How much to help young adult kids who struggle...? (party, legal, parents)

[E-Twist]

My late sister and her husband continually bailed two of their four children out of every problem they had and they never became competent adults. They'd let them move back home, they'd buy them cars that they'd wreck. It was no, no, we aren't going to give you any more money, and then they would give in. They took in their young grandkids. The "kids" were in their 40s and 50s when my sister died. They were no help with her care, her husband did it all. Then he unexpectedly died a couple years later. I have no idea how they are faring now. There was no big inheritance , which they would have spent immediately anyway. They never held down jobs for very long. It would have been much better if they would have had to learn how to take care of themselves early in life instead of finding the gravy train coming to an end when they are middle aged.

I don't blame your ex for only being willing to help his son and not his girlfriend. It's bad enough to support your own adult child let alone someone else's adult child.

If you let them move in with you they are unlikely to ever need to be motivated enough to be self sufficient. They will take you down with them. You've said alcohol is an issue with the girlfriends. What about your sons? Are drugs involved?

Someone with carpentry skills should be able to make a good living. Everyone I know seems to be looking for handymen. The last couple guys I hired were getting 45 dollars an hour.

Perhaps you should speak to a counselor about the best way you can help them. Because if they are going to go down you don't want to go down with them.

[ticking]

Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork

I just cannot bring myself to cut him off. I am literally afraid that if I do, he will die. That he will not find a way to survive without help. I love my kid. I feel like I can't totally turn my back on him, I just can't do it.

Generally, I'd be a proponent of relatively tough love, although I've seen it work other ways too. One of my best buddies was an alcoholic for about 25 years. His mother would never let him starve or go without the basics like shelter. He would drink morning, noon and night. He held down jobs sporadically but never for more than a couple years and went through long stretches of unemployment. Around the time the alcohol was starting to kill him at age 45 he turned himself around and finally stopped drinking and began a productive life. He is now 55 and 10 years into the productive person he always should have been. Without his mother always providing for him, he didn't have survival skills and support so I think he might have given up and drank himself to death.

Despite his massive drinking you could see he was a nice and gentle guy, who mostly just harmed himself. If he were a violent angry guy perhaps his mother would have disowned him. She stuck with him and it eventually paid off, and she has lived to see it. She is 80 now and so proud of him and I'm happy for the both of them.

[MechAndy]

I’m sorry to hear about your kids situation Sonic.
It’s really easy to say that they should be cut off and pave their own way but when you are worried about them surviving all bets are off and they need all the help you can get them.

Have you considered finding them some professional help ?
I don’t just mean mental help but also help with their careers and financial future.
Is there a job hiring fair coming up in their area you could take them to and maybe make a nice day out of it?

Hoping the best for you.

[bus man]

Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork

So I have nearly resigned myself to the possibility that when I move back I may be having to get a home big enough to offer housing to one or both of my kids. I was even thinking maybe their girlfriends, too.

Surely you must realize that once they move into your house, it'll take an Act of Congress to get them to move back out. Don't count on them supporting you in any way; they won't pay rent, they won't do chores, they won't clean up after themselves. And if/when either of them produces a kid, guess-who will be stuck with a disproportionate share of the child-rearing duties.

My advice to you is to find some other way to help them, without bringing them under your roof.

Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork

I have had some say that I need to show up for my kids to every extent I am able...as who they are today is who I raised them to be, they did not even ask to be born, etc.

No kid ever asked to be born. Nor did they have any say in who their parents were. Whoever is saying these things to you is trying to make you feel guilty. Don't let them.

[springfieldva]

I would offer your sons a room to stay in your house but that doesn't mean that their girlfriends are allowed to move in, too.

Two healthy, able bodied people should both be able to work and earn enough to rent a place together. So if living with their girlfriends is a number one top priority for them then they will need to each get FT jobs and their own place.

If your sons opt to live with you then they can do so with the condition that they work FT.

[ContraPagan]

Stop enabling them.

[otterhere]

Originally Posted by ContraPagan

Stop enabling them.

[Sonic_Spork]

Originally Posted by Threestep2

OT - how is your furry friend doing?

Nimbus the cat? He is doing great. Majestic and floofy as usual. Napping at the moment, the little freeloader. lol Just because you asked, the vet said he had kidney failure and may die within months. That was two years ago, and we improved his (already all wet food) diet and his numbers have been stable since. He seems happy and healthy. Take that, vet!

