When my brother is about five or so, he is at a grocery store with my mom. They happen to see our pediatrician there shopping for groceries, too. He and my mom greet each other, but my brother is confused.

Brother: “What are you doing here?”

Doctor: “I’m getting some things for dinner.”

Brother: “Don’t they give you food at the office?”

Doctor: “Sometimes people bring in food, but I’m having dinner at home with my family.”

Brother: “You have a home?”

Doctor: “[Brother], I don’t live at my office.”

For bonus points, our grandfather and two uncles are doctors, and Mom’s a nurse — and my brother was well aware that none of them lived at their offices or hospitals!

Related:
Sequel To The Children’s Classic, “My Teacher Sleeps In School”

My brother has always had a temper, so it came as no surprise to me or my siblings when our mother called to tell us that he had been arrested. My parents, naturally, were shocked, given that they were in the mindset that their kids could do no wrong, but for the rest of us, the only surprise was in what actually ended up getting him arrested.

The story, as far as I can interpret through the face-saving my brother and mother tried to do, was that someone had started to leave nasty messages on my brother’s windshield, supposedly “unprovoked.” They were things along the lines of, “Your car is ugly,” “You’re a horrible person,” and, “Go kill yourself.” My brother hatched the “brilliant” plan to try and catch this person rather than doing something like telling the landlord of the apartment complex or just, you know, ignoring the juvenile notes and moving on with his life.

He parked his car, got out, and then hid himself in a tall set of bushes nearby and proceeded to sit there for several hours. In the middle of summer. In California.

Finally, one of his neighbors parked nearby and then walked over with a note that they put onto his windshield. At that point, my brother jumped out of the bushes and rushed the guy, swinging at him with a large stick he’d found in the bushes as he was crouching there. He missed, denting his own car hood, and then the guy took a swing back at him and actually hit.

They started brawling until the police showed up and they both got arrested.

My sister is a single mom with a seven-year-old son. I don’t have kids, so I don’t actually know how hard it is to raise them, but I think he’s basically feral. [Nephew] has no concept of right and wrong, he does whatever he wants without consequence, and he physically fights back if anyone tells him what to do.

My sister says that as both the mother and father in his life, she doesn’t want to be the bad guy and risk their relationship as he grows up. She would rather let him learn on his own than tell him what is right and wrong. 

One day last summer, he tried to steal something from my jewelry box. I caught him with the jewelry in his hand and tried to take it from him. He responded by grabbing my arm and biting me hard enough to break skin. My sister sided with him, saying he felt threatened and I shouldn’t have touched him. I am the host of my family’s Christmas dinner this year and I wasn’t going to invite her back, but my parents reminded me that she probably didn’t have anyone else to spend the holiday with.

We all sit down to our meal, the feast laid out on the table. [Nephew] tries to take the sweet potato casserole, but I reach out and block him. He glares at me but sits down. We all fold our hands and close our eyes to say grace led by my father.

It only lasts a few seconds before we hear a dragging sound followed by a crash. [Nephew] has tried to take the sweet potatoes again, but it was too heavy and he dropped it. The dish shattered, sending potatoes and marshmallows everywhere.

[Nephew] screams like he is on fire. My sister scoops him up immediately and begins kissing his face and trying to soothe him. My mother and I pick up the shards and start scooping up the food.

Father: *Sighs* “Stop.”

Mother and I look at him.

Father: “Stop cleaning.” 

He looks at my sister.

Father: “Is he okay?”

Sister: *Cradling her son* “He’s okay. Just a little scared.”

Father: “Okay. Then he can clean this up.”

Nephew: “No!”

Sister: “Dad, it’s broken glass.”

Father: *Sternly* “Yes, he can. He made the mess.”

Nephew: “No! It’s [My Name]’s house. She can clean it up.”

He looks at me.

Father: “Come here, [Nephew].”

My father takes [Nephew] and, in the blink of an eye, lays him over his lap and spanks his butt two times before putting him on the floor. We all stand there in shocked silence. I can’t remember a time my father spanked either of us; he was more of the “go stand in the corner, no dessert for a week” kind of punisher.

Sister: “Dad! What the h*** are you doing?!”

She grabs her son.

Father: “What were you going to do, tell him it’s bad and ask him not to do it again?”

Sister: “I— I— I don’t know! I wouldn’t have beat him!”

Father: “Disciplinary action and abuse are two different things. Two swats on the butt is not abuse.”

Sister: “You had no right! You could have hurt him!”

Father: “[Nephew], next time you’re at the table, are you going to grab something without asking?”

My nephew is in tears, holding his butt, and he shakes his head.

Nephew: “N-n-no.”

Father: “Do you understand that bad behavior has bad consequences?”

Nephew: “Uh-huh.”

My father holds out his hand.

Father: “I am sorry. Is your butt okay?”

Nephew: *Nods* “Yes, Pop-pop.”

Father: “I love you, buddy. I really do.”

