Don’t really need advice, just need to express what I feel. I consider myself a caring, unselfish, supportive, and encouraging husband. I “know” I am a caring, unselfish, supporive, and encouraging dad. I married my wife when her son was 8 years old. I had a father-figure relationship with him since he was 5 years old, and never considered him my “step” son, but my son…period. I took the training wheels off his bike, I taught him to tell time, I taught him to swim, I taught him his times-table, I taught him how to play basketball. When I married his mom, everyday after work we went to the basketball court and the playground, I read with him everyday for at least 30 minutes to get him on grade level, Iwent to the PTAs, I took off work to volunteer on class field trips, I went to the school counselor to find out ways to improve his grades, I told him where babies come from, he came to me to find out how to kiss a girl. I AM dad.

The problem – his mother was/is not MOM. It seemed as though once we got married, she “gave” all responsibility of parenting solely to me. She rarely disciplined him, she left that to me (either in taking away privileges, or corporal – please, I did not abuse him, he doesn’t feel abused, that’s another topic). I gave him chores and responsibilities. I was the one who made sure he did them. I made sure his homework was done, etc. She seemed scared to do anything that would get him upset – she left all that to me. Would not be that much of a problem, except she did “mother” him by “helping” him with his responsibilities – she wouldn’t allow him to do any of his tasks completely by himself, no matter how much I tried to explain to her he needs to learn responsibility.

Fast forward six years – he’s now 14 and lazy! He doesn’t finish anything! It’s his job to wash the dishes - I buy the food, I or his mother cooks the food, he can put the food away and wash the dishes and wipe down the kitchen. His mother NEVER let him do it all by himself. When I told him last week that part of washing the dishes is wiping down the kitchen – the first thing he said was, “My mom does that!”

I tried to teach him to use the internet to paste pictures and e-newspapers/e-magizine articles into his class reports. His mom would go out and buy the local paper for him to use sciccors and glue – because he didn’t want to use the computer, although it looks much more professional to type it in Word and insert pictures and articles.

I can go on, but you get the point. Now that he’s 14, and only has 3 years left before he graduates high school, I have a real problem with him and his mother. Just up until 2 years ago, he asked for “help” in openning a 2-liter soda bottle, and dipping ice-cream, because it was too tight, and the ice-cream too hard! His mother sided with him, telling me that I do put the top on too tight (yet she’s able to open it – makes no sense). I tried to teach him to change a tire – he cried! the whole time. He loses his house key at least 3 times a year – his mother makes excuses for him saying that NO teenager thinks about keeping up with a key (makes me wonder about ever letting him borrowing the car when he’s old enough to drive).

Everything I tried to teach him, his mother gave no help instilling it – but would sometimes give excuses for him. Now she’s seeing the result of HER inability to parent, and the result of her blocking my efforts.

My wife and I had 2 more sons. One just turned 3, and the other just turned 5. I’m teaching them responsibility now – something I tried to get my wife to do with her oldest son when he was five (when we were just dating – I had but so much time and input at the time). I told my wife that every Saturday morning the 5 and 3 year old will go will get up with me 7:00am to get the wash done, vacuum the car, wash the car, go to the store, check the car fluids, run any errands, volunteer at a convelescent home for about half hour, and see if their grandmother needs help with anything. Eveything should be done by 11:30, and the rest of the day can be spent doing whatever they wanted. My wife had the nerve to ask why I’m not including our oldest son. I told her I’ve been trying for the past 6 years, but she made null all my efforts! So now that I’m teaching the younger two, she says I’m excluding the oldest child. I was honest with her – I don’t want the oldest boy to come because I don’t want his attitude to affect the other two. I’m going online with the 3 and 5 year old looking for pictures of Clifford the Big Red Dog, Blues Clues, Bob te Builder, and other children’s characters and saving them and having them insert the pictures in Word. I’m teaching them to use Movie Maker to put the pictures in a slideshow with music in the background. I’m showing them other things (you get the point). Everything I’m doing with them I tried to do with the oldest, but, again, I got no help instilling anything from mom – just the oppisite, she allowed/encouraged him NOT to do the things I tried to show him. Now that I’m spending more time with the toddlers showing and teaching them things, she had the audacity to say I’m that although I’m in the home, I’m an absentee father to the teenager. I treat the toddlers the same as I do the teenager. My 4 year old (at the time) asked me to ask the McDonld’s clerk for the free very small kids sized ice cream cone. I told him if he wants it, then he asks for it, otherwise, we’re leaving – he asked. When a group of older kids starting playing with his ball in the park, I told him to go get it – the first time he asked, he was polite, but they ignored him; he came running back to me, I told to go back and get his ball, this time not being polite at all, he came back with the ball. The toddlers pick up their own clothes, clean up their own mess, etc. You get the point.

