Sorry, I mentioned it in another thread..My stepson graduated from basic training/AIT today! He is now an American Soldier! One weekend a month and a two week session in the summer. National Guard Military Police. Real impressive ceremony! He is glad to be home!

 

Bobby and I have traded emails about some of our family related issues.

My oldest son has been my wife's golden boy since he was born. Never had to do much but got whatever he wanted. My wife would never make either boy take out the garbage, shovel snow or wash a dish, that was suppose to be my job and if I didn't do it she would call me lazy. I figured I had two healthy boys and they could do some minor manual labor. When I wouldn't do the work she'd do it herself instead of making the boys do it. She's shoveled a lot of snow over the years and has taken tons of garbage out and washed a lot of dishes. She's a hard working woman, just not too bright at times.

Between my wife and my in-laws they have pretty much made oldest think he's the center of the universe, a fact I am constantly disputing with him because my father-in-law was awarded that place of honor almost 80 years ago by his mother and two older sisters. My youngest isn't so fortunate. He pretty much has to work for everything and he's always getting heat for whatever he does wrong, no matter how slight.

Now my oldest has become the All American Farmer, works 12-15 hour days, seven days a week. For all the work he averages about $5/hr and never has money to fix his truck so usually I get the honor of repairing it and paying for the parts or else I hear about it from my wife. Last year when he restarted the family farming operation, with an enormous amount of financial help from my in-laws, I ending up contributing a few weeks and $$$ in wiring the barn and all the new milking equipment. Basically, all I got back was bunch of smart *** remarks from my in-laws and 0 appreciation from my kid. That pretty much put an end to me helping with any farm related work. I might have mentioned this before, but I hate farming. I apologize to any farmers out there, but from my almost 25 years of living with a farm family I have really grown to hate it.

I did replace the front shocks and wheel hub bearing on the oldest's truck because they were literally ready to fall off and my youngest needed to use it to go to school for the week because his car was having tranny problems. If my youngest didn't need it I wouldn't have touched it and let it fall apart. The truck again needs brake work but I'm not in a hurry to do the work, I figure he can take it in and see what the real world is like and pay a couple of hundred dollars. My wife has mentioned the brakes on average about once a week but I just blow it off.

My youngest is having trouble with car and we'll be working on it this weekend. He did most of the work on the lift helping me bolt in place and doing all the attic runs of the electrical and air. He'll help out when I need to work on my stuff so I'll help him out.

I can't even remember when I started working on cars. My dad was a mechanic for the first part of his life and I'd help him work on cars from the time I probably could walk, fetching tools and parts. I'd crawl under the cars with him and when I was in school I'd spend every day off of school working in his auto repair shop picking up tools, cleaning them and putting them away. He'd let me take out a drive shaft or spark plugs. He also showed em how to rebuild generators and starters. I'd probably would have grown up to be a mechanic if he hadn't changed vocations and became an electrician. I've always worked on my own cars and did some work for others.

My dad was a pretty much all around mechanical guy and could fix just about anything. That's the problem I have, I must have inherited some of his skill, no one around here can fix anything. They sure seem to be able to wear out and break things though. I'm the one they always come to take care of their screw ups. Not only does my family seek me out when things go bad but my employees will do the same. They'll break something, tell me about it and then go home while I stay late and fix their screw ups. If I don't do it no one will and the jobs won't go out the door.

Steam vented, sorry about the long winded reply.

Worth every bit of the 2¢, thanks.

 

I started to say, "this is pretty much my story." So, I rewrote it to make it mine^^^^^^^^.

 

Bob I can certainly relate...my stepson, the only chore he has, is to keep the automatic litter box cleaned out. Takes ten minutes once a week...he always said it never worked right...he went to basic training in august 2011, so i had to take over...I never had a single problem with it not working...the problem was that he never cleaned it out once a week! He is back now just today...I want to kick him to the street as well as the stupid cat! But Mama always intervene's...
She says I am just too strict....I always tell her she is a freakin marshmellow...
Both of my stepkids don't like me much. but they have always had their butts wiped for them, by Mommy...We will see what Army Basic training has done for him, but I expect he will be back to his old ways immediately...
I know how you feel. Nicolle and the stepkids are blood...I am water, until somebody needs something to work. They treat Nicolle like crap verbally and I want to SMACK 'EM, but that would not go over well, so I just go to the garage or at least remove myself from their presence...Not what I want but, Some parents just have to learn the hard way...some never do learn....But they do not ever talk to me the way they talk to her...The stepson pushed my buttons once and he found out real quick that you don't bite the hand that feeds you....He stayed with a friend for a spell...They run this place, until I have had enough, then I go ballistic and then they settle down a little, but not long and it's right back to the same ole crap...

Funny how life changes from generation to generation. I don't expect much, but oppositional defiance runs strong in this house. My stepson needs a new radiator in his 2003 Mitsubishi Galant.....I told him to start looking on the internet....learn how to do it....because I am NOT...He wanted me to move my truck out of the garage so he could work on his in the garage....YEAH RIGHT! NOT!!!! Venting is good sometimes!

