Hi I'm 16 and know all about it! All you parents think you can just talk to your kids keep them to limited time with there boyfriends and have there trust to go to the moves malls ect.. but strict parents only make sneaky kids leaving the places they say they are parents don't really know what they are doing unless they are there to watch them summer school its not hard To leave and meet up with a guy and do stupid things... its not really in the parents control when their son/ daughter is going to give up their purity. Do you really think our generation is that stupid we do have brains not always doing the smartest thing but we do know what's right and wrong trust me I have done everthing my parents thought they could prevent from happing condoms are something u should give ur kids no matter how much u think u trust them or before u know it they will be teen moms/ dads witch could have been easily prevented but its better to give protection because we don't always think before we get warped up and there's nothing u can do after!! That one kiss that goes too far might be the one that changes their whole life!!! Think about it.

Those PJ's are actually on, inside out. Seems like before she does get out of bed, she takes off her PJ's, and puts them back on inside out... even closing all the buttons. :) Don't know, who got her the bike outfit... cause from me she gets just a card, and some dough for her college fund. She has and gets so much stuff, that I decided not to participate in giving stuff. I rather spend time. Will do so, in June, for two whole weeks! :) Moni

I have been down that cancer road several times, so I know how physically and emotionally exhausting it is. You have to do what you can live with long-term, and if you feel you couldn't live with yourself if you left your husband in these circumstances, then all you can do is minimize the wear-and-tear on yourself and your daughter. I am sorry your step-son is so impossible and even sorrier your husband is so difficult and unsupportive. Cancer didn't suddenly make him a better or different person. Here are my suggestions: 1) Protect yourself and your daughter financially for the possible time when your husband is no longer with you. You may want to set up a separate bank account and sequester some of your resources so you are assured of access to monies regardless of anything your husband might do (like decide suddenly to put his sons' names on the account). If possible, consult with an attorney regarding estate planning. Given your husband's current intractability, you may not have any luck securing his cooperation. But at least you will know what your legal rights are. 2) Prioritize your tasks. Your husband's medical care is a priority. Your daughter's physical and emotional needs are priorities. Doing your step-son's laundry, picking up after him or fixing meals are not. At 14 he can do those things for himself. If he doesn't do them, his problem. 3) Look into support systems for yourself and your husband. That would include hospital services, family support groups and Hospice, so that if the burdens get too heavy to carry alone you know who to go to. Do these things while you're still capable of thinking clearly. A time may come when you're too tired to think at all. This assumes you decide to stick it out. You may decide this is too thankless a task and leave your husband and his rotten kids to their own devices. Feel right in your choice and the judgements of others won't matter.

I think that this is a much bigger question than what the wording should be. Please forgive me if I am getting too personal. I may be way off base here, but perhaps this is something you might want to think about. I would suggest rethinking the idea of your fiance making any public vows at the ceremony to your son. No matter how much they love each other and no matter how thrilled your son is about the marriage, they aren't really getting married to each other, are they? You and your fiance chose each other, and you are the ones making the commitment of marriage. Your son may love the idea, but he isn't the one who got engaged; this would be a vow in which he has no choice -- even if you gave him the choice, how could he say no? (I realize you are just talking about a one-way vow from your fiance to him, but still, that affects the "vow-ee.") Your post refers to your fiance's making vows to your son "along with the ones that she says to me." But any kind of vows he makes to your son are, and should be, very different from the ones he makes to you. I think the close juxtaposition could make your son uncomfortable, even if he doesn't say anything about it to you (and even if he isn't himself totally conscious of it). Any child whose parent is remarrying, even a child who is very happy about it, will have mixed feelings, at least sometimes. That's normal and healthy. It's a big change in his life, and even good changes are stressful. It's wonderful -- really wonderful -- that they get along great. But what is the purpose of a vow, or any other kind of public commitment ceremony? What would it mean? When your son leaves home, would he be breaking it? If his father is alive, even if they have a poor relationship, what would this mean with regard to that? And what will happen when, inevitably, your son and your new husband quarrel? The added emotional load of some sort of vow can't help. You mention you have heard of others doing this. Unfortunately, some of those marriages probably didn't last. What is the psychological effect upon the child then, when the vows to him/her are broken along with the vows to Mom/Dad? I'm not saying this will happen to you; it's just a thought for the concept in general. Although I am sure that the adults truly believe they are doing this for the children's sake, to make them "special" and "involved" too, I suspect that this practice is at bottom more for the adults' feelings than for the kids' true well-being. Consider if you wouldn't get pretty much the same positive effect by doing things like having him be either your or your fiance's honor attendant and having your fiance make a fabulous toast to him at the reception which could come very close to a vow and include all the wonderful things he would have said if he'd done it during the ceremony. Maybe if the two of them really want some sort of ceremony for their own relationship, they could do it privately or just with family the day before the wedding or some other time. You will think of other ideas, too, I'm sure. Whatever you do will be lovely and meaningful. But for a variety of reasons I would keep it separate from the vows you and your husband will make to each other. Like the string about children "giving away" their parents. It's just too big an emotional load to impose on them, even though it all seems wonderful at the time. Please forgive me for being a wet blanket. As I said, I may be totally off here. But it is something to think about, perhaps with your clergy or whoever you go to for advice. You might also consider talking to adult friends whose parents remarried when they were your son's age. They will have a good perspective. The most important thing, of course, is that you all love each other, and you are all committed to being a family. You don't need a ceremony for that! Congratulations to all of you.