Note: this is a chapter from my memoir. I tried to follow the story spine with it and answer the 5 W's. After this course, I'm thinking I'll make each chapter a personal essay. Let me know how you think I did. Thanks.

“Children become irresponsible only when we fail to give them opportunities to take on responsibility.” -Margaret Goldman

Teenagers, I believe, are God’s punishment for everything we’ve done wrong in this life or in any prior life we might have lived. Especially, my two teenagers who had quit high school, refused to get a job, and slept until noon. I could hardly walk into their rooms because of the smell of rotting food, leftover pizza and dirty clothes thrown over every horizontal surface. I wondered how they could sleep in such odorous filth.

This was in 1987, and we lived in Silicon Valley at the end of a cul-de-sac in Cupertino, one of the best school districts in California.

“Why?” I asked time and time again. “Why won’t you go back to school?”

“It’s boring,” my son said.

“There are too many Chinese kids in class and trying to compete with them is impossible,” my daughter added.

“You guys are impossible. Here I am, at age 43, starting my own company, having finished up my degree at age 32 because it was so important, and you can’t understand the horrible effect quitting school is going to have on your lives.”

I spoke with their principal, asking, no, almost begging him to take them back, but he refused. “They don’t show up and won’t do their assignments,” he explained. “Not to mention how disrespectful they are to me and their teachers.” Even the tears rolling down my cheeks didn’t change his mind.

I had been a single parent since Shoni and Tory were six months and 18 months old. When I left their father, he kept the house and the furniture. I took the kids, the bills, and kept his last name. It felt like I got the better end of the deal. One less kid to take care of.

Aged 16 and 17 years old, neither one smoked or drank, although based on some of her strange behavior (like sitting in a tree and meditating), I wondered then, if Shoni had used drugs. She had recently announced that she was gay. Her major mood swings were later diagnosed as a bipolar disorder.

Tory seemed sullen, perhaps with minor depression. In spite of, or maybe because of growing up without a father in their lives, and all the moving we did, we had always been a close-knit family. I couldn’t understand why, at this stage of their lives, they were struggling. Did they hate me?

Where were Google and YouTube when I needed help?

Since my divorce, I had worked for Hewlett-Packard for 16 years, starting as a secretary and climbing up the corporate ladder through a series of IT and marketing management jobs in California, Washington, Idaho and Germany. When my kids decided to revolt, I had just left HP to start my own direct marketing consulting company, working from home. I had no business plan, no clients and enough money to last us only six months. Not very smart.

I left because my new boss was a sexist British prick. I couldn’t work for someone I didn’t respect—especially someone who knew nothing about the leading edge database marketing we were doing. I wanted to continue working in that field and could see no better option than starting my own consulting company, however risky it would be.

My two rebellious teenagers fought and screamed at each other, blasting their Whitney Houston music as I tried to talk with potential clients on the phone. The situation became untenable.

I convinced them that they would not be able to continue with educational programs or get decent jobs without a GED (General Education Diploma). They both did well on their tests, even though they had missed one and two years of high school, respectively.

I also told them that unless they returned to school with new attitudes, they would need jobs because there would be no more allowances. That didn’t work. I tried to explain our financial situation, and told them that unless I could get this new company off the ground, I might become a bag lady. I needed their cooperation. That didn’t work. Then I flashed back to a Tough Love seminar I had attended a year earlier. I stopped cooking and doing laundry. Finally, I stopped buying their favorite foods and drinks. That didn’t work. Of course, I had soup, salad and sandwich fixings on hand, along with water. They wouldn’t starve.

I had never been so scared before. Although I’d made many risky decisions in my career, taking on jobs I had no experience in or which had never existed before, I’d always had HP behind me. If I failed, I could find a different opportunity within the company. This time, I had no backup. And, on top of that, I felt like a failure as a mother.

I had recently read Barbara Sher’s book, Wishcraft. I hoped her advice would help me deal successfully with both my new business and my dysfunctional family. One of the exercises she suggested was to describe our perfect day, in detail, without real or perceived limitations. Then she asked us to pick one small aspect of our perfect day and take one step towards achieving that part of our dream. I pictured myself living by the water.

I began looking at property for sale in the east bay and found a condo in Alameda looking over an estuary abundant with sailboats. It was a 1-1/2 hour commute. I made an offer on a two-bedroom condo, contingent on the sale of my home. I listed my home and put a “For Sale” sign in the front yard.

The kids said, “Two bedrooms? That’s not enough room for us.”

“You’re right.” I desperately hoped I was doing the right thing. If I wasn’t, I might permanently endanger their happiness and our relationships. I felt like this was one of the biggest risks I had ever taken.

“What will we do? Where will we live?” I could hear their anger and see the fear in their eyes.

“I don’t know. It’s not my problem anymore.” My head throbbed and my stomach felt like it might be full of worms. Nothing else had worked. “You have one month to figure it out.”

During that time, both my children found jobs at a local pizza parlor. They moved into friends’ homes. They figured it out.

As my six months’ bag lady deadline approached, I reduced my mortgage payment, negotiated my first big contract with Tandem Computers and brought in two partners to help me with the project. Maybe I wouldn’t be a bag lady after all.

Tory got a job selling high-end car radios and shared an apartment with a couple of his friends. Shoni had twice asked me for and received money to take courses, both of which she quit. When she needed $14,000 to enroll in a two-year course for computer animation, I said, “No. I don't have that money to give you right now. You’ll have to take out a student loan. IF and when you complete the course, then I’ll pay off the loan for you.”

Fast forward three years. Shoni finished her two-year course with excellent grades. Yeah Shoni! She got a good job and I paid her loan. I had taken a job at Santa Cruz Operations as Vice President of software support and training for their Unix operating system and was able to include Tory in one of the Unix training programs.

Today, both kids are happily married with one son each. They both work in IT, earning six-figure incomes. Over the years, they have actually thanked me for forcing them to take responsibility for their lives. I thank Tough Love and Barbara Sher for showing me the way and giving me the strength I needed to help my children develop self confidence and create fulfilling lives. I’m very proud of both of them.

Karen Blue

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