Holtz Realty

I spent time with a client today and had an at length visit with her about her grandson. She said she was getting quite worried about him and his future. He is an only child from the marriage of her only son who divorced and re-married. The second marriage created two more children who are years younger that his son from the first marriage. The divorce gave joint custody of his son so sometimes the son would live with his mother who as well had children from her second marriage. I have seen this scenario more times than I want to remember. There always seems to be a thread of similarity in that, the child or children of the first marriage who are bounced back and forth between their re-married parents, seem to show signs of rebellion and an inward turning. My client spoke about how intelligent her grandson is, yet he seems to not want to apply himself. She said he has become restless and mischievous when living with each parent so it seems that it is becoming a situation where both parents don’t want to deal with him because they are too busy rearing their new and separate families. It made me quite sad to hear the story today because I as well have seen an unfortunate end product of these years of being bounced back and forth between four adults who are supposed to be wanting the best for their child. I know this sounds harsh, but I would rather see a child being reared by either maternal or paternal grandparents, or aunts or uncles, rather than seeing this back and forth attempt at finding one’s place in a family. The real unfortunate situation with this client and the associated families, is that they all have good jobs and have more than enough money. Well, money doesn’t cure this type of problem. I hope my client remembers my one morsel of advice, and that was, “Why don’t you make arrangements to have your soon out of high school grandson tested out by some private testing entity that will find his real strengths and then if they are that good, encourage him on his own, to make application for admission to one of the better schools and or universities–no matter how far away it may be.” I also said, “Perhaps creating his own life on his own merit will help him to find himself as well as live a life of stability he has created.” Even free spirits and rebels have to have stability in their lives. I hope we will all seek out the lost souls in our society and teach them to discover their own doors and open them.