dbwilson49
Apr 19, 2013, 12:07 PM
I'm a male who just turned 19 this April. My mother and I have never exactly gotten along but not in your typical "mother son differences" so please forgive me for the book I'm about to type but I could really use some insight/advice on my situation.
A little backstory to my life; my mother became pregnant with me at the young age of 16 while my father was a drugged out, alcohol addicted, loser. To no surprise, he walked out on us when I was 6. Immediately after he left, we moved into my grandparents house (her parents) and I lived there until I was 18 and left for college.
Now, I won't say that I was a perfect child, far from it actually. But I did my best to keep my head on straight. Meaning, I never smoked, no drugs, no drinking, no partying and I keep to those guidelines today. I tried my hardest to create a life for myself that was completely opposite of how my parents were/are.
My mother doesn't even seem to try and understand the situation I dealt with growing up. She's had 2 parents her whole life and lived under THEIR care until her mid 30s, while I don't want to sound like I'm whining about growing up fatherless, it was tough and she couldn't begin to fathom why when aside from my father and her early pregnancy, she had a good childhood. Every single day when he was around it was complete hell. He either came home tweaked out on drugs or drunk as all hell and would destroy the whole house and scream at me with the occasional physical abuse (threw things at me to inflict pain so I'd stop crying I guess) but for some reason, this never occurred to her that maybe this is a far off example of how a father would treat his son.
So, instead of leaving him she decided to wait for him to change his ways and sober up. She decided to wait for the same man who tried to murder us both when I was just 3 years old, to "change his ways because he has a son to take care of" but obviously that didn't work out seeing as though he left us. But, shortly after we left and moved into my grandparents, she went back to our old state to "talk things out" between them but low and behold, she comes back pregnant. So, at this point in her life; she is a husbandless single mother of 2 with no education/job experience living with her parents in her 20s.
Now, when she finally did start working and getting a paycheck, did she save it? Nope, she found it was necessary to instead spend it on herself and never thought twice about a college fund for my sister and I. And by spending it on herself, I mean like the latest clothes, shoes, purses, etc. While I may not be a woman, I know for a fact some of those items can become pretty pricey.
So fast forward a couple years, (middle school era. Age 11-14) I'm beginning to wake up some and open my eyes to the things in front of me. The first being that my mother was overall extremely selfish, irresponsible and didn't think about consequences. So as a result of my new realization, I began to resent her. I stopped talking to her as much and became a very conceited person and of course she noticed and tried to pester me but the more she pestered, the more I resented her for everything she had caused thus far. But, it doesn't stop there. She would encourage me to "go out and live a little" trying drugs, getting drunk, etc. I'm of course thinking to myself "what in the absolute H E L L are you talking about, I'm not stupid."
This wasn't one of those motherly tricks either to get you to fess up about things you had already done. She was absolutely serious and would say that to me quite often. Fast forward to high school (ages 14-18) I'm a little older now and with age, comes wisdom. But that doesn't seem to be the case for my mother. I managed to get myself a good group of friends, had a good head on my shoulders except for one problem. I absolutely hated school, I had nobody to motivate me so being a typical teenager, I didn't care. As a result, I failed a good amount of classes and her reaction? Just screamed at me, called me a "f.u.c.k up" and said how I was probably going to wind up just like my loser father. But, I'm not stupid. When I first failed those classes my freshman year, I found an alternative. A military school (Youth Challenge Academy) that offers an education for "at risk youth" but it was mandatory that I was at least 16 before I could go. So what did I do? Stuck it out for those 2 years and when I put in my application and was accepted into the program, what did my mother do? Hid my acceptance letter from me until my little sister felt bad and gave it to me. THEN, she proceeded to demoralize me and said how I wasn't going to make it and that I should just give up at trying to succeed in life. But I said to hell with that, I'm going and I WILL graduate.
