Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

maybe i'm an ass, but it doesn't feel like it

sonny boy is about to turn 18...in 9 months he's gone from a national level kayaker, making national championships 3 years in a row, never failing a class, to passing only 1 of 4 classes last fall, admittedly smoking dope each and every day, has had his auto insurance cancelled (by me) because of lack of trust, lying, cheating, etc...

last night i snooped in his room and found raffle ticket envelopes he had stolen from his canoe club last summer...my coffee grinder (used for grinding dope), brass knuckles in his coat pocket, blah blah blah

i feel sick that i invaded his privacy and couldn't go to work today...but having done the exact same thing myself 30 years ago, and taking about 7 years to climb out of the hole i put myself into, i also feel, deep inside, i did the right thing...the kid is falling into a rut that he could easily be in for years

plus it's in his blood...both parents have had alcohol problems...both brothers drug problems, a sister with a crack addiction, and i myself have to watch the bottle very carefully


but i still feel sick...i confronted son this AM about the knucks and the theft...of course, we then had to focus on privacy issues...poor kid was so mad...not sure if he's coming home

but he was near tears, and i almost almost almost got him to tell me what's bothering him, why he's changed all of a sudden...why he 'doesn't give a fuck' about anything anymore...i tasted that moment as we teetered on the edge of him breaking down and finally being honest with me....then his anger took over and he shut right down

so i still feel in my gut that this privacy invasion is absolutely necessary...this is the closest i've gotten him to saying something honest in months...i had it for a sec but then it was gone...he probably won't be home for a few days now


but am i a hypocrite? the fucking kid sounds so much like me 30 years ago it isn't funny...he could easily pop out the other end of this fun spree of his undamaged and none the worse for wear...he could also slide deeper...his friends are starting to follow beer trucks around and rob the cargo while they deliver...it can only get worse, i fear, especially as he turns 18 next week and loses many of his protections as a potential young offender

if it sounds like i'm flailing i am


someone tell me i'm doing the right thing here, will ya? my gut tells me i'm right, but then again, i just threw up about 20 minutes ago

how is hes sex life?

hold that thought a minute, I jsut gt intereupted,, you know i am expert on child rearing, since I have no children. All I can think of is novels, siddhartha , I don't know what you can spare him, did you lie to him about pot when he was younger?

children which I know less about then anything else seem to have such a highly developed sense of what is fair. Have you read any newspapers lately, things look pretty pointless to me, the only thing that keeps me going is old age. What hope does he have at eighteen. The friends that I know that have had the most trouble with their children are the ones who did their best to protect them with lies about drugs. Phases and stages. raise children let them raise you, thier father's lies just a good bye




done
meant mean nothing
drive on





"and they say I was a rebel till I reached the age of five, it was then that I got caught up in the struggle to survive"

good luck knip
i hope you and your son get to have that man to man talk someday. sometimes it takes years. There was a show on NPR this american life about a father who recorded his 15 year old sons telephone calls. It changed his life, now in his thrities they are best friends

dont you wish you had a great white father in washington listening to your calls shit i hate sarcasm

shit i feel like gildna radner, I thought you were using the grinder for your pot, never mind that.

Yeah pot makes you very easy to program, I am glad I was in my thirties and already too far gone to matter. All that stuff about drugs don't matter.

I wish I knew knip. Did you ever smoke weed when you were younger, did he know? Don't answer that, i am just looking for lies. The world aint fair to a 17 year old mind. his nervous system is problably still not completely wired in.

I think you were absolutely right to do it. Love has no boundaries in a situation like this. Clearly he wasn't about to share with you any of what's going on, so you had to step in. He's your child, a part of you, and I doubt you'd be able to live with yourself very easily if you let it slide to the point where things get so much worse. As a parent your love gives you the right to do what you have to to insure his safety and well-being. You had to do something, so you did. Don't beat yourself up about it, your son needs to understand that you did not do this lightly but out of necessity, care, and concern. You've reached out a helping hand to him, opened the door for truth and honesty to flow, now it's up to him to take it. Hopefully he'll think about it and see that your motives were good and right.

Parenting and hard choices go hand in hand. You did what you had to do. People, even the most intelligent of people, get into messes and sadly they won't speak about it, how the hell else are you going to find out. It's out in the open now and can be dealt with, maybe not easily, but what's the alternative.

All my best thoughts and wishes for you in this situation, it's a tough one, but it sounds to me like you followed your gut and heart instincts, how could you do any less.

knip -

This is so difficult for all. And it's also difficult for me to reply to but I'm going to try.

First off, you're not being a hypocrite at all, even if you see repeated behaviour patterns from when you were his age. On the contrary! You know where that type of behaviour can lead and you are being a good father by confronting your son. When someone is involved in things which could get them in trouble, it is responsible to confront the behaviour! That's called LOVE.

I sure hope your confronting him will serve as a wake-up call. It sounds like it will. If he was near tears, he knows that the things he is doing aren't things that are good for him. He's GOT to know that he can get in trouble with the law and you confronting him is probably just what he needs right now to bring that fact clear in his head. After all, "getting busted" by your father is not nearly as harsh as getting busted by the man who can take your freedom away.

I applaud you for your honesty and your huge heart. You care. It's clear you care very much and I'm sure that's crystal clear to your son.

I don't know what you think about counseling but I have known people who have been helped by counseling. Maybe that's something you can talk your son into participating in. Maybe he needs someone to talk to who will offer an unbiased ear.

I hope and pray he comes back and opens up to you and asks for your help. If he does that, he will be on his way to getting out of the ugly rut he's digging himself in.

All the best to you and him and your whole family, knip! Hang in there!

yes mousey a good sentiment
I don't think looking at the end of your own parental fork is the same as beating yourself up.

