In article ,
Scott en Aztl?n wrote:

On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 23:10:28 GMT, dragonlady
wrote:

You gotta draw the line at some point. Where will that be for you?

Caring? Never. My mom still cares about what *I'm* doing, and I'm 52.

At some point a parent has to let go and stop trying to micromanage
their childrens' lives. I guess with some parents that occurs after
the parent's death.

Why, in your mind, does "caring" equal "micromanging" -- or, for that
matter, ANY managing?

I can detach with love -- that means I keep caring, but acknowledge that
they are in charge of their own lives. I CAN control MY decisions, and
that might mean, for example, no longer paying for college if they don't
take it seriously enough to finish classes. But that isn't an attempt
to control what THEY do -- just making clear boundaries: as long as
they are in school, and taking school seriously, I will cover books,
tuition and fees, keep them in transportation, and provide free room and
board. If they STOP going to school, they can provide their own
transportation and, if they want to live here, pay room and board.

Recently, I've had to make clear that if they choose to NOT live at
home, I will NOT give them money for ongoing living expenses. I can
afford to cover that if they are living here, but we don't have extra
money to cover their rent, utilities, etc. living somewhere else.


You SAID you stopped caring about what they were doing once their
behavior would no longer put you on the hook legally. Now you're saying
that, if they gave you cause to be suspicious, you'd still care enough
to eavesdrop.

IF I have reason to suspect that they are, for example, using illegal
drugs in my home or one of my vehicles, then I will certainly do
whatever is necessary to protect myself. In the absence of any reason
to suspect such things, however, I won't waste my time eavesdropping
on their boring conversations.

I'm saying that, if I
thought listening in on their phone calls now would be helpful in any
way, I'd still do it.

So if you thought your daughter was dating a "bad boy" type who was no
good for her, you'd eavesdrop on their phone conversations and try to
intervene?

Not me. Some things people just have to learn for themselves.

Where on earth did I say THAT?

When I say "if I thought it would help", I'm talking about finding out
they are into things like illegal drugs (using and/or selling),
stealing, unsafe sex -- basically, things that are illegal or could kill
them -- and I believed that violating their privacy would provide me
with the kind of information I needed to intervene.

I DID intervene when a 21 yo "bad boy" started hanging around my younger
daughter when she was 14, but I smelled a predator (accurately, as it
turned out) and he is now in prison on a variety of charges related to
his activities with minors. I was desperately trying to keep her safe
from this jerk.

However, other than that, I have NEVER tried to control who my kids are
friends with, even when I think their friends are bad for them. And
they HAVE made some astoundingly bad choices in friends! The most I've
done is tried to make sure they spend lots of time in places healthy for
them, so they'd have an opportunity to make good friends, too -- places
like the theater program they all enjoyed, and church, which they ALSO
enjoyed.

Heck, for a while, one of my kids dated a young man who lived under a
bridge. He had lots of problems. I invited him for dinner as often as
he wanted to eat with us, and, when he was VERY ill, allowed him to
sleep in our house (on the sofa!) for a couple of weeks. (I had, at one
point, allowed him to stay for a few weeks while he was waiting to get
into transitional housing; however, when a room became available, he
decided he didn't want the amount of structure required to live there,
so I threw him out.) I did not "approve" of their relationship, but I
also knew that if she wanted to see him, she would -- I figured if I
kept them close, it would be better all around. Unfortunately, his
going away present to her was a case of Hepatitis B.
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care