My wife's brother is 45 years old and still lives with "MOMMY". I could tell a horror story of what is now happening because of it. Mommy has covered for him all his life.
Hell I know what it is like to live with someone who constantly needs rescuing...it is a ******* pita and if it is firmly emeshed in the nuclear family structure, look out!
I have two step daughters that are the most selfish and greedy people I ever met. Their mother always rescued them. This is how those kids turn out as adults.
"I don't think the parents have a clue on what they are doing to their children..they think they are 'helping' them out of 'love'."
I read "The Millioniare Nextdoor" and am often quoting it to others [a study of first-generation American Millioniares, who are mostly working-class middle-income families].
Many of these very smart, very thrifty, frugal households; are also terrible when it comes to enabling bad habits in their children.
Common is the idea of supporting daughters; first through college majors that will never provide a job, then through a continuous stream of 'loans' whenever their daughters over-spend and can't cover bills.
I think that it is a kind of cultural thing that parents should 'fix' all the problems of their adult children.
I want to 'help' and advize my eldest son [turned 20 yesterday], but not bail him out, he needs to learn about the world on his own now. My turn to teach him and prepare him for the world was between 0-18yr.
I agree, galen, I have a daughter who is 18 that I want to help and at times I don't because she needs to be able to 'fix' it herself. But then, I have the two step daughters that I didn't raise and that is a good example to my children and myself. All I have to do is remind them of this and the reason I am not helping them. They understand big time.
The normal progression of growing up is independence, BUT, the world is a harsh place and I have decide to be a soft place to fall in this insane mean world for my children.
When my first child was born I moved back in with my parents for a few weeks and then we bought a house next door.
We all still live within a fifty mile radius. I had 7 brothers and sister, they had many children as well. We now have grands and we all live amoung each other. It is a community and we do help one another alot in fact it is always family that is considered .
the only one who move one state away has a room for her in a sister house for whenever she vists . We are very close the other day I locked my keys in my car, my dad came and helped me took me home to get the other set... this is family to us.
My son got stitches , I picked him up from the hospital. My sister in law( a widow) has her twins in their 40's live with her they both work full time and one has a child living with him, she is not well and can not do all the work that needs to be done around the house.. she watches the child while he works.. to me this is family. This is the greatest support and love a person can know from life long friendships and relationships.
I can not imagine life any other way none of us can and we number far more than a hundred by now. I think the key word is respect and love within the family.
The number one thing my daughter asked her husband when they spoke of getting married was if he was willing to live here with us and leave his family before she even considered saying yes. Im glad. now with the grands I get to be there and the children can have years of experience and love to grow up with.
I give my children money, I give my children my time, my parents bought me a car a few years ago. I do not see a problem. In fact I believe it is very christian way of living.
WE are accountable to FIVE generations people who know you and love you I think it keeps behaviours and dysfunction in check, when my son went through a thing when he was always short of cash because he went to the bars to much and spent all his money, it was just me telling him to change it was ALL of us in his face saying I do not think this lifestyle is going to work, I believe that is what changed his thinking because he siad to me in a very aghast vioce in his twenties If I move away I will be alone no one in my family knows how to do that we were raised in a community and we will live within it for life. Some have gone into the military, gone awy to college etc.. gotten divorced and moved out of state but we all end up back here together for the children.
It is a good thing, when one gets sick or has an emergency, we rally together. WE vacation together, brothers and sisters and kids and grands.. even in the divorced families the grown children go away with both parents. In death which we have seen more than our fair share of we are their for one another...Who can live without this? Abuse can not happen with this much love involved if one of the teens get selfish plenty more a few years older in their face for respect of the way we raised them . "WE were raised better than that" is a common phrase in our family. None of us take welfare most own their own business, most are college educated. Many own their own homes. My children help my parents with the heavy work around the house, I help them with their children. this is family , this is a lifestyleI think it is great.
I just read the article, the woman is in trouble for not paying the bill. Her CHILD (under age) incurred. that is her problem and she should have to pay it a parent is responsible for their children bills financialy till they are 21 in New York , some states it is still 18. -
So she went to detention with her daughter? why? was she lonely?
nothing better to do? or maybe she is trying to make the child tow the line better than she did with her son. Most teens would have a second thought about not going to school if MOM is going to show up in the detention wouldnt they? hehehe
These are still children and it sounds like mom is trying to make them behave better. being a parent is difficult, kids have zero concept of what can happen with money or being thrown out of school.. that is why they need parents.
shellon what exactly do you think she isnt getting? She should have paid the fines before.
