Grandparents Raising Children Support Group
This community is dedicated to grandparents who are the primary caregivers of their grandchildren. In cases where the parents are not willing or able to provide adequate care for their children, grandparents may take on the role of primary caregivers. Join the support group to find support, share your experience, and get advice from other members.
Sharon's post on the "Whoohoo" thread made me think of the differences among my husband's daughter, her cousin "Jane" and her ex-boyfriend "Bob" (father of two of our grandchildren).
My husband and I enabled his daughter less and less as she continued to prove her unwillingness or inability to get her act together. We paid for one rehab. My husband must have bought her four cell phones (to call the kids) and two cars (to get to work). We paid for bus fare, gas money, you name it.
As I've stated, finally we had enough and to this day we give her squat, and I mean squat. We don't even look up bus schedules for her, figuring that's her job.
That said, our refusal to enable hasn't "fixed" her. But to her credit she has gone to rehabs on her own and says she knows she needs to get clean.
Her cousin "Jane" and boyfriend "Bob" on the other hand have been nothing BUT enabled. Their moms let them live with them even after they were ripped off countless times. Their moms bailed them out of jail, hired their lawyers, and supervised their court hearings. They continued to buy them cars, rented them places to live, yada-yada.
Jane has ever even once attempted to get clean.
Bob gets clean only when he has a lengthy prison sentence (Mommy has since come to her senses and stopped interfering in his problems).
And not once have any of their children suffered serious harm, although God knows the kinds of things they've seen. All the while the bios use them as pawns to get more money, more "help" and more assistance.
The bottom line? Refusing to enable them may not get them to go straight. But it does take an amazing amount of pressure off of us - and may actually preserve some of their consciences, somewhere...
My husband and I enabled his daughter less and less as she continued to prove her unwillingness or inability to get her act together. We paid for one rehab. My husband must have bought her four cell phones (to call the kids) and two cars (to get to work). We paid for bus fare, gas money, you name it.
As I've stated, finally we had enough and to this day we give her squat, and I mean squat. We don't even look up bus schedules for her, figuring that's her job.
That said, our refusal to enable hasn't "fixed" her. But to her credit she has gone to rehabs on her own and says she knows she needs to get clean.
Her cousin "Jane" and boyfriend "Bob" on the other hand have been nothing BUT enabled. Their moms let them live with them even after they were ripped off countless times. Their moms bailed them out of jail, hired their lawyers, and supervised their court hearings. They continued to buy them cars, rented them places to live, yada-yada.
Jane has ever even once attempted to get clean.
Bob gets clean only when he has a lengthy prison sentence (Mommy has since come to her senses and stopped interfering in his problems).
And not once have any of their children suffered serious harm, although God knows the kinds of things they've seen. All the while the bios use them as pawns to get more money, more "help" and more assistance.
The bottom line? Refusing to enable them may not get them to go straight. But it does take an amazing amount of pressure off of us - and may actually preserve some of their consciences, somewhere...
Imagine that a friend needs a huge table moved into another room.
Helping is when you pick up your end and your friend picks up their end.
Enabling is when you pick up and move the entire table yourself while your friend watches.