MEMORANDUM
To: Kettle
CC: Kitchen Implement Working Group
From: Pot
Re: Pigmentation
You’re black.
Thank you for your swift attention to this matter.
.
Brownie55, if anyone here is going to be accused of shaping arguments so that they can win them, regardless of reality it’s going to be you. Jodi gave a number of specific charges agains the ex-SIL. They nest well, and seem believable, prima facie. I’ll admit I could be being played, but liars usually don’t manage to tell stories that stack together well.
You, however, seem to be reacting as though you’ve been on the recieving end of the sort of smear campaign you’re asssuming that’s going on here.
I know such campaigns happen, but for fuck’s sake, it’s not like Jodi is describing something I’ve not seen, with a child I’m very close to, happen right in front of my face. You won’t believe me, either, since you’ll say that obviously I’m just posting here to get my own validation for hating The Monster’s father. But you’re the one who’s going around with blinders on.
And being a jerk of the first water, too.
When I was 8 years old, my father pulled this kind of shit. He always made plans, then cancelled at the last minute, leaving me heartbroken. He too, was in a bad place place, personally, and couldn’t get time off work and wasn’t feeling well (he was drunk).
It would have been much, much better for me and my sisters if had never attempted contact with us after mom divorced him.
Why do you not believe a word of Jodi’s post? Why would she lie about something like this? Jodi doesn’t even have kids, but she cares about her brother’s.
Have you taken this personally or something? It is NOT amazing that the OP would take her brother’s side on something like this–some sibs grow up to support and like one another. I don’t see any “screaming” here-just valid frustration and sympathy for the kids who are hurt by this shining example of motherhood.
And you are free to ignore this thread and go about your business. People come to the Pit to share bad news, situations they find difficult to deal with and events that have angered them. This fits all three. I see no insecurity in Jodi’s post–except in how to best entertain a hurting set of kids who might see their time with her as a consolation prize. To the contrary, I read a great deal of insecurity in your post–this must have struck some kind of nerve with you. Perhaps you are a mother without custody who has “personal issues”? I am not being snarky–it can happen. I hope you figure it out, whatever it is.
brownie, how can someone who breaks promises and puts herself ahead of her children be a better parent than the parent who supports and cares for his kids day in and day out?
I am very often surprised at how Pit threads get derailed so that the person doing the Pitting ends up being castigated. I never in a million years thought it would happen in a thread like this, where someone is upset because children have been hurt. Congratulations, brownie55, you have restored my faith that there is always a fuckwit ready to shit in a thread for no reason other than the fun of it. I hope to see your name in lots of posts, so I can come in and tell you I don’t belive a word you say.
It kills me to go away on business for a couple of days and hear my daughter asking me where I am when I phone home.
How can someone not love their kids so much they’d do absolutely anything for them? I’d die a thousand deaths for the Small One. Fly across the country? I’d build a plane out of popsicle sticks and duct tape if that’s what it took.
Are you really the kind of ulcerative colitic asshole that would reach a conclusion like this based on absolutely no evidence?
Just checking.
The only good thing I can say about this situation is that at least these children have one good parent. There are children out there whose mother and father are both this irresponsible.
I’m going to ignore the thread-shitter and get back to the topic and agree with AudreyK that it will not do the girl irreparable damage (and might do some real good) to be honest about the facts of the situation here. No, your brother shouldn’t go on and on trashing his ex in front of his daughter. But a simple, “I’m really sorry the trip got cancelled, but your mom decided at the last minute that she couldn’t do it” would be perfectly acceptable.
I say that as the child of two divorced parents who did not have the most amiable of relationships post-divorce. I always much preferred honesty (not outright trashing or bad-mouthing, just simple honesty) to fake niceness, which kids can see through even from a very young age, trust me.
Jodi, tire her out, do not bring up her mother yourself, do not shy away from talking about her if your niece does bring it up. Don’t be afraid to let her know you’re angry at her mother… you understand that her mother’s important to her, but you’re angry at her mother for making your niece hurt. After all, this is something perfectly logical - it’s not so different from loving your niece to pieces but getting angry if she makes her brother cry!
{{{{{Sgt and babygirl}}}}}
This is what I was going to say. A kid has to make sense of such bad treatment, one way or another, and it is all too easy to go along with the parent who makes the strongest emotional appeal. The SIL is currently the only one giving apparently heartfelt reasons and explanations for her behavior. And the eight-year old niece doesn’t know that the reasons given are not reasons, but flaky self-indulgent excuses.
