Well, when I first got into this, DH was all about how smart and naturally talented his eldest Feral Forger SD15 was. She sings ok, plays piano ok, and plays ukelele ok. She REALLY knows how to do her makeup. This all meant to him that she was going to go far in life and be a super star. Short cut to now (6 years later), and she is 21 now, and has not had a job in over a year. Flunked out of a drug test for her latest attempt. No drivers license. No car of course. She drifts between friends homes and her mother Toxic Trolls 1 bedroom apartment.

DH only hopes that she can get off drugs or whatever she is goind, get her head out of her butt and make a decent life for herself.

Now, Munchkin SD14, I see some potential. She is smart and she doesnt want to be like her sister. She has been doing orchestra playing violin the past few years, and draws very well. 

She has a tendency to be very lazy and undisciplined. She has gained a bunch of weight (5'1" at 165 lbs) and doesnt do anything athletic beyond walking the dog for 30 mins. She doesnt do much with her art, but her mother bought her a tablet. I signed her up for 6 months of babbel to learn french while we are going through this COVID-confinement, and she did it for one day and then nothing. She likes to bake so my mother gave her a mixing bowl for her birthday. Used it 2-3 times since may. I invite her on hikes with me "no thanks".

She claims that she wants to go to college after high school and study biology. But I know that this current distance learning will not accomplish that, plus her parents havent saved anything up. I encourage her to think about scholarships to help py for it, and taking community college classes. I have hope for her. I got my degree, but largely with my parents help, so I am hoping that she can rise above her parents and their realities. My husband took some community college coursea and her mother barely graduated high school, and certainly never took college courses. Her big career has been working with autistic children, and now she is collecting disability because of her 4 year old head injury and MS. Which can certainly be linked to her overall obesity and alcohol comsumption.

So, in short its a mixed bag of nuts!

DH sent SD58 to cosmetology school and we paid $$$ for her first wedding.  He envisioned a happy housewife with a lucrative side job.  Instead we have a druggie on disability, no job, no money.  He saw YSS53 as a professional athlete, definitely wealthy.  Long story but YSS is now living paycheck to paycheck, separated from his wife and we have collection calls here weekly.  YSS's daughter, SGD20 is in a criminal justice curriculum.  YSS is sure she will be working for the FBI doing CSI work.  Not unless the FBI is now hiring immature young ladies.  

We have 5 kids & 9 grandkids.  I could go on forever about all our unrealistic fantasies.  Lol.

SS as a rising star...short lived. SD as a nice person...never was. 

Oh, let's see, almost everything that SD does is advanced, amazing, the best, and deserving of a parade!  She is a smart kid, gets good grades in school, and is very well-rounded, I admit that, but she is by no means a child prodigy at anything. She plays a few sports, and isn't the star of either team, but has fun and tries hard. She plays in middle school band, but again, isn't one of the rising stars of the program. But to sit with SO at one of the sports games, for example, is a special kind of purgatory for me. He is so focused, wrapped attention on her every move, practically tearing up with pride, even if all she did was barely touch the basketball for three seconds before passing it. He will go on and on about her professional potential and how amazingly she played for hours (often days) afterwards.

also, just about ordinary day to day life stuff. My son, age 6, has been helping do chores (unloading the dishwasher, folding his own laundry, dusting the common areas, etc). since he could walk.  Now that he has six, he can pretty much unload the dishwasher entirely on his own, and takes the initiative to do these things on his own.  When I met my boyfriend, his daughter was eight, and had never even so much is put a dirty dish in the dishwasher in her life. He did everything for her. He even still ran her bathwater and helped her bathe at age 8. She would leave half eaten food and dirty dishes all around the house, and he would clean up after her. Now, three years into our relationship, he actually asks her to do some chores, but when she does something as simple as unloading the dishwasher, rather than treat it as an expectation of a capable child that lives under this roof.  And he rewards her with slushies or ice cream and practically throws a parade, as mentioned above. "Thank you so much, SD, for taking on that responsibility. You did such a great job. You are so responsible. Wow, look at how well you emptied the dishwasher!" yada yada... The girl is now almost 12 years old! In middle school! 