They hug.

Nephew: “I love you, Pop-pop.”

Sister: *Grabs her son* “You’re a monster.”

My sister promptly left and has cut all contact with us. I’ve heard from mutual friends that she still lets him run wild, but sometimes he looks over his shoulder like someone might discipline him the way my father did.

I do really love my family, and I know that they love me. I am a twenty-year-old woman, and I have a twenty-year-old brother and my mother and father. While my own university life and career has not always been smooth sailing, at this point I’ve settled, and I’m close to graduating, have a plan for after graduation, have a job, and am working an internship.

While my brother might not be at that exact same spot in his life, I would expect him to be reasonably close. However, my parents have always been a little easier on him than me, so he’s still trying to figure things out. To give some context, he was one of the smartest kids at high school and took six advanced placement classes in his junior year, scoring fours and fives — out of five — on the tests for most of them. This is a small snippet of his story.

Year One of University: he passes the first semester with mostly Cs and some Bs, but that’s okay. We all struggle when the environment changes a little. He fails all of the second semester and ends with a GPA of 1.77. We find out he didn’t go to a single class and didn’t do any of his work.

Summer of Year One: my parents find two classes that he could take to redo those classes he failed and boost his GPA. One class is in person at the local community college; in order to make sure he goes, my mom drops him off to each class. The other class is an online class, and my parents expect him to be fine or ask for help if needed. 

Year Two of University: we find out he didn’t complete the online class that summer and is on academic probation. By October, he receives a letter from the university recommending that he withdraw, as he has not been to a single class from the beginning of the semester. His GPA is 0.79. 

He is enrolled in community college for the second semester of that year, so he can try to improve his grades and re-apply to his university.

Semester One at Community College: my dad wakes him up every morning so that he gets to class on time. We get a letter in the mail that he has withdrawn from one of his courses; it turns out, he drives to college and then sleeps in his car in the parking lot until class starts. During one day of an exam, he slept through the test. At the end of this semester, the health crisis hits, and everyone has the option to credit/no-credit the courses, which means that the grade does not factor into the GPA. He no-credits each of his classes without discussing the options with my parents, his counselor, or anyone else, and then gets Ds and Fs on all the classes. 

Summer at Community College: Currently, he is taking four online classes to try and boost his GPA once again, so he can try and apply to university. The due date for all classes is July twenty-third. As of July fifteenth, we learn that he has not started any of the four classes yet. 

So, this is where we are. My mom, dad, and I are sitting in the front room of our house in the morning, and my brother is asleep.

Dad: “Good morning, [My Name]. Listen, I need you to help me out. When I get back from work tonight, your mom, you, and I need to go to [Brother] and help him with his work. I’ll take one class, you take one, Mom will do the other, and [Brother] will do the last one. Let’s try to get this done before the deadline, okay?”

Me: *Pause* “No.”

Dad: “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

Me: “Um, sorry, but I’m not doing his work for him. If he wants my help, I’ll be glad to help him organize or manage his time or check over his work, but there is no way I’m doing his homework for him. I have my own stuff to do.”

Mom: “Come on, [My Name]. Be reasonable.”

Dad: “Listen, he needs to get this done. If he doesn’t get into university this fall, he’ll have to go back to community college, and since he already has the credits, he’ll be taking useless classes that won’t advance his degree and waste a ton of money. If he doesn’t go back to school, the federal loan he signed will be called back and we’ll have to pay a ton of money that we don’t have. The best course of action is to get his GPA up so that he can go to university.”

Me: “No offense, but how is that my problem? He has been messing up; he needs to take responsibility for it. You need to stop shielding him from his mistakes and help him learn to handle it instead of doing everything for him. You should make him get a job, or volunteer, or do something with some accountability!”

Dad: “Don’t you criticize my parenting! You’re only in your twenties; I’m almost sixty. You don’t understand it. Once you have kids, you’ll see things differently. What do you want me to do? Throw him on the road? I can’t do that. We’re family, and in times of crisis, we can’t turn our backs on each other. Now, you have a choice, but know that if you don’t help out, you will break my heart.”

For anyone wondering if my brother is depressed or has some disorder that is affecting him — maybe. He’s vehemently denied it, but if it is true, as much as it sucks, he needs to take the prerogative to ask for help or see a professional. I can’t do anything about that part.

In the end, I did not help out. So far, my dad and mom have set up twelve-hour patrols in my brother’s room to keep track and make sure he’s doing his work. I’ve also caught them working on some of his homework while he’s sleeping.

My nine-year-old cut her finger doing an art project — not terribly, but she needed help cleaning the cut and bandaging it. She asked me why it hurt so much and I explained that fingertips have a lot of nerve endings and she’d cut some nerves.

It seems she tried to explain this to my seven-year-old but didn’t quite get the point across, because when my husband came home, the seven-year-greeted him with, “[Nine-Year-Old] cut her finger and her nerves fell out!”