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SD disrespecting my parents

Srh5356's picture

My husband and I live in a home with my aging parents and Aunt, to be able to help them and whatnot. My husband's daughter comes to stay with us on the weekends. She's recently 11 years old, and has started to develop an attitude. 

The other night my father, mother, and Aunt were sitting on our back porch with SD. There are only 4 chairs. I came out to join them, and my mother asked SD to get up and sit on the stool so I could sit in a chair after working all day. She simply stared at my mother deadpan and didn't move. My father then said "come on, SD, come sit over here." Again, she completely ignored my father, and then a couple minutes later, ignored my aunt as well. She blatantly stared and made annoyed faces at them, and refused to budge. Finally when my mother made mention of "talking to her dad about it," she begrudgingly got up and stormed inside the house. Maybe I was raised differently, but when I was a child, I would get up and move for an older person to sit down. I would also do what I was told when an adult asked something of me. To me, it was very disrespectful behavior. When I brought it up to my husband, he got annoyed with me and said "why should she have to give up her seat for you? You guys are all going to gang together on her just because you're older?" 

So I brought up another situation that happened the same day. My mother has some nice couches in the home, and she would prefer not to have the dogs on those two particular couches. SD regularly invites the dogs up on them anyway. When my mother asked her nicely to make the dog get down she flat out went "no. He sleeps with me. ON the couch." My mother tried to explain why she didn't want the dog up there and my SD was again completely defiant and said "he sleeps ON the couch." I overheard my husband talking to her about this later on, but he was saying things like " you're not in any trouble at all, and I know the dogs just get up on that couch. Just appease her mother and make the dog get down. You're not in any trouble, I just don't want there to be any problems with you coming over here." I didn't necessarily agree with that way of handling it, because he made her feel like she did nothing wrong. 

After my husband had a talk with her, my mother said "good morning" to her and SD made a face at her. My mother said "are you not talking to me?" And my SD blatantly ignored her. When my father will ask her to do something she regularly tells him "shush." She talks to her father (my husband) this way too. Am I crazy? Is this just standard 11 year old behavior? Or is it as disrespectful as I think it is?

Survivingstephell's picture

So her father is PROUD of HIS parenting?  Are you kidding me?  Him going behind everyone's back and pooh poohing their requests is setting her up to be hit hard by real life when she's on her own.  Would he accept the behavior towards her teacher? The principle?  A cop?  Just who is suppose to teach her manners and respect if not her parent?   

How can you live with a man who brings up a child to be disrespectful to the people she lives with???  

What happens when she is around her dad's family?  Same crap???  I doubt it.  

Why should she give up her seat to you, his wife?  He can't even keep the hiearchy straight.  Wife comes first, then everyone else.   So the big question is how do you get him to change HIS attitude about this.  Reason probably won't work but a taste of his own medicine might.  As for the dogs on the furniture, a firm reminder about the rule(law) at the dinner table in front of eveyone sounds good.  Each and everytime she violates it.  If she gets  tired of being lectured, then tell her its all in her control to stop the lectures,  simply follow the rule.  

I think this might be one time where the village needs to step in and defend their village from being trashed.  

 

Srh5356's picture

I feel like a lot of it is guilt parenting. The BM tried to keep SD11 from him for awhile, and so I think he's worried that she won't want to come over or dislike him. The problem is he's trying to be more of a buddy than a parent. Everytime she does something wrong, it's "you're not in trouble, but..." When she absolutely should be in trouble. In general, she's usually a pretty sweet kid, and she and I have a great relationship...but the attitude she was copping with my parents severely rubbed me the wrong way. This attitude is new. Sad

KittyKatMomma's picture

he's lucky I'm not his wife because that brat would have been on her ass real quick.

Sorry we were taught to give our seats up for our elders. My ss11 always tells my mom to sit when we visit,

Same with SD17.

Your husband sounds mighty proud he's raising his daughter with no manners.

 

SteppedOut's picture

You and your husband do not share the same morals. You will have to decide if you can live not only with his poor morals and manners but his daughter's also. 

Srh5356's picture

I feel like a lot of it is guilt parenting. The BM tried to keep SD11 from him for awhile, and so I think he's worried that she won't want to come over or dislike him. The problem is he's trying to be more of a buddy than a parent. Everytime she does something wrong, it's "you're not in trouble, but..." When she absolutely should be in trouble. In general, she's usually a pretty sweet kid, and she and I have a great relationship...but the attitude she was copping with my parents severely rubbed me the wrong way. This attitude is new. Sad

oneoffour's picture

If you are watching her just tell her to knock it off and behave or she will go to her room. Then when your DH comes roaring in stand up to him and say "So, if the prinicpal in her school asks her to move she ignores him because she was there first? If her teacher asks her not to do something she can ignore her/him because it is unfair to only pick on your daughter because she was the only one kicking the chair in front of her? If a cop tells her to back off and keep out of an issue she should ignore him because everyone is picking on her? As for the couches, they do not belong to her and when you buy her a couch she can do whatever she damned well wants to do on it with the dogs. I.Don't.Care. She disrespects my parents or my aunt again I WILL become unglued. The reason she is like this is because her shit of a mother allows it and you are chicken -shit scared to tell her no. Your job is to correct all the crap parenting you hate her mother for doing. Ignoring it does nothing. This is not a warning but a promise."

Oh boy, she is lucky I am not your aunt or mother!

Survivingstephell's picture

Stop making excuses for him.  Guilty parenting is NOT an excuse, its an explanation for bad parenting.  Let's keep that straight.  

Fade to black's picture

Were the people I most feared/respected. I was aware , even at that age, that different people have different expectations. Some people didn't want us walking through their house with shoes on. Ok. Kick off my shoes as I came in to their home. Some people wanted us to be home at midnight. Great, we were home by then. It never occurred to me to talk back to a parent/authority figure about their own rules. FWIW, I was raised to give my seat up to an elder/or pregnant woman, hold doors open for women  etc. My parents would have tore my ass up if I had acted that way to an elder/aquaitenance. As I would my own kids.Their house, their rules, even if we didn't agree. Grrr, I am angry for you!!

Siemprematahari's picture

Yeah my parents would have slapped the taste out of my mouth for "shushing" someone. That was a felony in our house, among other things LOL. We just knew better.

Rags's picture

Belt.... meet snarky kid butt.  Lather, rinse, repeat until her stinging ass makes a connection with her lippy toxic crotch nugget pea sized brain.  Add in 100,000 sentences "I will do what I am told when I am told to do it and I will at all times be respectful to my elders." all in perfect hand writing, perfect grammar, perfect spelling at a rate of 180/hr until her hand falls off.

This kind of crap just torques my  jaw.

She would know abject mysery if she pulled that crap with my parents... and that would be before I got hold of her.  My dad and mother would have that little shit curled up in the corner snivveling and drooling in about 30secs flat.  All with little more than a look and completely  unpleasant dressing down removing any semblance of cocky disrespectful bullshit from her being.

If she was stupid enough to do it twice... no one would ever find her.  Not because anyone would do away with her.  She would run off into the wilderness as far as she could to avoid the consequences of her choices and make sure she was never found.  The consequences of a second incident would not be something any kid would stick round for.