Jan.... You hit it on the head!!! And I have to tell you that when we used to work on giving retreats we had a particularly popular and life-enhancing series called "Apples Of Gold"..... in one of these we spent a whole afternoon of the weekend working on the concept of the monkeys.....first, the way a person can start taking on the monkeys...(we used stuffed toy monkeys)...until they were finally so loaded down that they couldn't see over them---and finally another "friend" comes in leading a huge gorilla on a rope.....created lots of laughs, lightened up the sessions, but definitely made the point; and then we all role-played the process of "handing the monkey back" to the person. As far as that family is concerned, I think you've hit a bull's eye again!! We learn behavior patterns from a lot of different places....friends are a big part of it. In this case, I think that bunch of monkeys need to stay in the cage...but don't send your child to join them. Doris....A Texan in Georgia..... Still shaking the family tree and dodging the nuts after 30+ years! IBSSG ----- Original Message ----- From: "J. Garland" <zippywebgenie@hotmail.com> To: <BLACKSHEEP-CHAT-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, May 19, 2002 10:43 PM Subject: Re: [BSChat] I'M ON A RAMPAGE AGAIN ! Jack, Sounds like you're upset because the problems that exist in that other household started spilling over into your life, things that you didn't like and that you can't control. That family sounds like they have some sizable problems there. I call them monkeys. Some monkeys can be huge and nasty, like alcoholism and drug use, some are co-dependency and other mental illnesses. The other family probably has more than a couple monkeys of various sizes and nastiness, but the one you talked about was a selfish, irresponsible teenager that hogs the phone and does who-knows-what-else that disturbs the general peace in their household. You can't control anything what happens in that household, but you can control whether they're allowed to hand you their monkeys. I have a very strong hunch that you knew exactly what this family was like before you sent Kade over there to spend the night. And yet you let her go. When you did that, you put yourself and Kade at the mercy of whatever monkeys exist in that family. So, why are you upset at them? Did you think they were going to let you control what's going on in their house? Or that they would change momentarily to comply with your wishes and then go back to their usual form of "normal"? Get real! If you don't like the way that family works, why would you let Kade go over there? And why would you let her spend the night? What part of that family, what traits, what monkeys, would you like Kade to learn about or copy and carry home? You need to think about that, because I can promise you, she's going to learn something from them, good, bad, or ugly. Of course people like your neighbors live in every state, but why are you associating with them? You have a choice, Jack. There are plenty of other families with fewer and less serious, less irritating monkeys out there. People who can actually be friends, not just neighbors/ acquaintences by default. Those people Kade stayed with aren't even their own friends, so how are they going to be yours or Kade's? (Friends and the children of friends would not have treated you that way.) I get the feeling that you don't think there's an answer, a solution, you feel 'those people are everywhere', and that you were just venting about their bad affects on you. If you're content to just vent, fine. If you're really interested in solving the problem that caused you all the angst and blood-pressure today, you have the ability to do that. You just have to decide whether you really want things to get better or if you just want to complain about the way you're allowing things to be. It's in your hands. Jan G. <<What set me off this morning was a call to the house where Kade spent the night. The teenager who has hijacked the phone system in the house answered out of a deep sleep and said she was still sleeping and couldn't get up to see if Kade was awake and ready to come home. Mind you, there are adults in the house and they have phones, but they don't answer the phone if the teenager is there for fear she will have emotional decline because she couldn't answer it. The teenager is afraid that if someone else answers the phone she will miss an important call from one of her friends. Fine, but if she is going to be the major domo of the phone line she should shoulder the responsibility of informing someone they had a phone call. Snot nosed little brat had the nerve to tell me "I,m still asleep and I won't get up to tramp all over the house to see who is still asleep or not". Wrong attitude or not, by golly if a child in my household ever told a caller that it would be years before they ever laid their hands on another telephone. Jack Childers in OKC>> _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com ==== BLACKSHEEP-CHAT Mailing List ==== Creative use of your delete key is encouraged. If you disagree with the subject, CHANGE the subject. ============================== To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.362 / Virus Database: 199 - Release Date: 5/7/2002