parenthood and the meaning of life (long & x-posted with BBV4L)

[Marlow]

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A week ago the children were fighting, being unreasonable, and yelling. I looked at my exasperated wife and said, "20 years from now we would do almost anything to have even this moment back". She agreed and we laughed.

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So true. I read a blog post a while back where a woman was feeling overwhelmed while dealing with her cranky kids in the parking lot of a grocery store, when an older woman walked up and said that she would give anything to have another day like that with her own children.

Talk about heart-breaking.

My days of waking up and thinking "what's the f-ing point?" are over.

[Marlow]

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That is very telling, and your post nails that home. I never understood it for me: now I understand it for other people.

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Thanks. Your post and others have reassured me that at least my op has some valid emotional content.

Another thing that's quite clear for me is that parenthood is not for everyone. Not only is raising a kid difficult, but it's the biggest commitment a person could make (aside from the decision to die, I suppose). I have great respect for people who know themselves well enough to recognize that parenting isn't for them. There are soooo many people who have kids for all the wrong reasons. Man, It's painful to watch these families interact.

[uclabruinz]

What a great OP and great thread.

I guess I am the rare case in that being a parent hasn't made me stop questioning the meaning of life. Indeed, as my daughter is about to turn 11, and I am 37 and staring 40 in the face, I am questioning things as much as ever. But although I have read my share of existential philosophy, I have never had the level of angst which I think the OP is referring to here.

At any rate, my friend pointed me to this thread because I was bragging that my daughter called from school this morning with the news she was elected VP of her school. She did the whole campaign thing: signs, t-shirts, speeches, etc. All on her own motivation. Pretty amazing for a 10 year old to put herself out there like that. I know we are supposed to set the examples for our kids, and they are supposed to learn from us, but with my daughter it often seems the other way around.

So anyway, mostly I'm just saying I share the joy being described in this thread at being a parent. I have a difficult time describing it, and I like hearing about others who feel the same way.

[mindflayer]

Nice post OP.
Great Post DVH.
My oldest son 9 was having a fit yesterday because he was not allowed to watch a Hockey game. My wife was hurt by some of the things my son said, but I will use your line on her today. I think it will make her feel better.

[andyfox]

I'm older than most of you guys, 54, and I have three kids, 30, 25 and 17. The worst things I've done in my life have involved bad or at least careless parenting. My youngest has fallen off the rails; we had to have an escort come to the house to pick him up in the middle of the night, taking him to six weeks in the wilderness and now he's at a therapeutic boarding school.

That walk up the stairs when he got picked up in the middle of the night was the longest, hardest walk of my life. Whatever mistakes we made, we at least know now that we've given him a chance to get his life back together. He's been out of the house since March 7, I think about him basically 24/7. Some nights I sleep in his room to be "near" to him.

I'm a lousy one to take advice from, but it does go by quickly and the mistakes you make are sometimes awfully hard to fix. My wife and I are still in the process of trying to forgive ourselves for our mistakes. The good part is we've all become closer as a family and I realize that you can teach an old dog new tricks. I think we're all going to be better people on the other side of this, but there are no guarantees.

If you mess up being a parent, what difference does anything else make? It took me far too long to understand that. But better late than never.

[Fishwhenican]

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I'm older than most of you guys, 54, and I have three kids, 30, 25 and 17. The worst things I've done in my life have involved bad or at least careless parenting. My youngest has fallen off the rails; we had to have an escort come to the house to pick him up in the middle of the night, taking him to six weeks in the wilderness and now he's at a therapeutic boarding school.

That walk up the stairs when he got picked up in the middle of the night was the longest, hardest walk of my life. Whatever mistakes we made, we at least know now that we've given him a chance to get his life back together. He's been out of the house since March 7, I think about him basically 24/7. Some nights I sleep in his room to be "near" to him.

I'm a lousy one to take advice from, but it does go by quickly and the mistakes you make are sometimes awfully hard to fix. My wife and I are still in the process of trying to forgive ourselves for our mistakes. The good part is we've all become closer as a family and I realize that you can teach an old dog new tricks. I think we're all going to be better people on the other side of this, but there are no guarantees.

If you mess up being a parent, what difference does anything else make? It took me far too long to understand that. But better late than never.

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Why don't kids come with an owners manual or something? I am really sorry to hear about your youngest. I can only imagine what that must be like for you. My first seems to have turned out OK but now I have the girl at 15 and boy at 11 and thinking about stuff that can go wrong scares the crap out of me.

I wish you all luck on the journey back.