I know what you're all saying, being a mom myself (a single mom for most of my son's growing-up years). I'm sure everyone who's posted in this thread loves their children and wants the best for them.
Boy, there's such a fine line between helping and enabling, and I've probably crossed over to the latter out of soft-heartedness at times. But I'd rather err on the side of giving than on the side of sink-or-swim. You just have to find the balance. Both "tough love" and "helping" can be taken to such extremes (I'm not saying anyone posting here has done that).
I work with a woman who has two boys in Catholic school. If one of them gets in trouble, she assumes--always, in every single situation--that the teacher is right and the kid is wrong. But in some of the situations she's described, the teacher was dead wrong. In those situations, I feel sorry for her kids, because she won't back them up. I remind her that there are some screwed-up teachers out there and that it takes wisdom to know when to let your kids "take their licks" and when to stick up for them.
My son had a goofball teacher at NK High School. A real piece of work. He hated the Wayfer kids and took every opportunity to prove it. For example, he once invited my son outside to fight him! On another occasion, he told my son he didn't like him and was sorry he had him in class. Oh, and he told the boys in another class (health class, ha!) that if they ever masterbated, it meant they were homosexuals.
Now, I knew full well my son wasn't an angel. He was a bit of a class clown. But nothing he did warranted this jerk's behavior. So I made an appointment with the principal and took my son in to meet with her and the teacher. The four of us talked, and I showed no disrespect for the teacher in front of my son. I simply asked both of them to tell their sides of this ongoing conflict.
When that part of the meeting was finished, I asked my son to wait in the hall, and then I let the teacher have it with both barrels. Told him he had no control over his classes and let them run wild till they ....ed him off, then he reacted too harshly. Told him his calling out my son to fight was childish coming from a teacher, etc. Told him no matter how true it was, he had no business telling a child in front of the whole class, "I don't like you." And more.
This was my son's senior year, and it turned out he had enough credits to graduate if he dropped this guy's two classes. So that's what I insisted on. He graduated and went on to college the next year.
Some people would say I should have just told my son to tough it out, that the world's an ugly place and he might as well get used to it, that he had to respect authority in this life, blah blah. My feeling was that if I knew my kid was being mistreated and didn't stand up for him, what kind of message would that convey to him?
I do believe in teaching children to stand on their own two feet. I also believe some grace and mercy are in order, even into adulthood. God knows my parents have extended those to me at times, and it hasn't made me weaker--just more appreciative of the loving, giving parents I have.
I run into problems with my boy to, My girls claim I do more for him. sometimes they even get jealous. my kids areall adults now. But I will be honest, here I like the guy, in fact I adore him. He isnt my favorite, and at times I have made the girls do more than him. But they were capable when I really know he was not so I helped him. Each child is an individual and what each person deals with is individual and as a mom I have had to make calls that on the surface may need have been 100% equal for all of them. My children have never fought, ever. We do not have the whole sibling fighting thing in our family in fact I do not get that how children can be fighting their own brother or sister. I think that speaks volumes about something wrong in a household.
Linda Z.
I agree I would rather be thought of as "used" or stupid than allow one of mine to be hurt or in trouble that is the reason I have a family and I am certain they feel the same way. IM glad to.
In my experience - sometime parents who cover for their kids aren't really doing it for their kids per se.....they're doing it to cover for their own inadequacies as parents.
It's not so much to cover for the child, keep the child on track as it is to punnish themselves for something they think they didn't do....some shortcoming they perceive about themselves.
Don't get me wrong, I do get things for my kids or buy things. This isn't what I was talking about.
I understand mj, what your saying. I have a family too that is like that. If my kids are in need, of course I love them enough to give them a boost. If that is what they need. But, if I see its not a need but a handout because they are too lazy to do it themselves, no way would I help them.
Thanks krys, I wasn't aware of that. My son gets detention every once in a while but I have never been required to be in it. lol
One thing about detention though I have to say and sorry if I'm derailing.
I don't understand sometimes about detention. My son gets detention for the silliest things. He rarely ever is in trouble. Like one time he got detention because he had to use the restroom and he had too many for the month. One time the teacher wouldn't let him go and he ended up messing his pants. He is 14 years old for heavens sake. He was ssssoooo embarrassed.
Now if he was fighting or being disrepectful of teachers and other students I can understand detention. And then we have kids that do worse that don't get anything because of who they are or something weird like that.
For example, my grandaughter goes to the same school as my son and is a year younger. She was sitting on the steps inside the school and a girl that didn't like her kicked her in the back and my grandaughter fell down the stairs.