I’m struggling. My mind wants to give up even trying to teach the oldest anything, but my “dad” nature won’t let me – so it comes out half-way and insincerely showing him things, which I’m sure he’s picked up on. I’m having resentfull feelings towards my wife for not allowing me to teach/train/mold the oldest – he’s too lazy to walk 15 minutes to Blockbuster to rent a movie (got mad because I wouldn’t drive him, although I gave him the money). My wife positioned herself to be the good mother who shares in her son’s “unfair” treatment. Even now he sees himself as a male version of Cinderella. Now that I’m training/teaching/molding the toddlers, she claims to see the error she made with the oldest, and asked if I couldn’t forgive her. I don’t know.

Justaguy,

I can't give you any advice - but I can surely see the same thing happening to me. My W's nephew lived with us for 4 years, and she never let me ask him to do anything - said it would be "exploiting" him. Now, he's 22 and moved out a couple of months ago. I don't know where he lives and I don't want to know. If he calls, I'm polite but don't offer anything.

Our daughter is 4.5 years old - and I see my wife doing the same things you are talking about - and worse. My wife peels hot dogs for the girl and worse, often feeds her with a spoon. We seem to be divorcing (separated already), but I worry a lot (and not nearly enough) about my W's complete failure to discipline appropriately our child. I worry about her constantly hovering over the child - putting words (as well as spoons) in her mouth. At the same time, W blows up at DD about the wrong things. She's getting a little better about some areas, but she never made our daughter put her toys away or anything like that - even though I can see that our daughter is predisposed to having things orderly.

My daughter was with me for the weekend. I mopped the kitchen floor Saturday morning. She never saw her Mom do that. Maybe I'll do it every weekend she's with me. Eventually, she'll think of it as fun. Kids are much more likely to enjoy work that we give them credit for.

I've already decided that if I divorce and remarry, I don't want to be a stepdad. It's a really tough job. I commend you for doing all that you have done. Maybe it seems like a lost cause to you, but I suspect you have given your (step)son a good grounding that will, in the long term, serve him well - even if for the present time it doesn't seem so.

-AD

Obviously, the problem is that you and your W are on different pages as far as handling the DS. Shouldn't you be putting some energy into you and her deciding how to raise him?

The books you and she need to read are:

"How to talk so kids will listen & how to listen so kids will talk"; "Setting Limits with Your Strong-Willed Child"; and "Siblings without Rivalry".

The mantra of those books is, "He must suffer the natural consequences of his actions." The "natural consequence" is what would happen if you weren't there. Basically, the idea is this: You don't yell at him when he does or does not do something, and you don't bail him out either (as long as he is not going to get hurt). Your job as a parent, then, is to explain to him "the natural consequences of his actions" rather than telling him to do A or B.

For example, he loses his house key. Don't yell at him, don't make a big deal out of it. Tell him, "Well, looks like you will have to wait for Mom or me to come home." If it rains and he gets wet, oh well, too bad, too bad.

Sooner or later, they start "thinking" for themselves.

Justaguy,

Let me double your pleasure. I was in the SAME boat but with 2 stepsons, with them since 2 and 3yo. Same story you are telling but we are divorced now and I have all 4 of the kids.

The last 18 months have really turned things around for the boys, the laziness, the half-assed effort, all gone.

Amazing what happens when you remove the influence.

Your lucky, if she is willing to work on it then it isn't to late, take this opportunity to start fixing it.

Good Luck....I know how nuts it can make a person.

