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very serious question, I am soooo confused

Jeans222's picture

Husband and I have been notified by his adult daughter that his son, who is almost 17...
is failing school.
We have also been informed that last year he barely passed, but this year is failing miserably.
HE DOES NOT LIVE WITH US.

Now to add the confusing part... when he turned 16 his mother bought him a brand new chevy truck. Since then he has seemed to have taken to being lazy and unmotivated in everything EXCEPT his truck.
I have no idea why his mother bought him such an expensive vehicle as his first vehicle, but she did ( with child support money I bet) ..
anyway...
now he wants to quit school and get a GED because he does not want to wake up and go to school.

MY QUESTION IS:
Do you suppose buying him that new chevy truck
has psychologically messed him up?
and now he will be a freeloading low life with
"easy come, easy go" mentality?
do you see any good in buying a new truck for a kid failing school? ( because thats what birth mother did)
and why would she do such a thing? as it seems to have destroyed ALL HIS MOTIVATION.
and lastly... is there anything we can do about it?

Amazed's picture

Do you suppose buying him that new chevy truck
has psychologically messed him up?

My answer: no. My mother gave a car to me... had it completely overhauled and repainted and gave it to me. I paid car insurance,gas,repairs,etc on my own. Then when that car died my mother signed for me to get a new car. I made double payments on it til it was paid then put it in my own name. No psychological damage from that. I plan on giving my son the vehicle I'm driving now as it was brand new when I bought it and it will only be 10yrs old when I give it to him...an excellent starter truck for him.

"now he will be a freeloading low life with
"easy come, easy go" mentality?"

My answer: Typically, the purchase of one item for a child doesn't give them this mentality...usually this "easy come easy go" frame of mind comes from years of spoiling and coddling....

do you see any good in buying a new truck for a kid failing school? ( because thats what birth mother did)

My answer:I wasn't doing very well in school when my mother helped me out...but if I didn't have a car it would have made her life WAY more complicated than she could handle. My grades actually improved when I got my car bc ins company offered incentives and discounts for good grades:)

why would she do such a thing? as it seems to have destroyed ALL HIS MOTIVATION
My answer: She probably wanted to treat her son,make her life easier instead of taxicabbing him all the time and if something such as a truck destroyed his so called motivation he likely didn't have that much motivation to start with.

is there anything we can do about it?

My answer: probably not. It sucks but probably not. There's nothing wrong with a GED by the way obviously it isn't the ideal but...my mother didn't graduate high school due to pregnancy and she got her GED at the age of 33 I believe. Now she's an Insurance Agent and makes fantastic money.

~Always forgive your enemies...nothing annoys them so much~ Oscar Wilde

Jeans222's picture

She gave him a NEW truck and he pays NOTHING, no insurance, gas
and no car payments.

Is that the same to you as an overhauled car given to you that you pay insurance, gas, etc?

Let me say it again:
HE PAYS NOTHING. He doesn't even have a job.

and she did not EVER have to taxicab him... her 19 year old lives at her house too with a new car and they live 3 blocks from the high school.
The 19 year old was not going to school or working either so the mother never had to taxi him anywhere.

see..........
He uses it to race in the mud... and writes about it on his myspace page.

Maybe the overhauled car helped you but since his mother bought him a NEW CHEVY TRUCK.. his grades have gone down as he hardly goes to school, says he doesn't like ewaking up that early.
It seemes to have made him lazy. I guess so... as many grown men would love to have a truck like that, not to mention, its all free for him.

Amazed's picture

ok well obviously this is all his mothers problem then...SHE created the problem. I can understand why it's bothering you so much but really...what are you going to do about it?

Forgive me it just seems like you bend yourself so far worrying about your husbands children but is he getting this stressed over it or is he just letting the biomom handle the problems she's creating? You seem to have a lot of good values and good energy that you can use in other ways instead of trying to control things that are out of your hands. Just by the tone of your posts I can tell this is just eating at you and making you bitter and angry...it helps to focus energy on areas in your life that can be controlled directly by you.

Good luck

~Always forgive your enemies...nothing annoys them so much~ Oscar Wilde

Jeans222's picture

Worries me because it worries my husband. He said she has casterated him taking away all his motivation. He is also worried he won't graduate high school, and you know he is paying child support so he goes to school.

I'm not bending over backwords in worry, just a concern and asking question about how others view this. This is what the forum is for, isn't it? venting and general chat about our situations.
If I'm bitter and angry... which I don't feel I am, must have been born that way because my concerns are what they are.

My husband comes to me for understanding and support and I do not know how to do that for him because his ex does things I have never even heard of anyone doing except maybe the very wealthy and in this situation, no one in this situation... is very wealthy.
So... it makes no sense to me why a woman would buy her son a new truck ( not a cheap one, I think it was 32,000 as my husband has the same make and model truck and thats what he paid for his) when he can't even pass except by the skin of his teeth. He is a pleasant kid, not evil or foul mouthed and acts nicely around us, but... he isn't very smart.
Semms to me
his mother would use the truck as incentive and buy it for him when he graduates high school, not for his 16th birthday when he isn't doing well in school.

Maybe she did so to bribe him? not sure... as it really makes no sense to buy an expensive thing like that for a kid who shows no signs of any responsibility and is pretty lazy.
He will tear it up doing his mud racing and that will be her problem...
but I'm worried what is happening psychologically to the kid as my husband asks my take on it and I have no idea why BIO mom is doing what she is doing or what she hopes to accomplish by it.
I guess I am thinking BIO mom is maybe intendsing to screw the kid up for life by making him a L_O_S_E_R !!!
because thats what it seems like.

?