Easy, We are NCP & I have told DH NONE of our kids (step or otherwise) will live at our house past highschool graduation. We'll give you a few months, but you either go to college & live on capus, join the armed forces, or get a full time job & a studio apartment. Either way, you're out.

LOL I let DH do all the work. I can't make SS do anything. While I know he loves me, what I say does not hold the same weight as DH and the Cuntalotapus. DH tries really hard but they have 50/50. Doing your work 50% of the time is a F.

I did intervene this year. SS made first string on the football team this year, he really loves playing. He chose to skip his social studies project and skipped a few homework assignments. I called the coach and let him know that SS doesn't like to do his homework or turn it in if he does. SS12 came home and said the coach jumped his ass. We just got his interim...all As and Bs.

The coach told him there was no slacking the semester after football is over either because if he doesn't end the year with at least a 2.0 he can't play next year. So hopefully that little tidbit keeps him on track. His coach is also his PE teacher so if he starts slacking I might call the coach again.

I am lucky in the fact that the SS's have good grades. SD15 fluctuates in her grades. But since BM PAS'd her and I won't allow her back in our home, I have no worries. Besides she will have the life her mommy has..seek men and use them like kleenex. Have babies as their meal tickets and marry only for financial opportunity.

As far as the SS's moving along through life is another issue. DH is so high on his horse about his kids being so exceptionally bright and well behaved, I'm just sitting back and watching it all crash. And watching DH go crazy in the mean time.

For instance this week…Monday I brought SS13 to school and from there I made the bag drop off. All the bags were there except SS's clothes bag. I dropped off all that I had and in my mind, if you can't remember to bring your clothes bag after 3.5 years, then you can go without it for 2 days until he comes back over.

I get a call from DH asking how things went and said good. He proceeds to tell me that he will be stopping over BM's house to drop off the bag because SS forgot it this morning. I gave no air time to his decision. Then DH tells me if SS said anything about some papers he needed to sign and I said no. DH say that SS asked him late the night before and that he had told him to get them right away and he would sign them. Apparently SS didn't do that and now he has no signed papers. DH says to me "maybe he'll learn his lesson this time".

My reply…uh, no. because he always has people bailing him out so he'll never learn. DH said in a sarcastic voice…you're right. gotta go, bye.

I just watch it all unravel and this is why…because I was there for DH and skids 100% until I was being disrespected, unsupported and isolated, all by DH and BM.

It's very hard for me to sit back and watch SS15 crash and burn. It goes against my nature. But I've learned that nothing I do makes any difference, so my energy was being wasted. He doesn't want my input anyway, so I don't bother. I'm trying very hard not to care anymore. I'm getting there. Dh is adamant that SS15 will be out of our house the day he turns 18 if he continues putting no effort into any area of his life and keeps treating us like crap. He'll be gone. There's no way we're supporting an adult loser, and we're both firmly on the same page with that.

I'm trying very hard to disengage fully. I'm only about halfway there.

I can understand how it's hard not to get involved when it comes to education. My SD's BM and her boyfriend both barely graduated high school and don't have good jobs. My husband did a trade and has been successful in that. I'm the only one of SD's four "parents" who excelled in school and has a university degree, so I feel a bit of a responsibility to be an example to her and help her with school work.

She's only 6 so she hasn't had much homework yet. I'll have a hard time not getting involved when she does though. It's already hard to hear what "Mommy" taught her and not correct her.

I guess I decided that SD's success (or lack thereof) in life is NOT something for me to stress about because I KNOW that no matter whether she is living with us or living with GBM or living with a BF, GF, cat or whatever? She will ALWAYS be in DH's wallet. ALWAYS. It's how she's been raised. That is the cold hard facts. She's 16 years old, she's NOT going to change.... if she DOES? Then I can be pleasantly surprised but until then... I'll kick back and continue to watch the train derail time and time again.

No amount of bitching, prodding, yelling, talking, screaming, dancing, is going to change SD16. Why get myself all worked up about something that is beyond my control? I'd rather focus on raising our BS4 properly from the get go to avoid having to deal with trying to "fix" him at 14 years old, because that is what we got with SD16. She landed on our door step at 14. 14 years of being taught to lie, cheat, manipulate, use, steal, do the least amount possible. Sorry, but I've come to the conclusion that you just can't "fix" that. It is what it is.

