Mother’s Day weekend in 2015, my husband decided to go away to the beach with his sister and mom. I stayed home so they could enjoy their time together and bond. I decided that I wanted to try to surprise him and have some things outside taken care of before he got home on Sunday. I offered to pay my son and a few of his friends to help. One of these tasks was laying stones around our pool outside. Later these boys would testify that I never paid them, which I did, and the work wasn’t even completed 100%. From this incident, I learned to not pay until the job is completed. (Or at least only pay for the portion of work that was done). I had someplace that I needed to be later that day, my son and his friend NA were leaving to go to a minor league baseball game and the other boys of course wanted to get home to be with their mom’s. I ran to store to pick up some fried chicken and some “drinks”. I say “drinks” because this was twisted around to be beer, wine coolers, etc. No, this was my way of saying “something to drink”. I wasn’t able to say or show anything that NM or SH said or texted, but yet the DA allowed CH to testify that one this date that NM come downstairs and woke him up to tell him that I bought chicken and beer for everyone to drink. He claimed that when he came upstairs there was chicken and, in the garage, there was a fridge with beer in it. There may have been beer in that fridge, but I can assure that that I didn’t buy it for them or give it to them. The DA actually painted this picture for the jury that DG was riding around on my husband’s tractor with a beer in his hand mowing my grass. DG was in fact riding on the tractor. He had a radio flyer wagon hooked to it and was pulling around my younger son. They were also using the wagon to load items they were using for things they were completing for the yard. I mean let’s think about this, it’s Mother’s Day. Do you think that I was going to get kids drunk or even tipsy, then send them home to their moms? I knew I had to leave. I knew my son and his friend were going to a baseball game with his parents. I knew these other boys were going to be driving home. There were no photos of any of this happening. Other than the one that the DA was putting into everyone’s mind, all because a bunch of kids “said so”. Later that day, I did in fact go to my parent’s house because this was the day that my sister and brother-in-law announced they were pregnant with my nephew. The DA wanted to make it sound like this was an all-day affair that I was hosting. This really irritated my mother because she knew that I wasn’t around for the entire day. The bottom line in all of this mess is that we should not have been allowing these kids to be over as much as they were. The parents are the time didn’t seem to take any issue with it, the one parent asked if I was going to be adding their son as a dependent to our tax return. It was often, but it wasn’t excessive by any means. I just wish that it could have been property portrayed that they were at times coming to our home and then leaving to go to this other friend’s house that lived across in the other development. I knew that my son was there, but again I don’t know if these other boys told their parents that they were going there. I can understand that if they said they were going to our house, then as their parents I would expect them to be where they said they were going to be. I recall when my son first met NM and started hanging out with him. This boy’s mother would call my phone constantly. A few times, I would be out grocery shopping and she was asking why her son wasn’t answering the phone. She’d ask me if her son was at my house. It seemed clear to me that she had no clue where her son was, and he didn’t want to be found. I finally asked my son, “what is this kid’s deal?” I started to get the impression that something was going on with this kid that his mother was calling all the time asking about him, checking in on him, etc. I was getting frustrated because again, these were 16-17-year-old. I felt that if I needed to run to the store to get something, can’t kids this age be left alone? According to the DA, I was their babysitter, and their care was entrusted to me. I wasn’t aware that I was considered a babysitter or a caretaker, but hopefully all of you who are entrusted with the “care of someone else” take this into consideration so you aren’t found negligent down the line. I want to go over some definitions and explanations with all of you so you can keep this in context as we move forward in the story. I think that technically we can all agree that the legal definition of a child is anyone under the age of 18. So, when does a “child”, know right from wrong? I think again we can pretty much come to an average agreed conscience, but I decided to look. According to this NEWSWEEK article (https://www.qcc.cuny.edu/SocialSciences/ppecorino/ETHICS_TEXT/Chapter_2_Moral%20Development/Learning-Right-From-Wrong.htm#:~:text=To%20the%20legal%20system%2C%20the%20answer%20is%20clear%3A,so%20can%20be%20held%20responsible%20for%20their%20actions.): To the legal system, the answer is clear: children have the requisite moral sense–the ability to tell right from wrong–by age 7 to 15, depending on which state they live in, and so can be held responsible for their actions. If a minor commits a crime, they will not hesitate to “charge them as an adult” and say “he/she knew what he was doing”. In my case, they kept referring to these teens as minors (which they were), and how I corrupted them. How they got the impression that what they were doing was ok because of the time that I allowed it prior. They wanted to portray them as these young, helpless kids that didn’t know right from wrong. That I led them down this primrose path of destruction. You can’t have it both ways Mr. States Attorney’s everywhere! You can’t say that someone can be charged as an adult because it suits you to want to get a stronger penalty. You can’t say “they knew what they were doing and acted recklessly”, therefore we are charging them as an adult. Then you want to come back and when it suits you differently (ie: my case) and say that these was children, they were young and impressionable. They didn’t know, they weren’t adults. Where is the standard? Here is another fun fact, I bet many of you didn’t know. At least in the state of Pa, if a minor is 14 or older did you know that as their parent or guardian that you have NO say over their mental health? None, nada. When a minor needs to see a mental health specialist or have anything do to with mental health in general, if they are 14 or older as a parent you can’t sign for them, call for them, do anything on their behalf without their consent. (This was enacted in 2020 called Act 65 which replaced Act 147-https://www.paparentandfamilyalliance.org/mental-health faq#:~:text=In%20September%202020%2C%20PA%27s%20mental%20health%20consent%20law%2C,not%20be%20overridden%20by%20their%20parent%2Flegal%20guardian%27s%20refusal.) So again, if a “child” can make their own mental health decisions-aren’t we treating them in a way that shows that they have some sense of right and wrong? That they are mature enough to make certain decisions? Aren’t we also giving them keys and a license to drive a car? To get behind the wheel and make life changing decisions every day?

