never meet your heros

[mollykins]

I am in a kind of 'never meet your heros situation?'

Everyone thinks my dad is great, funny, kind, hard working. My next door neighbour who recently fell out with her only son, said she wishes he was more like my dad.

But i have to live with him and can't wait to move out. (please noone complain that i'm moaning, you don't have to live with this man)

~He always complains he has no money, yet buys at least £15 of food that is unecessary each week, then wastes half the meat - another ten pound at least, by not using the left overs. Yet he smokes and must spend £15-20 a week on that, so we could save about £50 a week (he tries to give up but he admitted that he doesn't really want to, but says he could easily if he wanted to)

~He is such a fussy eater, its rediculous, and saturday is normally the only night i get to have rice, noodles or pasta, and if i get a big pack of noodles i have a stir fry instead of a proper roast on a sunday. But the rest of the week its potatoes and rarely anything else.

~He took no notice in my school work, and didn't even know what gcse subjects i took, he thought i'd taken art instead of maths! But when i got asked to stay behind for revision, for my up coming exams, he told me off for getting a detention, which it wasn't, but he thought i got it because i weren't paying attention in lessons and needed to catch up.

~My oldest brother is 24 years older than me, and i think he thinks that he can bring me up the same way that he did him and my other siblings, but times have moved on, until i'm eighteen the only boy thats allowed round, is my gay friend, who i've known since we were 8.

So am i living in a never meet your heros situation, and if people had to live with him all of the time, would they feel the ame way about him do you think?

[Sachs]

Hi molly x ( that's a kiss/ hug ! )
Us 'grown ups' aren't perfect, we juggle along with what life throws at us and sometimes we really hurt those around us unintentionally. The smoking is a dependancy, if your dads not ready to quit he wont. Food wise, he needs help in organising the weeks meals so theres no waste, may be even pre - preparing them the day before. Is your mum with you? You didn't say. I feel sorry for you regards your social scene, he's being protective but he's smothering you.

[ummmm]

Sorry Molly but if you think that is bad the you are very naive.

[Sachs]

By the way,
your of an age now when you will question your lot! That's good ! But give and take & make allowances here & there x

[mollykins]

my mum is fed up with it all aswell.

Their parenting is completely different though, as i said my dad brought up three children over twenty years ago, but i'm my mums first child, so i get treated really differntly from them both. But she think that he is too old fashioned.

[Sachs]

What kind of food stuff is your dad wasting? Does your dad have the monopoly on what gets bought? x

[sara3]

molly, one day you'll move out, and one day he'll be gone.... think of all the things you would miss about him...

[mollykins]

He earns most of the money. Its jsut al lthe little things that add up really, but meats probably the most. We'll have pork chops that come in packs of four and because he can't be bothered and without us realising he'll cook all four, saying he'll eat the other oen tomorrow and me and mum can have pasta etc, but the next day comes and he cooks some chicken, and the dog ends up getting the other pork chop.

But if he goes out shopping on his own, he'll get us noodles but a big pack of vegetables aswell, but we only use half the pack, plus we have the vegetables anyway, so by the end of the week, we have still have cabbage and carrots and mushrooms left, which we could have used in the stirfry, but we didnt because he bought the pack of vegetables. and he does similar stuff with other foods aswell

[mollykins]

ftao sara . . . . . thinking . . . . . can't honestly think of many things. i'd keep in touch and visit them but i don't know what i would miss.

[mollykins]

He makes nice gravy and chips but i don't like having them because they're unhealthy.

Plus i doubt i'd be able to take my dog with me so i'll miss her, and my mum, whose always there for me.

When i move out, i'll probably get more exercise and eat healthier so i'll be fitter and thinner.

[ummmm]

Molly...you have a Mum and Dad. A roof over your head. Food on the table.

Just because it's not the food you choose...! You're sounding like a brat.

[ummmm]

My God *sigh*.....

You haven't got a clue what problems are...

[mollykins]

But he's giving me really unhealthy food. I weigh 9 and a half stone and i don't want to. If i made all of my own food which is impossible at the moment i would be fit and healthy, but i'm not.

[sara3]

I don't know Molly.. my dad died when I was 5 and I have very few memories of him. if he'd been like your dad, and I'd been older, I'd probably sit with my brother and sister, roll my eyes and laugh about, "remember how he used to always cook the extra pork chop and give it to the dog?"

to someone who was brought up without a dad with the obviously financial implications, it doesn't sound quite so bad.

[mollykins]

And the doctors have told him that he needs to lose weight aswell, but he ignores them, even though he is overweight, with above average blood pressure and high colesterol (mum found this out from a letter he'd got from the doctors, that he'd left lying around)

[ummmm]

Do more exercise then...!!

It's just been on the news about the little girl who was starved to death by her parents. Your life ain't so bad is it?

[mollykins]

True sara, but he's so hypercritical, he wastes all that food, then complains he has no money.

[wolf63]

Your dad sounds pretty normal.

Is he cruel? Does he steal? Does he have a nasty temper? Does he drink too much and too often? Does he do drugs?

He does his best - I'm with Sachs - being a 'grown-up' is so much more complicated than it seems.

Are you easy to live with? Does your dad think so?

Of course your mum will 'bitch' about your dad - that is what happens when you live with the same person for a long time - you still love them but they start to annoy you.

When I was young I didn't really like my dad, after my mum died I got to know him as a person and not just my dad - he was a really nice person and I miss him loads.

[Sachs]

I understand you need your 'own' food molly. My son is very aware of what he wants to eat & we get it in for him. Of course it's important you look after diet/ self. Are you working, can you do your food shop?

[daffy654]

I'm with ummmm on this one, you have no idea what real problems are.

Be grateful your family can afford food to waste. I have just had two weeks where I could afford to feed 2 out of the 3 of us that live in this house, so my other half and our son got fed and I ate toast as it was all that was left.

If your dad doesn't want to stop smoking then that is his choice, he earns the money to buy the cigarettes.

[ummmm]

Do actually read answers?