I have finally reached the point where I have kicked my daughter out of the house. I love her with all my heart but since the age of 16 she has treated me like the child and chooses not to listen to me. She is for the most part a good kid, gets good grades and no trouble with the law but she wants to do what she wants to do no matter what I say. She does smoke and hangs out with people I think she shouldn't be hanging out with. She called me last night after a long weekend of issues with her boyfriends family, no sleep, upset. I told her to come home get some sleep as she had school on Monday. She said I'm 18, I'm not coming home and I'm not going to school tomorrow. I blame myself for her selfish attitude as I have probably enabled her. As a single mom I gave her everything and did everything because I felt guilty about her having such a tough road. Now it has backfired on me and I'm the bad guy. She has two months of school left and she will graduate. I want to support her in finishing but also let her know that she can't come home unless she follows my rules. Which were not to harsh to begin with. Did I do the right thing? My heart is broken but I feel I will lose my sanity if I let this continue.

Well, you are probably right about enabling her. That's where most problems with teenagers start. (believe me, I see it and I hear stories, and I'm 19)
The thing is, is that doing everything for a child can possibly ruin their future. If they expect everything to come to them, they can find it difficult to keep friends or hold jobs. Although it doesn't sound like this is quite the case with her.

How were you when she first started treating you like a child? Does she behave like she resents you, or that she just wants to do her own thing?
Did you let it slide when she came home past cerfew? Did you take away privelages such as going out with friends or taking her phone?

The only thing that I think you can really do now is try to show that you love her and support her. I see her coming back home and caving once she realizes how difficult it is, or once things go sour with the people she's staying with (kinda sounds like it already has)
Does she have a steady job? Is she staying with people that are willing to support her?
Those are all factors in whether she comes home or not. She most likely will, and she's going to have to give some serious butt kissing for you.
It sounds to me like her desire to be independent is making her do these things. She doesn't want to have to follow ANYONE'S rules.
The fact is, is that whatever lesson that she needs to learn right now, she is choosing to learn it the hard way, and there's really not much you can do about it. Just be there when she needs you, I think she'll come around. :)

Melislowe, in my opinion, I believe that you did the right thing. When I turned 18, my mom kicked me out of her house because I wouldn't follow her rules. She too was a single mother and raised my brother and me. I never came home by my curfew, skipped a lot of school, hung out with the wrong crowd, etc.

She had enough and kicked me out the day afte rmy 18th birthday. I went down a tough road after that. I dropped out of high school, took off and moved to CA. I ended up getting pregnant a couple of months later. After I had my daughter, I left her father. Went back to school to get my diploma, and straightened my life up. I am now 23 years old raising a 4 year old, I work two jobs and go to college full-time. My mom helps me out now, but didn't until I started helping myself. Now, I am not saying this to scare you and take your daughter back home. I had to learn my lesson the hard way.

My point is, I thank my mom everyday for showing me tough love and doing what she did for me. If I would have never gone through that I wouldn't be who I am today. I know other girls that are my age and they have everything handed to them, and most of them have kids and live with their parents. I don't, I support myself and my daughter and I have grown into a woman and take care of my responsibilities. If my mom would have bailed me out when I begged her to, I wouldn't be where I am today.

I hope that my story helps you a little bit and lets you have some piece of mind that you are doing the right thing (again, that is my opinion). Good luck with everything, God will be your best friend to help you get through all of this, so lean on him. God Bless.

Now, are we talking about your real mother or the person who has been more of a mother to you than your real mother? https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/family...ml#post2040777

Doesn't sound like you're thanking her every day.

"The woman that wants to take me and my daughter to Germany is not actually my biological mother, I consider her my mother though. She has always been there for me and has been a better mother to me than my actual mother. And yes, she is a piece of work, but she is the reason why I am the way I am now."

I do thank her everyday for some of the things that she has done for me (like show me tough love when I made a life alternating decision), it has made me into the person I am today. She showed me tough love. I never said that I hated my mother or loved EVERYTHING that she has done for me. I said she was a piece of work, which she is. When my mother let my step father (my dad died when I was born and she remarried when I was 12)abuse me at 15, I didn't like that. When my mother would get so drunk that she passed out every night at 6, I didn't like that. And the list goes on and on. My mother has her flaws like any other mother and I have learned to accept that. I can't change her, she has to want to change her self. I have had to learn that through years and years of counseling. She has always been there for me financially though and that is better than nothing. I do have hate in me towards her though for not accepting my daughter and always throwing it up in my face that I was stupid and made a bad decision and had a child with a loser and constantly telling me that I should have had an abortion or I should have given her up for adoption when she told me to. Yea, that causes me to have hate towards her. Because my daughter is my life and she was not planned, but she is not a mistake either. But, I can't hate her and not talk to her, she is the only mother that I have. Plus, when I try to talk to her about these things she doesn't want to talk about it because it stresses her out. I just have to accept that and God has placed another "mother" in my life that can give me everything that my mom never did. Which is love, understanding, time, compassion and acceptance. My real mom never had the time for me to do that. She can't even talk to me about any of OUR problems to resolve them, again, because it stresses her out.

In this post, I was just trying to have the OP see that some times tough love works and maybe give her some optimism. I wasn't trying to explain my whole life and me and my mom's whole relationship and how sucky it really is and bash my mom, she gave me my life. Like I said. I don't have to explain myself to any of you. I have shared enough of my personal life and have replayed so many scenarios from my past that this isn't healthy for me anymore.

Now, not only am I thinking about my baby that I lost a little over a year ago (which took me a while to stop thinking about constantly and crying over everyday), I am thinking about my messed up childhood, my mother who would rather pay someone to deal with me and my emotions and problems than actually sit down and talk to me about it, I have to think about all the things that my step dad has said and done to me in the past, I have to feel bad because my mom bought me a tattoo to try to take my mind off losing a baby, I have to be told that I am not responsible, when I use birth control and condoms when the doctor's should have told me that antibiotics make birth control ineffective (I take responsibility for that though), I have to sit here and explain about my loser daughter's father who is on dope and cares more about that then her and I still have to answer my daughter's questions about why her dad isn't around. I have to deal with the fact that I had a child with a loser and I am dealing with all of that. Now I have to sit here and bring up all of my stuff from my past, when all I was trying to do was get an answer for how to obtain a passport for my daughter since now I can't find her father because he decided that he wanted to be a drug dealer again.

This site is supposed to be here to help people. And it was doing that for me up until yesterday. You all have not done anything to help me, all you have done is try to catch me up in something and try to use all of my old posts to try to throw them up at me and a lot of those were from way back when. I am a busy person and I have a lot of things going on in my life and like my boss says, if it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have any at all. My life is already complicated enough. I have already accepted my mistakes and have made peace with a lot of my personal issues and now they are all brought up at one time. That is totally awesome. Like I don't have enough to deal with, like my jobs, my school, and my daughter. Now I get to repress all of that stuff all over, again. My counselor will thank this site for that because now he gets to get more money for conseling me and now I get to wait on doing anything to solve my original question due to having to start paying him again to repress all of this, again. Thanks for all of your help!

I predict this will be closed just like all your other threads. All anyone has asked of you that I can see is that you pick a story and stick to it.

When you speak to your counsellor, perhaps you could address your passive/aggressive behavior and the various stories/versions you have posted.

You might be happier on a chat board.

I made up NOTHING - I quoted you and I quote you again: "The woman that wants to take me and my daughter to Germany is not actually my biological mother, I consider her my mother though. She has always been there for me and has been a better mother to me than my actual mother. And yes, she is a piece of work, but she is the reason why I am the way I am now."