First Timer...Mom not setting great example
I have never done anything like this before, so forgive me if I sound silly. I am engaged to a wonderful man who I have been with for almost 3 years, he has two terrific children (11, girl and 9, boy) that he has joint custody of. I love those childrne as much as if they were my own, but I struggle with their mother. She is a very selfish person. I am a trained teacher and enjoy helping the kids with their homework on the nights that we have them; last year we really struggled with the girl and her grades. She did very poorly in school (mostly late work never being turned in) and was very unorganized. At the beginning of this year, I developed a homework contract and guidleines that were to be signed by the child, both parents and the parents significant others. In this document, parents were to check her homework daily, go through her bag, sign her planner, etc. Mom is not doing these things. I spend about 2-3 hours each night that we have the kids checking homework, reviewing work, etc. Mom asks if it is completed and if it is, she, sometimes, signs the planner and is done. Grades are reflecting that, they have the potential to be much better than they are. Mom has other things to do, mom is busy, those are the excuses we hear when we ask the kids if she is looking at this stuff.
She is also a very unorganized person. Neither kid is in bball this winter becuase she never recieved anytihg in the mail and never thoguth to check the website. She is making custody issues very tough; her BF lives about 25 minutes from us, about 45 minutes from mom's house, she is digging her heels in regarding custody issues over the holidays because of travel time, she digs in her heels when we need to switch a weekend (not very often) because she wants to be on the same schedule as BF who has two kids, same genders, same ages.
She also calls him 5-10 times each day!!!!! For stupid littel stuff. One phone call, did sue study for her test? Next, did john take his medicine? and so on.
I get VERY angry and frustrated at my fiance and his children because of things that she is doing adn their reaction to it. His daughter is not taking any initiantive, we have told her to tell mom she needs to sign the planner and look at her homework and the daughter's response is...i do, but she says she doesn't have time or...I forgot. It is difficult for me to talk to him becuase he once loved this woman more than anything and she is the mother of his chldren. His theory is 'you pick your battles' and he doenst' let things like this get to him. I am not that way and want everything organized and planned out now for months in advance.
Any advice that anyone has for me would be great!!! My negativity is taking a toll on this relationship and I don't want to loose what i have.
The best laid plans of step-mothers...
...can be totally destroyed by a wave of bio mom's hand. And that's just the way it is, sadly. You are probably never going to get the BM to jump on your bandwagon. I have two stepchildren who supposedly have ADHD and have been on meds now for YEARS. (It was supposed to be a temporary thing to use to modify behavior, then wean them off of it.) Anyway, my dad, who is a retired special ed teacher with a masters in special education, evaluated the kids and said he didn't think they had been properly assessed. His opinion was that the meds probably were not needed, but certain other therapies and remediation were needed. Anyway, we tried to discuss the possiblility of having the kids re-evaluated by another doctor and that we would pay for it, but we were shot down. She was a single mom, working long hours, no time to deal with the kids and labeled regular, childlike behavior as "hyperactivity." Once she got them medicated, they were easier to manage. (Probably because she turned them into perfect little zombies.) Anyway, the moral of my story is that some BMs don't care if it's for the best interest of the kid or not, as long as they don't have to admit that the stepmom is right. Sad, sad, sad.
~ Anne ~
It frustrates me that I am
It frustrates me that I am working so hard to help the SD understand the importance of school and how she needs to be better organized, plan ahead, etc, so that she can be successful and mom can destroy that all in a matter of minutes. I get upset with SD becuase she didn't study vocab last week (and she is supposed to study each night), or because her planner has not been signed or whatever (these issues are not entirely her fault, but she does need to take responsibility for them also). We only have the kids one night per week. How can I deal with the emoitions that i feel when she is at our house and is not doing/has not done what she should be doing?
We have issues like this with lots of things. Clothes taht we buy for the kids, they want to wear them immediately, but then they don't neccessarily come back to our house; not washing uniforms because it will be to late when she gets home (8P), yet I will make sure to NEVER send clothes back to her that are dirty.
I try very hard, I lovce the kids and have worked very hard to get thier father more active in thier lives as well, but I get very upset with mom becuase she doesn't seem to put in nearly as much effort as I do and she is thier biomom.
That is it!!! How do I deal with that?
You need a balance and to step back a little
You are working fiercly to rescue your skids from their bm. I don't know your entire story, but what I can tell you is that I can relate to this situation closely.
I spent years trying to get ss to do his homework, to support/encourage dad to be extremely involved, to pick up the pieces bm's train wrecks leave for ss...the list goes on. What I discovered from my experience is that the more I worked to provide for ss, the more he resented me, the more bm pulled the carpet out from underneath me, and I felt like I got no where. I am a results oriented person, and for me to spin wheels kills me, and I was losing my mind over my ss not learning in school, not following through with assignments/chores, finding ways to get out of repsonsibility, learning to manipulate people, being disrespectful...that list goes on and on...
