We've tried everything...(LONG)

[jillybean307]

What you say is certainly very true, however, I would urge - no, I would plead with anyone considering parenthood who is of the opinion, and plans, to provide their child with only what the "law requires" so to speak, to reconsider the question of parenthood.

There are certainly parents who are hard-pressed to afford even the basics for their kids, and if that is the case, I would make the same suggestion to them.

The idea of raising a child, and never giving it anything more than a roof and food, and I presume some sort of clothing, in communities where nudity would also involve some legal issues, as well as communities where temperatures drop in winter, seems to me to be so highly distasteful and beyond sad that I have to say something.

The whole point of being a parent is love, and we want to give those we love all we can give them. Even if we are poor, we will strive to provide some "luxuries," because those are not luxuries - those are what separates parents - or people who love us in general - from underfunded state-run institutions featured in scandal-and-expose pieces on 20/20 - or those found in Charles Dickens novels. Or prisons.

In my opinion, people who would be OK with providing a child with only the necessities of life, quite aside from the question of their financial means, would do well to consider just why they wish to have children.

This is not to say that in order to be a good parent, one must comply with a child's every desire. On the contrary, the best parents, in my view, deliberately do NOT do that, even though they might have no trouble doing so financially. It is good for children to learn all those cliches about money not growing on trees, and cutting lawns to pay for the expensive gadget, etc, but there is a FAR cry between giving the child any and everything he ever wants and considering that once one has provided the basics of survival, that one's obligation is done, and the child will get that and nothing more!

There is much to be said for moderation, whether the subject is indulging the desires of children or choosing how many cocktails one will enjoy before dinner, but there is even more to be said for love, because people who are suited to be parents will be motivated first, last, and in between, by love, and it will be love that drives them to provide what little luxuries and fun they can, even if it is not the costly and glittering thing that the rich child has, and it is love that will prevent the wealthy parent from instantly providing each and every thing that the child wants!

And lara is correct that this is not really socalchk's issue, and I do not mean to hijack the thread, but something about that comment just grabbed me, and I could not sit on my fingers!
:back2topic:

Sorry, Shimma, I didn't mean to insinuate that one should toss their child in a box with food and a rag for covering themselves-LOL! Can you tell I'm not the maternal type?

I was more thinking along the lines that the OP said, "She's not the working type and is used to everything being handed to her." (LOL, who is the working type? It's just something we all have to do.) and then proceeded to list all the excess stuff her parents won't buy her. I've been paying my own way since I was 18 and working since I was 12, I don't consider that a tragedy or poor parenting to expect your kid to pay for some of their own stuff especially costly stuff like prom.



But Yes, I do agree that's a side issue to the verbal stuff. I think the OP and her sister should approach their parents together and tell them how upset hearing that stuff makes them feel. Maybe saying it everytime Mom and Dad say those things will drive the point home. Sometimes people don't realize who they're ranting to & how it makes the other person feel.

 

[winternight]

Sorry you're having a rough time. You've gotten some good advice here but I just wanted to chime in to say that parents should help you out when they have the means to, including paying for prom. My parents always did a sort of matching thing, some money I earned and some I matched. Sometimes they just bought me stuff. I think its incredibily selfish and self-serving when parents expect a child (and in my opinion 16 is pretty much a child - no offense) to work and pay for things when she need to focus on her studies - when they have the means to pay for these things themselves.

It also sounds like your parents are treating you more like a friend than child. I think you need to set boundaries about what you'll listen too - it takes time but eventually they'll stop talking to you about that stuff. I went through that with my parents - not fun.

Also focus on your studies so that you can go to college and get yourself out of there!

 

[socalgrl86]

Sorry, Shimma, I didn't mean to insinuate that one should toss their child in a box with food and a rag for covering themselves-LOL! Can you tell I'm not the maternal type?

I dont think that your not a Maternal type, I just think you have your own way of parenting... :-]

And BTW...I totally didnt realize that she had put she's not the working kind...I totally agree that by this age she should be responsible for luxuries such as her cell phone and gas money and expensive clothes, but i think my parents definently shouldnt stop financially supporting her either. They dont pay for anything for her anymore....most of the groceries she eats are what me and my DH buy for the house!

