“Children” and Expectations — sucks

I have not managed my expectations well concerning my children, particularly my son.  As he grew I had all sorts of dreams and visions of his future (and of course mine, watching him do the fantastic things I expected, all the while my face glowing in pride).

Now I am deflated, upset, disappointed.  I suppose it could be worse, as well as flunking out of school ONCE AGAIN, and having no desire to continue, at least he is NOT being a disrespectful lazy pain in the ass.  I am assuming that’s because his girlfriend keeps him on an even keel and, even more likely, because she just KEEPS him at all.  He spends most of his time with her, which is more than fine with me.

After this last debacle, I told him I want him OUT.  He’s 23 and thinks he is going to make a career as a freakin’ rap star.  I wouldn’t mind his tooling around with the rap except what happened is that he was doing just fine in school until his stupid friend (who WAS homeless) inherited $100k (which, by the way… as predicted by me… is ALL GONE now, in less than eight months).  The friend decided they should open a record label (didn’t happen) and have my son record his rap professionally.  The friend got my son a new microphone and some other crap and made promises of burning CDs… they made “business plans” (yeah, right) then his friend spent all the money on pot and parties and who knows what.  Makes me sick.  And even if the money was STILL there… so what??  You still need a backup plan JUST IN CASE your stupid rap career does not come to fruition… which it has not.. big surprise.

My son is a fool and a disappointment… of course I don’t tell HIM that… I’m not evil… but I truly think it.  I DID tell him I want him out… it’s time for him to take some responsibility.  If he’s not going to concentrate on the SIMPLEST school studies, forget it.  He claims, “I’d rather work at Starbucks than…” (Of course he CAN’T work at Starbucks because they fired him years ago.) 

First he thought he’d make it as a comedian.  He did stand up for about a year or so, earning about $50, the rest was open mikes.  We financed his school at Second City, where he did quite well and could have entered the conservatory if he took ONE acting class… no dice.  We paid for a stint at Improv Olympics.  We bought him all the books he wanted on improv… where did that get him (us)… NOWHERE.  He pursued it for about 2-3 years in total. We supported it in every way… went to his shows, got friends to go to this shows, etc. etc.  It eventually drifted away. 

Then he decided to take phlebotomy classes at the local community college… it would take less than 1 year to become a phlebotomist and he would have a great back up plan.  Doing great… in the last stint.  Then this STUPID friend comes along and my son’s attention gets pulled away from studying and he decides to begin his damn rapping career.

Obviously, I’m livid.  I have probably never been so angry, disappointed and shattered by anyone.  And I blame myself in a lot of ways, for not being much tougher on him when he was younger.  I was much harder on my older daughters, and they have turned out pretty well (with some brief twists and turns).  With my son, I THOUGHT I was doing a BETTER job (him being born 13 years after his nearest sibling).  Instead he was babied much too much, and even worse after he was diagnosed with diabetes.  Now, look at him… a black sky over us.