A couple of years ago DH was delusional about then 8y/o SD and extracurriculars. We moved into a new school district and was hoping when SD got into middle school/high school, she would get into cheerleading. *eyeroll*

SD took gymnastics for not even a full year when she was 7. She hated it. She didn't like the coaches and any kind of criticism. She is painfully shy and has social anxiety along with depression and ADHD. Really, DH, you ACTUALLY think SD would want to even do cheerleading? Nope, we're not talking about the same kid!

So i guess if you bullshit enought and keep repeating it enougn you will be dumb enough to believe the impossible.

the bulk of us live our lives on common sense, we calculate the associated risks before making decisions... not gullibly bullshit our way through life

thing is those parents who have such pathetic kids who fail to launch or be successful at anything, need to brag and keep up with the jones!!!

also $500 for precious sd for 1 weekend visit? Seriously?!

all i am seeing is how many utility bills and groceries i could buy with that and gardening supplies i could buy with that and have bio parent force their little lazy arse precious into gardening and household chores instead of wasting it on pampering her. Again typical guilty Disney style parenting is buy their love (errr temporary attention really!!) instead of parenting them well and teaching them money doesn’t grow on trees and you need to earn it with honest hard work...

So i guess if you bullshit enought and keep repeating it enougn you will be dumb enough to believe the impossible.

the bulk of us live our lives on common sense, we calculate the associated risks before making decisions... not gullibly bullshit our way through life

thing is those parents who have such pathetic kids who fail to launch or be successful at anything, need to brag and keep up with the jones!!!

also $500 for precious sd for 1 weekend visit? Seriously?!

all i am seeing is how many utility bills and groceries i could buy with that and gardening supplies i could buy with that and have bio parent force their little lazy arse precious into gardening and household chores instead of wasting it on pampering her. Again typical guilty Disney style parenting is buy their love (errr temporary attention really!!) instead of parenting them well and teaching them money doesn’t grow on trees and you need to earn it with honest hard work...

SD has always been pretty focused and a hard worker. SS, on the other hand, took some time to become a functional adult. But finally he is. DH has consistently praised even the smallest accomplishment as if it's the Nobel Prize.

SS had a hard time keeping a job. His bosses weren't "fair" or they were actually "corrupt." Or they fired him "for no reason." So whenever SS got a new job, DH was ecstatic. Totally over the top. Working at a pizza place? SS makes the BEST pizza. Takes a job at a more formal kitchen? DH buys him a set of knives and a chef's coat so he can "learn." (Uhm, DH, he's a dishwasher and he'd look foolish showing up with this stuff.)

SS takes his car to a mechanic several times and the story becomes that the mechanic is a great guy and is taking SS under his wing. Naturally, DH paid for all the car repairs and offers to pay for an auto mechanics program because SS is "so good at it." (I made the mistake of asking DH how he knows SS is good at auto repair. My bad for not seeing the "obvious.")

I could give you 20 more examples of this over the top response to what should be normal events. But no, everything positive requires a damn parade and everything negative is not his fault.

SSs and DH still talk about "college" for both SSs. Both are well below grade-level and could do more challenging work, but BM makes so many excuses for them that they never have to. From March until June, when learning was "remote" in their district, neither one even logged on to check in with a teacher, ever. Both BM and DH received weekly emails letting them know that both SSs were "absent" from all classes, but neither was moved to do anything about it. BM because she is lazy. DH because he thought learning remotely sounded "too difficult" (DH has his own trauma from school, because he has ADHD and a learning disability and MIL always told him he was "a handicap" and couldn't succeed. He worked hard and graduated with mostly Bs and went on to college, but it was a struggle.). Both SSs have "health issue, not otherwise specified" as their "learning disability", so they don't get any targeted support and neither works hard. 

