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As gf, is it my place to say something?

Yolanda's picture

My boyfriend of ~1.5 years has a 9 year old son. I have been living at his house for 5 months, although I keep my place also because it's in the city and gives us a mini vacation when the son isn't there. His son and I get along really really well. We have so much fun playing together. However, I hugely disagree with my bf's parenting style and see a slippery slope as the son gets older. I've known the son for almost a year and he hasn't progressed at all in terms of responsibilities and growing up.

It makes me angry and hostile. For two reasons: I love and care for my boyfriend and want it to work out but not if there's a teenage delinquent destroying our future home and peace. Secondly, it seems unjust to watch a good kid lack structure and not get the skills they need to succeed. My bf thinks I'm "in competition" with the son. I put off saying anything until I just lash out like a passively like a brat. I hate it. But we're not married. I help a lot with kid stuff: school lunches, driving to/from school, "babysitting" on sick or vacation days, making dinners, cleaning, grocery shopping. I'm like a nanny (but I really enjoy helping out my bf who is so busy with work), yet I have no power in the home. 

Sorry to be long winded. The problem with the son is that he wants to "have choices" and gets extremely unruly when he thinks he's being told what to do or everyone else always chooses except him. Where to go eat, what movie to watch (he rules the tv 99% of the time, it's the 1% he can't handle), what to do on the weekend that is still a kid thing, when to shower, and more than a handful of times he wants to "choose" to [not] go to school (not wins this battle!!! because BOTH his parents retroactively make up a reason why he's right such as allergies). He has no chores or and very few basic life skills.

His parents both refuse to let him help himself. He just recently stopped peeing or pooping his pants DAILY. He gets rewarded outrageously for everything. Money, expensive toys, or whatever he wants to do for the entire day. They are clueless to his behavior or development problems. My best friend has taught his age group for over 15 years and I was talking to her for information, because I'm not a mom, and she said many things sound amiss. This kid has never been asked to clean his room or even put anything away in his room. He'll shoot literally HUNDREDS of nerf darts all over the house and my boyfriend will pick them up. He sleeps with a RATTLE roy. Which the parents drive back and forth at least 3 times a week because of their 50/50 custody. But he wants more choices. His entire life is fun fun fun otherwise he flips out. How do I appropriately say this isn't acceptable? Can I even have that conversation? Or am I overreacting?

 

tog redux's picture

No, it's not your job to say anything about his parenting. It's your job to decide if you want to live long-term with a feral skid who only got fully potty-trained at age 8, and whose parents don't believe in discipline. This won't get better, most likely.

 

Yolanda's picture

My family really likes my boyfriend. He is an amazing person. Only my Dad has met the kid briefly. My impression is they are also conflicted whether all of his attributes outweigh his baggage. 

tog redux's picture

An "amazing person" would have potty trained his child before age 8, and would not let him sleep with a baby's toy.  You can't separate him being a really poor parent from the rest of him.

He may seem "amazing" now, but in a few years, when the shine has worn off, he won't seem so wonderful. His parenting is not only poor, he sounds like he's emotionally crippling his child, however unintentionally.

MrsStepMom's picture

It amazes me how so many women on here say how amazing their partner is when they flat out neglect their child. Not doing something to stop your kid from SHITTING HIMSELF up until 4th grade is basically abuse. He isn't amazing, he is a lazy, shit parent. See him for what he is and GTFO before you ruin your life by marrying him. Flat out just don't marry someone with kids. Nothing and I mean NOTHING good comes out of it. Read through this site. DO NOT do this to yourself. He has proven to be a bad parent. You have the love blinders on. I don't know how you are flat out disgusted with him and I am amazed CPS hasn't been called on him and bio mom. If he was doing this at school they would be involving CPS and doctors long ago, if anything because it is often a sign of sexual abuse. Pretty sad that in this case it is just shit parenting.

tog redux's picture

Just the word "amazing" applied to a person sets off alarm bells for me.  I have never described my DH as "amazing", even when we were first in love, because, well - he ISN'T.  He's a normal man with strengths and flaws, and someone I am compatible with. Even though he's not amazing, he's not a neglectful parent who wanted to keep his son a baby forever.

