For some time now, I'm not certain how to relate to my boys, both teens. They never want to go anywhere I suggest, never want to go anywhere with me anymore. If I am upstairs, they go down, if I go into the living room and watch tv with them, after a short while, they go to their rooms.

I remember when I was fun for them to be around. Now I am a drag on them. I feel so sad about all of this. Its been going on for a year or so, but now I feel isolated from them.

I have a great marriage. But, the boys never want to do anything with us or go anywhere.

Very bummed out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi Daisy~

I experience the same thing. My boys 16& 17 never do anything with me or my husband. So me and my husband go to waterparks, zoo's, museum's with out them..Oh well. We used to plead them to go with us but noooo..they always have something more important to do.

I think back to when I was a teenager. I didn't want anything to do with my parents. I loved it when they went out of town. It was a vacation for me when they were gone. I guess my kids feel the same way.

My husband says as they get older they will become closer to us again. I hope so. You know what happens when you have sons and no daughters. When they get married they spend more time at the wife's parent's house http://www.healthboards.com/ubb/frown.gif

A little saying I heard..A son's a son til he marries a wife..a daughter's a daughter for the rest of her life.

Don't get me wrong I love my son's but my heart aches not having a daughter.

Renee http://www.healthboards.com/ubb/smile.gif BTW~occasionally they will watch a video with my husband..shootem'up movies that I could care less about http://www.healthboards.com/ubb/frown.gif

They could be cutting the apron strings so to speak. The best thing that you can do for your sons is love your husband.

This is normal for kids, especially boys. You have to practice "acceptance" with this and as someone else said, this is a time to become closer with your spouse. He is the one you grow old with and spend your days with, not your children. I have a daughter and we are very close, but she still demands her space and I have to respect it. I definitely see a difference between daughters and sons, but they will change when they develop relationships and perhaps marriages , and you will have a new type of closeness, especially if you get along with their significant others.

The easiest thing to do is love my husband. The hardest thing to do is to "let go" of my sons. The one that 16 is nicer than he used to be a year ago. The 21 year old, can't hold a job more than a month and that is IF he's working. I bought him a mobile home, small, to have a roof over his head, and unfortunately paid the bills for a year, yessssssssssssssss a year, ugh! Now he must pay his own way or have no electricity.

That is hard to watch. Being codependent no more is very hard to do. Especially when I have the financial means to help him. What I have done is prolonged him taking responsibility for himself. I thought I was helping. I was hurting instead. Bummer.

I can't imagine why a handsome young 21 year old boy, smart, with a car wouldn't want to work. He tried college, but never woke up in time for class. Everything he does seems to be a failure. His SAT scores were among the highest! He has been in neutral since high school, graduated 2000.

Oh MY!

I am in the same boat with you....my 3 children...2 girls and one boy....stopped doing fun things with us in their teens. They are now 23, 21, 18. My husband and I consider ourselves as "fun people." We go to the beach, Dollywood, camping, boating, etc. They want to do their own thing (and not with us). Was hurtful at first...but I guess it goes along with their generation.

Teens are smarter than thier parents.
When they get into their twenties they think their parents have been taking smart pills because their parents are so much smarter now.

G

My heart goes out to you. My 2 boys were the same way in their teens. It seems like their friends and activities are more important than anything us parents can think of.

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jk

Just hang in there hun.....As the mother of 3 grown sons 20, 24, 28, I can tell you that it will turn around as they mature....this is just part of the growing up process...it's hard to deal with to say the least!! But it will change in time..
Blessings....

Thanks,
I've been learning to let go, reading Codependent No More, a book I used to tell others to read.

Letting go is working. My oldest is now working, since I said I couldn't pay his car insurance and electricity bill anymore. I even cancelled the electric and on the last day he went and opened his own account.

Whew!
D

Tough love!! It's so dman hard!! My youngets has moved back home about 5 times....ending up not working due to poor work ethics (don't know where he got that from as I have always worked my butt off!) So the last time he called to say he was homeless and needed to come home, I said NO..time to stand on your own two feet!! He hung up on me and I haven't heard from him .......that was two weeks ago...I worry myself sick over this....but it's time!! It is SO very hard!!! Bt I will not always be here to bail him out and he has to learn.

Oh LadyV,
Yes, it is when we stop holding the spoon in front of their mouth for them to eat, then and only then do they decide to pick it up themselves.

Then they realize they CAN do it all by themselves, after all.

Other kids, certainly not mine, just bust thru the gate and take life by its horns for all its worth. Mine, are dragging their feet. I don't know why either. I have my master's degree and have always worked hard for what I wanted.

daisy

I can see it coming also. My son is 14 & we have always been very close, but he is beginning to venture out a little and do more and more with his friends. I let him have his friends over often & try to be extra nice to them. He says his friends all think I'm cool. That helps! If I'm going to the store, he's always jumping in the car with me and wanting to go too. I'm sure that won't last long. We began a little bank account for him to save for a car for when he gets that dreaded drivers license. I am not looking forward to that at all.

I've been divorced for 12 years and he is my only surviving son (I lost another son in a fire years ago) so you can imagine how I feel. I have been dating a wonderful man for 2 yrs. now, and feel blessed that I have him in my life. I don't feel so alone when I think of my son growing up and leaving me. They are crazy about each other, and the 3 of us go out to lunch together almost every Saturday. All I can do is enjoy it while it lasts!!

