Generations Vexed
Posted by fxckfeelings on February 20, 2014
Some parents are gluttons for responsibility and guilt, while others are just regular gluttons for video games and donuts, but neither instinct necessarily leads to good home management. To raise a child while both honoring other responsibilities and occasionally indulging some pleasures requires you to create priorities and stick with them, whether they feel good or not. You may sometimes need to frustrate those who depend on you, and sometimes yourself, but your goal—as with any diet, nutritional or behavioral—is to figure out a balance that will work and just stick with it.
–Dr. Lastname
About a year ago, I found a rental for my parents, sister, spouse, and my baby to live in. My parents and sister were living with my aunt prior to the move, but things were not going so well there and I was a new, panicked mother seeking support, so I thought all of us living together would be the perfect solution. Before getting into it, I was fully aware that my mother had a gambling addiction and my stepfather was in and out of a job. They have always been financially irresponsible and neglectful in general when it came to other responsibilities. Well, I feel miserable here and I want to leave, but there is this overwhelming amount of guilt I feel. I know I shouldn’t feel responsible in any way, but I am the only person here who wants to build a better future, and I feel like they cannot have one without me. My mom works 40 hours a week with terrible health issues and has lost some of her teeth, so she feels sick all the time and has very low self-esteem. Because I love her so much, I can’t help but feel an overwhelming amount of sympathy. She hasn’t gambled as much as she use to. Probably because I started to when we moved in together, had a small gambling addiction myself, then I banned myself from the casino. It may have woken her up a bit, but we are still broke. My spouse and I have to constantly pay for what they can’t with the bills and do all the grocery shopping. Everyone here but my spouse is passive aggressive, and when I get the courage to speak up, my family gets very emotionally wounded. I’m fed up with myself because I can’t find the strength to leave, and I am confused because there are times when I want to stay, but that is only when things are going well, which is rare. I need advice on how to handle my over excessive guilt and how to speak up when it’s needed.
At a certain point, all parents are confronted with their own, special chicken/egg dilemma; they don’t have to figure out which came first, but who comes first, given the conflicting needs of their parents versus their kids, and their duties to both. It’s painful enough to make you wish you were poultry.
After all, there’s nothing wrong with helping your mother or seeking her help with childcare. As a married mother who runs her own household, has a child to support, and is obliged to share decisions with a spouse, however, it’s your job to ask yourself if you can withstand the harm it might do to your new family if you live with your mother and her entire damaged entourage.
The benefit is that you and your mother support one another emotionally, and that you worry less about her health when you can keep an eye on her. The harm is the immense financial strain her gambling addiction and unemployed spouse put on you and your partner and the reduced resources for your child. Then include conflict with your mother about her addictive behaviors and with your spouse over his undeserved responsibilities for paying for same, not to mention your child’s reaction to the tension.
Of course, if you let your feelings be your guide, they’ll see-saw back and forth between protective love and anger and fear. In the long run, however, this kind of pressure will slowly damage your relationship with your husband and child, because they can never count on you to put their needs first. You want to, but responsibility for your mother’s problems will always get in the way.
Instead of waiting for your feelings, or your mother’s gambling addiction, to change, or for your whole family to simply explode, accept the fact that being a mother requires you to make tough decisions. You can’t protect your mother from herself, and trying to do so endangers the security and stability of the family you’re building. Own your priorities as boss of your own family, and do what’s right, regardless of how much you worry about your mother’s health or need her support. You know who comes first, even if it you know it hurts to make the call.
Don’t throw your mother out or criticize her gambling. Let her know that, as much as you love her, respect her hard work, and hope that she can overcome the addiction that endangers her survival, you can’t afford to have her live with you, and that your ability to lend her money when she’s broke is limited. Then tell her she’s free to visit to see her granddaughter, but as a roommate, she’s got to go.
After working out your own budget, figure out the maximum you can afford to give her when she’s broke and then consult a social service specialist about resources she might seek if she can’t pay the rent. Harsh as it sounds, spending time in a shelter may help motivate her and her husband to seek treatment for gambling addiction. You’re there to make sure she doesn’t starve or get rained on if there are no other benefits available.
Between worrying about your mother’s unstable condition and feeling stressed as a mother, there may be nothing you can do to feel good right now. If you make decisions that protect your family from your mother’s gambling and increase her incentive to get help, however, you’ll have truly made the best of a bad situation and know you’re a good leader for a tough problem.
Being a parent isn’t an easy job, but it’s not right to sacrifice the family you’ve created to placate the one that created you. Your mother might not be pleased, but by putting your kid and spouse first, you’re proving that you’re a good egg.
STATEMENT:
“I feel terrible when I think of my mother’s suffering, but I have a child to take care of and I can’t expect my husband to support my mother and her family, as well as our child. I will give her love and advice, but limit my responsibility to encouraging better addiction management and providing a safety umbrella only when necessary.”
My son’s a senior in high school, and over Christmas, he became a dad. I didn’t know that he and this girl were still together, let alone that she was having his baby, but a couple of months before the blessed event, her mother calls me to tell me and my husband that we’re going to be grandparents. That’s when the shit hit the fan, and no surprise, everything’s gone downhill from there. I like this girl and her parents, and of course I adore my grandson, but I’m so torn about how much I should push my son to step up to his responsibilities. My husband thinks our son should postpone graduating to get a job and provide for his new family, but I don’t think he should drop out if he’s so close to getting a degree. At the same time, my son isn’t making that much of an effort to take care of his baby in any other way—I still catch him in his room playing video games, and if his girlfriend drops the baby off at our house, he sometimes goes out with his friends and expects me to babysit. I don’t want my son to drop everything to be a dad, but I think he should have to drop some things and accept that he can’t just be a teenager anymore. If not for his sake, then for my grandson’s.
Congratulations on becoming a grandparent, but condolences on the hard choices that lie ahead; unless you define who’s going to do what for the baby in the future, your role may undergo changes that will be painful to you, your son, and your grandson. Yes, your immediate wish is to get your son to work harder and act more responsibly, either at his studies, parenting, or otherwise, but you also need to think hard about what you can expect from him, his girlfriend’s family, and yourselves.
Assuming that you have no doubts about the baby’s paternity, find out what the local courts expect from your son in terms of child support and give thought to what you and your husband can contribute, in terms of money and childcare, if your son wants to continue school. Then, once you and your husband know where you stand with childcare, your finances, and one another, spell out the choices you can offer your son.
Don’t offer him choices that represent your dreams for him and ignore his real-life limitations, or that put an unacceptable burden on you if he should fail. Instead, give him choices he can actually succeed at, assuming he wants to try. Encourage him to succeed, but prepare a plan B that puts responsibility on him, not you, if the initial plan doesn’t work out and/or he doesn’t do his part.
Don’t embrace being a grandparent if, in doing so, you take too much responsibility from your son or the baby’s mother, or if the baby’s mother is likely to make changes on short notice. Create an arrangement that is most likely to protect everyone, particularly the baby, from sudden changes caused by adolescent drama, nasty people, and/or burnout.
By accepting your own limits while carefully assessing what others can contribute, you’ll give yourself the best chance of being a grandparent while also doing a good job in your continuing, not-yet-completed job as a parent. Which means raising a son who’s willing to step up to being a good dad.
STATEMENT:
“I love my grandson and want to provide him with a secure home, but I will first try to be realistic about what I can expect from the baby’s mother, her family, my son, my husband and myself before I start to fill the gap and assume whatever responsibilities aren’t taken by others. I will try to define responsibilities that are do-able and will provide stability for everyone.”