It took me untill I was bloody 35 to learn that both my parents acted as flakes most of my childhood. My own response, all my childhood was to vaguely think my parents had more important things to do then keeping their promises. Other parents kept promises and did nice stuff with their kids, but hey, those parents weren’t special like my parents! My mom was Creative, and my Dad was an Idealist !
If flaky behavior goes unquestioned, a kid learns that flaky is normal, and that it is a trait of someone she loves and wants to be like.
The niece’s train of thought may go something like this. *“I know that Mommy loves me, cos’ she told me so on the phone. But she doesn’t come when she promised to. Maybe I’m not good enough for her? No, that thought hurts too much. She must have it really, really hard in life, so hard that she can’t hold her promise to be with her little girl. So yeah, you can’t keep a promise when you have it as hard as Mommy does. Or maybe Daddy chases her away? He did, when he divorced her. And he is always hard and tough on me, too. So maybe it is Daddy’s fault ? I can see that he is angry at Mommy right now.” *
Dad, or someone else, really needs to explain these things to her, over and over again, in a casual way. Kids must learn that grown-ups can show behavior that has unfavourable consequences for themselves or others.
Indeed, there are some stories that pit their subject so damningly without the need to resort to the usual obligatory f-ing etc.
I don’t know what your plans are, but whatever they are, could you include a few hugs from me?
I think we need a few more details (or maybe I missed them). Who is telling niece and nephew that she isn’t coming, Mother of the Year or Dad? If it’s Mumsy, I hope Dad is listening in. I also hope that Dad is NOT making excuses for Mumsy or saying stuff like, “Mom loves you very much, honey, but she just can’t do it this time.”–that only exacerbates the problem.
I think Maastricht and AudreyK are on the right path-kindly delivered facts, followed by honest, kind answers and support are best here. Kids will think up any number of reasons to explain stuff they can’t understand (anyone else convinced at some point that they must have been adopted and that their real parents were celebrities, royalty, sports stars?-just an example)–they don’t need to be helped along by adults. They need to be shown reality, but in kid sized bites. (I’m not saying that the OP’s brother isn’t doing that–just that it’s not clear).
Speaking as someone who, as a child, spent a lot of time waiting by the living room window for someone who never showed up, the less said, the better.
Making a big deal out of it will only create a bigger deal to the child. Try to say nothing negative about the other parent, only that you don’t really understand what they’re doing either.
The child will learn, over time, that it’s (they) are not something they can count on and that promises made are empty.
It’s not as big a deal as getting counselling. It’s just something to learn. It will never be understood nor does it really have to be.
BTW - short version of my story: Mom was my only parent, through my entire childhood never said anything negative about my dad. (She gets a hero badge for this, it must have been very difficult because I’ve heard stories through other members of the family). I asked to meet him when I was 14. She said ok. She set it up through his mother.
Met him. He was ok. That’s about it, though. He never did keep in touch, even after I met him. The good thing is that I really never expected him to. Interestingly enough, he did make lots of promises, even then. Perhaps he believed them, I never did.
Right, which is why not lying to your children is a terribly important thing. And while you can edit and present a tale within a developmentally appropriate context, anything much less than “your mother’s a selfish twit” is a lie. Of course, I wouldn’t use those words. I like what was already suggested, along the lines of “Mommy didn’t plan very well and now it’s too hard for her to come. We all hope that next time she plans things better.” is absolutely appropriate - but it should come AFTER Mom’s direct explanation to her own daughter. Anything Dad or Aunt **Jodi **says is a tool to help the girl process her feelings, it should not be the explanation in an of itself.
Um, yeah you can, if you lie about it. I spent years listening to my mother carefully shield my father with lies. But my childhood need to assign blame decided to blame my mother - she drove him away, she was mean to him just like she was mean to me (I mean, clean my room once a week?! Do the dishes? Martinet!), and she made him leave because he wanted her to be nicer to both of us, and he would have made her not be so mean to me if he was still around. I swear, my childhood vision of my father included a castle and white horse.