Fast forward to the day before I left for the 6 month long military academy, she actually made a bet with me that I wouldn't last more than 2 weeks and shook my hand on it for 100 dollars. I can't begin to tell you how pissed off I was when I was on my way to the Army base it was located on. My own MOTHER, was betting against me that I couldn't do it.
Now, being in your teens at a military school wasn't for everyone, it actually had a drop out rate bigger than high schools so they offered 3-4 day passes back home to visit family every 2 months. And every time I went back on a pass, there was my mother pressuring me to withdraw from the program after all the time I spent working my off there to earn my education and she just wants me to throw it out the window. Another thing that pissed me off but motivated me to be better at the same time
Graduation day after 6 months, I'm nominated for an award and a scholarship for all the hard work I put in there. The academy started with 300 kids and graduated around 150, myself being one of them. I managed to go against what everybody told me I couldn't do, including my own mother. I was supposed to start up my first semester in college a few months after graduation. Now, since this was a military academy, they kept us pretty close to actual military basic training styles. So we had no technology except for the occasional phone call home once a week. And shortly after I had my education, (I completed school about 3 months into the academy but you still had to finish all 6 months in order to graduate WITH your education and diploma from youth challenge, weird I know) I asked her to get my sealed transcripts and send them into a local college so I could attend upon graduation and she assured me that she would complete this task within that week.
Phone call the week after, I ask her if she did it and she tells me "yes, I sent them in and they got back to us fast and said you've been accepted!" Sure enough by my graduation, there was no acceptance letter, no college, she didn't even get my transcripts while I was gone. About a month after I graduated, she moved into a house with her new boyfriend and took me and my sister with her. About a month into it, I couldn't take it anymore and went back to my grandparents house. I was just too consumed by my hate and anger towards her. A simple task of getting me ready for college and she didn't do it, I would think that most parents would be happy for their child to continue their education?
Fast forward another year, I got accepted into the university at the age of 18 ( I graduated from the military academy at the age of 17) down the street from her house. Now upon graduating from youth challenge academy, you are awarded a G.E.D. if you passed the tests. Of course she told me that I wouldn't be able to get into any schools with it but again, I'm not an idiot. I managed to max the scores on my entrance exams for the college and was accepted.
Now, the only reason I came to this particular university was because of its Army ROTC program which I am a part of. But as I stated earlier in this novel I'm typing, there was no money saved for college. So financial aid here I come! Yet again my mother screwed me over with applying for financial aid (which I knew in the back of my head I should have made myself responsible for but I didn't exactly know how) so it didn't go through for the semester. At the last minute, my grandparents decided to pay my tuition. About a month later, my financial aid money FINALLY came through in the mail. But guess what? My mother stole it and spent it. 3,000 dollars for my schooling went to whatever the hell she wanted to spend it on. And any typical college student/former student knows that it's your own in debt with financial aid. But I guess my wonderful mother doesn't care about anyone's future but her own.
Since this university is about a 10 minute drive from her house, I just decided to move in there instead of spending more money on student housing which I ended up losing the money anyway because she's a thief. Of course I haven't come forward and confronted her about the financial aid money yet but she does have a history of stealing money from me and my grandparents. Which she typically responds to me by saying "you don't have bills to pay, you don't need it" but wouldn't you know that my school decides to drop a 200$ charge on me for shortening my credit hours this semester (had a piss poor professor, honestly) and the money that I could have used for this, is wherever the hell my godawful mother spent it. So, I'm now having to pay it off myself with the money I was given for my birthday by my grandparents.
Lastly, I started college to earn credits to join the military since I have a G.E.D. I'm signed on to the U.S Army and shipping to basic in fall (4 year active duty contract). I want to become a civilian police officer after my service and I think the military is a good way to get there because most agencies waive a Criminal Justice degree for 4 years active duty. You think any parent would be proud right? A member of their family serving their country in the armed forces. Nope, not my mother. Couldn't give a damn. Just tells me that I'm a dumb and should just live with her for the rest of my life. Because I wouldn't be able to handle the "real world" . Yet anytime we get into an argument she tells me to "get the out and get a job" it's as if she's completely oblivious to the fact that I'm a student and how she spent the first 35 years of her life living with her parents and still acts like a leech, sucking away their money whenever she can.
