I’m an advice column addict. I can’t help it. I start my morning with a frothy soy milk latte, my “Crack” berry, and a heavy dose of “Dear crew.” When I’m lucky, I can persuade David to play a game of “What would Abby do?” If she’s in a particularly sporty mood, we can delve beyond the layers of the written word. What if the husband, “Chip”, really needs Viagra, and is in fact not having an affair like “Horny in Hoboken” thinks? What if the nosy mother-in-law, “Madge”, is right? Maybe “Good Mom in Leavenworth” is, in fact, a bad mom. Normally, I can tell myself that it’s a game of good clean fun. The anonymity of Chip, Madge and Horny is fascinating and comforting: these semi-fictional characters have problems too.

Today’s column was simply disturbing. It involved a mother who is a newly retired homeowner with an outstanding mortgage. Unless she was the CEO of a major publicly traded corporation, this lady is on a massive fixed income. Now listen to this: She has two sons, ages 22 and 24, who live in her house and she has asked them to help out and pay $30 a week. “Stressed Mom” ​​says they are now “rant and raving and calling her a bad mom.” She continues to ask if she is being unreasonable. Than?

Kick those little weed-smoking, Cartoon Network-watching thugs out of your house! How can you even ask if you’re not being reasonable? It’s time to grow your balls and live the life you’ve worked hard for. They are bloody healthy men who are taking full advantage of your favorable ways. Are you also going to raise their children? Because sooner or later, one of them is going to get a date with a loser girl who doesn’t care that she’s dating a guy who lives with her mommy. Then you are going to have the whole zoo in your hands.

I’m sick and tired of hearing about Boomerang ‘Kids’ and how hard it is for them to make it on their own in the big, bad world. Granted, our generation tended to be more involved in educating our kids, nurturing their every talent, making sure they were safe from balloon-related latex allergies, but the helicopters HAVE to stop at some point. The longer we wait, the bigger and worse the world will seem to our children.

“Stressed-Out” should have started his children on a different path long ago. Isn’t it part of the job to teach your children to take care of themselves? I did not raise my son and daughters to be good children, I raised them to be true adults. That means that once they are of age, they are on their own. They started hearing about this early and often. As they headed to college, they didn’t expect to hear, “Honey, come back when the going gets tough.” “Watch out for the screen door” was a little closer to the goal. They know that I love them. Enough to want them to have lives they’re proud of. That’s not going to happen on my base.

See also: Sell The Nest at www.gypsynester.com

Veronica, GypsyNester.com