Won’t lie. This week has been a challenge. Work has, well been horrific. And then I come home and on top of all the other things that a working parent has to put up with, my eldest has seemingly decided to make it her personal mission to make my life a living hell.
How are you guys doing?
It’s go home day from the rig, another two weeks with the family. My wife and I have signed papers to purchase our first home together just a few days ago.
Would be all good, but my 13 year old son’s school counselor called today to say my son has been talking to his friends about suicide and depression. My father killed himself a decade ago. Although he doesn’t like to talk about it, I believe my son’s past with his abusive birth mother hangs heavily upon him.
I feel like if I actually allow myself to think, I will break down in this airport. So I’m going to drink lightly, get home, sleep since I’ll have been up for about 24 hours by then. And tomorrow my wife and I will make a plan to help him.
That’s a hard one to navigate. Little dude has been through a lot. Looking back the therapy in my younger years has been insanely helpful as I moved into my 20s and grew in my career.
Good luck brother.
The lady got diagnosed with an anti immune disease and insurance has denied the medication the GI has prescribed so I might be looking at getting another job after just getting down to one. Medical bills are kicking our ass and we won’t have savings for about 6 months.
But besides that the kid is in good health and my parents are doing good so trying to keep a positive outlook.
Worst I can complain about is that I got a package delivered at 8:00PM last night by some dude in an unmarked car No return address info or any other indication of who it’s from. Rather shoddily-wrapped too, the address label is half folded over the side of the box.
I’m expecting two different packages, but both those them have tracking info that say they haven’t been delivered yet.
Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but this checks like 3/5 warning signs for suspicious packages from my yearly training at work, so I’m just gonna let it sit and be mildly anxious for a while.
Also, trying to convince myself to go do yard work this weekend. Leaves are piling up.
I’m having a general panic that my 15 year old daughter does not need me at all and I do not factor into her life…
This commend ended up being super long so I made it a separate post.
Well it’s friday before Halloween and I just finished the jack-o-lantern and the kid’s costume isn’t even close to done yet. It’s a shit show this year. Work has been - I don’t want to talk about it. It’s been not good. And the rumor is things aren’t going to get better there before they get much much worse.
Very much like the environment, things aren’t looking good and optimism would be foolhardy; bracing for impact, but honestly know it won’t make much difference.
Oh and pouring thousands of dollars into the dog’s vet bills has been fun, I can see my meager savings evaporate in realtime. And we still don’t know what the fuck is going on.
I’m doing well here. There is pressure to make Halloween live up to the huge hype that the kids put into it. I think as long as there is candy they will be satisfied.
One of my biggest concerns rn is my eldest’s fascination with all things military and police - which in my mind equates to being drawn toward a violent hierarchy. We’ve had talks about how some bad cops do terrible things, and the good cops don’t do enough to hold the bad ones accountable, and on the horrors of war. It doesn’t seem to sway him. I’m hoping he grows out of it. (He’s 11.) Anyway his Halloween costume consists of carrying a Nerf rifle, wearing full camo (which is his daily wear anyway), along with any military-type accessories he can find.
It’s still creativity, role playing, and narrative. Lean in and it becomes engagement, collaboration, and curiosity. Challenge him to go so far with different angles that he’s far too smart to stay in Kansas with the whole acres of depressing perspectives you fear. It’s easy to have push beliefs that require something more than an authoritarian approach. Team building alone introduces social censure on authoritarian approaches. And things change very quickly for kids when their lifestyles demand change.
Most people I know that went hard on authoritarian careers really lacked imagination and enjoyment. But really they were one pushy girlfriend away from making alternative choices.
You’re doing great to be just rolling your eyes and going with it. You’ve said your piece and you’re hanging in 🏆 Being a role model by not being a dictator is definitely the way to go.
Aw, thanks for the reassurance! I’m sure you’re right - he’s a good kid; he’ll turn out just fine.
Dad life wise - really good. My little boy (nearly 3) is a proper joy and we’re finally at the point where he reliably sleeps through the night. We’ve got baby number 2 on the way so trying to enjoy the sleep while I can.
My work has been a mixed bag - it’s sometimes hard to shake that off and leave work at work but I do my best at pushing it out of my head.