RebornMan

Hi JAG --

Gosh, do I feel your pain. I've been a stepmother to my H's 16-year-old since he was four. We've had primary custody. Our inability to resolve parenting of this child is my biggest regret. (Well, outside of his little fling -- but that's another story.)

It feels like one of those Chinese contraptions that you put your two fingers in and you pull them to get them out, and the harder you pull, the more stuck you get. Builds up some resentment, doesn't it?

The more I tried to parent or simply get stepson to do a few simple chores, the angrier our son got with me, the more he complained to his dad, and the more conflict between my H and I. I was odd-woman out whenever our son didn't want to do something. I was always the bad person -- explicitly with my stepson and completely undermined by my H. We have a younger son together, and we've never had these same problems. It's almost like having two separate families in the same home.

I understood the roots of this. My H was over-compensating for the pain of stepson growing up a product of divorce and has a block to seeing his son uncomfortable or unhappy in any way whatsoever. Just in the last few months have I started to figure a way out, and it came from some advice I gleaned from Dr. Phil's book "Family First."

He states unequivocally that the step-parent cannot and SHOULD not be the primary parent of a child. That responsibility has to lie with the biological spouse in the household. At first, I thought, "If I back off, NO WAY will H step up to the plate." Finally, things got so bad, that we had a discussion and I explicitly told him that I could not fight this battle any longer, that I loved my stepson as any mother would love a son, but I needed to step back and allow him to be the primary parent.

Then I did just that. And it was hard. The tension within myself when my H would/would not do something that I thought was great, but I bit my tongue, smiled and was supportive of my H's parental style. I was pleasant to my stepson, asked him to join me and his brother on different things. Most of the time, he declined, but oh well. I've gotten some of the same complaints you've gotten, but that was/is a reflection of your spouse's discomfort that you've changed your behavior.

What happened and is still happening is this: I have removed myself from being in between those two. Now neither of them has any excuse to blame me for unhappiness in what goes on here. Those two have had more conflict since I've done this than I've seen in 12 years. In fact, it's amusing to see my stepson now try to come to ME to complain about his father. Having learned the pain of having an unsupportive spouse and not wishing to make that same mistake, I simply respond by saying, "Oh, poor thing. I'm sorry you're unhappy. I'm sure you two will work something out."

Is everything perfect now? No. But it is slowly getting better. My H even said recently, "I feel like I've really blown it with him." I nod sympathetically and murmer, "Oh, well, parenting is so hard."

I suggest you tell your wife that psychologists now say that having a stepparent try to be the primary parent to a child that is not biologically their own is a recipe for disaster and that you, while loving your stepson as much as you always have, are bowing out and allowing her to parent. It will freak her out, and the old patterns will be broken. Then you have a chance to recover from this. Now if I can only work through my resentment from all of this fallout!

Good luck.
michelle

The thing is, she just doesn’t get it – what may seem like a small thing, it is actually building/creating a favorable character trait. Example – I’ve repeatedly asked my wife to sit in the front (or al the least within the first 3 rows) of church (my wife always gravitate towards the back); this will get them comfortable with being in the front, in the lead; the trouble-makers normally sit in the back of the schoolbus, the back of the class. Along with sitting up front, make comments to my toddlers like “it’s fun sitting up front”, “wow, I can see everything up front”. My wife thinks there is no merit in sitting up front and making such comments. She just doesn’t get the concept that habits are being formed – intentionally or not, and that what we as parents do are helping them form habits – intentionally or not. That’s why I’m very aware of what I do and say around my children. My wife just doesn’t get it – when speaking of her mother in the third person, she would sometimes call her by her first name; when the teenager started calling my wife by her name, she didn’t like it – and couldn’t make the connection as to why. She just doesn’t get that “helping” the teenager in everything is really helping him to form the habit of being lazy. She just doesn’t get it.

I can tell you first hand, a step dad probably should not try to correct, teach etc.

I know you want to see that child grow up a different way, but you gotta let mom take care of it.

Regarding where to sit in church, it doesn't matter. Some people like to sit up front, others like to sit in back. There are advantages to both, neither is right or wrong.

I'd let wife and kids win on that one, it's not worth what you lose to win that little battle.

Besides, God is big enough, He can reach you and your family in the back of the church if He feels the need.

T