And I’m just tired of raising her child…
My daughter’s freaking out because I’m rubbing her nose in the mistakes of her youth. By mistakes she means a hasty marriage and having a child at nineteen. The marriage fell apart after a year, and I was helping my daughter with the baby. And now she’s busy arranging her personal life, shifting the upbringing of her son to me.
When Natasha told me when she was eighteen that she was pregnant, I couldn’t even swear. I was bringing up my daughter alone, working two jobs to give her a normal life and education, and she crossed it all out with one phrase: “I’m pregnant. The term was small and the problem could be solved, but my daughter refused to give birth and that’s it.
– Frank loves me. He asked me to marry him. Let’s get married, have a baby, and we’ll live,” she stubbornly insisted.
I was terrified of such prospects. Frank was also eighteen or nineteen years old. Also a student, also living with his mother. Well, what good is it? What kind of family is that?
Frank’s mother, who was also delighted by the unexpected addition to the family, came to me to quarrel. Claimed that I should have told my daughter about contraception and to better monitor her. It felt like her son was not involved in the process at all.
– And keep in mind, I’m not going to let my son drop out!
I had no idea how the young ones were going to live at all. I tried to talk to my daughter, but I ran into a wall. She kept telling me to stay out of it, they would sort it out themselves. Apparently, Frank’s mother listened to the same words.
They could not live on their own, and no wonder – what are they going to live on, if they are both still studying. So my mother-in-law insisted that the young people live with them. I didn’t mind. I had no way to feed another mouth. And we lived in a one-room apartment, where else would the baby and Frank go?
My daughter gave birth, spent about a year with her in-laws, and then she divorced and came back to me with the child. She was twenty years old, and she already had a one-year-old child and a divorce under her belt. She hadn’t finished her education, hadn’t worked a day. Of course, I didn’t kick them out.
Frank didn’t pay alimony, he had nothing to pay, he was studying. My ex-mother-in-law sometimes brought money for her grandson, but it didn’t make much difference. And then it stopped, too. I told my daughter to go file for child support, but her pride kicked in, she didn’t want to get involved.
My grandson was three years old, he went to kindergarten, and my daughter went to work. We decided that we would take sick leave in turns, so the bosses would not arise. Everything seemed to be fine. My grandson was growing up and my daughter was working. Two years later she even went back to the university and decided to continue her studies by correspondence.
Now my grandson is seven years old. We still live in a one-room apartment. It’s hard, of course, there are too many people, there’s no room to turn around. But at the moment there is no other option.
My daughter works, and lately she has been making a great deal of progress in her personal life. After work she doesn’t hurry home, sometimes she may not spend the night at all. I take care of my grandson. I do his homework and make sure he wears clean clothes to school in the morning.
And I’m not retired yet, I work. In the evening I want to fall down and stretch my legs, but I can’t. I have to cook, iron, and wash, and do homework with my child. And my daughter is on a date, she has another affair.
I tried to shame her, that she is not a mother, but a cuckoo. She left her child and rushed to a man.
– Leave me alone, I’m young! I can’t live with you forever! I want to get married! – My daughter brushed aside my complaints.
– And you’ve already been there. Or have you forgotten how you went and what you came back with?
– Are you going to rub my nose in the mistake of my youth for the rest of my life? – My daughter is furious.
I don’t want to poke anyone in the nose with anything. It’s just that it’s hard for me to work and then carry my grandson. The boy is growing up, he needs parental attention, and my mother is not at home every day. She also gets in my way when she comes to bring up her grandson.
I forbid him to do something, for example, to stare at my phone all day long, and my daughter lets him do it, just to get him off her back.
– What are you bothering him? Let him sit in the phone, then he is not seen and not heard, – snapped her daughter.
I’m tired of dragging it all on me. The one-room apartment is cramped, my grandson is fending him off, and my daughter indulges in it, because she is too lazy to take care of her son. All she has on her mind is her own personal life.
I’m afraid she’s going to run off and remarry, leaving my grandson in my care. Why would any man want someone else’s child of that age. Although I love my grandson, I want to live in peace and for myself.
But I can’t abandon the boy either. It is unlikely that a daughter who calls her son a mistake of youth will be a good and caring mother to him. It seems to me that she has had enough of being a mother. It’s some kind of dead end.
