PARENT: VERB OR NOUN | FAMILY COUNSELING CENTER ASSOCIATION

“I have a 17 year-old who is pregnant. She is involved with the baby’s father and has been sneaking behind my back to see him. She lies to be about where she’s going because she is seeing him. The baby’s father is on drugs, is in and out of jail and steals to get money for drugs. Now my daughter is stealing for him, so he can buy drugs. She has stolen from me in the past. She had a cell phone and a truck that’s paid off. We pay her insurance on the truck. When I found out what was going on, I took all that away from her.

She has no help from anyone other than her father and I, as far as, dealing with her pregnancy. She has been in lots of trouble in school since the fifth grade. I have gone through hell for this kid over the years. She is ADHD and refuses to take medication for it. She also has some depression. She makes up stories to tell me, actually making up fictional friends she’s supposedly with when she really goes to be with bad people. She has gone to drug houses with the baby’s father to get drugs.

I worry about her safety, hanging out with the kind of people she’s with. She doesn’t have any decent friends because of the way she is. I’m at my wit’s end. Do I throw her out because of the trust issues? And if I do this, am I throwing her to the baby’s father, who’ll get her into trouble? I’m lost and confused. I love my daughter and want the best for her, particularly now that there’s a child involved. I’m not even sure of the baby’s health. Please any advice you could give me would really help.”–Distraught Mother

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Dear Distraught,

This is most parents’ worst nightmare. The trouble here is that you’re in the gray zone of parenting. She’s not quite an adult, but she’s making adult decisions that are bringing her adult consequences. I understand that you’re afraid for her. I am, too, and I don’t love her as you do.

All that being said, there’s not much you can do to keep her from making really big, really scary choices. You’ve tried putting down your foot and it’s not doing any good. You’ve asked if you should throw her out of the house, but it sounds to me as if she’s already left.

Here’s a sad reality. You can’t keep her from doing drugs (even while she’s pregnant) and you can’t keep her away from the boy who fathered her child. You’re human. You can only do so much. At seventeen, she’s close enough to a legal age that she would have a right to confidentiality should she see a therapist or a doctor. It’s not likely that the police would spend manpower to go after her if she ran away.

She gets to make her own stupid decisions. I seriously do not recommend you chain her up to keep her from doing this. This won’t be successful and the consequences for you would be horrific.

You, however, get to decide the kind of home in which you live. If she’s stealing from you, you can call the police and report this. You can also tell her that she can leave if her being there is disruptive to your life. I know you don’t want to do these things. You want to take her cell phone and her truck, ground her and control her life like she’s still seven years-old.

I get that. She’s acting like she needs some control and, if she continues the way she’s going, she’ll end up in the prison system, with her child in foster care.

Here’s what you can do: You can insist that everyone who’s living in your home respect other’s property. You can (which you’ve probably already done) point out what you are willing to do for her as her parent (cell phone, truck).

Here’s what you can’t do: You can’t make her take you up on any of this. You can’t control who she sees or hangs out with. She’s so close to being grown up that it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to continue providing a roof for her stealing self.

Yes, she may (probably will) go to her drug-using boyfriend. How is this different from what she’s already doing? You hint that she’s done drugs herself. This is extremely harmful to her fetus and to herself. If she delivers in a hospital and her child comes up positive for drugs, the child will be removed from her care by Child Protective Services and she’ll have to clean up her act before the baby’s returned to her.

Don’t keep fighting a losing battle. Accept her choices as painful as these are.

Parenting is a major, major life task and most of us aren’t prepared for it. One of the hardest aspects of this job/role is knowing when to quit. You know how significant your own parents were, but it’s really important to acknowledge that this job changes.

When children are young, they need to to take care of even the most basic needs. They need and deserve your sheltering care. As they grow older and more capable of caring for themselves, parenting starts to shift from an action to a role. Nothing is sadder than the parents of adult children lecturing the kids on what they should and shouldn’t do.

Don’t waste your breath.

Kids need your loving belief at that point, but not generally your direction. Yes, they’ll flounder and make mistakes. They’ll choose bad jobs or careers and even worst relationships. They’ll sometimes make a mess of their lives and you’ll cry yourself to sleep.

But what your kids really need is your firm conviction that they can pull themselves out of even the most difficult spots. They need you to believe they can do it. Even when they aren’t sure of this. They need you to see them as stronger than they do.

And get this–if they’re really capable people, they don’t need rescuing all the time. When we rescue others, we tend to want to tell them what to do. Kids resent this as much as they resent needing you. It just reminds them of their own weakness. You don’t want to do that. You want your children to believe in themselves…even if the road to that self-belief is rocky.

Don’t get me wrong, I help my own kids. I just don’t do for them what they can do for themselves and I don’t tell them what to do…even if they look like they need some direction.