The day I decided that I can no longer rescue my ss from his unstable, inconsistent mother, that teaches him to cheat his way through life, to lie, to manipulate others, to use people...was a day that I lost a lot of stress.
I can't get bm to improve herself, and trying to rescue a child from her is like trying to move a mountain. All you can do is be a positive role model for your skids, and hope and pray they read the handwriting on the wall. That is all you can do. You are loading yourself with a lot of responsibility that you are not required to take on. These kids that you love, they have parents, and the responsibility stops with those parents. Sure, you will want to pick up the pieces from time to time, but...the most important thing you can do for yourself, is to find a balance...be a positive role model for them, rescue them from time to time, but..don't overwhelm yourself, and remind yourself that you can only do your best, and you are not always going to get through to these kids, and things are not always going to go your way.
When you find that balance, you won't feel so stressed, and you will feel "less" frustrated, but you will have to work at this...stepping back takes work. It takes work b/c you love them. And by being less stressed, and less frustrated, you will give these kids a sm that isn't on the verge of a fight b/c you won't be so stressed.
This isn't easy, and it is one day at a time...
heathermw i know your pain!
I know that this is not the answer that you are looking to hear…but the only way to deal with it and keep your sanity is to let the mom and dad do what they are going to do…you cannot make them good parents and unfortunately for their daughter, they are the parents she is stuck with! I can tell from your passion that you do not have biological kids (I don’t either) and I think because of that we often forget that we are not our kids mother…we are their step mother which HAS to be a supportive role to their dad, not an enforcer role for their mom…don’t get me wrong our HEADS know we are not their mother and when challenged we will say “I know I’m not their mother and I’m not trying to be”….if only we could FORCE our HEARTS to follow suit!!! We know with our heads and mother them with our hearts and that is where the conflict comes from! For the sake of your heart (feelings/emotions/sanity) you have to let your head take over and back off even if that means dire consequences for the stepDAUGHTER you love!
Make a GREAT Day!
Wait until you have your own kids...
Before providing a level of expertise on parenting, it is best to do so once one has their own children and have travelled the distance in life with them....toddlers, school age, pre-adolesence and teenage years, young adulthood. Then, and only then, do we begin to have a little bit of wisdom about the joys and the perils of raising our children. Step parenting is NOT the same in any way, shape or form. I know this is worded very strongly but this is something that I feel very passionate about. Please don't judge the parenting skills of others...who is to say that your way is the right way or that your kids will be perfect or that theirs won't. It is very frustrating to hear people judge others in this way, especially before you have your own. Parents are people who are learning to parent as their kids grow up, there is no perfect way to do this. Often, I find that it is those who have no kids or whose kids are very young who know the most about raising teens....it is wise to wait before we speak too much in this area.
Having my own kids is a non-issue...
I’m assuming that this comment was directed towards me, although I cannot for the life of me figure out where it is coming from…it appears to be very “out of the blue”…my comment to heathermw was to give space to the bioparents to make their own decisions (good or bad) and that her role as a step mother was to be a helpmate to the children’s father and that she could not control the actions of the biomother…so like I said, I’m not sure where your comments are coming from…but I will say this…
Having raised children does not make one an expert on parenting and not having birthed children does not make someone inept to provide advice to other people who find themselves in a stepparent role. Plenty of people who have raised their children into adulthood are no more qualified then someone w/o kids or someone with small children to give parenting advice…there are plenty of people in PRISON whose mothers raised them past the “tender stages” and I’d hardly call ANY of them for parenting advice…as a collective, the majority of their mothers have likely done something wrong! That is not “judging” that is using common sense and sometimes it takes an “outsider” perspective to analyze what that may be…each child and situation is different so having raised “your child” does not make you a sage when it comes to raising children in general!
The amount of “parenting” I do with my stepchildren is equal to that of my husband (who is their biological father) and in all actuality I was more “hands on” when they were younger as it relates to actively parenting them then he was b/c they are girls so bathing, dressing ect…as a male he didn’t feel comfortable doing with small girls…I’ve been living with him since the youngest was a little over a year old and I have been just as active in their lives as he has…as much as WE are allowed by their VERY IGNORANT BIO MOMS who by the way have “their own children” and in the opinion of my mother, my husband’s mother and sisters, and even the biomoms own FORMER friends (all women who have “children of their own”) are doing a very piss poor job as it relates to making the decision to keep the children’s father out of their lives….(and on a side note…check the stats on the % of prisoners that grew up w/o knowing their FATHER for all who think that “mothering” alone is the end all be all to parenting!)
