1. I'm not saying LW or the columnist are wrong, but damn, this is a pretty harsh way of speaking about and treating your newly-adult teenager. I just feel like there's some sort of compromise position for a vulnerable young person who is still being taken advantage of by his own mother - like, for example, paying to get the car out of impound but not giving it back to the son until he's repaid a certain percentage of the debt to Dad, in installments (and on the explicit understanding that the entire debt will be repaid).
2. If LW does want to reconnect, I wouldn't even advise those small jobs Prudence suggests but something even smaller - like, spend a few months, see if they consistently respond to texts. (They don't have to be big ticket texts. My family has a text chain where we send each other pet pics. Because our pets are adorable.)
These people have spent the past 4+ decade treating LW as the unfavorite. Even the siblings are fully responsible by now for their own behavior, so there is a lot of baby steps to make up before they can even be on the "teeny-weeny tasks" trust list.
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2. If LW does want to reconnect, I wouldn't even advise those small jobs Prudence suggests but something even smaller - like, spend a few months, see if they consistently respond to texts. (They don't have to be big ticket texts. My family has a text chain where we send each other pet pics. Because our pets are adorable.)
These people have spent the past 4+ decade treating LW as the unfavorite. Even the siblings are fully responsible by now for their own behavior, so there is a lot of baby steps to make up before they can even be on the "teeny-weeny tasks" trust list.