One of the biggest things that angers me about her is that everything is anybody's fault but her own. She could burn the house down and find 50 reasons on how its some ones fault other than her own and will sit there and blame everybody else until death. She's also incredibly lazy and pessimistic. Believes that hard work won't help anybody and is completely pointless. Most of the time has me clean her whole house because I'm the only one with a sense of hygiene. Which is honestly not the end of the world, I just find it irritating how I am forced to clean up after everybody else because they're too lazy to pick up after themselves.
Honestly, I'm just ready to explode before I get out of here and my major plan was to cut off all ties with her as soon as I leave for the Army. As in, never speak to her again and keep it that way. I've come to really hate my mother in time. The older I get, the more responsible I hold her for things. What kind of a 16 year old girl thinks it's a good idea to keep their child and not put it up for adoption to live with at least a FUNCTIONAL family to have a decent life? I give her absolutely zero credit for raising me, most of which goes to my grandparents and a little to myself for learning from others mistakes. I'm just sick of dealing with her, looking at her, living with her, hearing her voice. I'm ashamed that I even HAVE to call her my "mother". Now a walk out father is pretty awful but what kind of mother steals their sons college money, 3,000 dollars at that too?
Also, if it's worth anything, I'm a VERY respectful young man and I never shout at her in arguments. What does she do? Swears up a storm and screams at the top of her lungs and calls me every kind of demeaning insult in the book whenever we get into some sort of disagreement while I sit there, calm as can be. I thank anybody who took the time out of their day to read this drawn out story, I could just really use somebody to point me in the right direction. With everything that you've read, should I just kick my mother to the curb from all of which I listed? (there's a hefty bit I left out to save you time from reading more) In all honesty, as cold hearted as it sounds; I don't have parents. Just a former couple that gave birth to me who are both dead in my eyes and have been, for a long time. The only one's who could ever hold that title would be my grandparents.
A little backstory to my life; my mother became pregnant with me at the young age of 16 while my father was a drugged out, alcohol addicted, loser. To no surprise, he walked out on us when I was 6. Immediately after he left, we moved into my grandparents house (her parents) and I lived there until I was 18 and left for college.
Now, I won't say that I was a perfect child, far from it actually. But I did my best to keep my head on straight. Meaning, I never smoked, no drugs, no drinking, no partying and I keep to those guidelines today. I tried my hardest to create a life for myself that was completely opposite of how my parents were/are.
My mother doesn't even seem to try and understand the situation I dealt with growing up. She's had 2 parents her whole life and lived under THEIR care until her mid 30s, while I don't want to sound like I'm whining about growing up fatherless, it was tough and she couldn't begin to fathom why when aside from my father and her early pregnancy, she had a good childhood. Every single day when he was around it was complete hell. He either came home tweaked out on drugs or drunk as all hell and would destroy the whole house and scream at me with the occasional physical abuse (threw things at me to inflict pain so I'd stop crying I guess) but for some reason, this never occurred to her that maybe this is a far off example of how a father would treat his son.
So, instead of leaving him she decided to wait for him to change his ways and sober up. She decided to wait for the same man who tried to murder us both when I was just 3 years old, to "change his ways because he has a son to take care of" but obviously that didn't work out seeing as though he left us. But, shortly after we left and moved into my grandparents, she went back to our old state to "talk things out" between them but low and behold, she comes back pregnant. So, at this point in her life; she is a husbandless single mother of 2 with no education/job experience living with her parents in her 20s.
Now, when she finally did start working and getting a paycheck, did she save it? Nope, she found it was necessary to instead spend it on herself and never thought twice about a college fund for my sister and I. And by spending it on herself, I mean like the latest clothes, shoes, purses, etc. While I may not be a woman, I know for a fact some of those items can become pretty pricey.