Fucking rock and roll
got dam tha radio
teach your children

I remember spider woman had a conversation with her oldest daughter the one killed in that wreck on san marcos pass, well spidey lady is doing just like you said, calm reasanble explanation and I am listening and I am thinking, yep that is the way it feels to me too. But her daughter could not hear a word of it, and later I asked my spider lover her why her daughter could not understand. . "Because she is fourteen years old" what do the think the chances are that a 17 year old boy is going to listen to kip.

sorry knip

I want to know what you missed, how did your son grow so far from you was it all the time you were gone at sea when you should have been there for him. Sure you did the right thing, but she also got to look back at the eitiology of this behavior.

http://www.drugfree.org/Portal/Stories/My_Son_Justin

knip this a story about the tapped phone calls. Mousey is right you need to make sure he is safe that is the first priority. But you blame it on pot, I have friends who smoked pot and raised happy productive, useful human beings, artists and musicians even. And the kids tried pot too, it never became a problem for them, not much anyway.
here it is.

stilltrucking said....

I want to know what you missed, how did your son grow so far from you was it all the time you were gone at sea when you should have been there for him.

Geesh. How can you say that?

OK. Here's what happened to me. My son decided to hate me. He's talking to me now but there were several years where he just plain hated me and refused to talk to me. He's 23 now. When he was 19, he moved out of the house in a rage. We had a big fight one night and the next day he was gone.

He came in here and started verbally assaulting me telling me I spend too much time working and accusing me of neglecting him.

Fuck that. I did the best I could. I got angry at him for getting angry at me for spending my time working so I could feed my family and pay the mortgage. HEll, if that's not taking care of him, I don't know what is. It's certainly NOT neglect.

Am I to blame myself because he decided he hated me for a while? NO! Am I going to blame myself because I had to work a lot through the years he grew up? NO! Sometimes I worked 2 jobs. I worked a LOT! Sometimes I had to take him with me to go clean office buildings at night just so I'd have enough money to pay the bills.

So, what you are saying to knip is like you've said it to me too and I don't like being judged like that.

We do what we do to take care of our families the best way we know how. For me? It meant working a lot. It still does.

Sorry, this thread is not about me, I realize that. I guess i just took some personal offense to the statement about working a lot when "you should have been there for him."

Apologies for blowing off steam.

I don´t have 18 year old sons or daughters, I only have 7 to 13 year old students but... I think that to not act when you know that you have to act is never good. What to do? well, it´s important only at some point. A question: did you tell to the kayak-kid when you confronted him, all of the sudden, all the things you told us in this post?.

knip,

One of the things that happens in adolescence is that we seek to establish our space and our identities. As you must remember when you were that age, it was all about defining who you are. This includes personal space. A kid needs room to fuck up and then to realize that he has fucked up. We learn from our mistakes. A good teacher doesn't rob his students of an opportunity to make mistakes.

This story touched me because you have found your way into my heart and I know that you are a good person. And also because I know what it is like to have less than perfect communication with your offspring. Keep trying to make contact. I'm sure you will find that as he gets older, you will get smarter (in his eyes.)

You have to keep an observant eye on the lives of your children, but where the line is between privacy and security is anybody's guess.

Keep the faith, knip

dam dam knip it is the wrong wire tap story

the one i am tlaking baout was on npr this american life show

the father wire tapped the sons phone calls, installed the machine in the siding out side his bedroom ran the wires into a recorder in the den. closet. The recording s went on for months. The dad would circumvent every stupid plan his son was making, the son could not understand, how come every thing he was going to do his dad seemed to anticipate.. The dad would change things around so he could not do it. Finally the son discovered the wires and confronted the dad. I can't remember how the issue was resolved, but the son is grateful on the show, and he is friends with his dad. sorry about the bad link I will see if I can find the correct one.

good copy LR, I knew somebody who knew something about
children would come along.

Keeping the faith is good, but don't throw out the doubt with the bathe water either.

It is a leap of faith to have no faith.
Adam Clayton Powell the preacher congressman from harlem, that was his tag line.

We got to descrimate on that word faith.
I got no faith left
just a heretic in my old age


Keep the faith

permeated by the opposite conviction-- that honest creative search, doubt and sensitivity are the best route to true faith in God and self-understanding. Walter Kaufman's "The Faith of a Heretic" is a clear elaboration of this theme).

http://israelvisit.co.il/top/ekev.shtml

Yes Lrod but we all know that any kid worth his salt knows enough to cover his tracks judiciously. It's on them to keep their shady secrets. I contend we all as kids and even now as adults know good and well that there's a good chance someone is going to try and poke around in our business. He left a trail in his room. Was his trust so complete that he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that no one would poke...puhlease. Or was it that he didn't care? Or was he just sloppy? Whatever the case he didn't cover his own ass and it was his responsibility to do so. Ya, your room's your castle so-to-speak, but it goes without saying that we're all human and do human things so we gots to cover our asses from the light, if we don't we're gonna get it burned. So, maybe he wanted to get found out...if not, he needs to be more careful next time. Everyone's capable of snooping in other people's business given enough good reason, it's a blind and naive fool who thinks they ain't.

good copy LR, I knew somebody who knew something about
children would come along.

Keeping the faith is good, but don't throw out the doubt with the bathe water either.

It is a leap of faith to have no faith.
Adam Clayton Powell the preacher congressman from harlem, that was his tag line.

We got to descrimate on that word faith.
I got no faith left
just a heretic in my old age


Keep the faith

permeated by the opposite conviction-- that honest creative search, doubt and sensitivity are the best route to true faith in God and self-understanding. Walter Kaufman's "The Faith of a Heretic" is a clear elaboration of this theme).

http://israelvisit.co.il/top/ekev.shtml

it's a blind and naive fool who thinks they ain't

.

mousey you talking to me?