Son is Fired From Job (20 year old, adult, kids, teach)
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Everytime you post here it's something negative about your son. I have yet to read ANYTHING positive you have to say about him. Maybe he's like he is because all he's ever felt from you is your huge disappointment in him. Perhaps your wife is overcompensating.
Seriously? Your idea of a birthday present is a card with job applications? Yet one more way of conveying your total disappointment. Even on his birthday you can't like him. Wow.
Just one big, huge sad story.
He is living up to dad's expectations.
Mom is being a mom and they protect their children. Wouldn't expect mom to handle it any other way than how she is.
My son will turn 20 tomorrow, and I am disappointed with him again. On Saturday after two days of training he gets fired from his job at an amusement park as a ride operator due to his failure to follow a simple safety procedure (thumbs up before he starts the ride). He was upset about it and I was disappointed in him because he failed to follow a simple procedure. This is not the first job he was fired from, yet he is capable of keeping a steady job, so I consider his short coming as his own failure to follow the rules he needs to in order to stay employed. My wife asked me to try to relate to him on the subject, but I told her I can't because ever since my first job at 14 I have never been fired, and I have worked steady at my present job for 22 years, and I said that IMO the reason he has failed at the job is because he has no real responsibility or accountability for loosing his job. We continue to feed, clothe and provide a roof over his head. I respectfully stated how I want to handle the situation, and as enabling parents do she disagreed, and said she would handle it. She asked me what I got for his birthday and I promptly gave her the big birthday card I purchased for him with a five dollars and five job applications inside. I told her the five dollars should cover bus fare to deliver the job applications in person.
This has to be the saddest thread I've ever read. I am thinking it has to be made up.
I'd give anything be be a dad again, I wish I had your son because he needs a man to guide him and from what I've read you haven't done squat to parent or to guide.
Let's build a sailboat.
You start when you are young spending all your treasures and spare moments laboring to build the most seaworthy boat you possibly can. You start with the keel purchasing the best wood you can find knowing the keel, the foundation, is what will keep this boat sailing in a straight line.
All your spare moments, evenings, days off, weekends and holidays are spent building this boat and the day comes when you realize you've spent years and aren't halfway done yet. Where has the time gone?
You double your efforts, your hair is getting gray, your hands rough and sore but you continue on sanding, vanishing and polishing to a high, fine sheen.
You are at the stage where it is almost done, now you have to outfit. At the sail shop you purchase the best canvass sail that won't shred when the cold north wind blows. You purchase the finest rope while sparing no expense in money or time fitting this boat with the finest compass, the best brass fittings for after countless thousands of hours the boat is really taking shape, it is a masterpiece.
Finally the day is comes when you are finished and as you stand back to gaze upon the masterpiece your blood, sweat and tears created it dawns upon you this is a boat you will never sail upon for the captain of this boat is your child. You built this boat to be seaworthy knowing the day would come when you would watch on shore as he maneuvered away from the safety of port to disappear over the horizon to travel to places you've only dreamed about.
Pray you built that boat strong to weather sometimes stormy seas.
Sound to me, dad, like you never bothered to build the boat.
Our children are what we make them. Really sad, dad, because sounds to me like you are the one who lost out.
I am a very strong supporter and proponent of tough love. But tough love doesn't involve withdrawal of love or affection. It doesn't involve birthday cards that are used to put down the recipient or make them feel unloved or or humiliated.
Sorry, a birthday card is an expression of how glad you are that the person is alive, celebrating another year.
Every year on my stepson's birthday, his Dad and I go to the cemetery and bring him flowers and a toy. He was 4. I don't know what kind of person he might have been; he didn't have enough time in this life. Although we have had to use some very strong tough love on his older brother, on his birthday, other celebratory events, he gets a card and some type of support - one year we paid someone to grocery shop for him; another year we paid his electric bill, and we recently paid a bill from his doctor. Do we do it from month to month? no. Do we give him cash to burn on luxuries? no. But for his birthday or Christmas - he gets a gift because we love him.
I am a very strong supporter and proponent of tough love. But tough love doesn't involve withdrawal of love or affection. It doesn't involve birthday cards that are used to put down the recipient or make them feel unloved or or humiliated.
Sorry, a birthday card is an expression of how glad you are that the person is alive, celebrating another year.
Every year on my stepson's birthday, his Dad and I go to the cemetery and bring him flowers and a toy. He was 4. I don't know what kind of person he might have been; he didn't have enough time in this life. Although we have had to use some very strong tough love on his older brother, on his birthday, other celebratory events, he gets a card and some type of support - one year we paid someone to grocery shop for him; another year we paid his electric bill, and we recently paid a bill from his doctor. Do we do it from month to month? no. Do we give him cash to burn on luxuries? no. But for his birthday or Christmas - he gets a gift because we love him.
Sad, but the difference here is that your step son is obviously living on his own, taking care of business as a man would and should. A little help here and there is a good thing, but to enable, as the mother is doing in this case, is wrong. Once he gets out on his own, then mom can go over and give him a hand from time to time, or dad can slip him some cash a couple times a year (not habitually).
Sad, but the difference here is that your step son is obviously living on his own, taking care of business as a man would and should. A little help here and there is a good thing, but to enable, as the mother is doing in this case, is wrong. Once he gets out on his own, then mom can go over and give him a hand from time to time, or dad can slip him some cash a couple times a year (not habitually).
