Child Brings up BM very often

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Hey everyone,

New here and am looking for a little advice. My soon to be SD, age 5, brings up her BM to myself and her father a lot. Usually it’s general “I’ve been here before with my mommy.” Or, “When I was with my mommy we...” However, today she spent most of the day with her father alone and I didn’t meet up with them until later in the afternoon. Once I was with them she started going on and on about her BM. To the point that her father said “You haven’t said one word about your mother all day. Stop.” Any idea why she does this? She’s only been that incessant with it one other time before today. Her father and I have been together for about two years now. He and her BM have 50/50 custody. She doesn’t seem to mind that her dad and I are together, she says she’s glad I’ll be her stepmom, we get along well and she confides in me about all kinds of things. My fiancé and I just can’t seem to figure out why she insists on bringing up her mother to us and what, if anything, we can do to curb it. Honestly, it might be terrible, but I hope she does it to her mother when she’s with her, and not just to us. Any ideas?

Mom

is an important person in her life (as are you and dad) and honestly I wouldn't do anything. It is developmentally normal for kids that age to talk about their parents, siblings, and other important adults in their lives. So yes, I would say she does the same thing when she is with her mom. You are also someone she values and confides in so it would be normal for her to bring up her mom when she is talking to you.

Don't curb it. Don't try to stop it either. If you make a big deal out of it she may stop confiding other things to you as her safe person.

I work at a school and all I hear all day from the littles is "Daddy said" "Mommy said" "Mommy took me to the zoo" and on and on.

she's young

She's pretty young, so there could be many reasons why she's bringing it up. Is BM single? Maybe she worries about her mother being alone when she's away. Maybe she worries that your SO is going to forget about her mother. Maybe she's trying to figure out what her new family will look like and trying to figure out where her mother fits into that. I would let your SO handle it. If he told her to stop and she didn't have a fit, she's likely not doing that because she's jealous or nervous.

My SS is older (he's almost 13 now and I've known him since he was 9) and he would always try to bring up his mom. In my case, he did it to see what DH's reaction was. He wanted DH to tell him that he (DH) thought BM was wonderful because BM is always telling the kids how much DH hates her. She's also PA'ing him and he's enmeshed with her, so he was probably trying to test the waters a little bit. DH typically just pretends he doesn't hear him. If he says anything in response, unless it's to say BM is wonderful, and even if it's just to tell him to stop, SS pitches a fit, so if your SD is not doing that, then she probably doesn't have ulterior motives or is not trying to drive a wedge between you.

That said, after DH ignored him a few times, SS stopped saying so much. When they say things to me about their mom or what they did with their mom, I just say, "that sounds like fun" or "that's nice" and let it drop. They haven't pushed me too hard on having a reaction about their mother. I don't think she totally badmouths me to the kids, but I avoid her because I find her to be volatile and have no interest in dealing with another woman's emotinal baggage. I'm sure they know that there's something weird between us, but I don't say anything about her to them.

Ha, ha...good luck. My SD

Ha, ha...good luck. My SD does this too.

She's 31.

this ^

this made me laugh out loud.

Don't set a precedent of

Don't set a precedent of telling a 5-year-old not to talk about her mother. It's hard enough for kids to adjust to a divorce without feeling like they can't talk about one parent while they are with the other one. This sets the stage for a lot of emotional issues.

She's probably trying to deal with her loyalty conflicts about you being in a "mommy" role as Dad's wife. Just say, "mmm?" and "huh!" to everything she says, just as you would if she wouldn't stop talking about dogs or her favorite TV show.

Thanks everyone, our normal

Thanks everyone, our normal reaction when she does this has always been a “that’s nice” or pretending we don’t necessarily hear her. Her BM seems like a very unhappy person, even her daughter mentions it from time to time. She isn’t single, but her boyfriend can only have supervised visits with the child and cannot have overnights with mom when the child is around. I think the only reason her dad called her on it yesterday was bc it seemed like such a deliberate subject to bring up, that it had to be for a reason. I told him after that should that happen again we need to either completely ignore her or change the subject.

Even young kids sense

Even young kids sense neediness in their mothers and she may feel bad for enjoying her time with you. BM may act extra sad when she leaves, too, which exacerbates that.

Yes, just say "that's nice" and change the subject. She's working something out in her little mind.

