Living with an adult child

I only hope and pray no one reading this will ever need to consider living with an adult child. Seniors living with their adult children used to be a common thing when I was a young child. Seniors were given respect and a place set aside for them if they needed one.

Well, some seniors still move in with relatives, but the respect has gone out of the window. Well, maybe it wouldn't be so bad if the adult child hadn't been a product of a divorced family. This son, the middle one, used to call and tell me how awful it was that I wanted some of the books I bought back from his Dad's house after the divorce.

Not thinking straight, almost ten years later, after losing my clients after 911, on the brink of eviction, I accepted his invitation to come and live in Florida. During that time, travel was difficult. I ended up taking the train since it was my daughter who bought my ticket.

My first clue happened five minutes after getting off the train. There were no station in Dayton Beach and this was a tiny backwater town out in the boonies, literally. My son was nowhere to be found. I called; got my daughter-in-law who assured me he had been on his way. It was another 40 minutes. He didn't greet me. He didn't give me a hug. He started walking towards my luggage and I followed to the van his neighbors had driven for the trip. I have arthritis and I had been stuck on a train for three days. I could barely walk, let alone hoist my own self up inside a van that had nothing to hang onto. It wasn't easy and I had to ask for help.

On the way home, I asked him could we buy some ice tea. We stopped at a 7-Eleven. Before getting out; and me, of course, handing him money, he wanted to know if I would be expecting others to bring me the ice tea. I was so shocked at the question I just told him no, of course not.

I hadn't slept more than 20 minutes for three days. Neither him nor my daughter-in-law, who had been great person via the phone, asked me what I needed to get settled in. I had five grandchildren thrown on me who had been waiting for my arrival It was past midnight and I was barely able to stand.

The next morning I was jerked out of three hours sleep when my daughter-in-law's mother showed up. No one bothered to tell her that there was someone now sleeping in the living room. I had a clue when my son asked me before leaving what time I went to bed. It was usually around 1 a.n. That wasn't good enough to cope with him wandering around the house up to 3 or 4 in the morning. There was nothing unusual about his either doing laundry or cooking up a late night snack at any hour. I didn't get a full night's sleep the whole six months I was there. It just about did my health in permanently. On returning to California, I almost died twice in a six week period.

It took about a week before I found out that I had walked into a new age version of a Hitlerian family. Orders were barked continually. The kids were beaten with a belt daily. There were screaming shouting matches between husband and wife weekly with threats of divorce and separation.

I was told early on that I wasn't to correct the children unless they were in some danger. The kids were cute but needing guidance that wasn't followed with a belt. Not that I got a chance to do anything to help.

Any questioning on part was met with screaming and threats telling me to leave. This came after I asked why there was division of use between hand towels and dish towels. I was told I should have never bothered being in 'his' house and that I constantly questioned his authority. Those were his rules.

This time in Florida was such a nightmare it's hard to write about. After I left, and returned to California, my son's life fell apart. He lost a child to accidental death; lost his home, twice and lost his wife.

He has been very ill and moving around from couch to couch. Imagine that. It's still hard to look back and realize I lived through all of this.

Laura Bell
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