Pennsylvania definition of corruption of minors explained:

§ 6301.  Corruption of minors.

(a)  Offense defined.–

(1)  (i)  Except as provided in subparagraph (ii), whoever, being of the age of 18 years and upwards, by any act corrupts or tends to corrupt the morals of any minor less than 18 years of age, or who aids, abets, entices or encourages any such minor in the commission of any crime, or who knowingly assists or encourages such minor in violating his or her parole or any order of court, commits a misdemeanor of the first degree.

(ii)  Whoever, being of the age of 18 years and upwards, by any course of conduct in violation of Chapter 31 (relating to sexual offenses) corrupts or tends to corrupt the morals of any minor less than 18 years of age, or who aids, abets, entices or encourages any such minor in the commission of an offense under Chapter 31 commits a felony of the third degree.

(2)  Any person who knowingly aids, abets, entices or encourages a minor younger than 18 years of age to commit truancy commits a summary offense. Any person who violates this paragraph within one year of the date of a first conviction under this section commits a misdemeanor of the third degree. A conviction under this paragraph shall not, however, constitute a prohibition under section 6105 (relating to persons not to possess, use, manufacture, control, sell or transfer firearms).

(b)  Adjudication of delinquency unnecessary.–A conviction under the provisions of this section may be had whether or not the jurisdiction of any juvenile court has attached or shall thereafter attach to such minor or whether or not such minor has been adjudicated a delinquent or shall thereafter be adjudicated a delinquent.

(c)  Presumptions.–In trials and hearings upon charges of violating the provisions of this section, knowledge of the minor’s age and of the court’s orders and decrees concerning such minor shall be presumed in the absence of proof to the contrary.

(d)  Mistake as to age.–

(1)  Whenever in this section the criminality of conduct depends upon the corruption of a minor whose actual age is under 16 years, it is no defense that the actor did not know the age of the minor or reasonably believed the minor to be older than 18 years.

