Unique situation, advice needed...

[cybele]

She has been living with us for the past 2 months and everything on that front has been completely fine. It is just like having another couple in the house.

Whilst I know she would have kept going on if we didnt put her up, I think the outcome of her future would be completely different, and I think she deserves every chance to be the best person she can be, rather than struggling to make ends meet. I think all kids deserve that, whether they get it or not depends on the situation but when there is a chance for me to change that outcome for someone I will, especially if they are someone who is very important to one of my family members.

And yes, at least there wont be any teen pregnancy going on, HAHA. Although there has been talk of an adoption that apparently will occur sometime in the next 10-15 years.

 

[akmom]

Ah, I agree with you and I don't - at the same time. People have basic needs that they must address before they can pursue bigger goals. Shelter is definitely one of them. Then on the other hand, there is that paradox where people who have had to carve out their lives from scratch ultimately succeed more than those who had a lot of help. Statistically, college students who work during college are more likely to graduate than those who do not, for example. Students who play sports have higher grades than those who skip them and theoretically have more study time. In my extended family, all the ones whose parents put them through college ultimately dropped out, but most of the ones who did it themselves graduated and succeeded. I know those are not the same factors as your situation, but I do believe that the amount of support one gets does not correlate to their ability to succeed, and may even be inversely related. Perhaps that is because they are more invested, having had to work so hard to get somewhere, or perhaps it is because of all the connections they inevitably make along the way to secure their needs. Perhaps it's both.

That is not at all to suggest your hospitality is needless, or even detrimental, because life is so much more complex than that. But I think that your presumption that any money she might save on housing will be directly converted into an investment in her future is, well, simplified and not necessarily true. Now the kindness and stability you have ultimately given her is, I believe, indisputably beneficial.

 

[cybele]

Im saying that she cannot support herself through high school on the small wages she earns now, and she will not make enough classes in high school to graduate if she takes on more shifts. It is one or the other.

If she is not living with us she will end up on the streets, she has no one, she is 18, so social services dont care.

 

[Testing]

akmom: I really don't know anything about Australian culture, but taking in a high school daughter's boyfriend and allowing them to share a room together seems to me like it would be a <I>bigger</I> issue for people to swallow. I can think of a lot more concerns parents might have in that scenario. Is letting adolescent partners live together under their parents' roof really that common?

Yeah, I'm gobsmacked (to borrow from the Brits) over this assumption that allowing adolescent partners to be together under a parent's roof would be fine and dandy. Not in my universe. Not even in the ridiculously liberal high school my daughter has been attending would most of the parents be just dandy with this. The kids talk smack but when it comes down to it, most of them have involved parents who put a stop to this kind of thing where they can. Amazing.

When I was a senior in high school, my boyfriend got kicked out of his parents' home (essentially an attempt to extort "rent" from him that ultimately amounted to their entire mortgage payment, since they were temporarily unemployed), and my parents thought it was terrible... but inviting him to live with their daughter certainly didn't cross their minds!

Yeah. Mine might have actually invited him for a brief time to stay until he could get a place, but you can bet he would be in the basement bedroom my brothers had set up, and not anywhere near me if they did.

Personally I don't think that Violet's entire future depends on whether you put her up. Young adults have navigated living arrangements with or without their parents in many ways and made themselves successful.

No kidding. Most of them, in former generations. We all hit the road between 18 and 20 back in the day. My brother got his own apartment at 17 with a friend. It wasn't unheard of for great-grandparents to take off at 14 to make their way in the big city.

It's an unusual arrangement in my mind (some kind of cross between a sibling relationship and underage co-habitation, but not quite either), but at least with the gender factor you don't have to worry about teen pregnancy

Well, true... now there's a silver lining. I love optimistic people.

 

[cybele]

I moved out at a young age too, however, the cost of living in Australia at the moment is reaching an insane degree. You cannot get a rental in Melbourne for less than $1000 a month, petrol is hard to afford, and our public transport is privatised, so the cost of that is also through the roof. We have just passed a carbon tax, so now we get taxed for using gas and electricity, on top of the cost of said gas and electricity.

Look, I understand that this is not the most heard of situation, however, there are many people living in situations that are not the norm who are doing just fine, at this point I am asking for advice on aiding Violet in her relationship with her parents, not the logistics of their living arrangements, or what people in generations past did.

Testing, most of our great grandparents did things that would not be legal nowadays, I dont know about the US, but here, you must stay in school until you are either 16 or have completed year 10 (whichever comes first) therefore, yes, while many many years ago people did take off to find their fortunes at the age of 14, that cannot be done now, it is also very stupid to do now as there is very little you can do without a college/university education.

My point behind doing this is for Violet to stay in school, to finish high school and to get into university and study and make something of her life, not for her to go wandering the world seeking fortunes old-school style. We dont do that anymore, that gets us nowhere now.

 

[akmom]

I camped out for an entire summer while working one year, and lived in my car for part of another. The first rental unit I could afford was $700/month with no running water. I biked to work. A friend from high school worked at a factory and slept in a tent in the woods behind it, to save up for college, and he went on to complete grad school. Another donated plasma to make ends meet. A friend from college volunteered at an animal shelter in high school, and landed herself an internship at a vet clinic during college, which paid for veterinary school. Now I am not offering any of these as solutions for Violet, and know very little about opportunities in Australia, but I do believe that where there's a will, there's a way.

 

[NancyM]

I moved out at a young age too, however, the cost of living in Australia at the moment is reaching an insane degree. You cannot get a rental in Melbourne for less than $1000 a month, petrol is hard to afford, and our public transport is privatised, so the cost of that is also through the roof. We have just passed a carbon tax, so now we get taxed for using gas and electricity, on top of the cost of said gas and electricity.

Look, I understand that this is not the most heard of situation, however, there are many people living in situations that are not the norm who are doing just fine, at this point I am asking for advice on aiding Violet in her relationship with her parents, not the logistics of their living arrangements, or what people in generations past did.

Testing, most of our great grandparents did things that would not be legal nowadays, I dont know about the US, but here, you must stay in school until you are either 16 or have completed year 10 (whichever comes first) therefore, yes, while many many years ago people did take off to find their fortunes at the age of 14, that cannot be done now, it is also very stupid to do now as there is very little you can do without a college/university education.

My point behind doing this is for Violet to stay in school, to finish high school and to get into university and study and make something of her life, not for her to go wandering the world seeking fortunes old-school style. We dont do that anymore, that gets us nowhere now.

I think this is a very kind and unselfish thing you did for this girl Cybele and I know I would have done the exact same thing, as a matter of fact I would even have even taken in my son's girlfriend for the same reasons you mentioned. I let her spend the night a few times,instead of her driving in the ice and snow, and a few neighbors raised their eyebrows to this, as they saw her car in the driveway.
But I'd do it again when ever I feel it necessary.

Young adults are people too and sometimes have hardships. If my son loved someone, I would defiantly feel an obligation to help her, for his sake as well as for her.

I think it was the right thing to do.

 

[cybele]

Thank you Nancy