Hi... I am new to these boards and by the way I am using my friends username since I do not have my own yet. Well I am a 34-year-old single mother to five kids and there ages are 17, 15, 12, 9 and 8. Well I live in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, which is a pretty big city with 1-2 million+ people for those who don't know. Anyways, I am currently raising my five children on my own and we don't exactly live on the best part of town. It is not an area where I would like my kids to go outside alone at at night time or anything like that, but it is all I can afford at the moment (I am working hard on getting us out of this area by the way). Well anyways raising five kids alone especially at my age is very hard obviously (I work 2 jobs too), but to make things worse I am having major problems with my oldest son who is seventeen. He is incredibly mouthy to me and unbelievably disrespectful. He has already been arrested four times in the past ten months... he parties all the time to an extent where I don't see him for days on end and he never attends school. It is an absolute NIGHTMARE... him and I fight constantly. I feel like I have no control over him because he doesn't tell me where he's going, who's he's with and what he's doing because he feels like he's "old enough" to do whatever he wants (he's only 17). Every single time I ask him something like where he's been he tells me to f*** off or mind my own f-ing buisness. I know the people he hangs out with are NOT the kind of people anyone would ever want to be around. I am just soo worried about him because his behaviour is out of control, and it scares me because I was exactly the same way when I was his age (I was his age when I had him). I was into drugs and partying and out of control as well. Well once I grew up and stuff, I had my other four kids with his father, too (we were together for 8 years). My kids father was terribly into drugs and had a horrible drinking problem, and when my youngest child was six months old, he left me to raise the kids on my own and I haven't heard from him since. Anyways, I think one of the reasons that my son is acting the way he is is because he does not have a man in his life. Actually, I know that that is one of the reasons. But there is nothing I can do about it right now, so I was just wondering if anyone had any advice for me on how to handle my child. I don't know if this is a factor either, but my kids are biracial (I am white but their father was black), but they don't look mixed, they look like they are fully black. As some of you may or may not know, the west coast of Canada isn't exactly filled with a whole lot of people of African backgrounds, and I know that my son has had to tolerate racist remarks from some people as well. I also know that my son uses drugs... and I don't mean little things like weed, I know he has done ecstasy a number of times and coke as well. Please, I know that this post is long but I am down to my last straw... I am so confused and scared about what to do about my son, he is absolutley out of control. This is not the way I hoped my life would turn out for me or my kids but I am doing the best I can to support them, and this is a absolutley, total nightmare. Every single night I go to bed not knowing where my son is, and most of the time when he comes home he's wasted... and every time I try to confront him about anything we just end up screaming and yelling at eachother and he takes off... sometimes for hours, sometimes for days. He's never home, it just seems like he comes here to eat and sleep. He doesn't even have a job! Well please someone answer, just any little tiny bit of advice would mean the WORLD to me! Thanks soo much for listening to me!
From a desperate mom,
Samantha:)