(2)  Whenever in this section the criminality of conduct depends upon the corruption of a minor whose actual age is 16 years or more but less than 18 years, it is a defense for the actor to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that he reasonably believed the minor to be 18 years or older.

(July 1, 1978, P.L.573, No.104, eff. 60 days; July 11, 1996, P.L.552, No.98, eff. 60 days; Oct. 7, 2010, P.L.482, No.69, eff. 60 days)

2010 Amendment.  Act 69 amended subsec. (a)(1).

1996 Amendment.  Act 98 amended subsec. (a).

1978 Amendment.  Act 104 added present section 6301. Former section 6301, relating to the same subject matter, was repealed November 28, 1973, P.L.341, No.117.

Cross References.  Section 6301 is referred to in sections 3104, 6105, 9122.1, 9122.3 of this title; sections 5329, 6344 of Title 23 (Domestic Relations); sections 5552, 5920, 5985.1, 5993, 62A03, 9718.1, 9799.14 of Title 42 (Judiciary and Judicial Procedure); section 6138 of Title 61 (Prisons and Parole); section 3113 of Title 63 (Professions and Occupations (State Licensed)).

I’m also pretty sure that stating, “they were already corrupt” isn’t a viable defense. What are your thoughts so far on all of this mess?

Photo by Vaan Photography: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-man-mowing-the-green-lawn-12087398/

#Teens #Teenagers #TeenDrinking #Parenting #ParentingMistakes #CorruptionofMinors #Minors #MothersDay #SneakyTeens #TeenOvernights

