally's behavior, while LW's saintly partner gets none of the blame. Well, okay - but one of those two people has stopped supporting his adult daughter, and the other wants to make an even larger commitment to her. So which of these two is more of a pushover, really? And cycling back to my previous paragraph, if LW's grasp of the situation is so dependent on which of the two people they like more, is it possible that LW is misrepresenting Sally's behavior here? I genuinely have no idea, but I don't like how LW writes this letter.
2. LW2 calls these troubled teens, but I don't think that she really thinks they are troubled. Let me just say that if a child is unable to leave her bed to go to school, that sounds less like she is "refusing" to do this and more like she is suffering from a mental illness such as depression. And the same goes for the older child's use of drugs - this can mean a lot of things, but at the very least, I'd want to have the kid screened for mental illness.
Annie's advice is shallow and useless. Her first paragraph is entirely irrelevant and also wrong. Not only do the grandparents not have any say on how they're disciplined at home, but you cannot discipline your way out of mental health problems. And if nothing else is clear to me from this letter, it's that the trouble here is not that the children do not understand consequences, that they are "acting out" or "ruling the roost", but that they are, in fact, troubled teens. They need help. And again, that's easy enough for me to say, since I'm not the one who has to deal with them - but then again, LW doesn't have to deal with them on a daily basis either.
The second paragraph doesn't connect to the first in any meaningful way, and also doesn't provide anything useful for LW to actually do.
What LW asked for is advice on handling the kids. Well, LW can't put them into therapy, so actually, they can't do much. What LW also alluded to needing help with is their resentment of these teens for the trouble they're causing for their parents. And this is something they can get help with, probably through a support group of some sort.
Terrible, useless response.
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if Sally moves in,
1. it's going to be very hard to convince her mother to make Sally move out
2. depending on how long Sally lives there, and what state it is, Sally may be legally entitled to tenant protections which might make it very hard to evict her
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2. I am often surprised by how quickly therapy is suggested in this community. Is it an American thing, or perhaps an age thing?
I skipped so many classes in school (I started having migraines at 13 and used that as an excuse) and I turned out all right.
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