Albatross
Well-Known Member
As background, difficult child was asked to leave our home, spontaneously left on a cross-country bicycling trip with no resources, abandoned his bike and has been hitchhiking and living under bridges with other homeless individuals.
He still finds ways to post updates on FB. It seems like he rather enjoys being entertainment for his FB friends, as he makes a special point of being outrageous. This morning he posted some bragging about how he has been stealing things to get beer $ and got into some kind of trouble involving the police.
husband and I talked about the posts and how ashamed we are of him, but as much as we want to say something there is nothing that hasn't been said before. He's 22 years old and 1000 miles away. We decided to just keep out of it.
A little while later difficult child's aunt posted something on his wall about whether it was his goal in life to be homeless. In response, one of difficult child's little chippie FB friends posted some very sarcastic and patronizing garbage about difficult child's "yuppie mom not understanding the hobo lifestyle." I guess she assumed aunt is me, since she and difficult child have the same last name.
So now in addition to being ashamed and disappointed, I am now wondering if I am wrong for-
1. Wishing aunt would delete her post and not bring difficult child's drama into her circle of FB friends?
2. Not posting something on difficult child's wall to come to aunt's defense?
Is FB the appropriate place for playing this stuff out? If public shaming did any good at all with difficult child, it certainly would have by now.
I explained to aunt that I haven't posted in her defense because husband and I would both prefer not to broadcast our family drama far and wide and increase difficult child's viewership, so to speak, even more. I then jokingly said that since chippie thinks aunt is difficult child's mom, aunt can go ahead and take over for me if she wants to. Her response was, "If I was his mom, I would have beat his @&^ by now," I guess implying that she doesn't approve of my parenting.
I am feeling like she violated our privacy when she decided to post on his wall. I can't see any reason to violate it even more, but I also feel a little...creepy...for letting chippie attack aunt like that. On the other hand...she didn't have to attack my parenting either.
Ugh...families...
Not sure what the right thing to do is anymore.
He still finds ways to post updates on FB. It seems like he rather enjoys being entertainment for his FB friends, as he makes a special point of being outrageous. This morning he posted some bragging about how he has been stealing things to get beer $ and got into some kind of trouble involving the police.
husband and I talked about the posts and how ashamed we are of him, but as much as we want to say something there is nothing that hasn't been said before. He's 22 years old and 1000 miles away. We decided to just keep out of it.
A little while later difficult child's aunt posted something on his wall about whether it was his goal in life to be homeless. In response, one of difficult child's little chippie FB friends posted some very sarcastic and patronizing garbage about difficult child's "yuppie mom not understanding the hobo lifestyle." I guess she assumed aunt is me, since she and difficult child have the same last name.
So now in addition to being ashamed and disappointed, I am now wondering if I am wrong for-
1. Wishing aunt would delete her post and not bring difficult child's drama into her circle of FB friends?
2. Not posting something on difficult child's wall to come to aunt's defense?
Is FB the appropriate place for playing this stuff out? If public shaming did any good at all with difficult child, it certainly would have by now.
I explained to aunt that I haven't posted in her defense because husband and I would both prefer not to broadcast our family drama far and wide and increase difficult child's viewership, so to speak, even more. I then jokingly said that since chippie thinks aunt is difficult child's mom, aunt can go ahead and take over for me if she wants to. Her response was, "If I was his mom, I would have beat his @&^ by now," I guess implying that she doesn't approve of my parenting.
I am feeling like she violated our privacy when she decided to post on his wall. I can't see any reason to violate it even more, but I also feel a little...creepy...for letting chippie attack aunt like that. On the other hand...she didn't have to attack my parenting either.
Ugh...families...
Not sure what the right thing to do is anymore.