Dear Amy, I’m a 45-year-old woman, married to my wife for five years. My issue is my 21-year-old son, who lives with us. He’s a good kid but he’s now unemployed (for four months) and spends his days playing video games.
My son is very book smart, had a full ride to a prestigious university, but only stayed for a year and a half.
He recently applied for the police academy, but he never really follows through with anything. He also dropped out of the fire academy – because he was bored.
He was working as a forklift operator while in school. He’s always done very well in school, but he’s lazy.
I’m a nurse and his dad is an over-the-road truck driver who just had another son with his younger wife. I’m always trying to get my ex-husband to motivate him.
My wife and I have never lived alone our entire marriage, and she’s getting frustrated. My wife has no children and feels like it’s time to get mine out of our home. It’s putting such a strain on me, as I feel like I have to choose my wife or my son. Honestly I’m torn and now they are starting to argue more with each other. I feel completely torn.
Please help.
– Torn in Wisconsin
Dear Torn: Your unemployed adult son living at home is not “your” issue. Overall, this is everyone’s issue, but mainly it is his – and his main task right now should be to solve his own problem.
Don’t count on his father to motivate him – he is not living in his father’s house.
You and your wife should approach this as equal partners in your household, and you should present a united strategy for how to parent him into adulthood.
The unemployment rate right now in Wisconsin is a very low 3 percent. Your son does not need another special opportunity put into his lap due to how smart he is. He squanders those opportunities because he knows he can.
He needs to get a job. At a fast-food drive-thru, a landscaping crew, the Walmart warehouse, or wherever he can get hired.
Working a full day will give him a skill set, some money in his pocket, and self-esteem.
I would cut the wireless at your house during the day, stop paying for his cellphone, and offer him only a roof over his head and nourishment until he can afford other housing. I know this is tough, but your marriage is on the line, and so is his future.
Many parents have dealt with this issue by offering their adult children the option of working full time or of joining a branch of the military, which, given your son’s interests, might actually be a very good fit for him.
Dear Amy: My sister will earn her Ph.D. out-of-state this summer.
My wife and I have a one-year-old and a three-year-old.
Bringing the whole family would be too much for the one-year-old to handle.
I’d like to bring our older child, who is close with the graduating aunt.
My wife doesn’t support the older child going with me because she wants to be there for that child’s first airplane flight.
She acknowledges that this is a selfish desire.
Should we go as a family, despite the headaches that will come from flying with a baby, or should I go solo?
– Harried Husband
Dear Harried: I have to admit that as someone who has flown – a lot – with my daughter when she was a baby and a toddler, and subsequently with many other children of varying ages, I don’t see flying with a three-year-old as being the important and unmissable milestone your wife seems to perceive it to be.
(I still have flashbacks of running from one end of the Dallas airport to the other with my daughter, repeatedly dropping our carry-on luggage and assorted backpacks as we went.)
If the trip to your sister’s graduation is a direct flight of three hours or less, I would take the whole gang. If the trip requires a complicated connection, I would suggest you go solo.
Dear Amy: Regarding the ongoing discussion about pressuring college students to get As and Bs, I was a recruiter for a decade and have spent another decade in the onboarding phase of employment.
These parents worried about grades … for employment purposes grades don’t matter. College is a yes or no question.
– Recruiter
Dear Recruiter: Grades might matter for graduate school. A degree matters for employment.
(You can email Amy Dickinson at askamy@amydickinson.com or send a letter to Ask Amy, P.O. Box 194, Freeville, NY 13068. You can also follow her on Twitter @askingamy or Facebook.)