I have 3 sets of “step parents” of my own (long story!) and I also have an opinion on stepfamilies from the perspective of being a child in that situation…I also worked as a juvenile probation officer and worked very closely with kids from 8-17 and I was able to study the intimate details of a VARIETY of DIFFERENT family dynamics both academically and up close and personal (probably more so then most “real parents” are exposed to living in their little corner of the world just raising their children and never seeing the “home life” of others…their were plenty of times I was called to someone’s house in the middle of the night to calm one of “my kids” rage b/c their parents couldn’t do so and the fact that I didn’t have “kids of my own” was a non-issue b/c I was able to do something for the child that the parent could not do!)….so I think that I have a WIDE ARRAY of “wisdom” as wisdom comes in all types of packages and I will continue to offer it to others on this site when the opportunity arises just as I will continue to seek advice from others on this site and value the opinions of ALL perspectives….
Make a GREAT Day!
Couldn't agree more! Giving
Couldn't agree more! Giving birth doesn't make you an expert on anything, expect on your own experience of giving birth. Being a parent to your own child doesn't make you an expert on parenting, either, since all kids are different. Having/raising kids doesn't give you more brain cells, either. If anything, you end up with FEWER brain cells. And being a stepparent is not less valid an experience than being a parent. Trust me, being a stepparent has been a zillion times harder for me than being a biological parent has been. You know when we become experts on raising on our kids? Never. Because there's no such thing. It's all trial and error. We learn from our own mistakes and from the advice and experiences of others and we do the best we can. My own mother is not what I would consider my definition of a "good mother," but she's been doing the best she knew how to do for more than 36 years. Just because she's been a mother for 36 years doesn't mean she's qualified to give anyone parenting advice. The best thing about advice is that you can take what you can use out of it and throw the rest away. Doesn't matter who gave you the advice, if it sounds like a good idea then it may be worth a try.
I'm not an expert on hot dogs, either, but I know that I like mine with mustard and sour kraut. Just because I'm not an expert doesn't mean you can't try your hot dog with mustard and sour kraut next time... you might find that you like it that way!
~ Anne ~
Nise
I agree totally with you. I also value the advice that you give. Of course, I too, don't have any bio children so I guess I may not know what I am talking about. Yes, I didn't come into my stepson's life until he was 2 but I don't think that has anything to do with it. What if I would have adopted a two year old? I learned what I know about being a parent from my parents. You don't instantly know how to be a parent when you have a child. Yes, you may feel a closer bond with that child right away but the knowledge isn't given to you on the day of birth.
I have been through all of the things that heathermw has mentioned. I just kept doing the best I could to help my stepson. Now my husband has custody and my stepson is doing great!! I think that makes it worth it!!!!!!
Nise, your opinion is always appreciated!
Dawn
Thanks guys! I guess I was a
Thanks guys! I guess I was a little offended and I’m pretty hard to offend! LOL :O}
Make a GREAT Day!
I totally agree with Nise
I feel that I did a pretty good job of being a sm before I had a child of my own, and I stated before, I never thought that you had to have children of your own to be able to know what to do with them, or at least have a good idea. BM's boyfriend is never taken seriously b/c he doesn't have kids of his own, and I feel frustration for him!
I can totally relate to your feelings Nise...since my ss was 4, I spent a lot of time raising him, b/c his bm was always at the bar! And I did everything to try to rescue him from his disasterous mother. Then my dh and I had a child of my own. A couple months after my son was born, bm and I were discussing something about ss and bm said..."well now that your a mother, you know..." huh??? I didn't say this, but I wanted to say..."No bm, I've always known, you just didn't trust me to know." And that is the absolute truth! She didn't want a non-parent actually making sense therefore she refused to take me seriously. And I really don't think I think too much differently as a step parent between pre/post motherhood.
I will say, that motherhood is a lot harder than what I could have expected (with the work of a newborn and recovery and sleepless nights), however, I still feel that being a step mother is way harder than being a mother. My dh and I have complete control over the way WE want our son raised, where we don't have complete control over how ss is raised. And I get thanked for being a mom! I don't for being a step-mom.
You hit the nail on the
You hit the nail on the head. I have no kids of my own, my fiance adn I are going to have one after we marry, but right not, i just have my SKs. My SD father is much better and more involved than he has been in the past and I am very proud of him for that!! MOm is the one that pisses me off! She is all about her adn the kids come secondary. that is that! i get angry about that. She thanks me all the time for everything I do for the kids, blah, blah, blah, but she isn't doing nearly as much, yet she gets upset with SD if her grades are poor....well how ya gonna fix that without doing anything?
what you said makes sense...now if i can just remember it when she comes over next week with no planner signed, and homework done incorrectly. sorry about the rant, but thank you. you completely nailed it:)