My SK's have graduated high school. But during the last 4 years, I've watched them scrape by with their grades. In fact, their freshman year, one had <1.0 GPA and the other had I think a 1.8. DH never said much, except the usual "You need to get your grades up....now run along and go play on your computer." DH is the NCP, BTW. I would say something, but was summarily told to butt out, it wasn't my business. After their freshman year, we never really heard too much about their grades and honestly I think DH was afraid to. These two kids have ZERO motivation, unless it's to level up on the PS4 game du jour.

I blogged a couple of days ago that one SK landed a really good job, although currently part time, with the ability to go full time. After a month he quit because it was "too hard". The other SK has yet to even start looking for a job (they both graduated this past May). Neither of them have designs on college either.

DH's CS ends next month and he's been all gung-ho for it until SK quit his job. Then DH started feeling the "guilts" that if neither SK is working and CS stops, BM will kick them out. He's made noises about NOT stopping CS next month. *sigh*

Like Notthemomma above, I own this house (I had the house built and was here before DH and I got married). I never put his name on the mortgage or the deed. And like her, I also want to keep it that way so I do have say in who lives in this house. It will NOT be the SK's.

So.... their lack of caring in high school has now crossed over into adulthood. I say nothing about it, but I do remind DH that I will NOT have them sponging off ME -- if he wants to support them, he can move out. Period. I can do just fine financially on my own. The question is, can he??

It's an interesting question. For myself, I DID (for a while) try to ensure that my SDs valued education. I helped with homework, corrected grammar, tried to teach them math with real-life examples. But BM (and their own) complete indifference to (or actively obstructing!) learning was like the freaking Borg - resistance was futile. (Just as a very small example - SD told me once that she didn't read her book for English because her mother told her "You've been reading since you got home, and I'm tired of you being buried in that book! Come watch TV with the family, NOW." I believe it, sadly.)

So I quit. I was banging my head against the wall and the only thing I was accomplishing was giving myself a headache. If BM chose not to value education - and chose to pass those "values" to her kids - it wasn't, and ISN'T, my problem. I will not financially support them, and DH can't. It's on them, pretty much end of story.

And you know what? The older 2 sort of are. Not as well as they COULD have done, no. SD23 is married, SD21 has a 1 year old, both girls and their SO's (and the baby) share an apartment. The girls go to college (part time, but they go) and SD23 has a job (menial, but it's a paycheck). SD21 expects her SO to pay their half of the house bills, and he does. *shrug* Is it a house of cards? Yes, to some extent. But they're doing it, and they're doing it on their own, at least for now. If they screw up, they can go back to their mother I guess. }:)

SD17 is a different story. She's a senior in HS, and pregnant and living in her Baby Daddy's grandmother's basement. She's totally under his control, and it's only a matter of time until he hits her (he has at least one prior conviction for domestic violence, he's an unmedicated bipolar, and I've witnessed him being emotionally abusive). I do believe that eventually she will be living with us (along with her baby). While it's definitely NOT what I would have chosen for her I also believe that there was nothing I could have done. Even if I had kept banging my head against that wall, the exact same thing would have happened because her mother "broke" her and no step can compete with that.

So I stepped back a while ago, and even if one of them might end up living with us (with a baby no less), I don't regret stepping back. I'll deal with it when and if it happens. I probably won't like it and I'll be posting angry blogs at that point, but for now? Right now I care about them the same way I do about my nieces. I love them, but I take no responsibility for them. It works for me.

DH and I decided BEFORE we married that kids could not funk out and live with us.
And DH would not have appreciated my help in raising his kid.

And I had my own kids to raise.

I watched SS flounder and almost fail EVERY year of school from the time I met him. I mostly stayed out of it until half way through his senior year. He wanted to go into the Navy. I thought YAY!!!!! But at that time his grades were to a point where he was not sure he would graduate. That freaked me out so I stayed on my DH to stay on SS. He did pass.

That is the only time I REALLY engaged. It worked for us and we did not have may of the fights about being mean to each others kid. Or picking on each others kid like most of you do here.