From: mancuso@pilot.njin.net (Tina Mancuso)
Newsgroups: alt.parents-teens
Subject: Response to "My daughter needs to be more assertive"
Date: 26 Jan 93 04:59:17 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

Hi, Ruth (and everyone)...

I've been reading this group for some months now but never contributed
anything, mainly because whenever I decide to respond to something, I
first find that several people have said the same thing I wanted to
but in much clearer terms.  Plus, I'm neither a teen nor the parent of
one, though at just-turned-22, it wasn't that long ago that I was a teenager.

Ruth, I have to agree with what most people have been saying: it's
Rachel's life and she's going to have to start making her own
decisions and dealing with their consequences sooner or later.  *But*,
I can also see where you're coming from: she's your daughter, you love
her, and you don't just want to sit back and watch her mess up her
life.  As most have already said, though, you'll be fighting a losing
battle since, if you manage to get her to go to school where you want
her to, you can't control her once she's there, and she could easily
fail out -- it sounds like *exactly* the type of thing a passive-
aggressive might do as revenge for your forcing her to go.

If all she wants to do is to be a housewife, I don't see how you can
stop her -- but you might (if you haven't already) make her realize
that there may come a time in her life when she's *really* going to
need an education and some skills to fall back on; divorces happen, as
do deaths, abandonments, etc.  (She should already know this, given
that it happened to you.)  What will she do if her husband leaves and
she's got no parents or family to turn to?  How will she support her
kids?  I've known far too many people who just couldn't handle the
burden and ended up on Welfare or homeless.

BTW, I can see where she's coming from in her "I-don't-want-to-be-like-
mom" attitude; I went through the same thing myself, and not all that
long ago -- in fact, most of my childhood I had that attitude.  You
see, my situation was a lot like your daughter's:  my father had left
when I was very young (only he never came back), and my mother was on
her own, with no choice but to work and support me.  (Unlike you, she
never went to college or grad school, but did the best she could with
what she had, and has always been highly praised in her work as an
Accounts Payable Clerk.)  Until I was 9, I spent most of my time with
my mother's two sisters (5 and 10 years older than me, and they
resented always having to drag me with them wherever they went), and
from the age of 9 on, I was a "latch-key kid" -- I stayed home alone
until my mother got home from work.  I, too, resented the fact that
she didn't stay home and bake cookies, but my personality was, I
guess, more like my mother's: when I got mad about not having someone
to bake cookies, I learned to bake them myself.  And since my mother
never really made that much money, it had been clear ever since I was
old enough to read that someday I was going to college, but I was
going to get there by doing hard work and winning scholarships, because
my mother just couldn't afford to send me.  And that's just what I did
-- at the time I hated (or thought I hated) my mother so much that I
worked as hard as I could so that I could move and do what *I* wanted,
not what *she* wanted me to do.  And now that I'm about to complete my
B.A., I know that I don't hate her, and never have.

I thought I hated her for not being like everyone else's mother, and
for moving around a lot (about 6 times that I can remember), and for
living in some really bad places (in the Newark, NJ school I attended
for 4 years, I was repeatedly picked on, and once was hit about an inch
from my eye with an umbrella, requiring stitches), and for being
strict with me, etc., etc.  When I was 16 and old enough to get my
working papers, she told me to find a job to pay for things like my
clothes, my school expenses, college applications, and the little
"luxury" items I needed/wanted.  I found a job and from then on, for
everything except food and the roof over my head, I was
self-supporting.  Since I've been in college, I've been *completely*
self-supporting, and I prefer it that way because I *hate* asking
anyone for money.  But now I realize that by making me get a job, and
by making me cook my own meals and wash (and buy) my own clothes, she
gave me the most valuable thing I have now: the knowledge that I can
make it on my own.  I used to think I never wanted to be like her, but
now I only hope I have *half* of her strength.

I think that you have to let your daughter go.  You have to let her do
what she wants, and let her face the consequences for it.  It won't be
easy, but if you don't, she'll never forgive you.  Maybe if you *do*
let her go, she'll realize, as I did, that her mother gave her many
precious gifts she never realized she had.

BTW, what about her father and stepmother?  I forget what you said
about their relationship to her, but you did mention that she had gone
to live with them.  Is she still living with them?  Are they sharing
the financial burden of her college education?  What do they think
about her choice of schools?

I'm sorry this has been so long, but as I said, I felt similar to your
daughter, and not all that long ago.  I dealt with it differently than
she is because my personality is more rebellious and -- I hesitate to
use the word "aggressive" because I actually tend to be passive about
most things, but it's still probably the most appropriate word.  I
didn't want my mother in control of my life, so I learned independence
from the very one I thought I hated, got control of my own life, and
only after that did I realize that I didn't hate her, and that she'd
been far more valuable to me than I'd ever guessed.

--Tina
tmancuso@drunivac.drew.edu
mancuso@pilot.njin.net

P.S.  Ruth, perhaps you could print this message out and show it to
your daughter.  I'm no pop psychologist, but maybe it'll help her to
see the reaction of someone who's been through similar experiences and
knows how she feels.