The Mom Conspiracy

Yesterday I had an unexpected phone call. The lad’s step-mom had a couple of issues on her mind—she was troubled with the lad’s recent spending habits. She knew that I’d called The Dad the previous day to discuss it again and she didn’t feel as though the urgency of the message has still gotten through quite well enough. But she was curious to know just what I thought about the situation because, she said, she’s had the same feeling for quite some time now and didn’t exactly know how to approach me on the subject. Or if she should.

I understand that being The Step-Mom is not an easy place to be sometimes. Especially when the relationship between The Mom and The Step-Mom got off to a rocky start in the beginning. I have to say that we were more like spitting cats in the beginning and couldn’t find one good thing to say about each other. But, that has definitely ironed itself out in the ensuing years. Nevertheless, it’s still hard sometimes to know where the line is and when it’s okay or not okay to cross it.

Yesterday was the day that all remaining barriers came down and we had a really great talk. For about an hour and a half. We learned things about each other we’d never known and came to the realization that we are very much alike in many regards and we both love the lad very much. And she is worried about him. As am I.

I also learned that she knows him a great deal better than I thought she did and I also learned that she’s pretty plugged in to youth culture and she’s not a stuffed shirt by any means. That’s by way of saying that she is under no illusions that going off to college doesn’t mean a certain level of partying that most parents aren’t entirely happy about.

By the time we finished talking, I imagine the lad’s ears may have been burning red hot. She and I both have had the feeling for a while now that the lad’s spending habits seemed to support our suspicions that he’s been throwing some wing-ding parties at our expense. I was the first to say out loud—“he’s out of control.” And she breathed a huge sigh of relief, “YES! I am so glad you said that. That’s what I thought, too, but I didn’t know if I should say that to you.”

So, the next thing to do was work out a plan to nip that in the bud. As we both said, it’s not that we don’t expect a certain amount of partying to take place, but we surely don’t need to finance it or encourage it with our financing.

As of today, the lad is on a really short leash and we’re both doling out the the resources in a very limited fashion. We both think he needs to figure out how to budget and we’ll be more than happy to help him figure it out by staggering our contributions to his checking account. He will have *some* cash on a weekly basis, but he won’t have enough to spare for high living. And there will definitely be no playing one of us off against the other. He will have to plan ahead in order to save enough cash for things he needs and there won’t be any extras forthcoming to make up for poor planning. We worked out a good funding schedule and, at the end of an hour and a half, we both felt a hugely better. We both agreed that keeping in touch on a regular basis is probably a pretty good idea, too.

The lad called me last night and said, “My moms had quite the phone conversation today, didn’t they?”

“Yep,” I said.

“That’s okay,” he said, “I kind of expected you’d both be on to me sooner or later. It was fun while it lasted, but I don’t mind. It’s probably a good thing and I’m really okay with it. I’m glad you talked....I’m out of money for a while, aren’t I?”

“Very definitely,” I said.

“That’s kinda what I figured. I’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

Huh. That wasn’t exactly the response I expected, but it was great to hear. He knows the jig is up and I think he’s even relieved. Kids really are a never ending learning experience.