My sister let her son drop out of UVA to work a dead-end job

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do know the whole story -- she coddled him and made him a weak nancy and now she's happy he boomeranged. It's beyond selfish. And bragging about him being home on facebook shows how deluded she is. It should be embarrassing, not celebrated. Think about what she's signaling to her son and his younger siblings.

He's not a weak Nancy if he got into UVa in the first place. Working at a "dead end job" will give him time to figure out what he really wants out of life. I know way too many college grads who have no idea and are back with mom. Better now than later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure she's putting a positive spin on it on social media because what else could she say? Little Jaden is home because he had a mental health crisis/failed out/drank too much? Do you think she should go on social media and say she is disappointed with her son's failure?

OP clearly thinks she should be so embarrassed as to not mention anything on social media. You know what? Some people try to find positives in bad situations and need to find a way to appreciate that. I find that your generation, OP, fills this "way of appreciation" via explanatory FB posts (way, way more than mine at 36, never mind young people).

Yes, she should be embarrassed her college-aged son has returned home after a failed and wasted attempt at college. There's nothing to BOAST about it. I don't think it's "spin" I think she's genuinely excited to have him home. What does the "bragging" tell her son and the younger siblings? That it's OK to quit and be a loser underachiever. She's normalizing immature behavior.

There's far more to the story -- I wouldn't have made this thread if it was mental health or a ailment. She coddled him and continues to coddle him, thus, unable to function and all too eager to run home to mommy's warm embrace. This is conditioned behavior that won't end because she's continue to coddle him.

You can't possibly be an actual adult. Are you one of this kid's younger siblings, or maybe just a troll making it up out of whole cloth?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure she's putting a positive spin on it on social media because what else could she say? Little Jaden is home because he had a mental health crisis/failed out/drank too much? Do you think she should go on social media and say she is disappointed with her son's failure?

OP clearly thinks she should be so embarrassed as to not mention anything on social media. You know what? Some people try to find positives in bad situations and need to find a way to appreciate that. I find that your generation, OP, fills this "way of appreciation" via explanatory FB posts (way, way more than mine at 36, never mind young people).

Yes, she should be embarrassed her college-aged son has returned home after a failed and wasted attempt at college. There's nothing to BOAST about it. I don't think it's "spin" I think she's genuinely excited to have him home. What does the "bragging" tell her son and the younger siblings? That it's OK to quit and be a loser underachiever. She's normalizing immature behavior.

There's far more to the story -- I wouldn't have made this thread if it was mental health or a ailment. She coddled him and continues to coddle him, thus, unable to function and all too eager to run home to mommy's warm embrace. This is conditioned behavior that won't end because she's continue to coddle him.

You can't possibly be an actual adult. Are you one of this kid's younger siblings, or maybe just a troll making it up out of whole cloth?

I'm a concerned aunt who saw this happening from a mile away. Predicted it five year ago.

You're pretty judgmental for someone who speaks like a high school junior that just learned the word "coddle"!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure she's putting a positive spin on it on social media because what else could she say? Little Jaden is home because he had a mental health crisis/failed out/drank too much? Do you think she should go on social media and say she is disappointed with her son's failure?

OP clearly thinks she should be so embarrassed as to not mention anything on social media. You know what? Some people try to find positives in bad situations and need to find a way to appreciate that. I find that your generation, OP, fills this "way of appreciation" via explanatory FB posts (way, way more than mine at 36, never mind young people).

Yes, she should be embarrassed her college-aged son has returned home after a failed and wasted attempt at college. There's nothing to BOAST about it. I don't think it's "spin" I think she's genuinely excited to have him home. What does the "bragging" tell her son and the younger siblings? That it's OK to quit and be a loser underachiever. She's normalizing immature behavior.

There's far more to the story -- I wouldn't have made this thread if it was mental health or a ailment. She coddled him and continues to coddle him, thus, unable to function and all too eager to run home to mommy's warm embrace. This is conditioned behavior that won't end because she's continue to coddle him.

But my dear - as a parent of a child with special needs, I can assure you that "coddling" is what ends up happening to accommodate certain types of special needs. It's called symptom management, when medical treatment and behavioral modification are absent or insufficient. I'm NOT saying your nephew has special needs, I'm saying that *perhaps* he does, and you don't see it because you haven't lived with him long-term. My son's show up most during his morning and bedtime routine, for example. If your sister doesn't see it either, and has issues of her own - and it certainly sounds as if she does - then this makes for a very bad situation. It happens for heritable disorders: the parents have undiagnosed ADHD or Asperger's, and since they think they're normal, don't recognize that their children suffer from more severe forms of the same, and the issues never resolve but are more or less poorly managed.

Or it could be what you said, which is that your sister's issues have fragilized a perfectly normal child. And that, too, is sad.
In both cases, the children are the victims.

I would invite your nephew casually and talk to him about his decision. Don't try to sway him, just talk to to him and connect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, at least he's not 46...with multiple degrees but 2 years of paying work in the last 24 years...living at home with his parents and being supported by them. That's my BIL and he has no safety net once ILs are gone.

