Shit Shows Happen Sometimes

The Shit Show

Hello my family strugglers,

Let me ask you something. What do you think is a parent’s job? Do we as parents cater to every need, spoil the shit out of those little creatures that we brought into this world, or possibly just cut them lose and hope they figure it out? Do we as parents help shape them into responsible young adults, let them crash and burn when they do things we don’t agree with, or set them up for success for when we are unable to be here? Without a manual to properly guide you how do we know if we are doing it right? But, let’s be honest, even if we did have this said manual, whos to say that we won’t just throw it away and try to build this little human out of our own knowledge just because we think we can, like those individuals that say “I don’t need those instructions I know how to do it, can’t be too hard” and then end up missing a step here and there having to start over. We all know that one person that does this and it makes me laugh because why not follow a step by step instruction so you don’t fail, yet its inspiring to watch them build a shelf out of common sense because rather we want to admit it or not if we can figure out how to be a parent without these said instructions why couldn’t we build that shelf?

Being a parent can be the most rewarding job to have in life depending on the person signing up for the job. We get to potentially rebrand a new generation, we get a new chance to change the world with each new creation that is brought here, to shape kind and loving individuals how respect each other as well as stand up for their selves and others so that maybe one day this world won’t be filled with so much hatred. However, parents fail their children daily and it’s a sad thing that just continues to happen. Many people that bring children into this world don’t even want to be a parent, or worse they use their title to their advantage as if they had these children to make their lives easier rather than looking at it as a chance to change what they think is wrong about this world they just continue to feed the problem.  Let me tell you about my current experience with the parents that raised me and let you in on a huge situation that my sisters and I have recently encountered with our parents.

In 2021 towards the end of the year my 17-year-old sister was living at home with our parents. She worked a full-time job, was going to high school and a tech school, and in her free time was hanging out with friends trying to stay away from a home where she was only spoken to when they needed her to clean the kitchen or fold their laundry. Now keep in mind that we all grew up in this environment where we were expected to pick up after the adults top to bottom 24/7 claiming it to be our “Chores” and we weren’t given the opportunity to talk about the struggles we were facing in our own head because our parents believed that it was a choice to be sad rather than okay to feel sad. My sister was struggling within her own head through issues that she didn’t feel acceptable to discuss and her only outlet of expressing these said feelings were with the “friends” she associated with. One day my sister and one of these friends skipped school and proceeded to just drive around town to talk about the current shit they were fed up about with their parents/their lives. As they were driving around my sister in the passenger seat, they started talking about unbelieve things, the driver asked my sister if she ever wanted to just die, and the answer my sister gave just makes me want to cry. Now I can’t tell you all the thoughts that went through her head or many of the things she was struggle with from within, but long story short the driver drove them into a wall claiming she didn’t want to die alone. Many teenagers in life go through a stage that they think the easy way out of their current struggles is to just not be here anymore to accept them. My sister and the driver made it out alive they were rushed to the hospital in a short amount of time. My sister stayed in this hospital for a day or two then was Medi flighted to a different hospital for a surgery that they couldn’t do. She stayed at this second hospital for a few days as well, our mother stayed in the hospital with her, and our father came down to stay 2 days in a hotel but didn’t go see her. He was there to spend time with his wife and give her a place to run off to and get high.

Now fast forward to mid 2022 our father found out that my sister was able to file for a second settlement to get these said bills paid for. Keep in mind, that my sister is now 18 years old, but lacked the knowledge to even know that she could file for this settlement or even where to start so our father started the whole process. To continue with the claim the insurance people had to speak to my sister as it was a settlement for her due to her tragic situation. Our father constantly hounded her to reach out to these people so that they could get this money to pay off her medical bills and “Set them up.” As time goes by, she is going through the process of answering all the questions and playing phone tag. While continuing to be questioned from our dad about the money he tells her that she needs to pay him 30 thousand dollars of this settlement to him to pay off the bills in his name for the accident that supposedly are affecting his credit, and that he applied for this settlement to help each other make some money.