 

[diamond_lover]

oiye this isn't a problem with an easy solution. but obviously you have to try to extricate yourself from your dad's complaints of your mom. it doesn't seem right to put all that emotional burden on you and it's sorta hypocritical of your dad to agree with your mom in person but to disagree with her behind her back. honestly, i don't think it's fair that you are paying for your own food and necessities. im 21 and i have worked ever since i was 15. when i went away to study abroad, my parents paid for tuition, food, and board even though i could hve paid for food on my own. the issue of prom is iffy. prom is expensive from my past experience and i think it is very responsible of you to pay for it on your own but the bills can add up. it would be nice for your parents to help out but not all parents think prom is "necessary". for instance, my mom made me choose between senior trip and prom since senior dues and activities were starting to amount to a pretty penny. also, dont worry! college is around the corner! that's what i always told myself when something bad happened to me at home

 

[ShimmaPuff]

Sorry, Shimma, I didn't mean to insinuate that one should toss their child in a box with food and a rag for covering themselves-....

Oh, no! jilly, I didn't mean I thought you were advocating that, I did think maybe more of it might have happened to you than I would wish, and I apologize again and profusely to you if I gave the wrong impression, and to the socal sisters for sidetracking this thread, which really has to do with a whole nother aspect of parenting, and one that is every bit as important.

And I understand what merika mentions, about cultural differences, and how those can sometimes loom huge in the life of a teen, and leave parents shaking their heads, gobsmacked.

What I am trying to say is that there's prom, and there's prom, to use the example that people seem to be honing in on. Not all parents can afford a limo, or a hotel suite, or a five thousand dollar designer gown, and neither can all teens who work afterschool jobs and save birthday money from grandma, etc.

In fact, there are plenty of kids for whom prom is an impossible dream, because any money they manage to earn has to go toward braces, or the college fund, or even just incidental everyday expenses, like cokes and movie dates, when the family income is not enough to provide even those extras, and luxuries take the form of a very, very occasional visit to Blockbuster on a Declared Family Night, or a birthday cake.

But there are plenty more who do manage to go to prom, with what help mom can spare, and what they can save to buy a killer vintage dress for $50, the role of limo is played by their date's dad's luxurious 89 Omni, and the hotel suite is a friend's dollar store-decorated basement stocked with soft drinks and pizza provided by several families kicking in what they can.

The bottom line is, it's about love, and that balance thing, and parents doing what they can, Lord knows it is one of the hardest things I think, for a mom whose teen memories are fresh in her own mind, who knows exactly what its like to hear the rich kids going on about how their parents are shelling out six figures, or naming services and merchandise that the listener knows will run into six figures, and now, as a mother, she is trying to figure out how she can juggle the checkbook and buy time with the utility companies (oh, no! I just got my bill, and it's due today! Can you please let me have until next week?) so that she can kick $30 into that pizza party in the neighbor's basement, and give her daughter $20 so that she can put it with her $30 of saved-up babysitting money and get that dress she can't stop talking about from the 60s that cost $50, and probably cost $50 new in the 60s, and somebody's mom did the same robbing Peter to pay Paul so that HER daughter could wear it to prom...

All of us, or at least most of us, went to high school with kids who were a lot worse off than we were financially, and kids who were a lot better off. There were the kids who were talented who simply couldn't afford the costs of extra-curricular activities, like band or sports team uniforms, or supplies fees for clubs related to arts and sciences, who couldn't afford to go on "the senior trip," or buy a class ring or a yearbook - or go to prom. And there were the kids who could buy and sell the whole school nine times over...

OK, I'm rambling, and it occurs to me that I sure do give a lot of parenting advice for somebody who's not a parent! But hey - I'm a godparent, and there are lots of parents in my family, and I have friends who are parents, and um, I stayed in a Holiday Inn last night and somebody asked me if I would like to play a parent on TV?

Anyway, :back2topic: and I really mean it this time - socalchks, I know that you will be able to get through this. It seems to me that before all this recent stuff started, that your parents did a good job of raising two very smart and very loving girls who are having to learn at a very young age some hard lessons about effective daughtering

I can't pretend to know what is going on with your parents, and if I don't think it will help for the two of you to wrack your brains trying to analyze it, it certainly won't help if I try to!

Whatever it is, it is something that your parents will have to work out. It's a couples thing, and you two have a full plate already learning all about the young woman thing, and one day, you will have your own couples' things, and your job is to make sure that they are good and healthy and happy couples' things, no matter what your parents do.

That even socalchk the younger recognizes that your parents' couples thing is "not OK" is a very good and encouraging sign that you will both be able to successfully fill your own lives with things that are positive and fun, wholesome and good for you, like eating vegetables, and just the right balance of the slightly wicked, like eating them while secretly wearing totally scanty and scandalous black lingerie, especially when in the company of extremely stuffy and conservative teachers and relatives.

 

[merika]

Maybe your parents expect their kids to 'grow up fast and take care of them'? Now that their older daughter is married (and bought a husband into the house) there are more people that they can depend on for both financial and emotional fulfillment...I think this happens a lot when the parents' marriage in itself is unhappy.

