To be so angry at DSS

[guidedoptionaldestiny]

DSS is 17. He stays every weekend . Last night he went out with friends and got back about 3 am, was noisy and woke us up and was loudly telling us how he had to walk home then was exclaiming he needed to tell us something else before falling asleep so we just left him on the sofa as seemed the best thing.
He woke up at 130pm and started to talk again about on his way home how he saw 2 little kittens and that they must have been less than 8 weeks as were smaller than our cat when we got it. Said that he knew ‘not to touch them or move them as the mother cat would come back for them and would reject them if they had a persons scent on them ‘ 🤦

I tried to ask him exactly where he saw them and he wasn’t sure, I asked him where he had been drinking / had he been to any of his friends houses etc so I could work out exactly where these kittens might be. Eventually narrowed it down to a road between a golf course and some fields and immediately went looking . DSS refused to come as was hungover and felt sick. I looked for nearly 2 hours no sign at all so I went back and told him he had to come with me to show me where they were . He did and we still
didnt find them. I started to think maybe he imagined it but he said he was with his friend who he called and confirmed it. I’m so cross with him that he didn’t just pick them up and bring them back with him and I’m going to worry about them now and I couldn’t find them.

I think he did the right thing? I mean he could have stayed and watched to see if mum came back but then again mum might have been scared off by him being there and hidden herself away. Immediately picking them up and bringing them home would have been the wrong thing to do imo. YABU

Seems really OTT to be ‘really angry’ with a 17 yo who did what he thought was right re some living creatures.
Likelihood Is he was right- Mother cat was nearby, maybe getting food, and kittens are with Mother.
If you made your anger known to him, you need to apologise.

we have so many foxes round here

A young fox cub might look very much like a kitten to a drunk person.

So they were small but not tiny kittens - quite possibly mum was near by and (totally understandably) looking for her wasn’t DSS’s top priority.

It sounds like you are being totally irrational and unkind to him. Poor kid.

(putting my cat lover credentials here btw in case you think I’m heartless)

I agree with this, you're being so unfair. He was trying to do what he understood to be the right thing. Highly likely the kittens are fine.

Yeah, this attitude is weird. YABU, being angry at a teenager because he didn’t bring home kittens when he was walking back home at 3am drunk - and also being angry he can’t remember where the next day. Suggest your priorities are a bit muddled.

I don't think you should be angry with DSS. It's nice that you are trying to help the kittens. But not something to be angry with DSS about.

Adding, it also sounds like he thought he was doing right by not disrupting them, which I’d personally do as well so why are you angry at a teenager for this?

Has anyone local reported missing cat?

Oh give over @guidedoptionaldestiny

Total over reaction… leave him be! Doesn’t need you banging on, on top of a hangover!

You spent 2 hours searching for some random kittens? Performative nonsense.

OP likely won't reply for hours now. She's out foraging for those kittens.

À 17yo having a few beers and leaving the kittens isn't a twat. What's he done wrong? The OP is the complete over reactor.

Yep, this place gets weirder & weirder!

This is so very weird. Yabu to be angry with your stepson about the kittens, though I wouldn’t have been impressed with being woken up at 3!

From your thread title, I thought he’d done something dreadful!!!
I’d be focussing more on him going out, getting pissed, walking home, waking everyone up and then taking up the sofa until the afternoon! Bizarre.

It will mean nothing. He's going out drinking now.

I don't know anyone that was going out to bars drinking around 17 that suddenly got worse the moment they turned 18. What I do remember, is the kids that obviously weren't allowed out and kept on a tight leash at home who were shiftfaced in the student union bar at 6pm, vomiting and worse. They were the really problematic drinkers.

Don't understand why the OP is getting heat here, they're obviously a family who love animals. Everyone has different values/priorities and she felt leaving the kittens was against theirs.

My mum would have gone batshit if I'd turned up inebriated with a couple of kittens at 17, but people are different!

Multiple times? She was woken when he came in, that would be once I guess

You would be reasonable to expect a 17 year old not to wake you up at 3am.

You would be unreasonable to expect a drunk 17 year old to know what to do when he stumbled across some kittens on his way home.

I’m wondering if there is something else going on here and maybe the kitten thing is a misdirection? On the face of it, your DDS did what he thought was the right thing by not touching the kittens. You said he’d said he’d needed to tell you one more thing before he fell asleep so he clearly wanted to do more to help the kittens and even when he woke up albeit late he started to tell you about them. He clearly was trying to do what he thought was best. So I don’t understand why you are angry with him about the kittens. I’m wondering if in fact the thing you are angry about is the drinking. And going on about the kittens and making a big show of going out to look for them for hours (which seems a bit odd to me on the face of things) was maybe more to make the point of look at the impact of you drinking, these kittens could’ve died. You mentioned having spoken to him multiple times about his drinking and that he is not allowed to drink in your home.although his mother allows him to do so in his home. I don’t know enough to say if there is a problem with him drinking or if it’s just the usual teenage stuff but it might be worth reflecting on that. You don’t mention much about your DP and their role in all this, and I wonder if that might be relevant. I apologise if I’ve got the wrong end of the stick but the kitten thing doesn’t seem to me to be something to be angry about it as your DSS did try to do what he thought was the right thing, despite being drunk. Best wishes.

I'm with you @guidedoptionaldestiny. Poor little things. Maybe have another look but after that, make your local cat charity aware? The one near me will put out traps to try to find cats that have been reported to them.

It would have been irresponsible of him in his drunken state to have picked up and bought home 2 kittens. I suspect you would have been angry with him if he had. Fretting over the kittens to this extent sounds dramatic and OTT, especially when it sounds like you have more important concerns that need your attention - i.e. DSS.

Awww that's sweet

Well, you tried to find them. You just have to forget it now. I bet the poor sod wishes he hadn't said anything!

Why so much agg about a 17 year old having a few drinks … sounds completely normal to me.

I miss the drunken chats around the kitchen table at 2am now mine have moved out. They were much less guarded about what they told me 🤣

As for the kittens 🤷🏼‍♀️