It sounds like you raised him a loving home, and that he still has a couple of lessons to learn about responsibility and consequences, but then what teenager / young adult doesn’t? Kids are a crap shoot I think. I’ve come to the conclusion that they can’t give you a manual because kids are so unpredictable. It amazes me that 2 or more children can grow up in the same home, with the same parents and turn out completely different.

Growing up our household was very dysfunctional, my saving grace as I’ve said a million times before was my dearest Aunt and her husband. I slept at my parents home M-T, weekends and holidays I was at my Aunt’s. I’d go there right after school and stay until bed time; I was there a lot. Their house was the closest to the perfect family that you could get. Their kids (and I was considered one of them) came first. They were not drinkers nor were they abusive in any way shape or form. They taught their children family values, manners, respect, the value of a dollar, and the value of an education. Discipline fit the crime and it was tempered with love and mercy. My uncle was an active hands on father before that was the norm.

And yet their youngest son married two of the most dysfunctional women that you’ll ever meet. He was raised with a wonderful example of how to raise children and yet he failed miserably with raising his own two daughters. How does one explain that?