Sometimes I feel like I'm parenting the whole extended family here.

My boyfriends daughter(13)apparently decided she didn't need to do her homework for social studies. BF got a phone call from the teacher last week about her not doing it for 3 weeks and therefore doing poorly on a test that the homework was notes for. He was pissed. I rarely have anything to do with BM, but this is not the first time this has happened, it happens ever semester in one class or more. I decide that I'll be involved again and talk BF into inviting BM and her boyfriend out to dinner that night without the kids to discuss handling this.

The little darling has very few interests and really doesn't care about much in life. BM actually acknowledged there's nothing we can take away that matters to her. So, we discuss making her catch up on ALL the missed homework. I suggested when she is done, take it all away and make her do it all a second time. She tends to closet herself in her room so we talked about making her sit at the dining room table every night for days doing homework and studying for finals. I thought we were all on board for this. Next day we find out that she decided that punishment was going to be mowing the lawn.

What?
Are you kidding?

BF yells a bit and he finally gets BM to make her do all the homework she missed. She then went back to holing up in her room. It was like 1 day of punishment for three weeks of not doing the homework and lying to us that she did it.

Mind you, BM is a teacher.

As to why I feel like I'm parenting the whole clan... I had to really nag BF to push BM. At dinner BM's boyfriend, against her wishes, asked me to weigh in on the kids eating all their meals and snacks in their rooms. They don't clean it up and apparently there's been some rotted food found by him. I'm SURE he caught hell when they left, but I obliged by stating that I didn't think they should eat in their rooms regularly and we don't let them do that. BF didn't weigh in at all and I know for a fact he is against it. All the kids look to me when they need help with real parental issues like clothes, toiletries, etc. that BM "didn't get around to" getting for them. Not BF, me. BM's boyfriend has done this around me before, always looking at me to be the authority figure. I decided a long time ago to keep my distance from BM and only show up when it's very important. I already raised my child, now I'm raising 6 other people and three of them are adults.

Whew... it feels better already to have vented. Smiling