Yes, quitting Job Corps is a red flag, Let's hope for WM.

You are talking about "the boys" but currently the boys come in somewhat not very positive packages. A 22 year old unemployed does not need a child with an alcoholic mother. Can you have a sit down?

You cannot cancel a rental today because your kid needs to move in tomorrow. Buy a winterized travel trailer and pay the lot fee? A lot of oil and medical travellers go that route. Will have you not as much on the hook as signing a lease for them.

IMPORTANT UPDATE - New information yesterday. Youngest son's girlfriend finally took a pregnancy test. It was negative! YAY!!! My younger son has been more influential on this girl than her family had been able to for years, he convinced her to get on Medicaid, and I told him he should refuse to have sex with her at all until she agreed to get on birth control. He is pushing for her to go into rehab. She's resisting that so far but if anyone can convince her to get help, it'll be him.

I don't know what you mean about canceling a rental today? I'm not renting anything right now. I live in Arizona in an inherited house, husband & I plan to sell it next year and move back to Colorado where the kids are. I was thinking of renting a cheap apartment not far from the Walmart (IF my son gets the job) and just paying the rent for him to live there. By the time I would be back in CO and have possibly a space on my property to house anybody, it would be at least a year from now, around the time their lease would expire.

It's just that I was hoping to save some money not having a housing expense for a while...but if I do "rent only, no other cash support" for my younger son, that will in fact be cheaper than what I've been doing. I'm not sure that the trailer/lot rent will be a cheaper option than one year's worth of rent in a sketchy apt building... $1,000 in rent (can't find much cheaper in that city, and they won't leave) x 12 months = total $12K... Don't know about getting any kind of trailer situation for less, lot rent in COS runs about $600/month.

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

I can't follow how many gf's have a drinking problem. Just one, or both?

I think your moving back and having them live with you, even just the boys, would be too much stress, and there would be a high likelihood of them never getting independent. How much would this job pay, that the one got offered? Minimum wage-ish, or is it a "real" adult job? How much schooling do each of them have?

Both of the girlfriends do. My younger son sometimes indulges as well but he's moderated his habits a lot since Job Corps and seeing his girlfriend's behavior is actively putting him off drinking. My older son doesn't do any of that stuff but his gf does.

I agree that having them on my property would be stressful. But this is also hugely stressful. I don't know how to make it not hugely stressful because I would need to find a way to not care if my kids starved or froze in the cold, and I don't know how to do that. Minimum wage in Colorado Springs is $13.65. The Walmart job pays $15/hr. IF he gets it, and IF he shows up and works it. He has a history of talking a big talk about turning his life around and then flaking out when the time comes to stand up and make something happen. We have had our hopes raised and dashed by him a hundred times it feels like.

Originally Posted by heavymind

The brothers are close enough in age that they can pool resources and rent an apartment together. They are lucky to even have that as an option. The girlfriends sound like psychos, I doubt the relationships will last. I bet a year from now they'll both be gone.

Stop paying their way. If they get hungry or cold enough, they'll figure out what needs to be done to fix that!

Neither of them are willing to go that route, as they tried it before and it went badly. Drama I won't get into here but it caused a pretty serious rift that they are still trying to heal enough to even be comfortable in the same room with one another. As for hungry or cold enough... Those things can kill you. I thought, too, surely they would take action to stay alive at least. Yet when my younger kid arrived at Job Corps he was malnourished and severely underweight from his struggles to survive, and the temps in that area are now getting into the teens and single digits at night. There is a significantly-more-than-zero-% risk of death involved there, particularly with the younger son...and at times he feels so low that he says maybe that would be for the best.

As his mother, I don't know how to not care about that. I have never known how to just...harden my heart against my kids like that. And I'm not sure that I could live with myself if I did.

Originally Posted by E-Twist

My late sister and her husband continually bailed two of their four children out of every problem they had and they never became competent adults. ...<snipped for brevity> ...

If you let them move in with you they are unlikely to ever need to be motivated enough to be self sufficient. They will take you down with them. You've said alcohol is an issue with the girlfriends. What about your sons? Are drugs involved?