I had ex parents in law who remind me a bit of your parents. They loved their children a lot, but they had problems in their own marriage. The dynamic was very weird - the mom would always rely on the sons to be her emotional support 'against' the father and tell them mean things that he said or did, and would agree with them that he hurt the sons' feelings etc. The connection between the mom and her sons was really strong, she did not like them to move out of the house and live on their own and would always either be begging them to come home, or she would come stay with them to get away from the dad...

However, when the dad did say or do something in front of the mom that hurt the kids somehow (would maybe say they didn't earn enough, didn't contribute to the family enough, that when he was younger he accomplished much more but the kids were just living off of what he did etc) the mother would say nothing.

The total family atmosphere was very tense and awful, and as someone who married into that household I absolutely hated the power games that went on.

 

[winternight]

I dont think that your not a Maternal type, I just think you have your own way of parenting... :-]

And BTW...I totally didnt realize that she had put she's not the working kind...I totally agree that by this age she should be responsible for luxuries such as her cell phone and gas money and expensive clothes, but i think my parents definently shouldnt stop financially supporting her either. They dont pay for anything for her anymore....most of the groceries she eats are what me and my DH buy for the house![/quote]

That sucks! I think people are focusing too much on "prom" and not on the bigger no help with anything issue.

I don't want to give you a line about how this will make you stronger because people just seem to say that when things are happening to you. I do think though that you're lucky to have your big sister - my sister and I are super close, I don't know what I'd do without her.

 

[socalgrl86]

You know, i really do think very highly of my parents because that's it...they're my parents. They do show they care in their own wierd way and at totally random times but I just think socalchk and I need to talk everything otu and see how we can deal with this.

I already spoke to my dad (with no avail since he's very hard headed and thinks he is always right) but it's a step in the right direction...

 

[bagnshoofetish]

you are only 16 so yes, they should be taking care of you right now. I say be brutally honest with them.
For example:
"Mom/Dad you really hurt me when you say....."
"Mom/Dad I love you but you are driving me away..."

Your parents seem pretty narcissistic to me. They should never say some of the things they've said to you or EVER make you feel you are in the middle. They may be set in their ways though and not take much advice from their daughters. Be the mature person in your family and walk away when their words begin to hurt and tell them thats why you are walking away. Hopefully, they will see they could really ruin their relationship with your permenantly and reconsider what they say to you. Either way, when you are 18 you probably should strike out on your own. They will probably appreciate you more when you are not around then and think twice before they speak. And I guess unless you are a trust fund kid, get used to working cause in this life, if you don't work, you don't eat.

 

[lara0112]

I'm not going to lie -- you sound spoiled. MANY young women pay for proms themselves. I don't understand the assumption that prom is somehow a necessity and not a luxury? Parents are not put on this earth to provide for your every material desire. Have you ever traveled? Maybe that would put your view into perspective: you are truly blessed to have two parents whom you "love to death." Regardless of whether or not they failed to get you a limo for your prom (*GASP* oh the abuse!), you are a very, very lucky girl.

actually, I don't think the OP's main concern was the 'getting stuff paid for' - it was more the putting the children between the parents' situation. it was one point among many IMO, and as far as the emotional issues are concerned: i think it doesn't sound a very easy situation.

 

[lara0112]

What you say is certainly very true, however, I would urge - no, I would plead with anyone considering parenthood who is of the opinion, and plans, to provide their child with only what the "law requires" so to speak, to reconsider the question of parenthood.

There are certainly parents who are hard-pressed to afford even the basics for their kids, and if that is the case, I would make the same suggestion to them.

The idea of raising a child, and never giving it anything more than a roof and food, and I presume some sort of clothing, in communities where nudity would also involve some legal issues, as well as communities where temperatures drop in winter, seems to me to be so highly distasteful and beyond sad that I have to say something.

The whole point of being a parent is love, and we want to give those we love all we can give them. Even if we are poor, we will strive to provide some "luxuries," because those are not luxuries - those are what separates parents - or people who love us in general - from underfunded state-run institutions featured in scandal-and-expose pieces on 20/20 - or those found in Charles Dickens novels. Or prisons.

In my opinion, people who would be OK with providing a child with only the necessities of life, quite aside from the question of their financial means, would do well to consider just why they wish to have children.

