For the past almost-19 years, I have been a mother-to-be and a mother. Several weeks ago, my 18 year old son moved out, not because he had a job in another town, or because he was going to college out of state, etc.
He had graduated high school just two days before, and decided, overnight, to move in with his girlfriend, who was still living at home with HER mother (single, five or six kids at home BESIDES the daughter my son is seeing), and has TWO years of high school, herself, yet to finish! My son had told me she was 17, and I now find she is 16.
To add insult to injury, I asked the mother how SHE felt about all of this, and was shocked that she was okay with it. Right there, in front of the girl, her mother, and my son, I said, "Do you realize you could go to JAIL if someone's feelings get stepped on, or someone just wants to be mean, like a neighbor or other girlfriend, coworker?? You turned 18 two months ago, yet you started dating a girl who just turned 16, and you KNOW that makes it illegal for you to even be together - in the car, walking down the street, anywhere!" (It's called statutory rape/contributing to the delinquency of a minor or something I can't recall right off the top of my head).
And they all shrugged their shoulders and said, "Sure, we know. We'll be careful."
I drove the long way home (my son had packed his things and had me drive him the 80 miles to their town because he doesn't have a car of his own), agnozing over whether I should turn back and FORCE my CHILD to get in the car and come right back home with me... but knew I couldn't, because he's 18 and legally able to make his own decisions now, for good or bad.
In one short month, I went from being the proud single mom of a high school graduate who had plans for college and/or enlisting in the Air Force (like his GrandFather before him) to an empty-nester, and, worse, terrified my son has made some MAJOR bad decisions that will negatively affect the rest of his life...
I've asked him to reconsider, to come back home just for the summer, where he has a nice-paying JOB WAITING (a seed company he's worked at before is hiring for full-time summer work and they want him back), where he can use my car to go to and from work (and visit his girlfriend on weekends) and save up to AT LEAST have some money with which to buy himself a decent-running work car of his own... but he refuses. The town he's in, now, is tiny (less than 1000) with very little opportunity for anyone without a car; at least here there's a more sizeable population (over 7,500) and more opportunities, of which he could walk to most, besides having the use of my car.
Tonight he told me his girlfriend's older sister is moving home, and is taking 'their' room, so they are both on the couch, now (when her mom isn't on it, anyway).
I made another plea: Both he AND his girlfriend should come HERE, for the summer, so he could work to get that car, going back in the fall when she has to go back to school and HOPE they might even find a better place to stay (than with her mother and little brothers, sisters, etc.) once he got a full-time, better job closer to there.
Again, he refused.
I was a stubborn teenager once, too. But I never would have lived on my boyfriend's couch, in his mom's house. We would have found a way to work and get our own place FIRST.
I'm still in shock, because I did not raise my boy to be this way. He's making decisions, right now, that border on 'trash', everything I ever taught him that was DECENT, he's throwing to the wind and doing just the opposite.
A 'good man' does NOT move in with a 16 year old girlfriend ('jailbait') when he is not only CAR-LESS, but jobless, too, let alone while his girlfriend is still living 'at home' with her mom/dad. If he had been seeing her for four or five years (high school sweetheart), if they both had part-time jobs, if I had died or something and he'd had NO PLACE ELSE to go... maybe.
But, one month ago, he had his whole life ahead of him, a bright, shining future that would not only be for him, but a gift for his girlfriend/wife-to-be, too, as he would be working towards becoming a PROVIDER, a career professional or military man.
Not an extra lump on another single mother's COUCH... ;-(
Anyway. There it is.
Not even a blip on the vast scale of the world's worst woes, but a devastating turmoil for me, here in my little corner of reality...
