I hope I don't step on any toes

peternap · June 09, 2008, 11:33:54 AM

I really hope I don't insult anyone here....but....I noticed something over the weekend that disturbed me. I saw this many times in the baby department but the following conversation (while I was outside smoking a cigarette) tells the story of them all.

Woman (in her 50's): Are you babysitting.

Me: Yep, my son is having his second child.

Woman: I'm waiting for my boyfriends son. His girlfriend is expecting their second too.

Is it just me or is something missing in that relationship?

sparks · June 09, 2008, 05:49:49 PM

Hope I do not step on any myself.

Our newly acquired grandchild's father is missing. He is SO missing that the childs mother isn't even sure who he is!!! Now that's missing. There are clues though.

June 09, 2008, 09:49:30 PM

Shoot Peter, toe stepping is the whole point of this section of the forum.

You are going to have to try harder than that.

-f-

glenn kangiser · June 10, 2008, 01:09:06 AM

He's tiptoeing, eh?, Frank.

That said -- I'd like to see a bit more commitment but won't throw the first stone. I'm not exactly a saint but was married when I raised my kids. That doesn't seem to be the common way much any more.

peternap · June 10, 2008, 04:22:20 AM

Yeah, I am tiptoeing a little Glenn. It's a pretty wide net to throw out. Like you suggested, Marriages don't work out sometimes. Other things happen too, but that's not really what I'm talking about.

To me, the family is everything. Kids need to know they're loved and will be cared for and they need to be raised with some direction. A few of the people I met were Grandparents who like Sparks, were raising their grandkids. That's unfair. Raising kids takes a good part of your life and to have to do it twice is an awesome job.

I understand divorce. It happens. I was blessed by meeting the right woman the first time. But even if I had not, we at least we made the commitment to get married before we had children. But having children with less thought and planning than I did for our new puppy....just seems wrong.

Maybe I'm just getting prudish in my old age.

June 10, 2008, 07:59:59 AM

My distant cousin started a Family tree years ago in the 80's. I worked on it in the 90's and my daughter started it again now. I signed back on and started helping, and I got my distant cousin to start again too.

Kids and new people are signing on daily. The difference now is the Internet. There is a program called Geni I linked in Free stuff. It will keep track of everyone and all can sign up and add their families to it.

Within a couple weeks we are up to ~~216~~ 254 (today) people and the young ones are signing up in droves. They want to know and I think it helps restore a sense of family. I have contacted 19 year old kids that I only met as babies through this.

It helps give them a sense of direction and family because it helps them to know where they came from and where they or family have been. I felt a whole lot different once I knew of the historic family years ago.

I think it is important to start a project like this and do it before the history is gone. The old ones are the resources that can help keep the fabric of the family together.

http://www.geni.com Free

Quote
About Geni

Geni is a tool for understanding and staying in touch with your family.

Geni lets you create a family tree through our fun simple interface. You can expand your tree by adding relatives' email addresses. They will be invited to join your tree and can add other relatives. Your tree will continue to grow as relatives invite other relatives.

Each family member has a profile which can be viewed by clicking their name in the tree. This helps family members learn more about each other and stay in touch. Family members can also share photos and work together to build profiles for common ancestors.

Geni is private. Only the people in your family tree can log in to your tree and your profile. Geni will not share your personal information with third parties. We will not sell your email address or spam you. Users control which communications they would like to receive from us.

Geni was founded by former executives and early employees of PayPal, Yahoo! Groups, Ebay, and Tribe. It is backed by venture capital firms Founders Fund and Charles River Ventures.

If you have any further questions, please contact us.

muldoon · June 10, 2008, 09:27:01 AM

I dont really care if I do step on toes.

It's not that hard to do things in a certain order in life. If you are an observer in nature you will see over and over the repeated pattern of cause and effect, good choices lead to good things, bad choices lead to bad things. It doesnt matter if its the dog that chases cars down a dirt road until he gets ran over, a coyote that mocks the farmer by walking up the the fence, or a couple who cant keep themselves off each other without at least taking steps to avoid un-needed pregnancy. Parenting is a big deal, arguably the biggest task you will ever have in your entire life. It should not be taken lightly, and your bad choices should not cost the rest of us money in food stamps, section8 housing, free medical, and the necessary jails and institutions needed because you cant be bothered to raise a child who will understand this very basic concept.

I was raised by a single mother, I understand sometimes things just fall apart and dont work out. I know some people do the best they can with what they have. What I cannot accept is this baby-daddy symdrome and completly unresponsible "parents" that are becoming prevalent today.

considerations · June 10, 2008, 10:40:50 AM

I was a single parent. I divorced because of the drugs. 2nd best move I ever made. Didn't go running home to Mom and Dad. I humbly think that one can be a good parent, even if you are the only parent.

I also think you two made a good, albeit difficult choice. Babies learn things early, earlier than many suppose. I admire you for taking on custody....at this time in my life, however, I do not envy you.

If your stepdaughter only knew what she was really doing to herself and others longterm. Sometimes the lessons are never learned, sometimes too late.

I wish you all the best. I'm sure the innocent little one is a joy.