Nothing happened to this kid because of who she was. No detention, nothing.
So I guess, in this article we don't really know why they had to go to detention or what kind of fines the son had.
Sometimes the shortest distance between two points is the brickwall they are fixin to run into. Life is tough, make bad choices get bad results, make better choices and maybe next time the fall won't hurt near as much.
I have a niece who has run up an $80,000 debt on student loans on her credit card, car loans, cell phone bills, and when she needed more money, asked my sister and brother in law, her parents, to remortgage their house to bail her out again. They had done this twice before for her and have paid every one of her bills. They reached a financial peak and could no longer do that.
My niece is 28 years old going on 29.
This is a prime example of a kid that won't grow up because the parents keep teaching her to remain a child.
Because of the financial debt this girl incurred, her mother, my sister-in-law had a 'going away' party for her because she had to move to another state to another job (she has had several...she never gets fired, just decides to change careers, like five or six times), so the going away party was an event to gather money for her expenses. We gave $50.00. She got close to $500.00 from different people.
Then this niece decided to take this money for the express reason of subtracting from any moving expenses and she went white-water rafting with it, blowing most of it. Her Mom and Dad decided to bail her out again.
We cut her off completely. She gets a card on her birthday now, no money, and a $20.00 gift certificate at some store for Christmas. She gets nothing from us because it is like throwing your money into a fire.
I suppose she will ultimately marry and blow her husband's money. But she says she doesn't want to marry anyone that does not have over $250,000 a year salary.
When my son couldn't pay his student loan, I made him sell the motorcycle he bought with a settlement from an accident he was in, so I wouldn't get stuck paying it off (co-signer) and so he could take responsibility for his own commitment.
What I said earlier doesn't mean I don't think kids shouldn't clean up their own messes. They should. It's just not always that cut and dry.
I do understand completely, and thanks to Galen, too. Of course, my wife and I didn't suffer any financial hardship, but we kept agonizing on why my in-laws would keep doing what they were doing.
We finally decided over that last time to quit agonizing over it. If they lose their house because of that girl, we can't help them.
The funny thing was, they used to lecture my wife and I on bailing out our two sons (her sons, my step-sons). We bailed them out once, and advised them that if it happened again there would be no help. Both took a couple of bruises, so to speak, on their own before they both wised up and began living normal lives. One of them was mentally challenged but we expected the same from him.
Both have ceased their recklesness now because they both had to pay for it.
I will say this about children who bleed their parents dry. I think it's awful and it only helps the immediate crisis, not the long run. I've seen a drug addict almost die from Mommy always coming to the rescue.
I got tossed out at 19 for ....ing off my stepmother one to many times. She was pregnant and slapped me around pretty good one afternoon. The worst part about being around her was her not talking to me at all all day long until my Dad came home for work. I was 19 and didn't have any job skills except watching kids so that is how I moved out and it was a disaster. I ended up in the bar business under age to put a roof over my head.
My daughter appreciates things more than she used to. She says thank-you for rides and I still have to put my foot down about being a taxi service on the spur of the moment once in awhile.
I don't have blood relatives that come to my rescue. I do have some wonderful friends. A dear friend picked me up the other day when I had misplaced my purse with the car keys in it along with the house key. She left work and dropped me off to get the key from the office. The purse was recovered with everything in it.
I am lucky to have friends that will help out. I do the same.
One thing I do when I don't have wheels is not have the same person drive me everywhere. That is just too much. It's been a really long time since that has happened.
I'm glad I wasn't handed everything and had to learn some things the hard way. It has made me appreciate so much. Even to this day after the summer of hell with the stepmother, when someone just says "Hi" and are pleasant, I appreciate it.
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OnionEater
My wife's brother is 45 years old and still lives with "MOMMY". I could tell a horror story of what is now happening because of it. Mommy has covered for him all his life.
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herbiejuan
Don't that just make you sick?
Hell I know what it is like to live with someone who constantly needs rescuing...it is a ******* pita and if it is firmly emeshed in the nuclear family structure, look out!
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vickles
I have two step daughters that are the most selfish and greedy people I ever met. Their mother always rescued them. This is how those kids turn out as adults.
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Cindy!
Maybe we should mail, fed ex, ups, or delivery-messenger a clue to those parents.
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vickles
I don't think the parents have a clue on what they are doing to their children..they think they are 'helping' them out of 'love'.
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Galen
vickles:
"I don't think the parents have a clue on what they are doing to their children..they think they are 'helping' them out of 'love'."