It's fine for your friend to be supportive of her son for a while as he finds his true calling, but at some point he should be out on his own and not living at home - no matter what kind of job he holds.

You just described my brother, but he's 48.

[Anonymous]

I think many of you are being too harsh on OP. She's possibly posting here because it's a way to vent and not be judgmental to them in person. It can be very difficult to watch a situation like this unfold while standing by.

I have a friend with a similar situation, although I wouldn't say she's bragging about it. But she totally coddled the kid, he flunked out of college, came home for several years with no plan. An outsider could see this coming from many years back. It took some conscious effort to listen to my friend and not butt in.

I'm giving OP the benefit of the doubt that she just wants to vent.

[Anonymous]

My brother's two kids did this. 5 and 7 years later, respectively, they're both in their late 20s and still at home. It's fucked up and it was totally predictable.

[Anonymous]

Take a deep breath, Judgy McJudgerson. Not your problem, and you don't know what's going on. There's certainly nothing wrong with your sister looking at the bright side and enjoying having her son around. I mean, geez.

And FWIW, I know plenty of people who screwed up college at 18, and nonetheless got their shit together later. My pothead/dropout cousin is now a Marine officer. My best friend from high school went on a 2-year bender of drugs and sex and ended up dropping out (and declaring bankruptcy because of all the debt). Several years of living at home/working/medication and therapy for mental illness/going to community college, and she turned her life around with some support. Worked her way through college the second time and is now a teacher and churchleader. I sure have plenty about which I could criticize both sets of parents, but taking the kids back in at home after they screwed up college is not one of them. I hate to think where either one of them would have been if parents had just kicked them out at that point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure she's putting a positive spin on it on social media because what else could she say? Little Jaden is home because he had a mental health crisis/failed out/drank too much? Do you think she should go on social media and say she is disappointed with her son's failure?

OP clearly thinks she should be so embarrassed as to not mention anything on social media. You know what? Some people try to find positives in bad situations and need to find a way to appreciate that. I find that your generation, OP, fills this "way of appreciation" via explanatory FB posts (way, way more than mine at 36, never mind young people).

Yes, she should be embarrassed her college-aged son has returned home after a failed and wasted attempt at college. There's nothing to BOAST about it. I don't think it's "spin" I think she's genuinely excited to have him home. What does the "bragging" tell her son and the younger siblings? That it's OK to quit and be a loser underachiever. She's normalizing immature behavior.

There's far more to the story -- I wouldn't have made this thread if it was mental health or a ailment. She coddled him and continues to coddle him, thus, unable to function and all too eager to run home to mommy's warm embrace. This is conditioned behavior that won't end because she's continue to coddle him.

You don't put all that love and effort into raising a kid who does so well in school and on the SAT that he gets into a selective school like UVA....and then do a happy dance when things don't work out for him at college. My guess is that he had been struggling for a while with the course work, started getting more into his major and simply couldn't hack it. By the time he came home his parents knew that he was likely coming home.

Instead of hiding their heads in shame, they decided to welcome their boy home with open arms and let him take a breather for a while before he gears up and digs his heels in again.

Honestly, I think the one who should feel ashamed of herself right now is this young man's aunt.

[Anonymous]

If my kid just blew 60 grand of mine at college and came home to work a dead-end job there'd be no bragging about having the family together. 20yo aren't supposed to be at home hanging with their parents. I'd consider myself a failure and I'd be making their life very uncomfortable.

OP's fam is telegraphing that it's not a bad thing, it's a good thing. Mums that can't let go are the worst. They don't see they're ruining boys.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If my kid just blew 60 grand of mine at college and came home to work a dead-end job there'd be no bragging about having the family together. 20yo aren't supposed to be at home hanging with their parents. I'd consider myself a failure and I'd be making their life very uncomfortable.

OP's fam is telegraphing that it's not a bad thing, it's a good thing. Mums that can't let go are the worst. They don't see they're ruining boys.

Op doesn't know what laws have been laid down in her sister's home. Op doesn't know how badly her nephew is feeling right now.

This kid still has a ton of potential. He needs to dust himself off, earn some money and then get back on that horse. This is just a mere setback. He'll do fine.

[Anonymous]

OP, can you have a heart to heart talk with your sister. Try to get her to look at the long term future of her son. Explain to her that the loving thing to do is let him go. It is a shame to get into UVA and drop out. He should at least enroll in community college right now. Tell her he will feel really bad when all his friends are graduating from college and he is still delivering pizzas.

[Anonymous]

I'm going to suggest that a woman who raised a son who got into UVA probably knows a thing or two about reaching goals...

[Anonymous]

If it was yale, wouldshe have let continue?

[Anonymous]

Wtf at all the dropout success stories? No way in hell the majority of dropouts go back and finish. A crappy job and a doting mom could be the rest of his life. And the longer he wants to return the more likely he never will.