Tuesday, December 07, 2004

hopefully this post won't eat my last post like last time.

more juvenile delinquent fun this weekend. the boy has a 10:00 curfew on weekend nights, 8:00 on weekdays. I let him go to a friend's house Friday night, in spite of what happened Friday morning. I don't know why. he came home before his curfew, and was on the computer when some of his friends came over. I think it was about 8:30. they all left, and I reminded Stephen that his curfew was 10:00. he wasn't home by 10, so I waited (slept with the tv on) for him on the couch. wasn't home by 11:30...or 1:00...or 3:30, which was when I finally went to bed. didn't come home the next morning at all and was in fact gone until sometime around 9:00 Sunday morning. I had emailed his probation officer Saturday morning and emailed him again yesterday with an update. he filed a delinquency violation, which is not as bad as a probation violation, so we'll probably have another court date this week or next.

I'm so tired of all of this, so tired of his attitude at home these last few weeks. I'm tired of having to fight him on everything, I'm tired of having to worry every single morning whether or not he's going to get out of bed. I'm tired of defending him to Brian, tired of asking Brian to let it go when the boy is an asshole to me. I'm tired of making excuses. I'm tired of not knowing what to do or what to say or when to ignore him or when to listen. I'm tired of feeling like a bad parent.

he acts like his life is so terrible, like I'm asking too much that he do the dishes and take out the trash three times a week. he thinks I should know what is bothering him but he doesn't want to tell me anything. he expects special treatment even when he's being a jerk. this is one of those situations where it would really be helpful to know what normal teenage behavior is. I have no clue when he's being irrational or if he's just being a typical 17-year-old.

I don't know how much more stress I can handle right now, between the boy, work stress, worrying about having enough money for the holidays, worrying about the girls in general. I need a vacation from my life, just a few days would be perfect. unfortunately, I don't see that happening any time soon.



ps - could I be a little more whiny? probably.

1 comment:

Ian Stewart said...

I think the pinnacle of my rebellion was my late teenage years. Everything I did made perfect sense to me but antagonized the hell out of my mom. We agreed about half the time. But the cops were never involved. It was just me figuring out who I was, possibly at the expense of my relationship with my mom, who I'd always gotten along with up to that point.

I think aspects of his behavior are normal, but when it involves the police, that's probably when it crosses the line.

I stayed out too late but never for more than a few hours. I didn't skip school even though I hated it.

Wait, am I actually trying to argue that I was a normal 17-year-old? No. Sorry. I shut up now.