Yeah, I’m simple that way. Just humor me, and I’ll forget what I was thinking and go away.
This is so much different than going into a situation with your eyes open. They grow’em wise up there in Minnesota, I tells ya.
Lemme toss in a completely different perspective.
New research shows that people get a spurt of new brain growth between age 12 and 18. Maybe after that age too.
It is thought that this new brain growth is what makes kids unaware of their actions. Their perceptions are changing, and they don’t yet have the self-control or self-knowledge to do what’s good for them.
[sub]creeping out further on a limb[/sub] It is also thought that this whole process is necessary for the kids to break away from the tribe, uh, I mean the parents, and form new social groups that run off and adapt to the world as it is now. Rebellion is built into us. It is necessary, and is temporary.
I have citations if you need them. MRI scans of teenage brains and such.
Woo boy. I’d like to take a look at those cites. That sounds a bit sketchy from the surface. There aren’t any recursive spirals involved in this theory, is there?
No offense, mind you. Perhaps there is something to it and I’ll learn something today.
Oh, I agree-it depends on what the C was in. If I had gotten a C in say, Art, back in high school (that was my best subject), then my parents would have been disappointed. (I didn’t decide on history until college). Or if I had gotten a C in English.
However, had I gotten a C in Math or Phys Ed, I was happy.
Nonsense. Step-parents can do the actual job of parenting. Just ask my SO, who considered his relationship with my son when he and I became involved.
I sympathize, ceyjen, and I praise your effort to be involved in this girl’s upbringing. I hope someday, she will realize how much you cared. You are doing your best to be a responsible parent (step- or otherwise), it seems, and I understand your frustration. Tough job. Even for a bio-parent. 
Ugh. I got straight A’s in college for the 3 years I went. I told my mom my grades and her response was “well I should hope so.” Fortunately my husband was very supportive and so I just whined to him about it and he was proud of my grades.
Yeah, Opal, some people just don’t seem to have a clue.
I finished my first semester at uni with 3 high distinctions and 1 distinction (on a fail/pass/credit/distinction/high distinction scale). I was the only one in my year to get 3 H.D.s. But there was no point telling my mother about it, because the response would have been perfectly predictable: “You should have tried harder”.
I guess I was still insufficiently self-confident to be able to stand up to unwarranted criticism from her.
Have you been a stepparent Waverley? I’m just curious to know why you are so full of advice on this thread.
I don’t think it is for the child’s well being to be so powerful as to destroy the adult relationships around them. If I had walked off, that would have reinforced her position as an unnaturally powerful kid. How is that good for her?
Equally I don’t think when a kid rejects you as a parental influence, it’s necessarily for the best that the stepparent keeps on trying to be a ‘parent’. Especially when there are already two functioning parents in the kid’s life. Backing off and being roommates can be a solution.
ceyjen, I don’t know that I can offer much help, but I can tell you that your aren’t alone in your frustrations.
My wife and I are coming up on our first anniversary. We’ve know each other for the last seven years, so I’ve come to know her kids (now my stepkids) fairly well. The girl is 18. The boy is 15. She lost the kids’ father to a work accident 13 years ago, and has raised both pretty much on her own and has done a magnificent job. They’ve been a team for 13 years, so it hasn’t always been easy for them or for me to adjust to changes in all of our lives.
Discipline is usually the sticking point between my wife and me. She’s more lenient that I would be, but I usually try to hold my tongue except in certain circumstances. I’ve told the kids that I’ll not interfere unless I feel they are giving their mom trouble, arguing with her or not doing as they’re asked in a reasonable amount of time. But I will say something when it does directly involve me and when I am not shown respect as a member of the family.
That’s how it’s supposed to work in theory. Sometimes it doesn’t. Most of the time it does.
But it can get really frustrating when I don’t see my wife laying down consequences that I would and following through with them.
The only advice I can give you is:
- Pick your battles. (One C among B’s ain’t too bad, although there’s nothing wrong with making your case about why those grades are important and that she needs to set aside time to get her homework done.)
- Don’t take aloofness and bad attitudes too personally. Let her know when something has hurt you, and be ready to forgive even when an apology isn’t offered.
- Tell your husband that you need him as a sounding board where you can voice your frustrations with your stepdaughter (outside of her earshot) with the understanding that you’re expressing your anger to him so that she doesn’t bear the brunt of it.
My wife reminds me that it’s likely that I won’t hear from either kid how much they appreciated my being around until a few years down the road, maybe not until they have kids of their own. It’s a long haul, and a long time not to hear “I love you, too.”
But I’m hopeful that it will be worth the effort.
Good luck.
Primaflora,
Thanks for restoring my faith in pitizens. I was wondering if anyone was going to have the good sense to play the “have you ever been a step parent” card.
The answer is no, but I’m not going to waste my time providing someone who thinks treating a child like a roommate is a good idea with a listing of my qualifications. What is the goal here, to have a child who rings with a surely phone call once a year, or have a relationship more along the lines of the one between cyjen and her own step mom? If the former, I stand corrected.
I’ve become convinced that cyjen is interested in being a meaningful part of this child’s life, and I hope it works out for her.
Are you my long lost twin?
Primaflora’s advice may seem cold, wrong and ‘evil’ to many but I can tell it comes from somebody who’s fought the fight. When you become a step parent, you try to fight the fight, to slay dragons but eventually learn the battle is unwinable. The kid is an ass and is tearing your marriage and SO apart. Now, my experience was with a step-son who was flunking school, ditching half the time, had a really bad attitude and so on. To his credit he was never violent, thank the heavens.