I read "The Millioniare Nextdoor" and am often quoting it to others [a study of first-generation American Millioniares, who are mostly working-class middle-income families].
Many of these very smart, very thrifty, frugal households; are also terrible when it comes to enabling bad habits in their children.
Common is the idea of supporting daughters; first through college majors that will never provide a job, then through a continuous stream of 'loans' whenever their daughters over-spend and can't cover bills.
I think that it is a kind of cultural thing that parents should 'fix' all the problems of their adult children.
I want to 'help' and advize my eldest son [turned 20 yesterday], but not bail him out, he needs to learn about the world on his own now. My turn to teach him and prepare him for the world was between 0-18yr.
:-)
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vickles
I agree, galen, I have a daughter who is 18 that I want to help and at times I don't because she needs to be able to 'fix' it herself. But then, I have the two step daughters that I didn't raise and that is a good example to my children and myself. All I have to do is remind them of this and the reason I am not helping them. They understand big time.
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mj412
I just have to say something here.
The normal progression of growing up is independence, BUT, the world is a harsh place and I have decide to be a soft place to fall in this insane mean world for my children.
When my first child was born I moved back in with my parents for a few weeks and then we bought a house next door.
We all still live within a fifty mile radius. I had 7 brothers and sister, they had many children as well. We now have grands and we all live amoung each other. It is a community and we do help one another alot in fact it is always family that is considered .
the only one who move one state away has a room for her in a sister house for whenever she vists . We are very close the other day I locked my keys in my car, my dad came and helped me took me home to get the other set... this is family to us.
My son got stitches , I picked him up from the hospital. My sister in law( a widow) has her twins in their 40's live with her they both work full time and one has a child living with him, she is not well and can not do all the work that needs to be done around the house.. she watches the child while he works.. to me this is family. This is the greatest support and love a person can know from life long friendships and relationships.
I can not imagine life any other way none of us can and we number far more than a hundred by now. I think the key word is respect and love within the family.
The number one thing my daughter asked her husband when they spoke of getting married was if he was willing to live here with us and leave his family before she even considered saying yes. Im glad. now with the grands I get to be there and the children can have years of experience and love to grow up with.
I give my children money, I give my children my time, my parents bought me a car a few years ago. I do not see a problem. In fact I believe it is very christian way of living.
WE are accountable to FIVE generations people who know you and love you I think it keeps behaviours and dysfunction in check, when my son went through a thing when he was always short of cash because he went to the bars to much and spent all his money, it was just me telling him to change it was ALL of us in his face saying I do not think this lifestyle is going to work, I believe that is what changed his thinking because he siad to me in a very aghast vioce in his twenties If I move away I will be alone no one in my family knows how to do that we were raised in a community and we will live within it for life. Some have gone into the military, gone awy to college etc.. gotten divorced and moved out of state but we all end up back here together for the children.
It is a good thing, when one gets sick or has an emergency, we rally together. WE vacation together, brothers and sisters and kids and grands.. even in the divorced families the grown children go away with both parents. In death which we have seen more than our fair share of we are their for one another...Who can live without this? Abuse can not happen with this much love involved if one of the teens get selfish plenty more a few years older in their face for respect of the way we raised them . "WE were raised better than that" is a common phrase in our family. None of us take welfare most own their own business, most are college educated. Many own their own homes. My children help my parents with the heavy work around the house, I help them with their children. this is family , this is a lifestyleI think it is great.
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mj412
I just read the article, the woman is in trouble for not paying the bill. Her CHILD (under age) incurred. that is her problem and she should have to pay it a parent is responsible for their children bills financialy till they are 21 in New York , some states it is still 18. -
So she went to detention with her daughter? why? was she lonely?
nothing better to do? or maybe she is trying to make the child tow the line better than she did with her son. Most teens would have a second thought about not going to school if MOM is going to show up in the detention wouldnt they? hehehe
These are still children and it sounds like mom is trying to make them behave better. being a parent is difficult, kids have zero concept of what can happen with money or being thrown out of school.. that is why they need parents.
shellon what exactly do you think she isnt getting? She should have paid the fines before.
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Linda Z
I know what you're all saying, being a mom myself (a single mom for most of my son's growing-up years). I'm sure everyone who's posted in this thread loves their children and wants the best for them.
Boy, there's such a fine line between helping and enabling, and I've probably crossed over to the latter out of soft-heartedness at times. But I'd rather err on the side of giving than on the side of sink-or-swim. You just have to find the balance. Both "tough love" and "helping" can be taken to such extremes (I'm not saying anyone posting here has done that).
