Dear Amy: I am a single mom taking care of my 15-year- old daughter and 12-year-old son.
I work full time and take care of my house and yard.
A 63-year-old couple live down the street. They pay my son to do their lawn work.
This couple is semi-retired. The wife is a homemaker, and the husband a college teacher.
They are adopting a 12-year- old boy who lives in a foster home. He has been at their home for a few weekends.
This couple has recently become extremely friendly with my family and me. Over a recent school vacation, my children and I went away.
The day we got back, the wife sent the adoptive boy over to my house to play with my son.
The wife said to me, “We have had this boy all week!” She said they needed “a break,” that she can’t relax in her own home, and that she was so glad we were back because we could help her with the boy.
This week she called and told me that she wanted to work out a deal with me. After the adoptive son’s move-in, he would be taking care of the lawn work, so she wanted to change my son’s lawn work to babysitting. They have a wedding to attend two days after he moves in, and every month they have dinner and book-club meetings and activities, and they need my son or daughter to babysit at my home.
She wants to work out a schedule with me; they would pay my children to babysit, and she would need me to be around to make sure everything is going OK. I told her that I will not allow my children to babysit, and that I am a single mom and don’t have the time to fit their needs into my schedule.
This couple didn’t take it well. Any suggestions?
– Worried Single Mom
Dear Worried: My main concern is for this young boy, who deserves better than to be placed with people who clearly are in over their heads as prospective parents. What can they (and the agency placing the boy) possibly be thinking? Surely you share these concerns. As a parent, you know how challenging adolescent boys can be.
They have identified you as a responsible, experienced parent, so if they come back with more “babysitting” schemes, you should share your view that they aren’t prepared to be full-time parents. You should suggest that they speak with their social worker. I’m sure they won’t take that well, but they need to reconsider their ability to be parents to this boy.
…
Dear Amy: I think you came down a little hard on the 16- year-old who wouldn’t go to the high school counselor for help.
Ten years ago my grandson was in high school, and because of his parents’ divorce and little guidance from home, he was failing most of his subjects.
I arranged for the two of us (grandson and me) to see his school counselor.
We got little encouragement, and the counselor treated him like a “throwaway” kid.
Consequently, I became more involved, and my grandson graduated. At the graduation ceremonies, the counselor passed out diplomas, and when he came to my grandson said, “I didn’t think I’d see the day I’d be doing this.” This counselor might have been very good at advising “A” students on how to get into the right colleges, but he couldn’t care less about the needs and direction of the underachievers who really needed his help.
– A Concerned Grandparent
Dear Concerned: I have received a surprising number of negative letters about high school counselors. These anecdotal reports suggest that some of our most vulnerable kids are being ill-served by the professionals who are charged with helping them.
I owe a certain 16-year-old an apology and a “thank-you” for alerting me (and readers) to this issue. If teens have incompetent counselors, they should seek out another adult for help.
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