[katyseagull]

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I'm older than most of you guys, 54, and I have three kids, 30, 25 and 17. The worst things I've done in my life have involved bad or at least careless parenting. My youngest has fallen off the rails; we had to have an escort come to the house to pick him up in the middle of the night, taking him to six weeks in the wilderness and now he's at a therapeutic boarding school.
...
That walk up the stairs when he got picked up in the middle of the night was the longest, hardest walk of my life. Whatever mistakes we made, we at least know now that we've given him a chance to get his life back together.



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I can't stop thinking about this post. It is sort of haunting me. Couple questions.

What kind of place picks up kids in the middle of the night? Does it cost a fortune? Does your kid write to you or call home? You mentioned that you are fixing your mistakes. When you say "mistakes" are you talking about being too harsh or too lenient with the parenting? I've seen some very harsh parents that have messed up their boys.

I think there are many kids who have a very rough adolescence through no fault of their parents. Some kids just have an obstinate immature personality right? Anyway, thanks for sharing this story with the forum. For what it's worth I think getting kids into wilderness training sounds like a really interesting option. There must be thousands of kids out there who don't do well in conventional school settings but would shine on a ranch or farm or other outdoor arena. Good job at widening his horizon and showing him there's another way.

[Blarg]

Yeah, good luck andy. Some of my brothers were into hard drugs and it took them to some bad places. It was really hard for our family to deal with at some points. Especially my dad, who is a reactionary anyway, and that never makes anything easier. And we had lots of messed up kids as a foster family. Hopefully things work out as time goes by, even if for now they don't feel good or right for anybody. I can't say all my brothers or sister became every parent's fantasy in time, nor did my parents wind up storybook examples to the world, but the wounds did eventually manage to heal all around. Even my own, which I thought for decades was impossible. Good luck to you all, and don't give up ever. I think that's the most important thing and one of the harder things.

[andyfox]

"What kind of place picks up kids in the middle of the night?"

We hired an educational consultant and were advised to have an escort pick him up in the middle of the night. There was a real chance had he known what our plans were, he would have bolted.

"Does it cost a fortune?"

I assume you're talking about the escort to the wilderness. There were two guys and we paid their airfare (our son was taken to Second Nature in Duchesne, Utah, we live in L.A.), plus our son's airfare, plus the fee. IIRC, the tab for the night was about $2,500.

The wilderness was for six weeks and it was roughly $18,000. The therapeutic boarding school is $6,200 a month. We're fortunate to be able to afford this, we think about those who cannot and are forced to take their chances with their kid in either a less expensive out-patient program or do nothing. My wife and I agreed that whatever the cost, we would do what needed to be done--including selling everything we have.

"Does your kid write to you or call home?"

He writes weekly and we speak to him weekly. But just for twenty minutes. Each school has their own method and way of dealing with the kids.

The hardest days were the first few when he went away. You get a call to let you know he arrived OK and how he's doing, but you don't speak to him for awhile.

When the wilderness experience is over, and you've arranged for whatever arrangements for after that (some people, mistakenly, in my judgment, take their kids home), the parents go and spend two nights in the wilderness with their child. It was the greatest experience of our lives. We were led in blindfolded, just holding onto our son, he gives you presents he made for you, and you live in the wilderness with nothing but the skills he has acquired while there.

"You mentioned that you are fixing your mistakes. When you say 'mistakes' are you talking about being too harsh or too lenient with the parenting?"

I don't know. In certain respects probably too harsh, and in others too lenient. The experience is probably too close to us now to really judge objectively. The bottom line is that none of us--my son, my wife, myself--can take back what was or was not done and all we can do is try to not make the same mistakes again. I will say all of us are communicating now as we never did, that my wife and I are cognizant of many things we didn't do that we should have, and that we're trying to be attuned to him and he to us. We go back to the school next in December. There's a workshop for parents only, then family sessions involving three families, the therapists, and upper class student helpers. We then have a regional visit where we will take him off campus for two nights. He will then come home to spend some time with us in March and he graduates in August. So he will have been at the boarding school for 15 months.

Here's the school:
http://www.carlbrook.org/

But the website doesn't do their program justice. These people are so dedicated, so caring.

Here is the wilderness program he went to:
http://www.snwp.com/

"Some kids just have an obstinate immature personality right?"

I don't know if anything we could have done would have ended up with a different story for our son. All I know is we're trying to do all we can to make sure there's a happy ending, or at least to give him the tools and the opportunity to make a happy ending for himself.

[andyfox]

Thanks.

It's a sad thing to admit, but the one thing all the kids who ended up at the school my son is at have in common is that they're inveterate quitters. Took the easy way out. As a father, I probably did too. But no more. And hopefully not him any more either.