 

Wow when I first read this I thought I misspelled some words! Pam...I didn't type Pam...LOL! That was a blonde moment!

 

Boy, I pray your guys' wives don't know how to log on and check your posts!!

It galls my Ex no small amount that all three of my sons enjoy working on mechanical stuff, and that they don't count on others to bail them out of situations. In contrast to my coddled princess of an Ex.

 

LOL yeah she probably wouldnt be too happy I am talking about this stuff and I don't usually, but it gets me fired up! And that...she does know...at least her family agrees with me! I better get back to the truck posts....or she might wake up and read this!

 

i dunno too much 'bout my two boys as i had them and my youngest daughter taken from me in an extremely NASTY divorce full of to be polite mistruths on my ex's part too play the system and get what she wanted , which was my 3 youngest away from me ( and my female biological donor helped as she didn't like whom i am with now !! }. anyway what i have been able to find out through friends , relatives etc. that do see them , my eldest nick is in college to study law enforcement , my oversized twin zack is a couch potato of some small degree , a gamer , i geuss , but has ventured out into the working world and reality , and my daughter is a mixed up little girl of 14 . as much as it pains me to say this , it seems in the most part that a good deal of our youth has / is become extremely lazy , and just expects everything to be handed to them . could be several lost generations of kids here guy's who will know nothing of the joys of doing the things we done , go karts , football , dirt bikes etc. if the trend continues , insert the song in the year 2525 by zaeger and evans and let your imagination run amok ......... ok i'm off the soap box now ............... i at least as i previously stated have two of the grand kids who love the old cars hot rods loud **** harley's , and racing . my reese wants to build a race car and we go racing again but ..... ... hades the lil' girl got a model of a 55 1/2 ton for xmas that she's still waiting on her and i to get done making it look like HER green 53 ( she swears in 8 years when she gets her liscence she's taking it and she prolly will get it LOL !!!!!!! ) . she collects little car old ford trucks to . caden the grandson i have to work on him as daddy is a chevy man . if he's gonna play with those i'll have to find him an old one , maybe a 64 impala super sport like papa once had ....... HHHHHHMMMMMM ........ got reese tools from craftsman for xmas , she was happy ! she wanted too work on the truck right then . her friends don't get it but they just don't know what KOOL is eh !!!!!

 

Ross, don't worry about me, my wife knows how I feel, we've had some very in depth discussion in the last year. Anyways, she doesn't go on the internet too much, up until a short time ago I honestly think she thought the computer would suck her brain out. She's an extremely smart person but her parents, especially her mother, like to play the poor dumb farmer and unfortunately my wife is following in her parents foot step when it comes to technology. My wife does the books for our business and has taught herself how use Quickbooks but when it comes to any other program on the computer she has trouble figuring out how to use the X in the upper corner to close a program. It's very frustrating for me to watch such a smart person act so stupid.

 

don't wanna hang 'round me too much then bob.... i figured out a long time ago it's smarter to play dumb as then they leave you the hades alone , and i come across real good as a " blonde " red neck LOL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Oh yeah, we were talking about tools.... It has been really interesting watching this thread. So many common denominators. Air ratchets still in the box. Hoses and cords in the way and the turtle position under the truck. Now we bring in Zaeger and Evans. I think of that song at least once a year. My ex was shocked when the three oldest of four kids immediately moved in with me. Now at 17 the youngest has been with me for 4 months. She left me with a lot of work, but lately he has been showing signs of being human. Grades improving, stacking wood, cleaning the shop. He just needed to get away from his lazy mom and the no-good, never worked a day in his life stepdad. Have you guys seen the youtube video of the dad emptying his 45 into his daughter's laptop? Turns out she was ragging hard on her parents and their 'strict rules' on facebook. Bad idea.....My oldest sent me a link to it but I don't know how to add that here. I think he was reminded about how last month when I sawed the 17 yo's iphone in half in my vice with a hacksaw. Some really nasty black goop in that thing btw. Here he is about the time of the divorce 12 years ago, helping with the install of a rebuilt 8ba in my 51 F3. I miss those junior sized coveralls........

 

I hate having cords and hoses hanging around my shop. I haver retractable cords hanging from the ceiling, just high enough to miss my head and forklift but still within a short arm's length. I also have a tractable air hose mounted on the wall about 7-8' high.

I got the idea from two different places. The first was when I applied for a job at a major industrial automation company and the interviewer took me out to the shop. It was a huge place, I think the person told me it was 5 acres under one roof. The ceiling was laid out in 10' grids, at every intersection they was a cord hanging down about 7' off the ground. The second place was my last shop. The landlord was showing the shop area, which was formally occupied by a machine shop. As we were walking around the landlord mentioned he would remove the drop down cords from the ceiling. I told him to leave them be, best idea in the world to keep the floor clear.

 

I took some "artistic liberties."

 

http://youtu.be/kl1ujzRidmU


More parents should take this approach!

 

laughed so hard when i seen it i dain near pee'd on myself !!!!!!!!!!!!!!