I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday. It was my first holiday home in 3 years. I couldn’t help but to reflect on friends I had made while in prison. Many still there and not coming home any time soon. I prayed that they would receive the normal holiday food which was actually pretty decent. It consisted of 2 clam shell containers. One full of turkey, stuffing and another vegetable. The other was filled with a roll and pie. The chow hall has been closed since covid hit, so they most likely walked in freezing temps to get their food. The process probably started early, by maybe 10:30 am because of the amount of people that would actually go get a tray that day. The real festivities wouldn’t begin though until later when friends who planned for weeks made food with commissary purchases and used their tray food to make a bigger and better meal. We’d make cheesecakes, fishcakes, macaroni and cheese or pasta salads. That was where the good food was. The stuff that the inmates concocted. Everyone for the most part was considerate of the phones. We wanted everyone who could at least try to call home. My holiday was much different this year and I’m blessed for it. When you’ve seen the other side, you can’t help but to reflect back and pray that those inside will someday be able to enjoy a day with their loved ones too. I spent some of my time looking though the stack of paperwork I saved about my case. I didn’t find the actual calendar because I had given that to my lawyer hoping he’d use it in court. I did however have a paper where I wrote down the dates and activities that I had given to him prior to show that we weren’t home as often as the criminal complaint stated. Looking back over it, makes me even more angry because I knew that we were NOT hosting parties and letting teens run amuck like we were being portrayed to be doing. I can’t provide a photocopy of the calendar because it contains people’s names on it. I am not putting ANYONE’s name out there for confidentiality reasons and will only be using initials like I explained before. In December of 2014 we spent 2 weekends at our cabin, one we spent at a friend’s home having dinner, and for New Year’s Eve we went to a friend’s house and stayed to watch fireworks at midnight. In January of 2015 we all were back and forth to the doctors with pneumonia and bronchitis. We weren’t allowing any non-family members over because we didn’t want them getting sick. As soon as one of us would feel better, another would get it. February 2015, it was cabin, a weekend with family/friends, we went out to eat with friends, the cabin, went to another friend’s home, then the 28th of Feb. we had a game night at our house with a bunch of friends. March 2015, we were at the cabin, then the high school had a Tarzan play and the football players were volunteers, the weekend after that we took our youngest to a birthday party (in the evening), then we went to a friend’s wedding, the final weekend of March we were at a friend’s house for a game night there. April of 2015, we spent three weekends at the cabin. May of 2015, we spent the weekend of the 2nd at the cabin and the weekend of the 22-25 we were at the cabin (I remember this weekend because we had my in law’s up and my husband cut his hand trying to pry frozen burgers apart.) June of 2015, on the 6th my friend’s husband had a surprise birthday party for her and then from June 7-14th we were on a family cruise. So again, if you are generating your own log of evidence this is a lot of time that we weren’t around. I haven’t done enough digging to see, but at one time I had Facebook posts printed out to accompany these dates as proof. For now, I can only hope that you’ll take my word for it. The time after that dreaded weekend at the cabin with the picture and the friends of DG that are now imaginary to him, we did see the guys over at the house at times. I do recall them coming over after the Tarzan play. It wasn’t all of them, but the core group came over. I remember because we went to the play and left but the guys had to stay afterwards to help. I am pretty sure that we allowed DG to drive my son’s truck to take them up there and then drive back. During the times that we did allow them to stay, they would come in w/ backpacks or small duffle bags that we assumed contained their clothing to change. The DA thought in his world that we should have again been patting them down and doing a TSA check of baggage before they were allowed in the basement. Like they say in the police world, “we had no probable cause to search their belongings”. Apparently, there was a few times when they did bring beer into the house when Steve and I were there. How? Our son told us that what they would do is hide the beer in the window wells of the basement window’s. They would then wait for us to go to sleep and then pass the beer through the window so that we wouldn’t know. This was a very thought-out plan, and we had NO idea. The DA also questioned these other boys about what they did with the empties and that we had to have seen the trash laying around. Unfortunately, I nor my husband went down to continuously “check” on them. These were 16,17-year-old boys. We were too trusting to think that they wouldn’t do such a thing. I suppose in my mind at least that this wasn’t something that I would have done. I am going to speak for myself only since this is my blog, but I pictured them down there doing what we intended the basement to be. Play video games, pool, air hockey, foosball, watch tv, etc. We even have a photo that was used later of 3 of them laughing playing video games. The issue brought up by the DA was that he couldn’t imagine that we didn’t hear the amount of noise coming from the basement. This is a man who has NO children and must not have had a childhood that was spent at overnights with friends. If you’re a parent or as a child yourself that either allowed sleepover’s or attended them yourself, they aren’t quiet. it’s one of the reasons why many parents don’t allow them. Was it noisy? Yes, to a degree. We had some rules about the noise. They could play the stereo to a volume that we could still hear the tv upstairs. After 10:00 pm, the stereo and/or tv volumes had to be turned down because we were going to bed. Sometimes it was sooner than that if it started working on our nerves. I wish I had the amount of text messages or phone calls that I made to our older son to “turn it down!” April 2015 rolled around and here is where I made the biggest mistake of my life. My son came to me and asked if I would be willing to go buy them some beer. Right now, I have a hard time even telling you this because after I committed to saying yes and did it, I regretted it. Did I ask any of their parents if this was ok? No, I didn’t. It was extremely dumb, stupid and reckless on my part on every level. I was by this point aware that some of the other boys were drinking, however. Again, I along with their parents were friends with them on different social medial platforms. