No, those things don’t matter. All that matters is that she’s the kid’s parent, and she has the right to decide how and when the boy should be punished. If he has a problem with that (and it doesn’t sound like he does) he is free to leave. There is no point in trying to get her to say he is a “father figure,” because it doesn’t matter. her rights are her rights.
Punishment long after the offense has occured is usually not an effective disciplinary tactic.
Well it all depends on how much each wants to maintain the current arrangement and what they are willing to compromise for it. These are personal decisions and hardly anything those of us on a message board can dictate the terms of it.
Nope. We’re saying that if they’re both the kid’s parental figures, then they both have to work together to set ground rules, and agree on what happens when the rules are broken. Whether or not they’re married is irrelevant, at least to me.
Dio, are you saying that if the guy married the OP tomorrow, then at that point he can hit the kid however he wants, since now he’d be the legal guardian?
Too bad. Teachers have to deal with that issue too.
Only one of them is the boy’s parent. Only one of them has parental rights.
I don’t think that would necessarily make him the boy’s legal parent (I’m not sure, though), but if she chooses to give him that right then she chooses to give him that right. She has not chosen to do so yet.
Exactly why i said he should be paid for sitting.
That is a good question. I may be wrong but I am pretty sure that Step-Parents do not have the same legal rights as biological parents. For example, if they married and then later divorced I am pretty sure that he could not claim any sort of visitation rights (Perhaps one of the doper legal types can correct me on this).
And this is really some people seem to be saying in this thread. That the only thing that matters about this man and his relationship to the child is that his sperm didn’t make it.
Which, IMHO, is sad.
Teachers are not parents. Most teachers do not spend three years living in a child’s house.
No, sperm has nothing to do with it. I haven’t once said “biological parent,” I’ve said legal parent." She is the only one with legal parenthood. If she chooses to give that to him (which she can. He can legally adopt the kid as his own), then the dynamic changes, but so far she has not given him that right, and it’s not appropriate to bash her for not doing it.
This guy is not the boy’s parent. It doesn’t matter how long he’s lived there. He isn’t the boy’s father until she legally decided to make him the boy’s father. She does not surrender her own parental rights just because he lives with them.
Agreed. Thanks. This is where I was wrongheaded and once I calmed down and the red mist cleared, I was able to prevent myself from making the mistake of reacting this way.
You know, some of this has to do with the fact that I was spanked growing up. Not in anger or with belts or anything, just in response to behavior that was dangerous or very unacceptable. So I tend to believe that we have gone way to far in the other direction of not swatting precious snowflake"s bottom. But that is a matter for another thread.
I also believe that, while important as a starting framework, the notion of legal parental rights in this case is eclipsed by other factors. What strikes me as the most important questions here are why you felt that you might have to spank the child but that you might never be comfortable with him doing so and (probably most of all) why it is that you were mad at him. Were you mad at him because you thought that he made a parenting decision without consulting you or (and this is what I suspect) are you angry because he forgot his place and spanked your kid?
I think that your reaction here is probably a symptom of something else and that you may want to sort that out.
This was very well-phrased, thanks. OP, if you and your boyfriend were to go to couple’s counseling and/or parenting classes, I suspect that this is where they would start with you. So you may as well start there yourself.
Putting aside the Dio vs. The World for a moment and back to the OP.
The disconnect that we’re seeing is that you have not allowed your SO the same authority as you when it comes to the rearing of the children.
I really don’t care if it’s YOUR kid or HIS kid, when you are living together as a family, you must parent THE kids with equal respect and authority. Had you said, “corporal punishment is not allowed by anyone” then I would respect your wishes.
This would be a deal-breaker for me if I were your SO. To have different rules for me when I’m responsible for every other aspect of THE children’s lives is insulting at best.
I’ve seen first hand the results of your kind of thinking and it’s not good. Children are smart and manipulative. They will figure out very quickly just how much they can get away with when you’re the one in charge vs. how much they can get away with when SO is in charge.
Another point here is the boy’s perspective; the man who has lived in his house and acted like his father for three years is the only father he’s known. There’s a reason that single mothers and fathers shouldn’t have boyfriends/girlfriends swanning in and out of their children’s lives, and we’re seeing part of it in this thread.
Spanking isn’t discipline, it’s punishment. And punishment should not be meted out to anyone, especially a small child, in anger. Physical punishment, especially. Not that I agree that a child should ever be shown violence as a means of behavior control, because the immediate behavior change comes with the side effect of the take away, long term lesson that violence is justified. We have an epidemic of bullying in our schools and a growing intimate partner violence amongst adolescents and no one seems to recognize that we teach kids from the youngest age that when people don’t act the way we want them to, the answer is to hurt them until they change. But spanking was good enough for us by gum, so it’s good enough for our kids, and so the cycle continues.
In any case, I’d be very concerned about anyone, bio parent or not, spouse or not, giving out physical punishment to my child when they are admittedly out of control thanks to their anger. If you can’t understand why, and why a promise that it will never happen again (famous last words, uttered in every domestic violence situation that has ever occurred ever) is as meaningless as spit, I’m not sure what to tell you.
This is a valid point. I think roles do have to be clarified and that it’s a bad idea for people with kids to cohabitate unless they’re committed to making it a whole family, not two families with parents who sleep together.