I work with a woman who has two boys in Catholic school. If one of them gets in trouble, she assumes--always, in every single situation--that the teacher is right and the kid is wrong. But in some of the situations she's described, the teacher was dead wrong. In those situations, I feel sorry for her kids, because she won't back them up. I remind her that there are some screwed-up teachers out there and that it takes wisdom to know when to let your kids "take their licks" and when to stick up for them.
My son had a goofball teacher at NK High School. A real piece of work. He hated the Wayfer kids and took every opportunity to prove it. For example, he once invited my son outside to fight him! On another occasion, he told my son he didn't like him and was sorry he had him in class. Oh, and he told the boys in another class (health class, ha!) that if they ever masterbated, it meant they were homosexuals.
Now, I knew full well my son wasn't an angel. He was a bit of a class clown. But nothing he did warranted this jerk's behavior. So I made an appointment with the principal and took my son in to meet with her and the teacher. The four of us talked, and I showed no disrespect for the teacher in front of my son. I simply asked both of them to tell their sides of this ongoing conflict.
When that part of the meeting was finished, I asked my son to wait in the hall, and then I let the teacher have it with both barrels. Told him he had no control over his classes and let them run wild till they ....ed him off, then he reacted too harshly. Told him his calling out my son to fight was childish coming from a teacher, etc. Told him no matter how true it was, he had no business telling a child in front of the whole class, "I don't like you." And more.
This was my son's senior year, and it turned out he had enough credits to graduate if he dropped this guy's two classes. So that's what I insisted on. He graduated and went on to college the next year.
Some people would say I should have just told my son to tough it out, that the world's an ugly place and he might as well get used to it, that he had to respect authority in this life, blah blah. My feeling was that if I knew my kid was being mistreated and didn't stand up for him, what kind of message would that convey to him?
I do believe in teaching children to stand on their own two feet. I also believe some grace and mercy are in order, even into adulthood. God knows my parents have extended those to me at times, and it hasn't made me weaker--just more appreciative of the loving, giving parents I have.
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mj412
I run into problems with my boy to, My girls claim I do more for him. sometimes they even get jealous. my kids areall adults now. But I will be honest, here I like the guy, in fact I adore him. He isnt my favorite, and at times I have made the girls do more than him. But they were capable when I really know he was not so I helped him. Each child is an individual and what each person deals with is individual and as a mom I have had to make calls that on the surface may need have been 100% equal for all of them. My children have never fought, ever. We do not have the whole sibling fighting thing in our family in fact I do not get that how children can be fighting their own brother or sister. I think that speaks volumes about something wrong in a household.
Linda Z.
I agree I would rather be thought of as "used" or stupid than allow one of mine to be hurt or in trouble that is the reason I have a family and I am certain they feel the same way. IM glad to.
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Shellon
mj: "that is why they need parents.
shellon what exactly do you think she isnt getting? She should have paid the fines before."
==========================================
Her kid is old enough to be working at dairy queen, contributing to the debt the she made.
The pattern this mom is setting for the kid is not a good one.
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krys
In my experience - sometime parents who cover for their kids aren't really doing it for their kids per se.....they're doing it to cover for their own inadequacies as parents.
It's not so much to cover for the child, keep the child on track as it is to punnish themselves for something they think they didn't do....some shortcoming they perceive about themselves.
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vickles
Don't get me wrong, I do get things for my kids or buy things. This isn't what I was talking about.
I understand mj, what your saying. I have a family too that is like that. If my kids are in need, of course I love them enough to give them a boost. If that is what they need. But, if I see its not a need but a handout because they are too lazy to do it themselves, no way would I help them.
But, to enable them or cover for them? No way.
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vickles
Legally if I had to pay the fines for my son, I would be making him do a lot of work for me to pay it off.
And to sit in detention with my kid? No way she is the one that did it, make her do it herself.
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krys
Vickles - sometimes schools require parents to sit detention with their kids to make sure the parents are aware or things that are going on.
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vickles
Thanks krys, I wasn't aware of that. My son gets detention every once in a while but I have never been required to be in it. lol
One thing about detention though I have to say and sorry if I'm derailing.
I don't understand sometimes about detention. My son gets detention for the silliest things. He rarely ever is in trouble. Like one time he got detention because he had to use the restroom and he had too many for the month. One time the teacher wouldn't let him go and he ended up messing his pants. He is 14 years old for heavens sake. He was ssssoooo embarrassed.