So fast forward a couple years, (middle school era. Age 11-14) I'm beginning to wake up some and open my eyes to the things in front of me. The first being that my mother was overall extremely selfish, irresponsible and didn't think about consequences. So as a result of my new realization, I began to resent her. I stopped talking to her as much and became a very conceited person and of course she noticed and tried to pester me but the more she pestered, the more I resented her for everything she had caused thus far. But, it doesn't stop there. She would encourage me to "go out and live a little" trying drugs, getting drunk, etc. I'm of course thinking to myself "what in the absolute H E L L are you talking about, I'm not stupid."
This wasn't one of those motherly tricks either to get you to fess up about things you had already done. She was absolutely serious and would say that to me quite often. Fast forward to high school (ages 14-18) I'm a little older now and with age, comes wisdom. But that doesn't seem to be the case for my mother. I managed to get myself a good group of friends, had a good head on my shoulders except for one problem. I absolutely hated school, I had nobody to motivate me so being a typical teenager, I didn't care. As a result, I failed a good amount of classes and her reaction? Just screamed at me, called me a "f.u.c.k up" and said how I was probably going to wind up just like my loser father. But, I'm not stupid. When I first failed those classes my freshman year, I found an alternative. A military school (Youth Challenge Academy) that offers an education for "at risk youth" but it was mandatory that I was at least 16 before I could go. So what did I do? Stuck it out for those 2 years and when I put in my application and was accepted into the program, what did my mother do? Hid my acceptance letter from me until my little sister felt bad and gave it to me. THEN, she proceeded to demoralize me and said how I wasn't going to make it and that I should just give up at trying to succeed in life. But I said to hell with that, I'm going and I WILL graduate.
Fast forward to the day before I left for the 6 month long military academy, she actually made a bet with me that I wouldn't last more than 2 weeks and shook my hand on it for 100 dollars. I can't begin to tell you how pissed off I was when I was on my way to the Army base it was located on. My own MOTHER, was betting against me that I couldn't do it.
Now, being in your teens at a military school wasn't for everyone, it actually had a drop out rate bigger than high schools so they offered 3-4 day passes back home to visit family every 2 months. And every time I went back on a pass, there was my mother pressuring me to withdraw from the program after all the time I spent working my off there to earn my education and she just wants me to throw it out the window. Another thing that pissed me off but motivated me to be better at the same time
Graduation day after 6 months, I'm nominated for an award and a scholarship for all the hard work I put in there. The academy started with 300 kids and graduated around 150, myself being one of them. I managed to go against what everybody told me I couldn't do, including my own mother. I was supposed to start up my first semester in college a few months after graduation. Now, since this was a military academy, they kept us pretty close to actual military basic training styles. So we had no technology except for the occasional phone call home once a week. And shortly after I had my education, (I completed school about 3 months into the academy but you still had to finish all 6 months in order to graduate WITH your education and diploma from youth challenge, weird I know) I asked her to get my sealed transcripts and send them into a local college so I could attend upon graduation and she assured me that she would complete this task within that week.
Phone call the week after, I ask her if she did it and she tells me "yes, I sent them in and they got back to us fast and said you've been accepted!" Sure enough by my graduation, there was no acceptance letter, no college, she didn't even get my transcripts while I was gone. About a month after I graduated, she moved into a house with her new boyfriend and took me and my sister with her. About a month into it, I couldn't take it anymore and went back to my grandparents house. I was just too consumed by my hate and anger towards her. A simple task of getting me ready for college and she didn't do it, I would think that most parents would be happy for their child to continue their education?
Fast forward another year, I got accepted into the university at the age of 18 ( I graduated from the military academy at the age of 17) down the street from her house. Now upon graduating from youth challenge academy, you are awarded a G.E.D. if you passed the tests. Of course she told me that I wouldn't be able to get into any schools with it but again, I'm not an idiot. I managed to max the scores on my entrance exams for the college and was accepted.