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. There was a ton of photos being posted on Twitter and Instagram of them drinking at different places and we had started to hear through people that we knew that the one boy would host barn parties. We later found out that one time there was so many cars that the neighbor complained about them parking on his property. I asked my attorney to question this person, but I guess for whatever reason he didn’t feel it was necessary to show that other parents had allowed this to happen. I’m not trying to justify my actions, but if I’m guilty of this then let’s put all the cards on the table. I even remember telling one of my friends that I agreed to do this. She wasn’t happy and told me that I should not have agreed to this. I agreed with her, and it was actually the one and only time that I purchased for them. I admitted this right out of the gate during trial. I didn’t try to hide it or justify it. I couldn’t, there was a receipt because I ended up paying part cash and part debit card. Some asked how they knew it was me that bought it and that they didn’t take my card and use it? I said that I was sure they had me on video, and I wasn’t trying to be deceitful. I figured that I would fess up and tell the truth. This evidence didn’t come out until later, I’m only telling you now for reference to it later. After this happened, things slowed down a little. We were getting tired of the noise that was occurring and I was tired of them wanting to always be at our house. One morning, our oldest sone came in our room to wake us up. It was urgent, we had to get up now! I said what is going on? He told us that DG came in the middle of the night banging on his bedroom window asking to be let in that the police were looking for him. I said Well why is he here and where is his parents? I was told that his mom was on the way over. When we got up, his mom was in fact there and he was sitting in her van. He was beat up pretty good and had black eyes and look horrible. He had been at a drinking party the night before, along with some of the other guys that our son hung out with. Apparently, an altercation took place there and a fight ensued. Later, charges were brought against DG, and I believe a few others. At the time when questioning started regarding my arrest, DG changed his story about 3 times. He also had these charges mysteriously disappear from his record. It was brough up during my trial briefly along with some other questions about an expensive airline ticket that was purchased for his sister to fly home from S. Dakota by one of the moms involved in my case. Yes, we found out later she was bribing witnesses. She purchased expensive watches and helped pay for graduation parties for them. It was brushed under the rug by the DA that they were doing this out of grief. I’m confused how witnesses were allowed to hang out and exchange testimonies and stories during a trial. However, much of this also took place within that almost 2-year period they waited to file charges. There was occasion when my neighbor’s daughter and her friend would come over and hang out with the guys. There was one instance that I recall sitting on the sofa and DG walks in. He comes in and there are like 3-4 girls with him. I said what’s going on. He has this smug look on his face, and I guess he thought I was going to be ok with him just showing up with guests of his own. I called my son upstairs and told him that they have to leave NOW! I also told DG that he can’t just show up whenever he wants and bring girls to my house. That wasn’t happening. This was about the time when we started making the rule that no one could just “show up” anymore. It was getting to be too much. At first it wasn’t bad because they would stop by, and it was occasional. It was clearly now becoming a habit and we didn’t like it. My husband and I were having conversations with our son that this, “had to stop”. We were tired of his friends showing up whenever without calling, now they were starting to try to bring people around that we didn’t know. So, then we noticed that they would now call to come pick up our son and then they would leave to go to either NA’s grandpa’s house or there was another group of friends that lived in the development across the street. I don’t know if they were telling their parents that they were coming to our house, then leaving to go to these other places. I knew that my son asked and where he was according to what he told me. What these other kids told their parents wasn’t my problem. It later became my problem however after they all wanted to deny any knowledge and make me the scapegoat. They all seemed to forget about the drunken fight and police charges against DG, they seemed to forget the time they were at NA’s grandpas, and he caught them drinking and called NA’s mom to come get them. I mean, I didn’t get a call that night telling me that my son was caught drinking at her father’s house. I’m sure none of the other parents were called either. Why? Because I’m sure she did what I did the first time I caught them. She probably gave them a talking to and said she wouldn’t say anything if it wouldn’t happen again. I don’t know for sure if that happened, but at this point I can only imagine. So how many other times where they caught and none of us did anything? All of us as parents, gave them grace and thought we handled it by talking to them and asking them to not do it again. So was I the only one, because it seems to me that a lot was happening, but no one was saying anything. I hear crickets…..