My sister finally finds out in 2023 that her settlement is approved and that she will be getting around 100 thousand dollars, but they were taking out 45 thousand dollars to put towards her medical bills. I was unaware of any of this stuff happening until our other sister informs me about it and how they have questions that they want to talk to me about because they weren’t feeling sure about talking to our parents about it. So, they tell me what’s been going on and asked me what my advice is. I told them that she should ask dad for the bills that he is saying that she needs to pay so that she can see where the money is going since the insurance company already took out 45 thousand to put toward these said bills. My sister tried asking for the papers, but our father just waved the bills around and proceeded to show her a sticky note of the numbers jotted down. So, a few days later our other sister tried asking for these same papers just so that she could know what these bills were, but our father basically said that he already showed our sister and still didn’t show/give them to anyone. Once they brought this information to me, I advised her to reach out to the said hospitals that she was seen at to check her current balance. So, they ended up calling them and guess what, her balance was zero dollars. They also got copies of the current zero balance so that she could have these for her own records. Now after finding out this information, she tried to express her knowledge to our dad, which did not go well. My sister decided that it was time that she just needed to move out of their house since she was already 19 and she could pay off her car that our dad was holding over her head and telling her she couldn’t move out until it was paid off. So, she transferred the money to his account for the car and packed up all her stuff and moved in with me. The day that she moved out was the day that my dad was informed that we all knew that all her bills were already paid off, but he still insisted that he deserved this money.  He ended up saying some shitty things, which caused me to say shitty things, then we finished grabbing her bed and left.

The next day our other sister came over to the house with a letter written by our dad, one for each of us but the same letter in each envelope. He told her to give them to us and for us all to read them together, to highlight anything that we had concerns abouts, and to write down any questions that we had so that we could talk about it. The letter started off by explaining how his childhood was unfair and that he grew up without a lot of things. It then went into a paragraph for each of us. One sentence for the middle sister saying that she wasted their money by leaving them with her car and phone when she moved out. (But in her defense, she was told to leave it there and they turned her phone off refusing to turn it back on, her and her friends ended up having to walk home that night because they threw a fit about her moving out and choosing to be an adult which she was.) The next paragraph was dedicated to me, saying that he has had to help me out when I was down on my luck for a few different things like my rent, my car, and concert tickets that I ended up not going to. (I didn’t go to the concert because the plans kept changing, one minute it was just going to be the 4 of us, then it turned in 6 people going. They also wanted to drive there and straight back after the concert which traveling to Texas with a Ziplock bag filled with joints, concentrate pens, etc. and I wasn’t okay with doing that since if we got pulled over it would be a felony charge just having them in the car. We also didn’t go because the very next day was our son 1^st day of PreK, and I didn’t want to miss it or be tired/chance us not making it to school on time. And for all his help we have told him on several occasions that we very much appreciated it and would pay him back when we could save up the money to do so, which he was fine with at the time but obviously he was just lying about and resented me from the jump. The next paragraph was for the younger sister saying that she did him dirty by not giving him the money that he deserve because he shouldn’t have to pay for things that she chooses to do intentionally. He thinks that he deserves this money because if they hired an attorney then they would get 40% so he should get it because he applied for it for her. He goes on saying that he had to waste a lot of money on her and had to also help her when she was down on her luck (which was before she was 18 keep in mind). He then pedals back to me saying that he doesn’t feel like he wants to get close to any of his grandkids anymore the current or the future ones because I am a mean enough person to make my threat happen.(Threat – I told him that if he took my house away from me, which he threatened to do, that my family and I would not talk to him any longer as he would make us homeless.) He then goes on to say that us girls should have told our school counselors what was going on at our home so that we could be taken away and that he would have been able to spend more time with our brother and that everyone would have been happy then. He finishes the note off by saying that he is tired and doesn’t want to type anymore and says goodnight.