Now, the only reason I came to this particular university was because of its Army ROTC program which I am a part of. But as I stated earlier in this novel I'm typing, there was no money saved for college. So financial aid here I come! Yet again my mother screwed me over with applying for financial aid (which I knew in the back of my head I should have made myself responsible for but I didn't exactly know how) so it didn't go through for the semester. At the last minute, my grandparents decided to pay my tuition. About a month later, my financial aid money FINALLY came through in the mail. But guess what? My mother stole it and spent it. 3,000 dollars for my schooling went to whatever the hell she wanted to spend it on. And any typical college student/former student knows that it's your own in debt with financial aid. But I guess my wonderful mother doesn't care about anyone's future but her own.
Since this university is about a 10 minute drive from her house, I just decided to move in there instead of spending more money on student housing which I ended up losing the money anyway because she's a thief. Of course I haven't come forward and confronted her about the financial aid money yet but she does have a history of stealing money from me and my grandparents. Which she typically responds to me by saying "you don't have bills to pay, you don't need it" but wouldn't you know that my school decides to drop a 200$ charge on me for shortening my credit hours this semester (had a piss poor professor, honestly) and the money that I could have used for this, is wherever the hell my godawful mother spent it. So, I'm now having to pay it off myself with the money I was given for my birthday by my grandparents.
Lastly, I started college to earn credits to join the military since I have a G.E.D. I'm signed on to the U.S Army and shipping to basic in fall (4 year active duty contract). I want to become a civilian police officer after my service and I think the military is a good way to get there because most agencies waive a Criminal Justice degree for 4 years active duty. You think any parent would be proud right? A member of their family serving their country in the armed forces. Nope, not my mother. Couldn't give a damn. Just tells me that I'm a dumb and should just live with her for the rest of my life. Because I wouldn't be able to handle the "real world" . Yet anytime we get into an argument she tells me to "get the out and get a job" it's as if she's completely oblivious to the fact that I'm a student and how she spent the first 35 years of her life living with her parents and still acts like a leech, sucking away their money whenever she can.
One of the biggest things that angers me about her is that everything is anybody's fault but her own. She could burn the house down and find 50 reasons on how its some ones fault other than her own and will sit there and blame everybody else until death. She's also incredibly lazy and pessimistic. Believes that hard work won't help anybody and is completely pointless. Most of the time has me clean her whole house because I'm the only one with a sense of hygiene. Which is honestly not the end of the world, I just find it irritating how I am forced to clean up after everybody else because they're too lazy to pick up after themselves.
Honestly, I'm just ready to explode before I get out of here and my major plan was to cut off all ties with her as soon as I leave for the Army. As in, never speak to her again and keep it that way. I've come to really hate my mother in time. The older I get, the more responsible I hold her for things. What kind of a 16 year old girl thinks it's a good idea to keep their child and not put it up for adoption to live with at least a FUNCTIONAL family to have a decent life? I give her absolutely zero credit for raising me, most of which goes to my grandparents and a little to myself for learning from others mistakes. I'm just sick of dealing with her, looking at her, living with her, hearing her voice. I'm ashamed that I even HAVE to call her my "mother". Now a walk out father is pretty awful but what kind of mother steals their sons college money, 3,000 dollars at that too?
Also, if it's worth anything, I'm a VERY respectful young man and I never shout at her in arguments. What does she do? Swears up a storm and screams at the top of her lungs and calls me every kind of demeaning insult in the book whenever we get into some sort of disagreement while I sit there, calm as can be. I thank anybody who took the time out of their day to read this drawn out story, I could just really use somebody to point me in the right direction. With everything that you've read, should I just kick my mother to the curb from all of which I listed? (there's a hefty bit I left out to save you time from reading more) In all honesty, as cold hearted as it sounds; I don't have parents. Just a former couple that gave birth to me who are both dead in my eyes and have been, for a long time. The only one's who could ever hold that title would be my grandparents.