Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
These fools shouldn't become parents to anyone. They shouldn't have children, period. They are selfish and narcissistic and lazy, letting the nanny do all the rearing, and mooching off grandma to support their lifestyle. That kid will be better off without them, but she sounds like a mess.
The imagination runs wild! Kudos for getting right to the point, Cary.
The 16 yr old reminds me of the little girl in The Secret Garden.
She's a mess cuz every adult she's ever met ignores her! her mom, her dad, her Dad's GF!
Here's the problem with Cary's advice: Neither of the people he suggests to help this child are adequate.
The father here obviously has about as much interest in raising his daughter as the LW does. He hasn't stepped up to the plate so far, in 16 years, so why in the WORLD would he start now, when many of the problems with this child are ingrained and probably harder to overcome?
The nanny?? Are we missing here the detail that the nanny HAS raised this girl, and yet, the girl doesn't know how to brush her own teeth? So what good is it, to send the girl back to this nanny, who -- although she may love Anna -- hasn't necessarily done what she needs to do for this girl.
So who does that leave? I think it leaves the LW. For all her selfishness, she at least seems to have a brain in her head and a somewhat clear picture of the problem.
So, LW, I would say that you have a moral obligation to grow up real quick, work hard to soften your heart, realize that you may be the ONLY person who can truly help poor Anna, and DO THE JOB YOURSELF, hopefully with your future husband's help, if he can be convinced to play a more active role once you willingly do so.
I mean, really, you have an opportunity here to make a huge difference in the life of a human being... why not seize the opportunity? It's not like it will last forever. With a little help, perhaps Anna will grow to be an independent, wise woman in only a few years' time...
My only other advice? DO NOT (Please!!!!) have a child with this man.
First of all, let's face it, this is a rich person's problem. Poor people don't get to ask if they can morally get away with foisting their kids off on the paid help.
No, you can't. Morally justify it, that is. The LW has no particular responsibility towards this girl, as long as she's not involved with her father. Being involved with her father, she does have a responsibility towards her.
Let's go over the history, shall we? Until recently dad only had to see his inconvenient little mistake once a week for dinner. LW was happy with that and would prefer, really, to go back to those days, but the economy is in the toilet and the full-time tutor and the nanny have become extravagances. Priorities being what they are, the kid gets shafted first. Needs help with her homework? Fuck her, the inconsiderate brat. How dare she come to rely on the services that have been provided to her all her life.
The LW makes it clear that daddy will not be stepping in to help darling daughter with homework or anything else, any time soon. He doesn't have to. He has people for that sort of thing.
It seems the LW accidentally stepped into this snake's nest without really realizing that she was the closest thing to a human being within hailing distance. LW may be something of a gold digger, but I don't intend to castigate her for that - having money is good and not having it is bad, and most reasonable people would like to have lots. LW is a decent enough soul to realize that the girl needs and deserves a mother figure, and that resentment isn't a good basis for that relationship.
That said, there's more going on here than meets the eye. I've had a teen daughter and honestly I didn't examine her towels, and if I got fed up with having to do her laundry, it wasn't the panties that bothered me. Folding panties is just not that onerous a task. If it freaks the LW out enough to mention that in particular, something is up. And why the freaking out at the thought that she "still hates boys"? The daughter is a 16 year old bookworm. We've had 20-something bookworm virgins write into Salon, only to be reassured by many, many other posters that such behavior is not that rare among introverts. What we have here is the sort of woman who ends up involved with a very wealthy and much older man - almost certainly a woman who spends a great deal of time on her appearance - and a socially inept kid. Could any two people have less in common? I don't really foresee the LW having deep conversations with stepdaughter about the books she reads.
Dad is a rich creep, and LW is clearly not the Disney movie miracle stepmom who can save this family.
On what basis all the comments about the 16 year old having Asperger's or whatever? This is what we know about her, from the LW's quite probably biased perspective:
1. She was abandoned by her mother in a foreign land at "around" age 10.
2. She has never gone for a haircut on her own. (FWIW neither had I at that age; my mother always took me, and often got her hair cut at the same time.)
3. She does not know how to boil water. Neither did my husband, the product of a stereotypical "Jewish mother," when we met. Sounds more likely the product of never having to do it herself than being too mentally impaired to master the technicalities of the act.
4. Nor does she know how to "do a bed." Does this mean she leaves her covers in a jumble each morning? This describes 90% of the 16 year olds in the USA. Ok...
5. She doesn't "dress herself appropriately." Oh, as in "you're not leaving the house wearing THAT, young lady!"? Sounds pretty normal for the age to me.
6. Needs to be reminded to brush her teeth and wash her hair. There's a wide range of variation on this one and while the stereotype is the teen girl who takes an hour in the bathroom, I've heard of many other teens who needed some monitoring on this front, none of whom were mentally impaired.
7. She lives with her "head in the clouds" and a book in her hand. This is not, contrary to what the drug pushers may now be telling you, a symptom of any disease.
8. She dropped a mug and broke it due to inattention and clumsiness. OMG! This is hardly on par with serial car wrecks, what a weird example of "troubled."
9. She didn't immediately change a towel with blood on it. Could it be possible she expected that the "help" would do this for her since that's how she was raised? Seems likely to me.
10. "Proclaimed to be an expert in something and failed because she merely imagined herself to be one." Um, this sounds like adolescence in a nutshell, no? What a weird sentence, anyway.
11. Her studies are failing now that she no longer has the full time tutors she's accustomed to.
12. She doesn't know what her interests, strengths, or weaknesses are.
13. Apparently she's ugly.
Talk to me like I'm really, really stupid, guys...how does this add up to a mental health diagnosis, exactly?
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