I think DH thinks they will miraculously become motivated when they enter high school (in September), but since BM has never required that they do any homework or read or do anything remotely like learning on their own, I don't think that will happen. BM's MO up until this point is to go in and cry (sometimes literally) to the guidance counselor about how "mean" certain teachers are or how certain classes are "too hard" for SSs and get their classes changed (she's done this at multiple schools on behalf of both children). I'm hoping that the high school pushes back on her, unlike elementary and middle school, and they finally have to do something, but they go to school in a small, low-performing school district, so I doubt anything will change. 

DH has been pushing both SSs to consider the military, which would serve the multiple purposes of a) getting SSs away from BM; b) helping them to build actual skills; c) building some personal discipline and focus, but as things stand now, that will be a stretch. 

In our state, a custodial parent / child can sue a non-custodial parent to demand payment for college, so it should be fun. The only upside is that payments typically are ordered to go directly to the college, not to BM or the child. 

But NEVER about the SKIDS!!!!

I had some less-than-positive predictions about SDnow21, and I am very happy to say that I have been wrong about many of them....except her dropping out of college. Saw THAT one coming easily. She does have her 2 year Associates Degree, but completed another 2 years of an unfinished degree with the student loans to show for it.
She just graduated from cosmetology school, another 20K in loans for her. She just got engaged to her high school sweetheart, so I am crossing my fingers for her.
SD17 is so lazy and does not CARE if she fails school. She DOES fail until DH starts paying attention and has to be up her butt to get things done. She is your typical lazy, selfish, ignorant teenager slob that you see on these posts that should have "Failure to Launch" tattooed on her forehead. DH thinks she will go to community college. HA! Good one. BUT he knows that I will stick by our agreement that kids that are out of high school and do not go to school/trade and have a job are OUT of the house.
SS15 is on the autistic spectrum, is high-functioning and doing well in high school. I think he could live in a halfway house type situation as an adult.

My DH says SS10 is an aspiring athlete in the making!!! (Insert laughing and eye rolls)!! Let's just say he's great at basketball... BUT, there is a but! He is only good at one on one with his father. He doesn't know how to take losing, biggest sore loser ever (cries and whines or changes the rules when the game doesn't go his way). He use to be in little league until he lost complete interest in it (when technology started to take over his whole life). Does DH put him in basketball leagues? Nope! Does DH sign him up for basketball programs? Nope! Does DH even remotely try to further assist with his aspiring super star?!? NONETHELESS!!! First of all this child has to have good grades to even remotely be on a his basketball team at a school! This child has no responsibility, is lazy even when asked to pick up a bag to throw away in a garbage!! So his dreams of this child be anything aspiring is slim to none! I do hope this child grows up with something goals, but at this point in life is his only goals is to play PS4 and stay on a phone 24/7! 

I hear you there. Rose tinted glasses really delude some parents don't they? It's like they don't see the child in front of them, but the one they aspire them to be. BM seems to think that SD is some kind of child prodigy, even though she is barely scraping through school by the skin of her teeth. All these big aspirations for her "really clever girl", who writes like a 5 year old and falls lower on the curve with each school year. Never shows improvement in her weaker academic areas even with advice and extra help. A combination of her bad attitude towards betterment, and lack of intelligence is starting to really show in her school reports. Even when she was doing "well", she was performing at average.

This one is my favorite, that BM said about SS15. Talented at sitting in his bedroom staying up all night playing video games? Talented at making messes and not cleaning up? Talented at being totally unappreciative of anything anyone does for him? At being a victim and snowflake and making excuses? At being completely annoying?

Well at least one person thinks this because no one else will, probably ever, as SS is the definition of mediocrity and underachievement in all respects.

Me and dh had a convo about what we think our kids will be like when they're older he says "I don't know exactly what but I bet sd9 will do some kind of extreme sports she's such a sporty girl" my reply was "I don't think they do extreme iPad watching"