MrsStepMom's picture

Almost like a guy who constantly says he is a "nice guy". My husband is great, sweet, kind, sexy, you name it but like you said, he is a real person with flaws....such as being incapable of instilling discipline (thank goodness it seems this week he had some major revelation: let's hope it sticks.)

elkclan's picture

Actually, I really do think my partner is amazing! He's smart and funny and so kind. He's also a good parent with rules and consequences and stuff which are put in place and adhered to without things blowing up into shouting or tantrums 99% of the time. 

He also does have plenty of foibles, such as giving in to BM...but we're working on that. Also, he can't dance and he makes Columbo look like a snappy dresser. 

tog redux's picture

Sorry - no. He's not amazing.  My DH is also smart, funny and kind and a good parent!  If there at least two of them then, it can't be amazing.  He might be amazing for StepTalk, but as men go, he's just a normal guy that you love.

"Amazing: causing great surprise or wonder; astonishing."  Do you get up every day and stare at him with astonishment or great surprise and wonder?

The Grand Canyon is Amazing - no human being is. Unless he can stand on his head and juggle with this feet, he probably doesn’t even have any amazing skills, which would be the closest to amazing a human can get. 

Yolanda's picture

I get what you're saying about the word "amazing", although it's just a word and the greater point is that I think positively of him as a person. Even despite his parenting style. He has the very best intentions with how he goes about parenting. I've failed at things miserably in my life and I'm still a good person imo. 

Lndsy747's picture

I think you really need to step back and try to think about this objectively. You're clearly completely blinded by love right now and at some point that will fade.

This isn't a kids who throws tantrums occasionally and doesn't clean his room. Not being potty trained until 9 when there's no medical issue is kind of a bid deal. 

tog redux's picture

It's not just a word, it's an exaggeration, and it means you aren't looking at the whole picture of him.  It's fine to see him as a good person, but when you say he's "amazing", it means you aren't really looking at his flaws. And trust me, his poor parenting will be a very big flaw you can't ignore after you deal with it for a while. 

 

MrsStepMom's picture

Remove head from ass. Allowing your child to shit himself until 4th grade is NOT the best intentions, it is child abuse.

elkclan's picture

Whatever. If you feel you need to take other people down a peg - have right at it. But yeah, every day I'm amazed at my luck at finding this guy. I'll keep feeling a sense of love and wonder and you keep feeling... I dunno. I'm not going to get into 'partner competition' with you.

People absolutely can be and are amazing. And they can be amazing and still have flaws and faults and eff-up royally on occasion. I haven't been to the Grand Canyon - but I have been to some amazing landscapes. There can be more than one. Picasso was an amazing artist but a very effed-up human being, but so was Miro and Kahlo and others.

MrsStepMom's picture

You, like LW just don’t get it. No one is talking down to anyone. Let us know when the love goggles are removed and you see reality. 

SteppedOut's picture

100000% agree. 

OP, do you ever want children? If so, do you want this for your future children? 

Even if you don't want children...do you really want this for YOUR life and future? If you think this will get better, even a little bit, please know if won't. When puberty hits this feral child it WILL get so much worse. 

RUN!

elkclan's picture

^^^^^THIS 1000% what you have described is definitely not how I would want my child to be raised. 

OP, if you are living in the space and the behaviour affects you, you have a right to speak up about it. However, you do not have the right to bottle it all up and explode it out on people when you can't take it anymore. 

Rags's picture

His baggage is at some level his creation.  There are not any attributes that could possibly out weigh the toxic spawn he has created.  

Do you want your own children exposed to this shallow and polluted gene pool or even worse, to share the gene pool?

The odds of overcoming the failures that your SO creates in any child is slim.  Even when that kid may have the contra parent who is of upstanding intellect and parenting capability.   That parent can only shield their child from the toxic blended family opposition when they are with that child.   Visitation with a toxic, shallow and polluted gene pool is extremely difficult to counter and overcome even when that visitation may be limited.

So, be very, very careful.

Good luck.

 

Jcksjj's picture

I'd say both yes and no. It's not really your place to tell him how to parent, but it is your place to tell him the reasons why you are considering ending the relationship - which is his parenting. So maybe approach it more from that standpoint- you dont know if it can work with someone who shares such different view instead of "this is how I think you should be parenting"

TrueNorth77's picture

Oh jeez. This is not good. But I can relate, quite a bit. My situation was similar. 