Younger son smokes weed and really should not, particularly with the meds he needs to take to keep him sane and functional (he has schizo-affective disorder but it can be well managed w/meds.) His girlfriend's family and friends all do it though so he's been around it, and he's been indulging too. He also drinks but not to the degree or extent that his girlfriend does. Older son does not smoke, drink, or do drugs at all.

Someone with carpentry skills should be able to make a good living. Everyone I know seems to be looking for handymen. The last couple guys I hired were getting 45 dollars an hour.

Perhaps you should speak to a counselor about the best way you can help them. Because if they are going to go down you don't want to go down with them.

Yeah...but I do suspect, too, that existing contractors are wary of flaky young men who immediately start to be unreliable, and my kid's job history doesn't paint a good picture. Fact is...he would be a prime candidate for some kind of mentorship if he'd part ways with those who bring unhealthy influences into his life and choose to walk a better path. He is that kid who desperately craved approval from an abusive father and that approval would never come, so he lacks faith in himself and gives up easily when things seem hard. I have encouraged him to seek out programs or resources that may help, such as AA, NA, Adult Children of Alcoholics, even church based relationships...anywhere he might find wholesome people he could look up to and form better relationships that would be kind but hold him accountable. Like I have done what I can, but I feel that coming from Mom it's not good enough for a boy, he needs a male role model, a better one than he had.

I wish he could go into the military, but his psych conditions and the need to go off the meds to enlist make that impossible. His father only ever thrived in the structured environment of the military and the two of them seem wired kind of similarly in some ways. Except my kid is not the a-hole his father is...but he hasn't had 50+ years of failures and life-scars, either.

Originally Posted by ticking

...

Despite his massive drinking you could see he was a nice and gentle guy, who mostly just harmed himself. If he were a violent angry guy perhaps his mother would have disowned him. She stuck with him and it eventually paid off, and she has lived to see it. She is 80 now and so proud of him and I'm happy for the both of them.

My sons are also very sweet and treat me with (verbal) respect. They are kind and loving people. Neither has had any interactions with police, neither has been violent to me or to others.

The frustrating disrespect is more a matter of things they should do, but do not do (keeping jobs, for instance) and the youngest asking for money for important things like food but then at least some of it, I know, is going to get weed and alcohol.

But yeah for sure if either of them were a belligerent a-hole or violent or something it would be easier to step back, I do have SOME sense of self preservation.

Originally Posted by MechAndy

I’m sorry to hear about your kids situation Sonic.
It’s really easy to say that they should be cut off and pave their own way but when you are worried about them surviving all bets are off and they need all the help you can get them.

Have you considered finding them some professional help ?
I don’t just mean mental help but also help with their careers and financial future.
Is there a job hiring fair coming up in their area you could take them to and maybe make a nice day out of it?

Hoping the best for you.

Thank you!

I cannot take them to anything, I live in another state at this time. Older son has acknowledged that seeking therapy may be a good idea, but he seems kind of sunk in a state of inertia, and it's not doing his mental health any favors. I suggested recently, that since the places he was applying weren't hiring him and he had nothing better to do with his time, he should go find some volunteer work to do for charity. You can put that on a resume! He liked the idea but I don't think he's started doing it. He is trying to shift away from video games though (that was his escapism) and he says he's spending a lot of time working out in the gym at the apartment complex.

Younger son knows the benefit of therapy and got himself set up with multiple providers once he returned from Job Corps.

I am not sure what resources there are in their area for job counseling for young people but that's not a bad idea.

[clevergirl67]

I might send money to the parents of the girl with the car but I would not drop another dime in either pocket because those girls are drinking all that cash, not to mention the one who keeps getting fired is probably smoking weed and not showing up or failing drug tests.



I would absolutely not house either kid because then you'll never get them out.



$2000 spent this month on one kid and they still don't have housing or a fixed car? Yeah, F that. There would be no more money coming from me. Time for them to grow up. As long as they know they can whine to you and hold their hand out and you'll fill it up, they don't need a job.

[Threestep2]

Thank you for the positive update on Nimbus!

Rentals:
You cannot evict a tenant in a hurry unless you have reason and moving your child in does not sound like a valid reason. CD landlords should have answers.

He may be able to return to Job Corps. Most unemployment agencies offer job counseling. They and not for profits work with special needs. Check CD - some retired counselors may be able to direct you.