Photo by G.O.D picture: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-of-a-woman-looking-at-a-calendar-14465808/

#Teens #Teenagers #Parenting #ParentingMistakes #TeenDrinking #TeenAlcohol #TeenDrinkingParties

We put a lot of time, love, blood, sweat, tears and money into our cabin. It was something that we wanted to hopefully be able to treasure, make memories and pass down. Proverbs 19:21 tells us: “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.” I still pause to think that any of this was “his plan”, but I was able to grow my faith, share it with others and still share his word with others because of it. Perhaps, that was the plan all along. I just wish the stuff in between never had to happen. The evening when we all returned to the cabin after eating at the pizza shop, the kids wanted to build a campfire. It was Friday night and my husband, and I were tired from working all day. We built the fire, sat around for a little bit then my husband and I and our younger son decided to turn in. There wasn’t much that we felt the guys could get into because we were essentially in the middle of nowhere. They were old enough to be able to sit by a campfire alone and be responsible enough for it. At one point, my son came inside to ask if they could take a walk up the lane. I said that I guess it would be ok, but not to bother anyone else and to stay on the lane. They came back and said that apparently, they started talking to a group of people that were outside their camp. Here the one boy DG knew them, and they were friends of his family. How odd was that? They asked if it would be ok if they went back to their camp and sat around the fire with them. I said that if it was ok with them then it was ok with me. I asked if they would be back before 11ish and to make sure they went to bed and didn’t go anywhere else. (This is an interesting fact, because during my trial DG lied on the stand stating that they never met anyone and that he didn’t know them. This was just one of the first of many lies we caught him in). We later found out that while they were at this camp, the people there allowed them to drink. I’m not sure who drank, how much they drank, and if it was just beer or alcohol, etc. but they drank. I didn’t find this fact out until it appeared in my discovery packet along with the dumb decision to take that photo at the pizza shop. When everyone woke up the following morning, I had no clue that they were drinking the night before. I only knew that they went to visit friends of DG that they ran into at another camp close to ours. I was aware that CS woke up that morning sick on his stomach. I was told by my son that CS was vomiting and felt sick, but they thought maybe it was something they ate the night before. No one else was sick or looked hungover. The discovery also stated that the case of beer that was purchased at the pizza shop was what these boys drank that evening. That I bought it and provided it to them. (This was not true, but I had a group of kids at this point that I don’t know if they felt pressured by the DA to respond this way or if they were offered some leniency later to respond like this. I will never know. I will get the point later on what leniency I’m referring to). I don’t know if you want to be an armchair lawyer or not, but if you’re keeping notes on all of this, you’ll see why many people were frustrated by what happened in this case and why they get so frustrated at other cases too. I can play devil’s advocate here and say that I could’ve, should’ve, would’ve, but hindsight is 20/20. How many parents allow or bring their kid’s friends along on vacations, or if you own a vacation home, allow them to come along? How many times have you been out with friends, at home, or someplace where alcohol was served, snapping photos? So, if you are out to eat and snap a photo and a beer happens to be sitting in front of your child, must we assume they were drinking? Of course not! Should I have allowed my son to carry that case of beer for me and then stupidly took a photo? NO! I also never thought that anyone would be dumb enough to think that I bought it for them, then said, “let’s commemorate the event for all to see”. Of course, let’s not forget that I posted this photo on Facebook at the time. I also was friends with all of these boys’ parents on Facebook at the time. I tagged them all in the photo. Did anyone object, question it or complain or take issue with it at the time? No! So, it’s not like I took the photo and then hid the fact. I’m confused then later how everyone acted like “they didn’t know” or “that it was shock”. Again, I’m not defending my actions, I’m just stating that you can’t acknowledge the post, like it and react to it, then tell the DA that you couldn’t believe this or that I did this, etc. If at this point, you had questions or concerns about what your child was doing, then why was I not asked at this point? I will tell you, because there was no concern. Am I the only confused at this point? (NOTE: none of this was made aware to us until almost 2 years later when the charges were filed, so up to this point again, no one brought any issues or concerns to our attention regarding this event or any event prior to this). After this trip to the cabin, we never saw CS again. It was after this that we were told about his possession and use of marijuana. We later started seeing him posting on snapchat where he was in possession of large amounts of it (more than personal consumption), and also using it. The DA, police and no one else found any concerns regarding this. His parents were friends with him on his social media and took no action or concern about these posts. So again, I was confused how they were blind to this but later decided to treat us like we were deplorable, stating “they didn’t know” or did they know and decide to not say anything? So, if that’s the case, all who knew or suspected and didn’t say anything then-are you not just as guilty? Because silence is just as loud.