When I met my SO 3 years ago, SS was 9 and SD was 6. Neither had chores, but they were pretty high-functioning kids. Still, I disagreed with a lot of my SO’s parenting style.  I hadn’t found this site yet and was just winging it- I chose to say something. After much nagging, we created a chore chart for skids. I’m not a maid. But while I feel that my SO could do more to teach skids life skills, he does the basics- skids make their own lunches, fend for themselves for breakfast, and dinner once or twice a week. Not much for consequences, but we do have rules. They do not rule the house. There is not a chance in hell I would be here if they did. I have several pieces of advice:

First, you are actually enabling SS as well by making lunches and doing all the cleaning. I would cease and desist on those things, stat. Then have a serious convo with your SO about your concerns. I wish I had addressed my concerns before I moved in and come up with a plan right away, but I didn’t realize a lot of the issues until I was already living here. Many fights later, we have order in our house, but it was hard. The situation with your SS is honestly quite a bit worse than with skids here. My SO isn’t a crappy parent, just lazy sometimes with a bit of Disney dad thrown in. Your SO isn’t doing any parenting. I would suggest you seriously think about this- it isn’t going to get better if your SO is fine with it and doesn’t feel he needs to make changes. Talk to him, but if his stance is that it’s fine the way it is...think about if you can really live with this. Think about the frustration and resentment that will only get worse. I don’t see anyone being able to live with this long-term. Hoping for your sake that he is open to change, especially if you are able to get him to see it’s in SS’s best interest. But if not, you are in for a tough, if not impossible road ahead.

Side note- SS runs the TV 99% of the time? No. You live there too. When I moved in, SS ran the TV as well. That changed real quick. We got him a TV for his own room- now, if he wants to watch TV in the living room, he can watch what we are watching. If not, he can go to his room. Same with SD. I will not live somewhere where the child has more say than me.

Rags's picture

Kids don't get choices. Other than to choose what they are told to do or suffer the consequences for failure to do as they are told.

Particularly a 9yo.

Of course it is your place to say absolutely anything that is applicable to this toxic kid's behavior when he is in your presence.  

More importantly it is absolutely your place to inform this kid's failed parent of a father that he is not adequate to be your equity life partner or the father of your future children.  He has proven that he is an abject waste of skin failure as a father.  Do not waste any more of your time on him and for sure do not pollute your own gene pool by choosing him as the father of your own children.

Past behavior is the best indicator of future performance and his proven failure as a father makes him a write off IMHO.

Take care of you.

 

hereiam's picture

You are not overreacting.

Being a parent IS part of who your BF is, so no, he's not that amazing.

What amazes me is, how many people completely dismiss their partner's parenting (or lack thereof), when the truth is, it says a lot about what kind of a person they are.

What kind of person allows their own child to behave in this manner? To ignore developmental issues? To not teach him about responsibility? To require NOTHING from him?

Yolanda's picture

All of these responses are so helpful. My boyfriend and his ex wife are actually going to a therapist today to talk about the son. I had known his ex mentioned the idea last month after some incidents at her house, but at 10p last night she reminded him there's an actual appointment today. They recognize the kid is recently acting out (yelling, defiant, etc.), but don't see huge problems with the age inappropriate issues (failure to: pick out his clothes or dress himself, get himself a glass of water, assemble a hotdog or something, do homework by himself, do a simple helpful favor when someone asks such as "can you pass me the...").

My boyfriend and his ex wife adopted him at birth. The kid knows that and apparently never had much problem with it...but now he's old enough to understand more. One time recently he said, "You're not my real Dad." On top of that, his mom just had a biological baby with her boyfriend or fiance or whoever. So the thinking is, on bf and ex wife part, is that the son is having a lot of emotions about all of the changes in his life. And they are responding by being very nice and careful with him. And the son is bulldozing them. For timeline sake, to give an idea on how abrupt and unexpected all these changes were: When I met my bf his ex was pissed he had found someone and said I was a bad influence and would make the son feel he had no home if our relationship progressed too fast. Within a period of 4 months she was pregnant and moved to a new house with her newfound soulmate and he was allowed to meet the son but she still said it was too soon for me to meet the son. The ex hates her boyfriend's 7 year old son because he is apparently ill behaved and "so behind" her kid. His ex expects us to change the schedule, as it's outlined in the decree, to accommodate their now 3 kids and the dog... to make their life most easy. But had the audacity to text me, "just so you know, [your boyfriend] has legal custody of the dog." And then she continues to ask for 1000 exceptions to the days she legally has custody. SORRY VENTING. 

dysfunctionally_blended's picture

First, you don't need to have any contact with the ex. That is your BF's problem to deal with.

