Parenting

Blake's parents are wonderful people whom I enjoy spending time with. I've only known them for 3 years but it feels like forever, and I see them way more often than my own parents because they live so much closer. Lately however they have been having serious problems with Blake's little brother. He just turned 17 and is currently in in-patient rehab for drugs. To me, at least compared to my parents, they have extremely loose parenting rules. Blake's sister got a DWI her Freshman year of college, age 18, driving from Kansas City to Columbia and 2 hours after her accident she had a BAC of 2.74. Luckily no one was hurt but her brand new car was totaled. Her car insurance covered the purchase of a brand new eclipse, which was nicer than her honda civic. Thats right she got a NICER car after she got an underage DWI. She of course has to pay for her insurance which is 3xs higher than before and she had to go to SATOP classes etc but as far as her parents went, nothing was done. Okay you can say that she was in college and there isn't much they could do but my parents would have hit the roof, they would still hit the roof if at 22 I got a DWI even if it didn't include an attempt to drive 2 hours on I-70. That is another story however, even if I did write a novel about it just now.



Taylors problems all pretty much started when he was 15, he is the youngest and the only one living at home. It all started with beer going missing from the fridge, and cash missing from a hidding spot in the home. The siblings all sort of knew that Taylor was selling cigarettes (stolen from a friends dad) and beer (stolen from the garage) to other friends who were underage as well as selling pot to other kids for about 3 months. I attempted in HS to tell a boyfriends parents that their son was doing pot/meth and basically got told, "we know we don't care" so I stayed out of it. Taylor was than caught smoking cigarettes from his parents. He claimed to be addicted and instead of forcing their 16 year old to quit smoking, they bought him cigarettes and allowed him to smoke. Again I don't even want to know what my mom would do if I was caught smoking at 22 but I know she would have NEVER bought me cigarettes. So the 3rd day of school, August of Junior year, Taylor gets kicked out of school for buying hydrocodine from a girl at school. Blakes Mom is extremely upset, Taylor is out of school for 45 days. He ends up taking an online school that will count for credit and the plans are that he will work part-time/full-time until he can go back to school. He never does get a job and ends up getting to sleep in until 1 or 2 in the afternoon while Donna supplies him with cigarettes, junk food and an almost daily run to Taco Bell. Taylor than decides that since he is home so much he wants to get a dog. Blake's family has never had a dog before, just Winston and Leroy visiting which Donna hates because they get her prestine house doggy smelling. So Taylor gets an $800 Amstaff (basically a pitbull) which he loves but he spends his time in the basement playing x-box all the time and never spends any time with. He has to quit smoking by November or they are giving his dog away. Nothing like getting a pet planning on keeping it 4 months...why not just say "you quit smoking = you get a dog." January comes back around and Taylor is back in school. 2 weeks into the semester he has failed a drug test (at home) but his parents still let him go out with his friends and SPEND THE NIGHT at parties... Failed drug test number 2, Taylor is still spending time with his friends and now doesn't want to go to school anymore. About a month into the semester they are taking him to an extremely expensive Drug Counselor. Taylor agrees to go if they buy him cigarettes again (basically he never quit smoking just hid it again) they buy his cigarettes. They ground him again. He decides that now that he is 17 he just won't come home unless he wants to. So when he does come home they shower him with attention, buy him his favorite foods, etc. He starts skipping school and his drug counselor again. They make a deal with him that if he leaves the house, he is homeless. He leaves taking his Dad's iphone and Mom's laptop plus no telling what else that they don't notice is missing. He also pawns his laptop. He gets kicked out of the house, but comes home 2 days later and they let him in. He leaves again of course!! We were there the 2nd time he came home and made a deal with him that he would come stay with us for a few days or go back to school. He said he would but the next morning he was living at home and refused to go with us or go to school. Finally his drug counselor told him he had 3 choices, 1 go to school 2 go to rehab out patient for a year or 3 go to rehab in patient for 8 weeks. He decided he wanted to do the quit easy in patient rehab. The night before he is suppose to go in his parents being him up for Ocean Zen. (nothing like celebrating your going into rehab) that night he freaked out and didn't go into rehab like he was suppose to.

He finally went into rehab last Thursday. They say he is doing much better and has a totally changed outlook... It will be interesting to see how things work out. Believe it or not I tried to give the short version of the story. There are soo many more things like how he throws baby fits when he doesn't get his way, pushed his mom when she tried to ask questions about where he was going to be because she "embarrassed him" and various things like that. This all just brought me to realize that 1. I'm terrified of having kids because they might end up like him. 2. I'm pretty sure that while my parents weren't perfect, I know that they did a good job of raising me because I feel like I have pretty decent moral beliefs that have taught me right from wrong.