WARNING: Long
My stepson's girlfriend graduates college tomorrow. That's hardly family, but in some sense she's as close to a daughter as I'll probably ever have. Don't have the space or time to bore you with the absolute ripoff of a hand life dealt her, but she's got as good of an attitude and work ethic as you could possibly have, especially considering her background, and so I'm very proud of her. But I will tell you just a little bit.
She's around quite a lot the last few years, for obvious reasons at first, of course. But for a while there's been no running water at her house so she washes her clothes and showers over here. What passes for food at her house sounds horrendous, and since she graduated high school she hasn't been welcome to a lot of it anyway, her mom and stepdad expecting her to buy her own food. So she eats supper with us frequently, because my wife, as a true foodie, can't stand the thought of whatever it is she eats when she's not here, and so insists she eats with us. I tend to think of it more in financial terms....I can't imagine being a college student and being responsible for paying for everything myself. Anyway, the point is she's around a lot and now feels like an adopted kid, a bit.
She has a chipper and bright spirit, which is beyond me, because if I had a mom, dad, and stepdad like her I'd probably be worthless. To give you some idea of what she deals with, her mom has asked her before why isn't she pregnant yet, because in her mindset, that's how you get out of here (and stop eating into their "income"), you get knocked up and a guy from better means has to take care of you then. I mean, she has a 15 year old sister who is sadly more what you'd expect from that situation, and she routinely spends the night at her boyfriend's house with their mother's blessing, because she's hoping for the same thing. Get pregnant, get out of here and somebody else has to take care of you. Her dad is, my stepson tells me, a somewhat wealthy man, but he evidently spends all his money on his wife and his new family and refuses to do hardly anything for his oldest daughter. Through all of that, she never badmouths her family and tries to talk about them in the best light possible, and she is careful to try to maintain a relationship with her father even though he doesn't lift a finger to help her and he's basically been a jackass to my stepson. Still, I can tell by the look on her face and the way she talks at times, she's fully aware that her family doesn't live up to the impression of them she tries to paint. And in private conversations with my wife, she has completely broken down and admitted a ton of anxiety about life and emotional angst about her folks. I know for a fact that she looks at my wife as a sort of surrogate mom, and I'm grateful my wife is the kind of lady who can step up for something like that.
Through all of that she's always worked, budgeted her little bit of money well (where that ethic came from I don't know, as the adults in her house do not have jobs) and maintained straight A's. She'll graduate with honors and, I believe, a 4.0 gpa. She was eligible for state funding and scholarships and so far as I know, will graduate without student debt.
I put new tires on her car when it had to be done and she couldn't afford it and her dad declined to help her, I've done a bit of other low-level work on her clunker when it needed it (I am hardly any sort of mechanic), and I co-signed a car loan for her when I was no longer comfortable at all with her driving that thing around on the highway anymore, because I knew she'd make her payments responsibly, like everything else she does. And she has.
Why I'm talking about this here, I do not know. It's the Porch, and I guess I just feel like tooting the horn of a young lady I wish the best for, a girl who is not my daughter, but sometimes, on some days, kinda feels like it.
Tomorrow I'll meet her dad for the first time. I'm half inclined to tell him don't worry about the times she asked you for help and you said no. Don't worry about the times you demanded she come visit for the holidays and she brought my stepson with her and you were rude to him. We'll just call it even, no harm no foul, but you STFU from now on and we get her for the holidays from here on out.