#Teens #Teenagers #ParentsOfTeens #Parenting #ParentingMistakes #ParentingRules

Am I ready to tell me story? I’m not sure. I have seen a few things that keep popping up that say, “It’s time to tell your story”. I’m not sure if that’s from the Lord, if it’s Satan trying to steer me the wrong way. I want to do this in the Lord’s timing and not mine. So, I am going to start with some background to put all of this into context later. Growing up, my husband’s parents were super strict. My parents, on the other hand were strict but not overly strict. My mom will tell you that they didn’t have to be because my sister’s and I really didn’t cause them a lot of problems. Were we saints? Absolutely not! When, my husband and I finally had kids, we wanted them to be able to have friends over, go to friends’ homes, and have some fun without us being helicopter parents. From the time that our boys were little, I told them, “I trust you until you give me a reason to not trust you.”. We felt that was a pretty fair statement. I also told them that just because we don’t see you doing something, doesn’t mean I can’t see you. (Meaning that other people will see you and tell us). My older son found this out one day when he asked in advance if he could walk to a corner store after school with friends. I told him that he could because the store wasn’t that far. Later that day, his one elementary school teacher messaged me asking if Stephen was walking on a certain road earlier in the day. She asked because she thought it was him and couldn’t believe how tall he’d gotten. I told her yes; it was probably him that he asked if he could walk to this store after school. I told him later that day and said, “see, if you wouldn’t have told me what would have happened!”. So again, I never to this point had any reason to think that he was doing things he shouldn’t have been. I wasn’t naive either to think that he wouldn’t. I just had to trust in the process “trust until you give me a reason not to”. When we lived in our first house, the kids seemed to like to congregate near our yard. I later found out that it was because the electrical box was home base for many games. Steve and I weren’t sure we liked them all coming around so much, but my mother-in-law (the strict one) told my husband that maybe this wasn’t so bad. This way we could keep an eye on things and know what they were up to. We knew the parents of these kids because they were our neighbors. Many times, we’d stop outside and chat with them. Some, we are still friends with to this day. Eventually, we moved away from this home and into our first official bigger home, bigger yard. There weren’t really any kids in this new development. The ones that were there, were younger than my oldest and my youngest son was able to play with one boy next door. Also, by this time my older son was finishing up 5th grade and starting to go into middle school. I already explained how quickly he seemed to move up in football. During this time, both boys were playing football. As parents, we were running to games and practices almost every day. We knew most of the parents on the youth teams and the middle school teams. We also knew most of the coaching staff. Everyone that got to know us, knew that our world revolved around our kids. Many things in our careers were changing by this time as well. Both of us were at the peak of our careers, making probably the most we ever had. We were living in the house to go with it, and our social circles were changing. We were able to afford nicer things, we were going on nice vacations, and the kids didn’t want for much. One of the things that my husband and I talked about wanting was a cabin. It was just something that we both always wanted and now seemed like the time to do it. We weren’t sure where we wanted it, or exactly what it was we were looking for. We knew we’d know when we saw it. I liked this area that was about 45 minutes outside of Gettysburg. It was close enough to our home, so we could leave after work and be there rather quickly. It was far enough away, that we felt like we were actually going somewhere. The area is surrounded by beautiful apple orchards, mountains, plenty of fresh air, and there were 2 lakes with beaches close by to relax and just enjoy the day. After some time, my husband ended up finding a cabin on craigslist. Him and I went alone that day to go see it. The lady I believe was asking $13,000 for it. The land was leased, so we wouldn’t own the land. The cabin would be ours and we could do whatever we wanted with it. When we pulled up, the place was so overgrown, the weeds were about waist deep. You could see the potential, but you had to squint to see it lol. The cabin itself wasn’t small. It was about 1300 square feet, with a loft. She was leaving everything. That was good and bad because that meant that we had to then figure out a way to toss what we didn’t want to keep. (That ended up being a lot). The cabin needed a lot of TLC from sitting and not being properly maintained. The gutters fell off, causing a leak in