Now if he was fighting or being disrepectful of teachers and other students I can understand detention. And then we have kids that do worse that don't get anything because of who they are or something weird like that.
For example, my grandaughter goes to the same school as my son and is a year younger. She was sitting on the steps inside the school and a girl that didn't like her kicked her in the back and my grandaughter fell down the stairs.
Nothing happened to this kid because of who she was. No detention, nothing.
So I guess, in this article we don't really know why they had to go to detention or what kind of fines the son had.
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herbiejuan
Sometimes the shortest distance between two points is the brickwall they are fixin to run into. Life is tough, make bad choices get bad results, make better choices and maybe next time the fall won't hurt near as much.
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Shellon
"Sometimes the shortest distance between two points is the brickwall they are fixin to run into"
HA! So very true, my friend.
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Eagle
I have a niece who has run up an $80,000 debt on student loans on her credit card, car loans, cell phone bills, and when she needed more money, asked my sister and brother in law, her parents, to remortgage their house to bail her out again. They had done this twice before for her and have paid every one of her bills. They reached a financial peak and could no longer do that.
My niece is 28 years old going on 29.
This is a prime example of a kid that won't grow up because the parents keep teaching her to remain a child.
Because of the financial debt this girl incurred, her mother, my sister-in-law had a 'going away' party for her because she had to move to another state to another job (she has had several...she never gets fired, just decides to change careers, like five or six times), so the going away party was an event to gather money for her expenses. We gave $50.00. She got close to $500.00 from different people.
Then this niece decided to take this money for the express reason of subtracting from any moving expenses and she went white-water rafting with it, blowing most of it. Her Mom and Dad decided to bail her out again.
We cut her off completely. She gets a card on her birthday now, no money, and a $20.00 gift certificate at some store for Christmas. She gets nothing from us because it is like throwing your money into a fire.
I suppose she will ultimately marry and blow her husband's money. But she says she doesn't want to marry anyone that does not have over $250,000 a year salary.
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Galen
Eagle:
"... she says she doesn't want to marry anyone that does not have over $250,000 a year salary."
I have heard very similiar things coming from the mouths of other young people today.
I seppose that someone might had said the same in the 1970's, but it would have been said in humour.
:-)
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Linda Z
Eagle, that's awful.
When my son couldn't pay his student loan, I made him sell the motorcycle he bought with a settlement from an accident he was in, so I wouldn't get stuck paying it off (co-signer) and so he could take responsibility for his own commitment.
What I said earlier doesn't mean I don't think kids shouldn't clean up their own messes. They should. It's just not always that cut and dry.
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Eagle
Linda:
I do understand completely, and thanks to Galen, too. Of course, my wife and I didn't suffer any financial hardship, but we kept agonizing on why my in-laws would keep doing what they were doing.
We finally decided over that last time to quit agonizing over it. If they lose their house because of that girl, we can't help them.
The funny thing was, they used to lecture my wife and I on bailing out our two sons (her sons, my step-sons). We bailed them out once, and advised them that if it happened again there would be no help. Both took a couple of bruises, so to speak, on their own before they both wised up and began living normal lives. One of them was mentally challenged but we expected the same from him.
Both have ceased their recklesness now because they both had to pay for it.
Amazing.
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reikilady
I will say this about children who bleed their parents dry. I think it's awful and it only helps the immediate crisis, not the long run. I've seen a drug addict almost die from Mommy always coming to the rescue.
I got tossed out at 19 for ....ing off my stepmother one to many times. She was pregnant and slapped me around pretty good one afternoon. The worst part about being around her was her not talking to me at all all day long until my Dad came home for work. I was 19 and didn't have any job skills except watching kids so that is how I moved out and it was a disaster. I ended up in the bar business under age to put a roof over my head.
My daughter appreciates things more than she used to. She says thank-you for rides and I still have to put my foot down about being a taxi service on the spur of the moment once in awhile.
I don't have blood relatives that come to my rescue. I do have some wonderful friends. A dear friend picked me up the other day when I had misplaced my purse with the car keys in it along with the house key. She left work and dropped me off to get the key from the office. The purse was recovered with everything in it.
I am lucky to have friends that will help out. I do the same.
One thing I do when I don't have wheels is not have the same person drive me everywhere. That is just too much. It's been a really long time since that has happened.
I'm glad I wasn't handed everything and had to learn some things the hard way. It has made me appreciate so much. Even to this day after the summer of hell with the stepmother, when someone just says "Hi" and are pleasant, I appreciate it.
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