Second, it is not your responsibility to be cook, nanny, maid or anything else associated with skid. If you CHOOSE to at times fine but it is never to be expected.

And finally, there is nothing wrong with discussing rules of your home. You and BF need to have a talk about boundaries, rules and guidelines regarding skid. And once you come to that agreement it is your BF's responsibility to enforce them.

Dont make any decisions regarding marriage until you do the above and see how it plays out. Right now you have no idea because nothing has changed. Your BF is parenting how he chooses and he has you to pick up the slack. True colors begin to show once you step back and insist on parenting correctly. 

MrsStepMom's picture

Ya stop talking to her. I would before because no one else would schedule a thing properly if I didn’t and husband often didn’t even know our schedule. I was over her passive aggressive texts so husband told her to leave me the f alone and if she doesn’t schedule something correctly then she suffers because she knows her days she can see SS. So if she has to pay to change a fight because she didn’t schedule it correctly that’s on her. I really don’t care. Well, I care only because even one extra day with the terrorist in my home is one day too many, but otherwise f her. 

MrsStepMom's picture

Ya stop talking to her. I would before because no one else would schedule a thing properly if I didn’t and husband often didn’t even know our schedule. I was over her passive aggressive texts so husband told her to leave me the f alone and if she doesn’t schedule something correctly then she suffers because she knows her days she can see SS. So if she has to pay to change a fight because she didn’t schedule it correctly that’s on her. I really don’t care. Well, I care only because even one extra day with the terrorist in my home is one day too many, but otherwise f her. 

Pregnantwithquestions's picture

So much to unpack here-- have the bioparents ruled out a developmental delay with this kid? He sounds to me like he could be on the spectrum and they aren't addressing it. 

Which if that is the case-- shame on both of them for not taking him to be evaluated and addressing it earlier in life. He is a CHILD, it is their responsibility to look out for these signs (throwing hundreds of nerf darts, using the bathroom in his pants on a daily basis).

They sound negligent and lazy, which is more than just "parenting differences". It truly sounds borderline abusive to not intervene and get to the root cause of the issue and let him have these outbursts.

As for your role, I'd step back entirely and tell him until he can step up, parent, show up and take control of this situation then there's no need to continue this relationship. There's no good excuse as to why this kid is allowed to act the way he does.

MrsStepMom's picture

Totally agree. I’ve mentioned abuse a couple times here. How the school hasn’t called CPS yet for the pooping is beyond me, unless it never happens at school. 

Yolanda's picture

He hasn't pooped his pants at school this year, only last year. He did regularly pee his pants at school/home/playdates up until maybe a couple weeks ago, and pooped his pants weekly or so at home. Hopefully it's over now for good. 

Rags's picture

IMHO the primary action is to get the blended family opposition under control in parallel with getting the Skid under control when he is in your home.

SO needs to keep a rolled up copy of the CO handy to beat the snot out of BM with.  She deals with the SKid on her time. Her relationship, pet and breeding decisions should in no way impact your SO's life and by extension your life.  The answer to accomodating anything having to do with her life and decisions should be NO!.  Period.

Since she has a major issue with the double standard... SO must keep the consequences of BM's crap firmly on BM's shoulders.  He and you also need to clearly set and enforce the standards of reasonable behavior that SS will be held to in your home.  Make that any kids in your home will be held to. In an age appropriate manner.

It can be a difficult balance to reach.  It was for us.  My DW struggled with shutting down the worry and stress about SpermClan visitation and how that was going for SS.  I had to inject some separation into that situation by helping her focus on the fact that worrying about what might could possibly happen is not a value added emotional or intellectual investment in the situation and that she would be better served to focus on our life and her life rather than worrying about SS, the SpermIdiot and the SpermClan when SS was in SpermLand.  She is amazing at addressing issues but she is also a worrier.  When she learned to deal with actual events rather than the infinate list of things that could go wrong she got much better at dealing effectively with THEM and much happier.  I certainly got much happier.     Not that we were unhappy before that epiphany.

 

Kiss 3

 

DPW's picture

Of course it's your place to say something... you are in a relationship that has potential to be long term. Why would you not be able to say what is on your mind, in a positive and constructive way? Plan your conversation. Use "I" statements and talk with your partner. 

2nd wives club's picture

Stay at your house while the skid is with dad, until skid launches (which may be never). That's all I have.