I should preface this with a couple of statements, first. I realize that I'm not feeling real well right now, so I'm a bit irritable and short tempered. Secondly, I'm getting on in years, and I like peace and quiet. I never had much tolerance for drama, and it gets less as I get older.
That said, what is with the "younger generation", and all the drama it seems to generate? I don't understand the apparent love of drama that seems to be so prevalent, at least in my dsil's family, and dd & dsil's friends. One of their long-time friends is a young man of their own age, mid 30's. He is a plumber by trade, and apparently quite good at it. He is also homeless, and has been as long as I have known him, more than 10 years. He has never had an apartment of his own. He travels from friend's house to friend's house, crashing on sofas, bumming their cigarettes and eating their food, until they throw him out, and then he goes on to another one. On a couple of occasions he has moved in with a girlfriend, but that never seems to last more than a few months. I guess the girls get tired of going to work every day, while he sleeps until 3 p.m., then gets up. If there is a call for an after hours plumbing emergency, he goes out and works, but that isn't every day, or even every week. Just recently, he went to Russia to see a woman he met on-line. They even got engaged, but that has apparently come to an end. He came back to the States a couple of days ago, bringing with him a young man he met in Russia. This guy seems nice enough, but I don't think he was really expecting to come here and have to sleep on our couch, in an already crowded household of six. Oh, and dsil's friend also brought his dog, a pit bull, which is a really nice and well trained dog, but kind of big for this house. What I don't understand is that this guy doesn't think he is homeless, because he can always find someone to take him in, which none of his family will do. Of course, he just got back in the country, so it is understandable that he doesn't have a job set up yet, but he has never had his own place to live, and I don't see that changing. DSIL also has a niece, who is in much the same position, except that she has had her own place for short periods of time. Then she decides she can't tolerate the friend she has moved in with, so she goes back to roaming from friend's house to friend's house. She was recently here for a few days, told me all about her job, but never worked an hour in the time she was here. She has two small children who, fortunately, are subjected to the chaos; the oldest one lives with the people (DSIL's brother and sister in law) who raised her and the youngest lives with bio dad, who is a loving and stable father. DN is now hanging with the members of a motorcycle club (shades of Sons of Anarchy), and she claims that they "really respect" her, because she won't sleep with all of them. Finally, she got some implanted birth control device, immediately got pregnant, and subsequently had a miscarriage. It has apparently kicked in now. This gal is in her mid 20's, high school drop-out, who fights perpetually with the woman who raised her and can't live at home because she won't try to get along. She visits her children, but the day-to-day responsibility of raising them lies with others.
I realize that everyone around them enables this kind of activity, but none of us really wants to see them living in their cars. What I don't understand is that they are constantly in a state of total chaos, and it doesn't seem to occur to them that this lifestyle encourages that, and that they probably can't pull themselves out of this mess until things calm down and they can focus on problem solving. The niece is so consumed with her social life that she can't be concerned with anything else. At present, she has a stalker. I have tried to get her to go to the police, change her phone number so he can't call or text her, but she apparently values telling everyone she knows the story more. At the moment, he is more creepy than really a threat, but who knows how long that will last? He calls her constantly, and she answers each call to tell him to stop calling her. She seems to be unable not to answer her cell, something else I have noticed with the younger generation. (Putting on my old lady hat now)
I'm sorry this is so rambling and whining. I just really don't know what to do; I am oriented toward problem solving, and neither of these people seems to think they even have a problem, let alone that there might be a simple solution to it. How can people live with this kind of chaos in their lives, and what will the future look like for these little children?