Sure you may think that you live with a lazy, or less than enthusiastic worker, but I tell you now that they all report to my adopted stepson. Yes ladies and gentlemen he is without a doubt their leader, the absolute king of the ‘just enough to get by’ club. He has one chore in the house, and that is to do dishes, and I tell you it is like pulling teeth to get him to do it. He will space the dishes out in the dishwasher so that the most minimal amount of dishes will fit in, turning one solid load of dishes into two, sometimes three. Sure I could go a head and tell you now that this absolutely irks me to no end, but I am sure that all of you are smart enough to know already, only a paragraph into this post, that I am not a happy camper.

While I have never met anyone who is as intelligent in book smarts and facts, as my adopted stepson, I have also never met anyone who has less drive to do anything, than my adopted stepson. He is the king of ‘who cares,’ ‘someone else will take care of it,’ and a general air of ‘not my problem.’ And yes, I am fully aware that teenagers are self absorbed creatures, caring for little that extends beyond the point of their nose, but he simply seems to have perfected the craft of caring for nothing but himself. While some of it does stem from emotional damage and trauma, he has always been in general, a selfish and self-centered person.

This is not only hard for me to understand, but to live with. I am by nature not a selfish person. I enjoy giving to, and doing for others. It fills me with incredible guilt to do something for myself, or to buy something for myself. I feel that I could be spending that time or money making someone else happy, and it has been something that I have had to work on for a long time in order to get to the point where I can go to the store and pick something out for myself without feeling like a terrible person for doing so.

His laziness reaches far beyond the borders of dishes, and even into the realm of personal hygiene. He will spend fifteen minutes trying to figure out how to fake a shower, rather than spend ten minutes actually, you know, showering. He will stand in the bathroom with his little electric toothbrush running, but not actually brushing his teeth, in the hopes that if we are listening hearing the noise will fool us and we will simply assume that he is brushing his teeth. And if he actually does happen to put the brush to his teeth, he does not take the time to put toothpaste on the brush. I was really not kidding when I say the least amount of effort to get by! I marvel at how he will spend more time coming up with ways to get out of something, than then time it would take to actually get the task done.

As of now he knows that he will not receive his drivers permit, until he steps it up, and showers with soap on a daily basis, brushes his teeth with toothpaste, uses deodorant, and puts effort into the one chore that he has for the house, the dishes. Brushing his hair on a daily basis is something that, sadly at this point, I have put on the back burner. I figure that if the rest of the family leaves the house looking and smelling nice, and he is the odd man out it is a reflection on him, not the family, and I am okay with that. If he wishes to be stared at when we go out, that is his choice, I am not going to hold him down to run a comb through his hair. I do require that he put deodorant on before we leave the house simply because I cannot stand it if he does not, and I am not going to be cooped up in the car with that, it’s just yucky.

Yes there is a part of me that feels bad at the moment for getting ready to air (hee hee I made a little pun there) his personal hygiene habits, or severe lack there of, but I am sure that there are other families out there that are struggling with underachievers as well, and if nothing else, now you know that you are not alone. The lack of driver’s permit has yet to motivate him into any sort of effort, but I am hopeful. We have explained to him again and again that if he cannot put focus and effort into washing a few dishes, then there is simply no way that we can have faith that he will put forth any sort of focus and effort when he is behind the wheel of a car, yet has it sunken in yet? I doubt it greatly. We still receive the ‘I hate you, hurry up I have computer games to play’ looks. So far he has not been able to get past the we are just evil people who must be blamed for all that is bad stage, and grow up enough to take some personal responsibility for himself and for his actions.

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