dashcat
Member
I feel as though my hands are tied.
difficult child has been, willingly, unemployed since the end of June. She lives with me and I thought I was being smart by immediately putting her to work around here. It is a fairly structured situation where she is required to work from 9 (well she gets up at 9 ...usually starts working around 9:30) until 4. I don't give her a dime, but she does manage to procure money (from her boyfriend and an extremely enabling girlfriend) for gas and beer on occasion. The enabling girlfriend gave her a spare cell phone that only works when plugged into a power source.
The reason I thought I was being smart was that: A. I would get some things done around here that I couldn't afford to hire out and didn't especially want to do myself and B. SURELY she would grow tired of not having money and C. SURELY she would figure out that getting a job was better than painting and scraping around here.
Guess what? She is perfectly content. She has barely lifted a finger in the direction of employement. She had one job interview for a bartending job at a bowling alley. Having the interview was enough to convince her that she had the job. She didn't get the job, but continued to string me along saying the guy said to call next week ...there was a second interview scheduled ... blah, blah.
I'm running out of things for her to do around here and, frankly, I am beginning to feel imprisioned myself.
I have been staying out of the whole job thing thinking, rightly or wrongly, that it really was none of my business. She is doing what I expect around here. She asks for nothing in the way of money and will only occasionally request that I guy certain groceries, something that I will do for her because she asks so rarely.
But this can't go on forever.
I did tell her yesterday that it was time that she begin to look in earnest for a job. She went to her therapist appointment (I timed this so the convo took place right before her appointmet) and when she returned I could see that she'd been crying. She went out and painted the shed until 4:00, came in, and went to bed until 8:00. I know she's depressed, but I don't think she's so depressed that she cannot work.
I'm not ready to kick her out. I really cannot see doing that at this point, yet I honestly don't know how to "make" a 21 year old master manipulator get a job.
I do know that I am very tired of the status quo.
Dash
difficult child has been, willingly, unemployed since the end of June. She lives with me and I thought I was being smart by immediately putting her to work around here. It is a fairly structured situation where she is required to work from 9 (well she gets up at 9 ...usually starts working around 9:30) until 4. I don't give her a dime, but she does manage to procure money (from her boyfriend and an extremely enabling girlfriend) for gas and beer on occasion. The enabling girlfriend gave her a spare cell phone that only works when plugged into a power source.
The reason I thought I was being smart was that: A. I would get some things done around here that I couldn't afford to hire out and didn't especially want to do myself and B. SURELY she would grow tired of not having money and C. SURELY she would figure out that getting a job was better than painting and scraping around here.
Guess what? She is perfectly content. She has barely lifted a finger in the direction of employement. She had one job interview for a bartending job at a bowling alley. Having the interview was enough to convince her that she had the job. She didn't get the job, but continued to string me along saying the guy said to call next week ...there was a second interview scheduled ... blah, blah.
I'm running out of things for her to do around here and, frankly, I am beginning to feel imprisioned myself.
I have been staying out of the whole job thing thinking, rightly or wrongly, that it really was none of my business. She is doing what I expect around here. She asks for nothing in the way of money and will only occasionally request that I guy certain groceries, something that I will do for her because she asks so rarely.
But this can't go on forever.
I did tell her yesterday that it was time that she begin to look in earnest for a job. She went to her therapist appointment (I timed this so the convo took place right before her appointmet) and when she returned I could see that she'd been crying. She went out and painted the shed until 4:00, came in, and went to bed until 8:00. I know she's depressed, but I don't think she's so depressed that she cannot work.
I'm not ready to kick her out. I really cannot see doing that at this point, yet I honestly don't know how to "make" a 21 year old master manipulator get a job.
I do know that I am very tired of the status quo.
Dash