Dear Ann Landers, am a mother whose heart is breaking. I raised eight children. My seventh child-a girl eighteen- just ran off and married a bum. We thought she would get tired of him or see for herself that he was no good, so we let them spend as much time together as they wanted. We even let her sleep weekends at his home, which we see now was a mistake. My husband and I think she is pregnant, and we blame the boy's parents. They should have kept an eye on them. I told off the boy's mother last week, and she ordered me out of her house. Our daughter heard about the incident, and now she won't speak to us. What can we do?-Made Fools Of
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Our Reader to Reader Question of the Week:
Dear Readers, , I’ll call it the problem of the “returnees.” “Returnees” are young adult children we thought were happily mar-ried, permanently settled in their homes or apartments and able to manage financially without any help from us. Now, at long last, we parents can finally (hallelujah!) live our own lives. Right? Wrong. The adult child arrives, suitcases in hand, carry-ing a pet (or a child) and announces that he/she is getting a divorce and returning home. Ann, these days, a great many adult children run back to Mama and Papa and are sure that “the folks” will support them as they did before they married. Many of us are just barely making ends meet, and it’s a real struggle. How can parents protect themselves from children who return to the nest and expect to be treated as children when they are in their 30s and 40s? -S.G., Uniondaie, N.Y.
