LW1: Gee, and I thought I was old-fashioned in my views on male-female relations. The fact that a woman (the mother) has bought into this is even stranger. Even I would like to get a few minutes alone with this kid and whip his butt. And that might be part of the problem...it sounds like he hasn't received an ounce of discipline growing up, rather, has been spoiled rotten and now has an entitlement mentality. Worse, he has been babied to the point where he is unable to care for himself or accept the consequences of his actions. The mom was probably overcome with guilt following the divorce and spoiled the brother as a result, though it's interesting she didn't treat her daughter the same way. Where was the LW's dad during all this - did he even attempt to be a father figure following the dissolution of the marriage? Did anyone within the family or without, suggest finding a positive male role model so that this kid could grow up understanding what it means to be a responsible man? Geesh. Textbook case of what happens to kids who grow up without fathers, and to aggravate the situation, where the mother has a completely misplaced sense of priorities. I'd say this kid ought to find himself in the Marine Corps, frankly. A few weeks of basic training will beat some sense of reality into him. They've worked wonders with young "men" like this and completely turned their lives around.

Re: Matt, I agree with you on almost all counts except one: kids can grow up in a single-parent household and still become productive and responsible adults. The real culprit here is the mother, who should have raised her two children equally. Divorce is not the issue here, because if the father was deceased the mother would still have had to raise the kids on her own. She simply did not raise the son, and it also sounds like the daughter has more sense than her own mother too.