She may feel some loyalty

She may feel some loyalty binds surrounding you and her mother and talks about her mother in front of you as a way to reassure herself that it is okay to love you both. This is why you have to show her it IS okay to love and enjoy you both. Tone means a lot though, so you'd be able to determine whether she's using a snotty tone to hurt you or just a matter-of-fact tone.

I almost wonder if she does

I almost wonder if she does the same with BM... "Last time, when daddy took me here _____"

I think it is just how kids are, no offense meant....

It is called PAS. BM is

It is called PAS. BM is threatened by you and is actively working with the Skid to alienate the two of you from each other.

IMHO this is far more frequently perpetrated toward a liked SParent even than it is against an X by a toxic blended opposition parent.

I would guess that BM is coaching her or playing the guilt card get SD-4 to protect BM's feelings.

I would do what your DH did in this instance. Shut this crap down. Once in a while for a significant event when she was with BM then it is fine. But constantly is not fine. Or more importantly when you or DH ask "So, what did you do this week at your mom's?"

We used to ask SS about his SpermLand visits, what he did, who he saw, etc.... We didn't want him to feel like he couldn't talk about them and what he did in SpermLand. He never was one to go into constant blathering about what the SpermClan did, said or how awesome they were. They, on the other hand, would get upset with him when he talked about things he did at home. He found the difference confusing when he was a young child.

It is one of those things that you know when you see it and when you see it you and DH need to quash it.

I can usually tell when it’s

I can usually tell when it’s an innocent mention of her mother, and when it’s a deliberate act for reasons I’m not sure of. The last time it we had an instance this bad was a few weeks ago when she got to do a trampoline thing at the mall and go to the pumpkin patch after. “I did this with my mommy once, I’ve been here before with my mommy, my mommy took me to a different pumpkin patch one time”. That day it was incessant. Yesterday, I 100% feel like it was deliberate on her part. Almost like she didn’t want us to forget she has a mother? We were on our way to get family pictures taken and I don’t know if she feels like she’s betraying her mother in some way, for enjoying doing family things with us or what. I can almost guarantee her mother plays a guilt trip “poor pitiful me” on her when she talks about her dad and I. Just from what is relayed to us. I only know it hurts her dad when she drones on and on about her mom.

When you go to a doctor and

When you go to a doctor and say "Doc, it hurts when I do this." The doc says "So don't do that." If it hurts DH when SD rambles on incessently about BM then DH needs to shut that shit down... just like he did recently.

"We know you love your mom and you will see her soon. Let's focus on our time together now." Escalate as needed up to and including "You haven't mentioned your mom all day so don't start now."

Lather, rinse repeat.

I have to agree with Rags on

I have to agree with Rags on this. There are some BM's out there that start thier PAS campaign from birth. We have one of those types. Kids are resilent when encouraged to be, independent when encouraged to be, and anything else when encouraged to be, good or bad. There is concept called parallel parenting. It comes in handy and for the most part keeps kids rooted in reality. There are two different homes and they are run by two different adults that had a child together. The homes are not connected to each other or run the same. Mom's house and Dad's house. Use those terms to help her keep them straight. We also used Mom's time and Dad's time. I will say that my youngest SD was 5 when we got together and she is the only one of four skids that is still around, the others PAS'd out of our lives. She was able to adapt from a young age.

I had never heard about

I had never heard about Parallel Parenting before, but that’s essentially the way we are living, and prefer it. I think she does have some loyalty conflict when she does things with her dad and I, wishing her mother would do those things with her, and I think since her mom seems like such a miserable person, some of that gets projected onto the kid too. We’re hoping she grows out of it, develops more things to talk about than her mother.

I can't tell you exactly why

I can't tell you exactly why she does it but I wanted to say that when my SD was five she was doing the exact same thing. Especially if I tried to do anything nice for her, then it would be well my mommy does this instead. Or if it was something her mom didnt do shed refuse to do it. For example I took the kids on a picnic and we went to the store before to get lunchables and treats and she said well that's not what my mommy buys and refused to get anything. Also at our wedding she had a huge screaming tantrum about getting her hair curled because her mom never curled her hair. Screamed and cried because I threw away the half eaten day old carrot in her lunchbox from her mom and put a new school snack in.

Now a couple years later its morphed into more passive aggressive things. She wont wear anything from our house and if we buy her new stuff, she comes back from her moms with a "better" new version or something of her moms instead and wont wear what we got her. She does it with DH too not just me.