the back of the cabin to then rot through part of the roof and wall. It needed painted, gutted, the back room where the wall/roof was falling apart needed totally renovated. It was a project, and we aren’t handy people. My husband took a leap of faith and offered the lady on the spot $8,000. He told her, this needs a LOT of work. We have no idea to what extent, other than what we can see. He explained to her that he was going to have to get some help, buy materials. Shockingly, she accepted. I think she knew that it was bad, and that she wasn’t going to get many other offers. We spent the next several months (by this time my oldest son was close to 16) going back and forth, meeting friends, family to just empty the place out. We met some local guys that lived up there who was kind enough to mow and landscape the yard back to its original glory. They were the kind of guys that didn’t charge you much, wouldn’t take more if you tried to offer it and on occasions asked us to pick up a case of beer or bottom shelf vodka. Sounds strange, but that’s what they wanted. After some time, they became our primary handymen. It worked for us because they did great work, were cheap and they lived close by and could work when we weren’t around. This then gave us time to come up almost every weekend to check on the progress. We were able to start staying at the cabin after a few months, and to our disappointment our oldest son hated it. He hated it because there was no internet, because there was no tv, nothing to do, whine, whine, whine. He ended up getting a part-time job with one of the football parents who owned a bounce house business. He worked almost every weekend. This required us to sometimes get up and drive him to their warehouse before 5am to meet another worker who would then drive them to the job. This started to then infringe on us being able to go to the cabin and check on the progress of work we were paying to have done. A few times we would drive up after dropping him off, then turn around and come back the same day. His friends were starting to drive, and as I explained before, many of his teammates were older than he was. I wasn’t crazy about another teen driving him, but I had seen a few of them drive and felt that they were safe. He had started to ask one or two of his buddies if they could pick him up so that we didn’t have to come back so early. I told him, “I didn’t want anyone in the house when we were gone”. I told him that I wanted them to go to that person’s house, he could be dropped off and they leave but I didn’t want people in the house when we weren’t home. He would normally call or text us to let us know what his plans would be. Most of the time, he would tell me that he was going to his one friends grandpa’s house to spend the night. That sounded fine with us and trusted that was what was taking place. I also was friends with a few of our neighbors. I had asked if some of them would keep an eye on our house because we were away. If, our older son was supposed to be at a friend’s house, I let them know this and asked that if they saw any unusual cars around to please let me know. At first, we didn’t have internet or phone at our cabin. Eventually, we figured out that this was a requirement since our son wasn’t going to want to come along. A few times my one neighbor had texted me about a car she saw in the driveway. Those times, I knew that we had given permission for one friend to stay with him. ONE friend. The parents knew we weren’t there, and they knew that if they had any problems to call this boy’s parents. The parents had our numbers, the cabin number, and our son knew they could always ask the neighbors for help if they needed it. We were fairly close to most of the neighbors by this point. We had been to most of their homes for cookouts, get together, and knew what kind of people we were. Our one neighbor was a police officer. So, we also felt that our son was smart enough to know that he could see anything going on. (That wasn’t his responsibility. I had asked as a friend if they would keep an eye on the house, etc. when I knew we would be away). We felt that we were doing everything necessary to prevent something from happening. The rules were in place that no one was allowed there if we weren’t home, if someone was there, it was one person and this kids parents knew we weren’t there. I contacted the neighbors, asking for their help if anything looked suspicious, and my in-laws didn’t live far away if they needed them until we could get home. We also had many other friends at this point who grew to be more like family that our son knew he could call if he needed to. Let us not forget that by this time we were buying into the “FAMILY” mantra through football. Later, I would realize that allowing him to stay home, thinking we were doing the right things, would be one of the biggest mistakes that we made.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/writer-working-on-typewriter-in-office-3808904/

#Parenting #Teens #Teenagers #MakingGoodChoices #ParentingInstructions