This is not to say that in order to be a good parent, one must comply with a child's every desire. On the contrary, the best parents, in my view, deliberately do NOT do that, even though they might have no trouble doing so financially. It is good for children to learn all those cliches about money not growing on trees, and cutting lawns to pay for the expensive gadget, etc, but there is a FAR cry between giving the child any and everything he ever wants and considering that once one has provided the basics of survival, that one's obligation is done, and the child will get that and nothing more!

There is much to be said for moderation, whether the subject is indulging the desires of children or choosing how many cocktails one will enjoy before dinner, but there is even more to be said for love, because people who are suited to be parents will be motivated first, last, and in between, by love, and it will be love that drives them to provide what little luxuries and fun they can, even if it is not the costly and glittering thing that the rich child has, and it is love that will prevent the wealthy parent from instantly providing each and every thing that the child wants!

And lara is correct that this is not really socalchk's issue, and I do not mean to hijack the thread, but something about that comment just grabbed me, and I could not sit on my fingers!
:back2topic:

^ I so love what you wrote. you made me smile bec you said in so many beautiful words what I keep thinking. I find it difficult to indulge myself and at the same time not want to do the same for my family - not just my child but husband, parents, even brother and his wife and kid,etc - it is just so much more fun to share your happiness. i was raised that way, and I have learned the meaning of earning money. my parents have always been and are generous, and even so I always had a job or several for extra money. for example to get them a nice present - it works both ways IMO, and actually being a parent I also think that parents are also for luxury. (just not each and every time - but we all like a little luxury, whether we are adult or child).

anyway, I hope you girls can work it out for yourselves and I wish you all the best. you are so lucky to have each other.

 

[guccimamma]

bury yourself in your own interests, school, work, sports, etc. keep yourself extremely busy..and you won't get so caught up in the drama. it is hard enough to be 16, don't get caught up in that stuff.

my parents were dramatic..always had something to be upset about with each other, i used to study with friends...work several jobs (just to keep from being home) and then went away to college at 1st opportunity. the time does pass, and it will get better. just take care of yourself and your sister.

 

[socalchk09]

.

 

[socalchk09]

I'm not going to lie -- you sound spoiled. MANY young women pay for proms themselves. I don't understand the assumption that prom is somehow a necessity and not a luxury? Parents are not put on this earth to provide for your every material desire. Have you ever traveled? Maybe that would put your view into perspective: you are truly blessed to have two parents whom you "love to death." Regardless of whether or not they failed to get you a limo for your prom (*GASP* oh the abuse!), you are a very, very lucky girl.

I understand where you are coming from but its the point where my mom wants me to start paying for my doctor appoitments and chyropracter to fix my back?

wtf is that?
and i couldve sworn I said I paid for everything for prom. INCLUDING THE LIMO.

but you know what? this is going to sound totally spoiled but i deserve it.

I don't come home drunk
I don't do drugs
and I don't have sex.

Overall I am a pretty good kid.
Yeah, I can be spoiled but thats only because I deserve it.

and my sister is right! my mother doesnt even pay for groceries anymore.
She hardley makes dinner for us...
and she would rather be out with herself then spending quality time with her family.

It was just she had promised me half and half for prom.
She can't even keep a promise.

Oh, I also pay for my parents dinner when they want to go out to eat with out me.

omg, she asks me well your dad and i are going out to eat. Be nice and pay.

Its not that she doesnt have the money because that lady is honestly loaded.


and i swear...if i look nice she'll say wow hunny you look beautiful...want to know what comes next?

she pulls her shirt up and says "omg look at my stomach i lost sooo much weight! omg omg omg I am getting to your size"

I am a size 3-5
that lady wishes she was close to that.
I love her and all...but I think shes the one a tad bit spoiled...maybe she should grow up!

but w/e...
and you know what? I am a lucky girl...I have a sister to get me through this...

 

[lorihmatthews]

socalchk09, sorry to hear of your troubles. It sounds like your mother was thrust into a motherhood role long before she was ready (from your sister's post, she had her when she was 14? My eyes just about popped out of my head when I read that, it's way too young). Given that fact alone, I'm not surprised that she's as emotionally immature as she is. You and your sister are going to have to band together and ensure that you can grow up and mature away from your parents' grasp. Is there anyone outside the family you can talk to, like a counselor, etc?

I don't think you're spoiled, but behaving well does not entitle you to anything in life. It's the absolute minimum at best. What you claim you're doing (not coming home drunk, doing drugs or having sex) as someone who is 16 is merely following the law and is not commendable past that point.

If you really believe your mother isn't paying for your BASIC needs (and unfortunately prom doesn't fall into that category), then you should talk to someone like a social worker, or in a more dire situation, CPS (Child Protective Services).

I hope you and your sister get through this tough time in your life. You will emerge stronger.