Counting the days

Parents Forum
#1

<p>I have an only child, never wanted children but was forced to reproduce or get out by my husband, and I am finally going to be rid of him.</p>

<p>He has been spoiled rotten, thanks to overprotective father and grandparents, and does not know how to ride a bike, drive a car, cook his meals, wash dishes, or do laundry.</p>

<p>Any attempts to teach him these things has been met with hostility by him, as it would cut into his video game time.</p>

<p>Now, I can't say he's been this sweet child that has suddenly become a monster. Video games have always turned him into a monster.</p>

<p>He will be going away to college in a couple of weeks, and the video game system will stay at home.</p>

<p>I am having second thoughts about this, as I fear he will come home every weekend, not just with his laundry to do, but to play his video games nonstop all weekend, as he has done all summer.</p>

<p>I am tempted to schedule weekend trips to be out of the house because of this prospect, but I have projects that I want to do around the house, and I will now finally have the time to do them.</p>

<p>Wondering if there's anyone out there who is having a similar summer with their prospective freshman, and also, looking for feedback from people who have just gone through freshman year, as to whether their child did in fact come home and play video games all weekend, rather than staying at their college and enjoying college life.</p>

<p>BTW, son is going away to college, but there are a couple of transportation options that will make coming home every weekend doable for him: plane, train, and automobile, a one hour flight, and a five hour train or car ride.</p>

#2

<p>It's time for you and/or his dad to teach him how to "ride a bike, drive a car, cook his meals, wash dishes, and do laundry." Some of the items on this list are more than ten years overdue!</p>

#3

<p>I smell a troll. Especially since that's your first post.</p>

#4

<p>Good grief I hope this is a troll.</p>

#5

<p>I hate it when trolls aren't even funny or clever. CC has higher standards than that.</p>

#6

<p>Oh, how I wish I were a troll. We have no family support, ie, those wonderful grandparents that everyone has that teaches the kids to ride a bike, drive a car, etc. We both work two jobs to put a roof over our heads and pay private school tuition.<br>
We live in a neighborhood full of retirees, ie, no other kids around for child to play with or learn to ride bikes with. </p>

<p>Love the comment, "ten years overdue". What makes you think that all the sudden, husband is going to do these fatherly things, teaching son to drive a car or ride a bike? </p>

<p>Hopefully, when son goes away to college, he'll make friends who may teach him these things. I grew up in a similar situation, parents too busy with business and other children to teach me to ride a bike or drive a car. School friends actually taught me to ride a bike one summer, as I was lucky enough to live in a neighborhood with kids, and as for driving, after I graduated college, hired a private driving instructor to teach me. </p>

<p>So sad that my son is going down the same road I did. As I said, self fulfilling prophecy.</p>

<p>My wish that son will not come home weekends is so that he will finally get to "have a life", because we surely didn't provide him a good one.</p>

#7

<p>I vote you send the video game system to college with him. No need to come home on weekends then!</p>

<p>I feel sorry for the son you were "forced" to have.</p>

#8

<p>Maybe you should get rid of the husband and grandparents as well as the son?</p>

<p>I'm sorry to be so sarcastic. This is such a sad, and frightening post.</p>

#9

<p>I still think it's a troll. First posts are never this detailed and personal.</p>

#10

<p>Why can't you teach him how to ride a bike or drive? Last I heard moms are allowed to teach these things.</p>

#11

<p>I don't know that your post is for real. When someone has no previous posts and starts posting in this manner, it raises doubts. </p>

<p>If by chance you are for real.....it is all very sad. If your son is not acting in the way you would hope, you need to also examine his end of things......you make it very clear here that you did not want this son and can't wait to get rid of him. You complain he can't do simple tasks but sounds like you were not that into parenting him. It likely is best you will be apart pretty soon. I think your son will need counseling because for you to admit how you feel about having him here to strangers, if it is even real, which I have serious doubts, imagine how you come across to him.</p>

#12

<p>Our parents did not teach our children how to ride a bike or drive a car. Since when, in this day and age, do we assume grandparents are any more available to parent than parents are? Weird.</p>

<p>Truth is, if I were this kid I'd be just as excited to get the heck out of dodge as this particular Mother is to see him go. Sounds like video games were an escape... and there has to be a helluva lot more on the plate to drag him home again. Plus, even if he doesn't have his video system someone else surely will.</p>

<p>PS/. you've still got a few weeks. Perhaps teaching him how to do his laundry now would be a good idea. How hard can that be since obviously someone is doing it.</p>

#13

<p>First you say your son had overprotective grandparents and then you say you have no family support, no grandparents, etc. . . .
Which is it?</p>

#14

<p>Grandparents live far away, so they are not there every day like the other kids at school, whose grandparents pick them up from school, bring them to sports activities, all the things my grandparents did for me growing up.</p>

<p>My parents are both deceased, as well as my grandparents.</p>

<p>My husband's parents, the remaining grandparents, are overprotective in that they've made the decisions for us that we should have made ourselves. Rather than attend day care, we had a live-in nanny, at their insistence. My husband pretty much consults them on every decision in his life, even ones involving our family, and my opinion is usually shot down. So that's why I say son has overprotective grandparents, but we do not have the family support that a lot of kids at school have. </p>

<p>Rereading my post and your comments here, I am sad as well, that I have been such a failure as a parent, and that perhaps I should have not given in to my husband's insistence to have a child and just ended the marriage. I suppose I have just been biding my time for the last 18 years, and only hope that my son can make something of his life without me there to pull him down.</p>

#15

<p>^^You could really use some counseling. Stop worrying about your son, and just take care of yourself.</p>

#16
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