The only things you can do is leave the marriage or withdraw. When you withdraw, you will be accused of being an uncaring, evil step parent by the SO but that allows you to deal with only one person. If she is unaccepting, then it is time to head to the lifeboats.
I’m sorry to sound so callous and it probably doesn’t apply to all situations since my step-son was not-the-norm. However, people underestimate that you need to fight the fight, every day, every week, every month, every year, for years with no respite (this is why not as much sympathy for non-full time step parents). The step parent has a right to a life and doesn’t need to have his/her quality of life destroyed by someone else even if that someone else is a child.
Weirdly, by withdrawing, the step-son actually listened to me more and we had many long conversations once I stopped trying to ‘parent’.
Ceyjen, you’re in a rough spot here. Here’s one big lesson you’ll just have to accept: You can’t do a damn thing about biomom. She gave birth to this child and she is going to be a big influence on her whether you like it or not.
If this were me, I would encourage my husband to meet with his ex-wife and try to hammer out some mutually agreeable ground rules. What is an acceptable gpa? What punishment or reward should daughter get for getting exceptionally good/bad grades? For coming home late? They also need to agree to staunchly support the other parent, at least in front of the child. This is essential if they want to avoid further conflict. Until they support each other, chaos will rule both houses. Have them write down the rules, sign them, and then agree to follow them.
Keep in mind that this is NOT a problem unique to divorced parents. Plenty of married parents have the same exact problems: coping with different discipline, one parent not following through with punishments, parents not presenting a united front. But it’s a worthwhile and necessary battle because there’s a child involved.
Step-parents are the U.N. ambassadors of parenting. Their job is to keep the peace. Unfortunately, if a conflict arises, they find they have very little actual power.
Good luck.
Update:
I’m afraid that dad has gone ahead and arranged for daughter to live more full-time with bio-mom. Good or bad, I don’t know. I am a little disappointed to see it go this way; however, some part of me is relieved. I have a six year old little boy of my own and I can only take so much of watching stepdaughter take her frustrations out on him when he adores her to pieces.
I hope dad realizes that it may not be the best solution to put her in her mother’s keep, and I hope she comes to realize that of all the people in her life, her dad really does love her deeply. He just can’t seem to figure out how to help her with her problems.
Of course, she blames me partially. She thinks I planted the seed that eventually led to getting her out of the house. She has no idea how badly I wanted to lobby for her but lacked the influence to accomplish anything. Maybe someday…
I agree totally with the idea that there is some built-in mechanism (probably triggered by puberty, I would guess) that causes kids to be rebellious (some more than others), but aren’t we also told that kids want boundaries in their lives? I don’t mean “want” in the same way they want candy or toys, but somewhere in that brain that is developing, there is a need for guidelines and structure.
Yes, part of the development of a kid requires that they experience rebellion and “testing the boundaries,” but another vital part of their development is that they should be “reined in” by parents (or guardians). Otherwise, what frame of reference would they have to deal with discipline at school or reprimands at their future jobs or anything else in real life?
A kid who is allowed to run free to some extent because a scientist said it was normal is a kid who may lack some of the most important habits and traits necessary for a successful adult life.
Waverley, fuck off, why don’t you? It’s incredibly easy to pontificate about kids deserving unconditional love from stepparents while not needing to do anything in return. Until you’re been there and done that, you don’t understand.
FWIW, you moron, my advice comes out of suggesting Ceygen Do Something Different To What I Did because what I did failed. I do think now that if I had backed off to a mutually respectful roommate situation, the outcome could have been different. It was when I tried to parent someone who didn’t want me or need me to play that role, things went manky. The kid’s got two parents already! Why should the kid accept yet another parent?
Ceyjen, I hope this buys you some time and space for you and your SO to figure things out. I do think an agreement between your SO and his exwife could be a good thing. My SO’s exwife refused to do that and she refused to talk to me at all about stuff as she didn’t consider me an important part of her daughter’s life or in a parental role at all. She told me so in mediation. Woohoo nothing like a united front on the part of the adults eh?
Prima,
I’m a bit too busy to fuck off at the moment, but I can fit you in around the 20th. How does that work for you?
I’m not sure it’s quite pontificating when someone seems to need advice and you offer it. But sure, I haven’t gone through what you have, so my experience counts for nothing. I humbly submit to your superior knowledge and ‘kids don’t need unconditional love’ philosophy. Please be so kind as to sign a copy of your best seller, My Step-Daughter, My Roommate for me.
Thanks! Your pal,
W.
OK, I could do with some royalties coming in, the car cost $1000 to fix this week and I’m not happy. I’m sure a book which deals with the realities of stepparenting as opposed to lovely fluffy ideals of dear wee kiddies who need unconditional love from people they treat like shit or to be able to drive off any SO’s their parents might love would be a bestseller.
Kids need unconditional love from their parents – IME they don’t necessarily need or want it from their parent’s partners. We’re not talking Brady Bunch here. Kids make choices too, don’t forget.
I’ll mark the 20th on the calendar because lordamercy we wouldn’t want me forgetting your one and only fuck of the year.
That $1000 is going to seem like nothing when you get my bill, but I’m sure you will consider it a bargain at twice the price. See ya in February. And sweet jumpin jeezus with a jumprope… bathe.