Parenting, Part II

     Yesterday I wrote about my son.  Today I write about my youngest daughter.  Aislynn left for school a couple weeks ago because she volunteered to help with school orientation.  She had gotten into a four-bedroom apartment on campus, but the process of getting in and being assigned an apartment was a little odd.  She clicked on an apartment she wanted.  She was the first one.  Later, three others clicked on that same apartment, and hence it came to be that she had three flat mates whom she'd never met.  All of them were friends.  All of them were male.  All of them were serious party-animals: inviting their friends over to join them in heavy drinking and smoking and using weed and other substances.  NOT GOOD.  Can I say that again?  NOT GOOD.  

    She was there alone for the first week because she was helping with orientation for the first years.  But soon the other apartment mates began to arrive.  One has been fairly nice: asking her if there were rules for the apartment that mattered to her.  She told him she didn't want smoking in the common areas and wanted to know if guests were over.  But the other two won't talk to her, didn't introduce themselves, started smoking and inviting folk over right away, and thus it began.  While Aislynn has her own room with a lock, the doors are thin and the noise and smoke from the others has been intense and problematic.  Add to that that Aislynn starts each school day with 8am classes while they are up late with their "activities" and it has really been a nightmare.  Aislynn told me that these boys are not even that nice to each other.  One asked for a ride somewhere and the other two refused saying he just used them all the time.

    After only a couple days of this Aislynn was clear she needed to move out.  I was clear that it was a dangerous situation.  A group of 19 year old boys, drunk and high with only one female there, one they don't like and don't even care about enough to greet?  She applied to housing to move out, and I moved into a state of not-sleeping.  I kept worrying about what was going to happen.  

    While Aislynn is not prone to drama or exaggeration, the few things she did share convinced me more and more that this was not a good situation.  Her stuff was moved (like dishes and food), then her stuff started disappearing (again, like dishes and food).  No one asked if they could have her loaf of bread, or her fruit, or her cup, they just took it. They still refused to acknowledge her existence and refused to tell her when they were bringing other friends over. Then the ants showed up.  Aislynn is very clean: but not everyone is.  So we ordered her ant traps because she was the only one who cared that the ants were there.  

    Today marks two weeks since all of this began.  From the beginning I've been asking if I could call the resident life people and push on them to get her moved.  But Aislynn was very clear: she is a 19-year-old adult now, trying to live as an adult.  She wanted to take care of it herself.  She knew who to contact, she had contacted them. She took my advice about what to say, and they said they were working on it and we just needed to wait.  But it felt more and more unsafe to me and I was not seeing the movement that I felt was essential in getting Aislynn out.  As a parent, how do you know at what point you need to step in?  I kept worrying that my choice not to step in was setting her up for a disaster.  But I also worried that if I forced my way in, Aislynn would feel I had crossed a line and would shut down, something that had happened before. I also worried she would feel disempowered that she had somehow not been able to do it on her own, and that I had not trusted that she could.  But I struggled to not interfere.  The best I could do was to just check in with her again and again throughout each day, making sure she was still safe, still okay.

    Then today she woke up sick. It was not just a little cold.  Her throat hurt, she was exhausted and running a fever, she felt she'd been run over by a truck.  She went to eat breakfast and her food was gone, so there was nothing for her to eat.  And she was certain that her illness was caused by a mixture of stress and filth from her flat mates.  

    Mama bear here had had enough!

    "Aislynn, I am asking for your permission to contact resident life on my own.  There are many reasons why I might be able to move what you have not been able to move.  It is time, and I need this from you."  She gave me permission, though honestly, if she hadn't, I would have contacted them anyway.  

    I left them two messages.  The first one using the terms "dangerous situation for my daughter" and "illness caused by the stress of a scary and unsafe environment", and the second, despite promising Aislynn I would be "nice" using phrases suggested by my professor sister like, "I will be contacting the title 9 coordinator since this is a hostile and unsafe living environment if this is not dealt with today" and "I will also be contacting the authorities since illegal activities such as underage drinking and drug use are part of the issue unless this is dealt with in the next 24 hours."

    Within a half hour Aislynn had been offered a different apartment. While she cannot move in until Saturday, she has a contract now for a two bedroom apartment with a female flat mate, whom she has contacted by email. Still a stranger, but this HAS to be better! The process is moving and she can now try to sleep off her illness and pack.  I may be flying back to CO on Friday to help her move just to ensure that there is no unpleasantness with her old flat mates.   

    So many thoughts about this.  First, I will still not sleep until she is out of there, though she does have a couple friends who have invited her to sleep on their couch if necessary.  

    Second, I still feel that it was right to allow Aislynn to try her best to resolve the issue on her own since that is what she insisted on doing. She feels empowered by her own abilities to make the phone calls, send the emails, and to do what needs to be done for herself.  While my help was necessary in the end, Aislynn got the ball rolling.  She could not have continued what she was doing on her own behalf now that she is ill.  And she feels good about what she was able to do.

    Third, I trusted my own instincts in this, and at the point at which it became clear to me that residence life employees were not going to help in a timely way without some pressure, I added the necessary pressure.  Aislynn does an amazing job of adulting in general.  But she is still naive about the dangers in the world or what it takes sometimes to motivate busy and perhaps overworked people to help you. I don't like threatening.  But I will do what I can, whatever that is, if I feel it will not make the situation worse.  

    Fourth, I had a number of folk in my life second guessing my choices in this. Some said I was not standing up for my kid with enough strength or insistence. I understand why they felt that way, but when we judge others, we never see the complete picture. If I had interfered sooner, Aislynn would not have felt that I trusted her, and she would not have felt capable of dealing with it as much as she did.  I had constant contact with her and kept offering to step in, to fly out, to write, to call.  Aislynn was very clear until this morning that she did not want my interference in this but wanted to handle it herself.  And as I mentioned yesterday, there is huge value in trusting your kid to try to work through their problems on their own.  We may not agree with their choices, but trusting them to make those choices is important to their growth, their independence and their ability to adult on their own.  More, it is important to their sense of self-worth as people who are no longer seen as just "children" in need to being defended and protected, but as capable adults-in-the-making.  For this reason, I may have to let her move on her own, as much as I want to help.  She is again saying she has friends who can help and she'd rather feel she could do it without my help.  I may not like all her choices, but I have to respect them.  And still, there were others who said I was being too much of a helicopter parent, but I stepped in when I felt it was necessary.

    And the lessons for me?  Several.  I need to continue to trust my own instincts while still listening to the wisdom around me. I need to let go and trust that I've raised capable, amazing children, and yet, even as I let go, I still need to be ready to step in when needed. Third, as I said yesterday, we are so connected to our children that they truly suffer nothing alone.  When things are bad for them, they are bad for us too.  I'm looking forward to Aislynn being out of her current apartment, not only for her own sake but so that I can sleep again!  And finally, once again, all things come to an end: good, bad, indifferent: they all move.  This has been a true challenge, but it is almost over, and for that I am grateful!