Step Talk

Being a single parent for many years I began to realize that if I were not around my kids would be left with few choices in life and took appropriate action. I see this behavior with DH and BM and it is so hard to swallow. SD is almost 13 and I swear I watched my DH come home the other day from work and make her a burger, toast the bun, add the condiments, cut in in half, add chips to the plate, make her a drink, set out a napkin and cut up a pickle for the side. This was after she refused to eat the meal we had prepared. I just shook my head. BM has cancer and we have no idea how long she will be able have 50/50 custody, DH is 47 years older than SD. The odds of her having two parents into her 20's or 30's is declining. Don't you think as her parent you would want to help her be the most independent person she can be? I don't get it.

~Evil

If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders. ~Abigail Van Buren

I see this with my husband and his ex too. The children are completely coddled. BM still wipes SD7's butt for her and brushes her teeth. She still runs a bath for and dresses SS10! The kids were terrified of being in our DRIVEWAY alone to play outside. I finally stepped in and talked with H about it. He is coming around, and the kids are SO MUCH more independent when at our house, but BM doesn't see it that way.

Still working on getting him to do their own food stuff, though. He still cuts it up for them. At what age do you guys think a kid should be able to cut up his/her own waffle, pancakes, chicken, etc?

Dh was still cutting up everything that SD ate until last year. He was embarrassed when having dinner with friends and SD "couldn't" cut her chicken and DH had to do it for her, some comments were made to me about it later that I shared with him. I think they should start trying to do these things for themselves as soon as they can hold a knife (butter knife) and fork, they may need assistance but at least they can try. I think it gives children such a sense of accomplishment and self worth when they can do big people things for themselves. DH will still do this for SD when he thinks I am not paying attention and she is nearly 13. Stupid, stupid man.

~Evil
If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders. ~Abigail Van Buren

Some of the things parents do for their kids can be a special ritual. But I agree, you need to empower these kids by giving them at least the responsibility of taking care of simple self sustaining tasks, such as brushing teeth. Perhaps its personality. Some kids will just push their parents away when they try to do something for them. My H just stopped in the last six months tying SD9's shoes -- every time. He only does it on a rare occasion. We still run her bath for her or at least get it started, although SD is doing it more often on her own. H is definitely guilty of doting. But SD is now showing more initiative and independence. She will tell H she wants to do it herself, or that she doesn't need help. H will still cut up her food and SD eats most things with her fingers.

BM is just a ball of nerves and does not have the energy or the patients to run around tying shoes, fetching water or toys etc and I think that has been an accidental benefit. SD has to be more self sufficient at her mom's. SD once mentioned to BM that she felt that she was treated more age appropriate (like a 9yo) at H's house. H was feeling rather proud of that, and I said that's because you baby her. SD will yell from one room for H and H will run and fetch her things while SD's sitting on her butt playing a video game or watching TV.

Someone needs to teach SD not to interrupt conversations. H rarely corrects her and H actually stops in mid conversation to answer SD. This will happen several times a day. It's so rude. SD doesn't know it's rude, no one has taught her to wait her turn.

My SD8 has no interest in becoming independent in any way. When asked to make her own bed, she would wrap herself up in the covers and then roll back and forth on the mattress calling for help. When asked to cut up her own food, she taps helplessly on the waffle with her butter knife and sniffs about how hungry she is. She didn't want to switch from baths to showers, doesn't want to take the training wheels off her bike, doesn't want to learn to swim without her life jacket.

She's also terrified to be alone. She won't close the door when using the bathroom unless we have company. If she hears the front door open, no matter where she is or what she's doing she races out and demands to know who left and where did they go and when are they coming back. I'm getting more and more concerned about it because I think it's a symptom of abandonment issues and/or an anxiety disorder.

DH takes pride in giving her the "most normal" possible life considering she only saw her birthparents (usually just him) on weekends until she was 18 mo old and then was relocated to a new household in an entirely different state, not to mention the latest big change of getting a stepmom. He allows that "someday" she might need therapy, but is really just hoping she grows out of it.

My SD17 seemed bit behind when I met DH 15 years ago. SD was 2 1/2 at the time and spoke only 3 words. Both of his girls seemed very far behind my BD in developmental stages. 15 years later I know I was right in my observations regarding behavior,development and outcome after years of watching BM's parenting style. My DH thinks he knows what the norms for childrens and adolescent behavior are but he doesn't because his upbringing was far from normal. I suggested counseling, tutoring, professional evaluations all which fell on deaf ears. So here we are 15 years later with SS26 Bipolar disorder, SD20 college drop out but now working and living with BM again,SD17- can't read,goes to alternative ed and lives with her boyfriend age 20 and she has emotional problems. My BD21 will graduate from college in one week with top honors, has a job after graduation, travels all over the country by herself driving/flying and handles all of her personal finances. It is our job as parents to teach the children to be independent so they can take care of themselves not feel sorry for their past life. By the way BD21 was also the product of a divorce at age 2, moved multiple times with me, 3 moves during high school due to DH's job promotions. BD21 admits she doesn't want to move again until she goes to grad school for her PHD in clinical psychology.

Boy, this one hits home! I swear this really happened. I remember being at a restaurant years ago and my DH actually cutting the meat on the plates of his daughters, who were 16, 18, and 20, respectively. At first I thought the whole thing was a sick joke, but as they each passed him their plates, I realized that this was their usual routine and was horrified.

I asked them right then, "Do you require your dates to cut your meat too?" to which I received stares of pure hatred from the three girls. Talk about crippling your children! Needless to say, that was the last time DH ever cut their meat for them--at least in front of me.