After reading the letter I personally just felt attacked, like his willing help at the time was now this awful thing that I made him do. We all were just hung out to dry based off all our mistakes and down falls. He got caught in a lie about why he said he needed the money and then basically told us all in a letter that he needs paid back for everything he chose to do either helping us out or threatening us with our shit, it was literally all just things that he could hold over our heads as leverage to why he deserved this money in return.  We decided that we weren’t going to highlight anything or write down any questions. We did talk about writing our own letters but decided that we weren’t going to, and we just wanted to drop it. Plus, Christmas was in 2 days and we all just wanted to spend it together not fighting over money or anything like that. Later that night our middle sister ended up calling us and she did write a letter but never gave it them still to this day. In the meantime, our dad was continuing to text our little sister about what he felt like he was entitled to. He told her that she was a packaged deal, he needed to be paid back for all his out-of-pocket expenses like getting a hotel room and buying food, etc. Then Christmas rolled around, and we all went over to their house it was a good time honestly. Nothing was brought up and we all got along, which was nice because I was just worried that it would end up being a shit show again.

A few days after Christmas I ended up finding out that the pipe underneath my sink was leaking. We didn’t really know what we needed to do to fix it so my wife reached out to my dad to ask for his advice on what materials we needed to buy and if he would be willing to help us fix it, which he agreed to. I finally thought that we could put all this B.S behind us and just move on from the stupid little fight. We got the pieces that we needed, and he ended up coming over to the house to help us fix it. When he walked in, he asked if my little sister was home, and I told him yes, she was downstairs in her room. He then proceeded to sit down on the couch and told me that he talked to his buddies, and they too think that he deserves 15 grand for everything that he had to pay for out of his pocket. He then told me that I needed to tell my sister that she needs to pay him this money. I was instantly annoyed and said “Are we really talking about this again? Then he flipped out on me and told me that I just continue to put my nose in everyone’s business and that he deserves what is owed to him. I said I don’t think that she should have to pay you for going to stay in the city when you didn’t even go visit her and you lied to her about what the money was for there is no way that you spent 15 grand for 2 nights in the city. I then said you could just go down there and tell her yourself.”  He then stormed into the kitchen and told my wife that he doesn’t think that he can give us this house anymore because he just can’t stand his own blood. Then he stormed out of the house leaving his phone and coat in my kitchen and had to come back and get it. After this last incident I decided that I was going to write a letter and that was the day that I blocked my dad from my phone. I have yet to really talk to him since that day, but my wife and kiddo have gone over there to see them, and my wife talks to him from time to time.

I decided that this was all just too much for me to handle. I blocked him because I’m just at a point in my life where I just want peace. I don’t want to argue about past mistakes or any of my short comings because I know they happened, and I am just as ashamed if not more. I got tired of being a punching bag in a situation that honestly wasn’t even mine to handle. I was disappointed in my father for how he acted, and his thought process just didn’t add up to me. Why lie about something that you know someone will find out about, and what makes a parent say some of things he said to a little girl that didn’t ask for any of this to even happen in the first place. Why take a horrible tragic situation and try to gain something out of it and then be pissed off because it backfires in your face? I just don’t understand why he felt so troubled from a situation that he claims he never truly wanted to be a part of in the first place. As a parent now I just think about if all of this was something my kid were to go through, and I just can’t imagine saying or doing any of this to him. I would just want the best for him and no matter what I would know that if I was able to set my kid up even if he didn’t give me anything I would be okay that I gave him a chance to live his life just a little less stressful so that he could have the time and comfort to be what he needed to be for his self not for me. I guess parenting is done in all different ways, I just don’t think it’s a job that you should be able to pick and choose to do, or that it’s a task that you regret doing because they didn’t do exactly what you say. My wish for the world is that one day parents come to the realization that we have kids to hopefully increase the amount of decent successful kids, not create people to be the person you wish you were but never got to be. I hope one day they realize that love can more than enough, and acceptance can go a long way. One day we won’t be here, and we must know that we did do everything we could do to prepare them to live the best life that they want to live not the life we think they should live or feel like we are owed something in return. We don’t need to worry if our children are ever truly listening to us, we need to worry that they are always watching us. So, my question to you is what do you think a parent’s job is, what would be your advice if you were in a situation like this, and if you could potentially parent from a manual what would yours say?

-Struggles