I’ve been honest with my son, “Your father was very young when we got together. Too young to be a good father,” (the fact that I was younger still, by 4 years, thankfully escaped my son’s notice), “He loves you a lot, but has no idea how to be a good daddy. He’s not even very good at the stuff he needs to do to make his life okay, like getting a job and a place to live. But he’s funny and he’s great at making friends, just like you are.” As he got older (10-11) and asked why he doesn’t get phone calls anymore: “Your father used to call and promise he’d come over and then cancel at the last minute. I decided it was too hard on you to get let down like that, so I asked him to stop calling or to show up, and he chose to stop calling. But if you ever decide you want to talk to him, I have his phone number, and you can call him and see him whenever you want to, okay? Do you want to call him?”
Now at least once every six months or so I remind him that I still have the number and he can see him whenever he wants to. So far, he doesn’t want to. He’s 14. I think he last saw his father at age 5, and that was in the hallway of the courthouse.
My brother ended up telling the kids. Basically, bro ripped her a new one: you cannot keep doing this to these children, etc. until the ex burst into tears, I’m a terrible mother (she is), I should just sign away my rights to the kids (go ahead [but she won’t]), I don’t know why I can’t get things together (neither do we). She apparently thought that would soften my brother’s anger and when it didn’t, she told him to fuck off and slammed down the phone. He tried to call her back but she refused to pick up. They haven’t heard from her since yesterday.
My brother has spoken to a counselor about how to address this issue, since this isn’t the first time it’s happened, or even the first time this year. The advice we are all trying to follow is: (a) answer questions honestly, and if you don’t know, say so; (b) do not badmouth the mother; (c) be supportive, open to conversation on the subject but don’t insist upon it; (d) model good behavior – keep your word, do what you say you will do; and (e) insist on good behavior from the child, thereby reinforcing that the mother’s behavior is unacceptable, without actually having to say so.
I think we’re doing okay. I think we’re doing the best we can. It’s just really hard for me to watch a kid get hurt, and it’s really hard for me to accept that there’s little or nothing I can do about it. Despite the venting here, I am also very aware that these are not my children and it is not my place to interfere in their upbringing or their relationship with their mother. So I just try to be present and be supportive, both of the kids and of my brother.
And I don’t hate the woman. I think hatred is a unproductive waste of energy, and it gives the person you hate power over you. I don’t know this person well enough or care enough about her to hate her. I do hate her behavior, though. I know that she has Issues with a capital “I” and I recognize that, but that doesn’t mean I have to excuse her behavior towards her kids, and I don’t.
Oh, and when they talk next, my brother intends to tell her that the next visit has to be a surprise, that she no longer can tell the kids that she’s coming to see them and get them all excited. She has to schedule the visit with him, but she cannot tell them until she arrives. This is likely to be mostly a moot point anyway, since she obviously doesn’t really want to see them. She hasn’t seen them in a year and at this point who knows when she’ll see them next. My brother sure as hell isn’t buying plane tickets to fly the kids out again.
And yes, he is documenting everything, though again he doesn’t know that he will really need it. She isn’t exercising her visitation now, and she isn’t paying child support (though she’s supposed to). So he doesn’t see much point in changing the custody arrangements anyway. But that may change, so he’s writing everything down.
Thanks for the serious ass kicking you all gave me.
I was wrong.
Saying I am sorry won’t make it right, but I hope it helps.
I have seen too many instances of character assassination in exactly this way, but I should not have believed Jodi was acting in any way that was less than totally honorable.
I am sorry.
This breaks my heart to read. I’m marrying next month, and my soon-to-be stepchild’s mother is also an absentee parent. She insisted the child get her last name, she wanted to share custody and was okay taking for the summers while her mother was there to babysit. Now that I’m in the picture and her mother is gone, she has dropped the kid like a sackful of lead, and all she can ever do is just whine about herself and her situation and look for sympathy. She never thinks of what this is doing to the child, and I just cringe whenever he calmly accepts his father telling him that, nope, he’s not going to see his mother again, sorry.
I don’t talk smack about her, but I am honest (“Why can’t I go to Indiana?” was asked once, and I responded “Because your mom didn’t make plans for you, so you’ll stay with us. It’ll be fun”.), I listen to him tell me about all the wonderful things she bought him this one Christmas, and how fun it is to be there, and how much TV he can watch etc etc and bite my lip, because I know she’s a worthless human being and I can’t imagine having a child and not suffering the torments of the damned at being apart. He doesn’t seem to absorb it, and I hope to God it doesn’t affect him negatively, but I love this kid. I get insanely angry at the thought that he is being hurt, and I am outraged that it’s his mother doing the hurting.
I don’t understand her. I guess what I’m trying to say, Jodi, is that I empathize.