Oh MY! My son was the sweetest child...bubbly...very popular in jr. high..then came puberty. He turned like night and day. He was so hateful....we basically quit communicating..because us parents were so "stupid"...lol. He became a computer addict...pulled away from friends.. What kept me going..is even in high school, once and awhile he'd plop himself across my lap for me to "tickle" his back...but that was the only sign that my sweet caring boy was still in that bratty body! AND THEN HE WENT TO COLLEGE....WOOHOO I have my son back... Take heart ladies..it does happen..let home be a "safe-haven"...pick and choose what fights you make (they aren't worth it)...and you WILL be respected once again.
Now he's graduating with a computer science degree...top of many of the classes he's in!

That's so funny, k&d, my son lays across my lap and wants me to scratch his back all the time, too! It must be a boy thing! He's also a computer addict, but most of the time he's emaining his friends, not alienating them. He begins high school next year, so I know the changes will be coming. He's just beginning the puberty thing -shows off his pit hair, works out with weights & constantly shows me his "huge muscles", comments on girls... (geez!)

Daisy, stop feeling ignored and start looking for things that interest you. Get a new hobby, see some friends, just enjoy the peace and quite.

My children are 25 and 23, they went through the phase where it just wasn't cool to be seen with your parents, they don't mean to really leave you out, it is just that when you are in your teens being cool is everything - I remember when there were few things about my parents that didn't embarrass me, our kids are the same.

I have one daughter and one son, the daughter is 25 and the son is 23. Both of them come over to our house a great deal, see them both several times a week. As the years have gone by they even socialize with me, my husband and our friends. It seems we are not so dull and not fun as we were 10 years ago. My son is married (March 15, 2003) and we see him more now than we did before he got married. Go figure.

Thanks everyone,
My son is talking to me more and I'm not worrying about whether he spends time with me. He will if he wants, or if he wants something or whatever.

I'm pretty busy, working part time, making stained glass windows the rest of the time.

i'm 18 and for the past 3 years of my life i avoided my parents at all costs. i'm just now starting to talk to them again and spend time with them. the age of 15-18 is a time where a teen wants independance. they want to be 25 years old but they can't. the only way to gain this pretend independance is to pretend that there is no one looking after them. now that i'm 18 and realize this i have opted to live at home for the first few years of college and am thankfull for all my parents are offering me. if you give it a few years they will get over themselves and come back to you.

Hang in there..there is the wonderful possibility of grandchildren!!!!

My daughter who is only 12 now has always been independent. She does not want to be "seen" with her parents, now.
Anyway I will force her to enjoy stuff with us, (some of the time), when she is older, if possible.
I tell her she will be moved away and she won't get to do fun stuff with us anymore. That usually keeps it in perspective for her.
She won't live at home when she is older. She is like her dad & mom...can't wait to get OUT & start being independent!
The downside is it is very trying at times.

I notice it too, I try to get out more, but I still love my mom, I just wanna have fun and be around with people.

hi
im still in my mid-late teens, and i must point out, almost all teens gow through this, boys more then girls... especially ME...
i dont go to stores, or even to resturaunts with my parents..and like reneeintx said before, parents going out of town is a vacation for me also.. its just a simple phase.. and in a while, it will surely pass..it doesnt mean that your kids dont love you or anything. of course they do, but its just something that they all (most anyway) go through..

hang in there..

I have more boys than girls, five in all, some over 40, youngest 30-something, and for those whose offspring spend more time with the husband, and/or the husband spends more time with them, it's probably about psychological male insecurities, right?

If a hubby was youngest and smallest in an all-boys family and got bullied a lot, there may be multiple reasons. For instance that his father also spent more time with the boys, couldn't understand women.

Attitude gets passed on to the next generation. The victim of bullying may feel he's finally reversing that by being popular among young boys, his sons rather than big brothers. (At least one of whom may be gay or a trans-gender.)

Partly it's because back when hardly anyone had any education, some went overboard about male superiority in churches, ignoring or just ignorant of Paul's saying "no male or female in Christ". (Gal. 3:28.)

The girls just go along with the crowd, and through the years even I never understood why my mother-in-law put her foot down about wanting to change church congregations, couldn't drive so ended up staying home alone.

We all thought she just selfish, not a team player. Until the same thing happened to me. I changed churches partly to get on the sub-organist list, didn't want full time as it really is a lot of work, and my hubby was proud, but
now theirs may be pressuring them and/or they may be thinking what we did about my mom-in-law. Finding something else to do is so easy, but widens the gap, actually, when there's problems!

When you get deathly sick they may not show up because in the habit of assuming you can handle everything. Loving hubby isn't any solution. He prefers to be loved by the boys, feels your even cooking hot food is mothering him and choosing what he'll eat. (The gay's influence?)

We need to pay attention to what family habits are forming. I finally realized, and told my fam, the reason mom-in-law got balky was probably because she was being ignored so much and wanted to test if she was loved.

Did it work? Apparently not. Habit too long-standing. They don't know any other way of life.

During some of the religion molesting scandals, some said those priests may have been raised to think sex was only defiling if it was (illicit) with women.
So a little of this may be having subtle effects on most of us. Who knew? What do you think?
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