This evil stepmom ruined yet another fine family tradition.

Same thing here! BF was cutting 7 yr old SD's food for her and tying her shoes. I think these DH/BF BMs literally visualize the skids as just coming out of the womb and completely helpless babies!

I put a stop to that and showed SD how to cut her own food and tie her own shoes; SD is now 9 1/2 and she had practically forgotten how to cut her own food when the skids came back after our 6 mos blessed hiatus from them (after BM filed phoney abuse report against us)

SS5 expects to have someone zip up his jacket and tie his shoes. Now that I've started to disengage, BF has to do this INCLUDING cutting off the crusts of sandwiches, etc. which i REFUSE to do!

It's really pathetic and sad! I also was a single parent with no CS like the massive amount of CS our BM is getting! But I also realized that BKids would have to be independent so I trained them to do laundry at age 7 etc. SD 9 1/2 has NO idea how to run a washing machine I can tell you that!

I don't think I can disengage from something like this. I feel like, if I let my H continue to let them be so completely dependent on him (and their mom) for these things they could be and should be doing for themselves, I'm failing them as an adult. I have taught SD7 to cut up her own food, and I've told her father she now knows how to do it, even though she struggles, but he still does it for her, and when he remembers to ask her if she "needs" it cut up, she, of course, says, "yes," and then he does it for her. It drives me nuts. I believe in helping AFTER the child has first tried herself!

you WILL be viewed as the "bad guy!"

I could practically quote word for word what you said. Did the same thing. Advised BF to let the children try first. Taught the children to tie their shoes, cut their food, zip their jacket, etc. etc.

Showed BF by example that I WOULD NOT drop what I'm doing to wait hand and foot on the skids; that I WOULD NOT go looking for a toy or game that they simply refuse to look for themselves by saying "I can't find it!" Which translated means: "my time as a child is much more valuable than yours; i am to be treated like returning royalty every time i show up for visitaiton i'm really the adult here and you will do my bidding, slave"

I tried for almost four long years to instill this and had a sense of responsibility toward them, but now I realize that for my own self-preservation and sanity, I can no longer care what happens to them. That's BF and BM's job even though they are doing a horrible job of it. No more than it would be to try and raise the next door neighbour's children. If you don't get any backup from the bioparent you are living with, then you might as well give up because YOU WILL be seen as the PROBLEM even though 1,000 onlookers who are not personally involved would clearly point out the guilt parenting and disneyland parent is what is REALLY the problem. You can not win at this game!

BF literally screamed his head off at me b/c our attorney i hired charged billable hours to get a continuance in family court. He kept going on that it was a waste of his hard earned money (he'd rather come home peniless paying the BM than an attny!)

BF is a BIG CONSTRUCTION DUDE! He can lift 500 lbs, no problem. Believe me I am SCARED when he loses his temper and having been in an physically abusive 2nd marriage, it brings back bad memories!

Now he is all contrite b/c we found out that it was a GOOD THING I hired an attorney for $600 retainer as the darling BM was going to go after him for retroactive $80 a week health/dental insurance costs from last November when he changed to a less physically strenuous job for the sake of his health w/ no health insurance!

He would have AUTOMATICALLY been in arrears for over $2,000!!!!! Yet he was SCREAMING at me b/c attorney charged $40 for a continuance!!!
He literally thought that BM would just take over insurance "out of the goodness of her heart" (she has NO heart) b/c he was so friggin' generous with her from the git go!

Now he is a bit ashamed and embarrassed I"m sure b/c he was WRONG WRONG WRONG and once again I was right about this sort of stuff, but you will NEVER be able to get him to listen to me the first time around unless someone else tells him I"m right. He's LOOKING for me to be wrong about this stuff, I could tell after the past court date when our attny said it was hard to prove PAS (although our BM is BLATANTLY dishing out the PAS in no uncertain terms for the past 4 years). BF wants to just look the other way as far as BM continually violates what little there is to violate on the DD (it's so pro-BM it's PATHETIC) Doesn't want to hold her accountable for the denial of visitation, etc. YET SHE WILL HOLD HIM ACCOUNTABLE FOR EVERY PENNY COMING TO HER IN THE DD!! And BF will forget this happened in 2 mos and be back to apologizing for her again, no doubt!

Well, I get some backup from my H, but not as much as I would like. For example, when I told the children to put the clean laundry I had washed and folded in their dressers and they balked (one of them actually said, "I'm not used to THIS" with a scowl), my H said nothing and let me enforce. (Which I did by saying, "Get used to it, unless you want to be washing and folding it yourself too, which is what I just did for you.") But he's totally enabling them about cutting up their food and stuff. I mean, if he can tear apart the lettuce in her salad so it's in little princess-sized pieces with his bare hands, can't she (at 7)? I don't know how he misses seeing that!? We also have a rule that they are supposed to clean up their video games, etc. before going to bed and/or before leaving for BM's...guess who I saw doing it for them when they hadn't done it? Stuff like that makes me crazy! Next time I see the stuff not picked up, I am going to clean it up myself and it's going to DISAPPEAR until the kids learn not to rely on dear ol' dad to pick up after them all the time.

some days it appears that he is backing me, while other times he thinks it is "cute" for SS5 to order me around, so rather than deal with this roller coaster, I disengage and let him wait on them hand and foot when they come over.

Doesn't that make you lose some respect for him? That's how I kind of feel about it; that when my H acts like that, I lose some of my respect for him, and I want to prevent that if at all possible, 'cause I hope to have a lot of years in this marriage, and it would be much better if I could respect the man I'm married to, ya know?