No, it isn't obvious that he's taking care of business as a man, What he IS doing is sleeping on a friend's couch because he is once again "between jobs". He was kicked out of his first apt for non-payment of electric and for creating a "hazardous situation" -- he hadn't taken out his trash in at least 2 months and used the corners of the room for unwashed, empty soda can storage. He got very sick (gee, bad nutrition and horrendous living conditions?), had his car towed for parking tickets (parked repeatedly in no parking zones) and wound up having to walk 2 miles to and from work in heavy snow (northern state) which made him too sick to work and lost his job. He got a job at Wally's after getting evicted and moving in with a different friend (wife and baby) but quit to take a telemarketing job (more FUN job) and geared for his laziness (no lifting, got to sit around) but strangely that job ended and he is again between jobs (although has applied for and been accepted back to Wally's), He is living with a different friend, on a different sofa and has at least stopped asking for handouts from his parents.
This is living as a man. Just think, if you continue the way you are with your son and he runs from the living conditions at home (as my stepson did with his mother), your son can "learn" to live just like my stepson - as a man.
No, it isn't obvious that he's taking care of business as a man, What he IS doing is sleeping on a friend's couch because he is once again "between jobs". He was kicked out of his first apt for non-payment of electric and for creating a "hazardous situation" -- he hadn't taken out his trash in at least 2 months and used the corners of the room for unwashed, empty soda can storage. He got very sick (gee, bad nutrition and horrendous living conditions?), had his car towed for parking tickets (parked repeatedly in no parking zones) and wound up having to walk 2 miles to and from work in heavy snow (northern state) which made him too sick to work and lost his job. He got a job at Wally's after getting evicted and moving in with a different friend (wife and baby) but quit to take a telemarketing job (more FUN job) and geared for his laziness (no lifting, got to sit around) but strangely that job ended and he is again between jobs (although has applied for and been accepted back to Wally's), He is living with a different friend, on a different sofa and has at least stopped asking for handouts from his parents.
This is living as a man. Just think, if you continue the way you are with your son and he runs from the living conditions at home (as my stepson did with his mother), your son can "learn" to live just like my stepson - as a man.
Then why all the "Drama" (from some here and my wife) because I wanted to slip the job applications in his birthday card, or because I told him his cell service was cut on his birthday. I thought the bigger picture here was to get him to realize the fact that he is 20 and the days of depending on Mom and Dad (FOR EVERYTHING) have got to end sooner rather than later, and he has to get serious about his life because I'm the one frustrated enough to just kick him out and be done with him. Don't worry before I close the door I will tell him I love him.
Then why all the "Drama" (from some here and my wife) because I wanted to slip the job applications in his birthday card, or because I told him his cell service was cut on his birthday. I thought the bigger picture here was to get him to realize the fact that he is 20 and the days of depending on Mom and Dad (FOR EVERYTHING) have got to end sooner rather than later, and he has to get serious about his life because I'm the one frustrated enough to just kick him out and be done with him. Don't worry before I close the door I will tell him I love him.
Most of us here are ACHING for your son, and for you - because you are apparently too rigid and hard-nosed to see any other point of view besides your own
WE WANT TO HELP YOU - but heck, your wife lives with you in person and she can't seem to help you, so why should we think we can? Makes me sad.
A few things I'll beg you to consider...
PLEASE reread the helpful comments here imploring you to try another way. IGNORE the cheerleader comments, those will make you feel better but they have no real substance to them or offer you any practical help.
And you do need help.
Or did you just come here and post about this to hear from other hard asses who would justify your behavior?
If that's all you want, I'll stop posting right now - I've really got so many better things to be doing than wasting my time on someone who only wants to be right.
I am a mom to young men, SUCCESSFUL, HAPPY YOUNG MEN, that their dad and I are very close to. Perhaps, just perhaps, something I can say would make a difference in your situation.
But like I said, if you really only want to be right, and don't care about things getting better I'll say goodbye and good luck to you right now.
Then why all the "Drama" (from some here and my wife) because I wanted to slip the job applications in his birthday card, or because I told him his cell service was cut on his birthday. I thought the bigger picture here was to get him to realize the fact that he is 20 and the days of depending on Mom and Dad (FOR EVERYTHING) have got to end sooner rather than later, and he has to get serious about his life because I'm the one frustrated enough to just kick him out and be done with him. Don't worry before I close the door I will tell him I love him.
And did you ever stop and think that perhaps your methods AREN'T WORKING?? You need to drop your ego a bit and maybe be open to trying something different. If after 6 months to a year a new strategy doesn't work, then try something else, but what you're doing now is only going to make your own situation worse.
I agree that it seems as though you are only looking to have your ego stroked and be told you're right and your wife and son are the problems. Wake up Dad, maybe your parenting throughout the years helped lead to your son's problems. It's not too late to help your son, but you need to accept your own responsibilities in this. Just hang up your grudges for the next 6 months to a year and take a different attitude and approach- if you're really serious about asking for "help" with your son which I doubt at this point too.
The boy isn't a MAN until he is taught to be one, someone he should have been able to look up to, someone he idiolized, someone he wanted to be. It should have started long ago. It is obvious that you are not this man to your son, but you can be. Perhaps you should reevaluate yourself and what you are saying to him. Once you can get him to idolize you in some form, then maybe he just might step up to the plate you want him on.
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