There is something I really need you to know.
I tried. I really, really did. I gave up a job that had promise of promotion and advancement to stay home and raise these people. I was very good at what I did and I figured that I could easily translate that into raising kids. It turns out, however, that in order to get a good outcome anywhere you need to have a bit of compliance. Let's call it a desire to learn what you are being taught. At work, people want to learn to do their jobs. Turns out, unbeknownst to me, kids don't actually want to learn to be totally self-sustaining adults. I truly thought this was just an age thing, but they are, for all intents and purposes, grown now and we still have some major issues.
Take hygiene. Please believe me when I say to you that I purchased every washing, drying, cleaning, acne, teeth, hair, body product known to man for these people. I do not know why they insist on stinking.
I have also taught them how to clean a home. Do not believe them when they stare at you with that blank faced look. They know damn good and well how to vacuum, mop, scrub a toilet and clean glass without streaks. It took me YEARS. It should never take years to learn how to squirt chemicals out of a bottle and wipe them up, but it did and I PERSEVERED! It would have been so easy to just quit and do it myself, but I did not, so when you are staring at their filthy house or car and wondering WTF? don't blame me.
I also taught them how to cook. I know that one person in particular claims to not know how to boil water, but that is a lie. It should go without saying that I also taught them not to lie, but like everything else that fell on deaf ears.
They can do laundry, their own and other peoples. They know how to clean a swimming pool and how to mow a yard. They can take out the trash, get the mail, change a tire and even change the oil in their cars. They just like to pretend they don't know how to anything in the hopes that someone, anyone, will come along and take pity on them and do it for them. And for the things they actually do not know how to do, they are aware of how to read an instruction booklet.
They know how to manage money, they just choose not to. They know how to be kind and gracious to friends and strangers, and most of all,
THEY ACTUALLY DO HAVE MANNERS!
It's all in there somewhere. I'm just hoping that when the moment comes, when the stakes are high and the chips are down, when it's the eleventh hour and everything is on the line,
at least one of those little shits says Please and Thank You to someone.
mine are only 6 and 9, but this is what we have to look forward to? Oh geeze
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