Homegrown Tomatoes · June 10, 2008, 01:10:30 PM

Thread drift re: the importance of family. I feel really blessed to have known not only my grandparents, but great-grandparents. My last great-grandma passed away just a year and a half ago. I don't think too many people get a chance to know that many generations, especially getting to know them as an adult. I still have a lot of great aunts and uncles, and even a few great-greats left. Just yesterday, I got word that my great Uncle Cecil and Aunt Mary were both in the hospital. Uncle Cecil has been in pretty bad shape ever since he had West Nile virus at the age of 80, and now he has a staph infection. Aunt Mary had a mild stroke and they fully expect her to recover well. She had no paralysis or anything. It makes me sad to see that their generation is starting to fade away, though. I feel like my kids have missed out the past few years because of being so far away from family. Even my own Grandma is starting to have a lot more trouble getting around... I wish the girls had known her even just a few years earlier. When I tell them stories about stuff that she used to do, they have such a hard time imagining their great-grandma chasing cows or checking trot-lines or killing chickens or leading me on a horse when I was a kid. Guess that's why I tell them the stories. All of their great-grandparents and great-great grandparents have grown to Paul Bunyan proportions in their minds. Every week as a part of what we do for homeschool, I have the girls tell me a story and I write it verbatim for them because their minds work much faster than they can write intelligible words. We have a couple of volumes of said stories they've made up, but my favorites are ones that they've retold about historic family members. I'd told them a story about my grandma chopping the head off a big bull snake with the garden hoe and a frog hopping out of the snake, shaken, but otherwise unharmed. Well, my younger one retold the story, and the snake grew to epic proportions... he was no longer long enough that he covered the width of the road, but instead, he grew to the whole length of the road (a quarter mile!) and when Great-grandma chopped his head off, instead of a frog hopping out, she said that a freight train came steaming out... what was left-over from the snake's lunch.

They have good imaginations. At least I know that my grandkids will someday know a little something about the folks they came from.

June 10, 2008, 02:15:26 PM

My youngest son has lived with his girlfriend for over 7 years - they have 2 daughters - 5 & almost 2 - I always worry about the stability of the home - the little girls are sweethearts (my granddaughters) & I hope & pray that they don't suffer any ill-effects from it - seems like anymore just about all their friends are just living together & have kids - so it's normal to them. My oldest granddaughter got student of the month & has been tutoring the other kids in reading, etc & she is the youngest in the class - won't be 6 until November & will be in 1st grade then. I was a little worried about her being so young to start school, wanted her to wait a year, but she has done just fine. I worry about the public schools but so far all seems ok...

considerations · June 10, 2008, 04:49:00 PM

I'm taking my mother to Houston in a few weeks to my son's second wedding, and to give her the chance to meet her great grandchildren.

It's going to be blistering hot for us NW tree frogs, but there won't be another chance. She's really getting on since we lost Dad.

Plus I'm gaining a couple grandkids in the deal, and have not met them in person yet. Family is important. I'm glad you save the stories, I'm the family "archivist", and know that stories that seem mundane now become precious treasures as time goes on.

I've been saving my mother's, she poo poos it, but she has no idea of their value to generations to come.

NM_Shooter · June 10, 2008, 08:10:42 PM

I am impressed by the number of young women who decide to forego abortion and have their kids, in spite of the economic repurcussions that they are going to endure.

A friend of mine told his daughters that if either of them became pregnant, that he was going to strongly encourage them to give up their kids for adoption if they decided not to get married.

I'm not sure I could do that. I think I would want to be involved in the child's life, and I would want my own child to not have to be seperated from the baby. I consider what a gift my kids are to me, and I can not imagine life without them.

Another friend in Houston has a daughter who became pregnant out of marriage. She decided to have and raise the child and my buddy is very much the surrogate dad to that kid.

I'm surprised at how many single moms there are today compared to 40 years ago. Seems like a lot more divorces too. Growing up, I knew of one kid who had a divorced family. That was huge news around the neighborhood. Now, on my street alone I have one couple living together but not married, and four divorces. This is out of my 8 neighbors on the street.

Have we had a change in values, or are we just a fast-food / disposable mentality when it comes to everything? We seem to be getting married later in life, but not making the right choice for a lifetime. Another toe-stepping topic I guess.

I do volunteer work for my church, and come in contact with lots of sad stories. She's pregnant or young mom, and the father / boyfriend is in jail. Drugs are involved, evictions and utility shutoffs occur, gang problems, and domestic violence. In one trailer that I visited, Grandma was raising 4 kids from son who was in jail. The mom / girlfriend of the son was into drugs and not home nights to take care of the grandkids. Trailer was falling apart and grandma was also taking care of grandpa who is dying of colon cancer.

Seems like lots of folks are in a hurry to make bad decisions. Some folks are just plain unlucky.

I have a four step program for kids too

1) Stay sober.
2) Stay in school.
3) Stay celibate.
4) Stay tight with your family.

I was fortunate to have great parents. I don't believe that it takes a village to raise a kid. I do think that a good mom and dad can get the job done right. Sometimes that mom or dad might have to be a surrogate. I also know some single moms that are doing a great job... and it is only because of a huge effort. God bless them.-

Okay, enough serious stuff. I need to find a thread I can blow off steam and argue in. Glenn, where are you? I need somebody to wrassle with

glenn kangiser · June 11, 2008, 01:22:27 AM

Can't wrestle with you on this one Frank. This gets to be a sticky subject no matter which way you go. Hard to know right from wrong or make rules about it. It depends as PEG would say. He doesn't say it here too much as I tend to get him very riled up sometimes in this section of the forum.

After the kids grow up, become total trash - graffiti artists, destroying other peoples property just for fun - defacing traffic signs - causing wrecks- doing and selling drugs, alcohol-stealing cars-- threatening society in general. etc, then-- I feel they should be exterminated, but they need every chance before it is too late.

Will that do it, Frank?