Everwhere is walking distance if you have the time

[ClingingToHope]

Sure, some kids are fine doing that. I don't want to leave it up to chance though. Because for every kid who was "fine" left alone I can bring up several others who gave into temptation.

So I strongly disagree with anyone on here who thinks leaving a 13-year-old female home alone unsupervised for days at a time is a good idea.

Sorry if the term lazy parenting struck some the wrong way, but I won't back down from it. XW leaves them home alone because she's too lazy to call friends to see if they can hang out there. And she is trying to save money -- which comes from her decision to D.

XW's mom gave her and her two sisters all kinds of "veg" time growing up so her mom could just sit in her room reading romance novels. None of them went to college. All three of them were having sex by age 15. They all are a mess.

XW responded that she's looking into a couple of camps for D13 and will have D13 spend more time with her grandmother at their campground. It looks like there may be one week where they are home alone. I don't mind one week with D13 and D9 home alone together.

Kat, my attorney told me once the bankruptcy is filed I get to start over. He just cautioned me not to refinance my 401k loan and pay off my car until after the trustee's meeting on April 19. Not that that's against the law, it just gives a bad appearance.

I don't plan on ever taking out a car loan again. I will save money and whatever I have saved plus the trade in will be what I buy in five years. I don't plan on borrowing on anything other than a mortgage -- and that will be at least two years from now and I won't buy anything that I can't put 10 percent down on.

I have hated debt since I was 25 and was always frustrated with XW's need to buy, buy, buy. The only way we ever saved was when I did it secretly.

A co-worker who is 31 and pretty flighty was talking about these $650 sunglasses she bought. I just kept my mouth shut. Her husband is an electrician. They make good money and she makes good money, but they have one kid and want more and life gets interesting once those expenses build if you still want the latest fashion. XW and I always made enough -- she just upped her spending every time we got a raise. It was a recipe for disaster.

Good night with girls last night, although I had to leave for 90 minutes to listen to a speech for work.

Everything was going well until D9 was in bed. She started crying because she had a bad morning at school. She was sorry "because keep trying to help" her and she's mean to them. She's upset that she's still in special education and not in the general classroom. There's just a quarter of school left and "that's not enough time." She wants to be back in the general classroom. She wants to be "just a normal kid."

She asked why did God make her that way.

Ugh. It put my mental struggles in perspective.