Friday, July 08, 2011

She Scared The Shit Out Of Me

Teenagers can really suck big toes. The normal stuff they do is hard on your relationship with them and throw in trauma histories and it's enough to break your heart. I am very disappointed in one of my children. We had a scare last year and since then we have kept her extremely close. We moved an hour and half away and refused to allow face to face visits after such a horrible breach in our trust. I thought we were good. We were until my husband and I took back our social life and began spending a few hours a couple times a month with friends or out alone. We hired a babysitter we love and trusted to sit with them.

Since my kids are early to bed, by 9 PM the house was always quiet. This person thought it would be OK to allow my child to invite the boyfriend we do not allow her to see unsupervised by us over to spend some time alone with her in her room. His parents, knowing we do not want him here, allowed him to get a ride with his uncle. I guess she was trying to be cool. My child is a great kid with so many amazing qualities I couldn't begin to make you understand in a silly blog. She has one major flaw. She can't make the right decision when given a choice if her life depended on it. She has proven numerous times that when faced with a dilemma, she will choose to be cool instead of saying no. She did it again. Unprotected sex.

I tend to be a pretty positive person. I am really calm in a crisis regarding my kids and am able to find some positive in the situation. I amazed myself last year when faced with this issue. I amazed myself this year with a complete loss of control over my voice and emotions. I feel we all make mistakes as young people. We should learn from them. I can handle these mistakes once. It seems I am not so good with twice. I feel like she not only let herself down but our entire family, as well. I am angry that the person that was here to protect my children let us down, too.

I have strong opinions about things that many of you may disagree with. I think that drinking and driving is known to cause serious accidents that kill people and they should be charged with attempted murder. Seriously. I think if you are aware you cold get pregnant by having unprotected sex, having it would mean you are trying to get pregnant. I think women should have a choice to have an abortion and shouldn't be forced into any decision. The last one seems to have flown out the window when it comes to my own child. All of the sudden I couldn't bare the thought of having her raise a child in my home. All I can think of as a solution was abortion. I knew it wasn't fair. None of it was fair. It really shocked me.

I discovered some other things about this child throughout this process that I can't go into too much here. She has not been as open with us as she led us to believe. Of course teenagers hide things from their parents. That is their job. I feel it is my job to investigate and find those hidden truths. I will not be confronting her with them because they are not dangerous. They just show she is so unprepared for a mature relationship. She presents as an extremely mature young woman when in reality she is just a young girl desperate for a boy to love her.

Her test was negative. We though we were doing enough to protect her. We will take further steps to cover her butt until she is truly ready to raise a family in the way they will all deserve. It showed us that we all have a lot of work to do on ourselves and with each other. Even the best kids in the world need us much longer than they want. Even the best supervision can be compromised if they are dedicated enough to finding a a weak link.

Even though I want to keep her even closer now, I know she is going to have to learn to make good choices on her own. There is only one way she can do that and it is with practice. If she is being such a doo doo head and she is so well adjusted, what the heck am I gonna do with the other 7 teenagers? For one year, I will have 7 teenagers all in my home. That will probably be a great year for the blog. Stay tuned....

5 comments:

Kate said...

Wow. I hate to say this just based on a Blog, but she reminds me a lot of myself in these ways. I really think childhood trauma complicates the teenage years an unbelievable amount. If you were comfortable with it, she is more than welcome to contact me if ever she needs to talk. Sometimes I forget, but I'm not too much older than a teenager-those behaviors are not too far behind me. (No worries, I would NEVER contact her on my own!)
By the way, I don't disagree with any of the opinions you stated there! In fact, it's scary how much I agree where so many people would look at us cockeyed , LOL

Thank God her test was negative.

OH man, good luck to you with those 7 teenagers! I'm sure your positivity will see you through all the way, though.
<3

Sarah said...

Tudu,
I just started to read your blog and wanted to take a moment to comment. I have decided that you and Cori (from Watching the Waters) are two of my absolutely people in the world--and I don't even know either of you in "real life." I know you probably hear this all the time (: but you are simply amazing. That is all there is to it. If there were more people in the world like you, it would be a better place. Thanks so much for everything you do for your kids.
Best,
Sarah

Angela :-) said...

I agree with the first two, sista-friend, but not the second. If getting pregnant comes with having sex, then if you have sex & get pregnant, you're having a baby. It shouldn't be killed because you don't like the consequence of sex.

Angela :-)

Sophie said...

Raising teens is definitely a huge challenge that can truly leave a parent broken.

Many of us made stupid, irresponsible, selfish choices as teenagers, and you have every right to be upset with your daughter, baby sitter and the mother of this young man.

She needs to show some respect in your home and understand that this is not O.K.

Man would I come down hard on the sitter and mother of this boy. Ok, so younger adults don't think half the time but what's this other mother's excuse??

Good luck to you my friend, I have teenagers too, I feel your pain.

Keep praying!

Ilana said...

The only protection against "unprotected" sex are contraceptives.

Ergo: make contraceptives available to her.

Trying to keep youths from having sex when they want to is a receipe for teenage pregnancies. So don't be delusional: just give her contraceptives. If she cannot be relied upon to take the pill, there are three-month-shots...