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A recent blog on personal responsibility got me to thinking about responsibility in general.

Anon2009's picture

Submitted by Anon2009 on Tue, 04/09/2013 - 3:14pm

So many people seem to not be taking responsibility for anything nowadays. So many adults on trial for serious charges seem to pin the crime onto others and/or sad childhoods. It's not their fault!

Anyway, it seems to happen here too. BMs do not take responsibilities for their kids or actions.

And I know some will disagree but I have to say it. Many NCPs seem to pin all the kids issues on CPs. Yes, the cp has a huge role. But so many NCPs are Disney parents. They seem to not realize that the kids still need them to PARENT. To show the tough love when necessary. To teach them to be respectful to all others. Yes, the bm may well be an a$$ but that doesn't relieve YOU of YOUR responsibilities to parent your kids.

And I think sometimes we place blame somewhat inappropriately on bm. They may be custodial. They may be scum. But Dad can and should still parent on HIS time and so many of our partners do not.

Comments

misSTEP's picture

Submitted by misSTEP on Tue, 04/09/2013 - 3:36pm

I truly have to say, as a BM and SM, that the only thing my DH did wrong was:

1. Pick a crazy woman to procreate with

2. Not take his children with when he finally couldn't stand it anymore.

He parented great. He taught his son how to read in a weekend after BM bitched that he was falling behind in school. You think that the fact that SHE took them OUT of school for a month long vacation had anything to do with it??

I do see the Disney Dad thing a lot on here. I was lucky that my DH was not like that. And guess what? I also don't "hate" my stepkids like so many on here. They were and are polite and LISTEN. Maybe that is the correlation.

doll faced sm's picture

Submitted by doll faced sm on Tue, 04/09/2013 - 3:52pm

In my DH's situation, I initially believed it was all BM's fault, but over time, I have come to the conclusion that many, many people had a hand in it.

Yes, BM is a craptastic mother. She's abusive, neglectful, and lazy. She drank heavily during her pregnancy. She is, to put in nicely, simple. BUT:

-DH didn't have to marry her in the first place. He called off the wedding, then allowed BM, BM's mom, and MIL to talk him into going through with it.
-DH didn't have to get her pregnant. He told her he wanted a divorce, then slept with her.
-DH didn't have to join the army. He joined literally right after his son was born because of the medical benefits, which is seemingly noble on the surface. Expect he already had medical benefits through his previous employer *and* made $12k/year more than he makes even now. He literally spent the first year and a half of his son's life away at BCT, AIT, and Airborne school. Got to his first unit and was shipped out immediately to Iraq for the last three month's of his unit's deployment, got back and got to spend a year with his then family, then deployed to Iraq *again* for a year. "Needs of the Army," you say? Not so much, he orchestrated quite a bit of it because he hated his wife and wanted to spend as much time away from her as possible, even though he knew the kind of woman she was and the kind of mother she'd likely be. Essentially, he put his own wants above the needs of his son.

-MIL could have stayed the hell out of DH's decisions.
-MIL moved in with BM and took care of SS. A virtue and a curse; it allowed BM to continue to be a craptastic mom. After ss was born, MIL moved in w/ DH and BM and was the primary care-taker of ss during all DH's training. When DH saw how horribly BM treated SS during the 1st half of his 2nd deployment, MIL moved back in and took care of SS again. I hate the woman, but I absolutely cannot deny that she is amazing with ss and when he's with her, she always, always takes excellent care of him.

-BM's family now takes care of ss. BM is still allowed to be a craptastic mom.

hismineandours's picture

Submitted by hismineandours on Tue, 04/09/2013 - 5:31pm

I see this every day. I work with a lot of court ordered people. In my personal situation, I blamed bm at first as well-and as another poster suggested, over time I realized that wasnt accurate. Not to say she doesnt have some blame and that she isnt overall sort of craptastic, but I know that she is not the sole reason that my ss is the way he is. My dh shares responsbility in that as well-but I honestly think alot of it with ss is just bad genetics. Its like someone took every bad trait of dh's and every worst possible thing about bm and mixed it together and produced ss. Then you added in some shuffling around between homes, some maternal substance abuse, a father who was away alot, a little guilty parenting, a little PAS and what you get is ss.