Bite Back

I was over at Family In Bloom reading Tulip’s latest about how her husband put a really powerful and appropriate boundary in place for her pre-teen stepdaughter, Daisy. Go read her post, if you haven’t already – the way Tulip’s husband handled the situation was just SO perfect. It was like stepfamily poetry or something.

What was interesting though was despite the ringing-from-the-hills rightness of how the issue got dealt with, a rightness so patent that it had commenters alternately sighing wistfully and congratulating madly, Tulip was nonetheless second guessing the actions taken and wondering if the way the particular situation was dealt with was too harsh.

(In case I wasn’t already clear, there was NO.WAY. it was too harsh… in my opinion, anyway.)

The whole thing made me think: isn’t it funny/weird/interesting that we stepmums tend to push harder than our partners for boundaries, rules, structure in a dynamic that can feel utterly ENDLESS, but when we finally get our wish and we get to firm up the boundaries or someone else does it for us, we suddenly feel a tiny bit guilty, uncertain, or just plain mean?

I had this come up recently in a different context.

It was my week in the Boys’ City, and there had been a steady but not slow degeneration into morning chaos and disorganisation from the Boys. Morning after morning, we’d get halfway to school to hear a voice from the back that someone had forgotten their assignment, due today and reeeeeeeally important. Or someone else had left their lunch behind. Or their tie, and now they wouldn’t match the other kids at choir and would risk getting into trouble.

I’m sure I need hardly say that in every instance, there had been a range of reminders that morning about the assignment, the lunch, the tie. For goodness sakes, the Lovely Man and I give multiple prompts about taking assignments and homework with them, we place the Boys’ lunch boxes on top of their school bags to be packed and we LAY THEIR UNIFORMS OUT ON THEIR BEDS for them (OMG, I’m a valet to pre-teens!) while they enjoy their leisurely reading breakfasts. Which is another story altogether…

Anyway, the Boys were constantly and sloppily forgetting their school things. And for the most part, the Lovely Man would either turn the car around to get whatever it was, guaranteeing a late arrival at school for all the Boys, including any that were organised that morning, or he would drop them at school, then drive the twenty-five to thirty minute round trip to collect the forgotten item and deliver it to the school. There were never any negative consequences to the Boys from their forgetfulness, just a confident expectation that the adult servants would rectify the situation with minimal inconvenience to the child involved.

I’ve always had a problem with this approach; the incentives aren’t there for improvement in the patterns of behaviour, so how could we expect improvement? It would actually be unfair to expect the Boys to be more careful to remember their things unless the adult response changed.

So anyway, the Lovely Man had early work on a couple of mornings in a row and it was down to me to do school runs alone. The Boys were a tiny bit more motivated about getting ready in a timely way than usual, but inevitably the call came: Boy B had forgotten his blazer and tie, and Boy A had forgotten his blazer as well, despite my reminders.

We were about halfway to school, doing okay for time but set to be late if I turned the car around, so after checking that they wouldn’t be cold, I said:

It’s a pity, but I’ve got things on today, so I can’t run home and get them for you. You’ll just have to manage as best you can.

There were no demands that I rearrange my schedule or accusations of cruelty or wickedness; they were pretty accepting.

But you know what?

Even though I stuck to my guns, it was a warmish day, and I absolutely knew letting them tough it out was the right and necessary thing to do if they were ever going to learn to take responsibility for packing their school necessaries properly, I felt bad and guilty and just plain mean.

All day long.

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The Shake Up

The Boys have been in Our City for the holidays for nearly a week, and it’s past time for a shake up of their rules and responsibilities.

Some things they’re doing well; dishes are mostly getting put into the dishwasher with few and sometimes no reminders, and shoes are staying in one big pile near the door rather than being scattered across the deck.

In the lounge, though, comics, cushions, toys and food wrappers have collected to form a chaotic compost of boystuff that drives me to the edge of my tolerance.

The bathroom is likewise a scene of horror, with chunks of toothpaste adhered like lazy snails to the basin and toiletries, and toothbrushes, towels and discarded clothes strewn about randomly.

The “stupid” houserules have mysteriously disappeared from their place on the fridge.

The Lovely Man doesn’t seem bothered by all this, or even to notice it most of the time. In fact, he admitted when I asked that he had taken down the houserules after the Boys’ last visit. Whattha?!?!

We discussed the Boys’ contributions to the household last night. It wasn’t heated, but we weren’t wholly on the same page, either.

Unsurprisingly, he is less than keen to take on the resistance and conflict of making the Boys do more regular or more sustained chores. After all, given that he’s not bothered by the mess, why would he go to enormous efforts to change it?

The houserules are a puzzle. We went to a lot of trouble to draft them – a group discussion with the counsellor, a house meeting, input from the kids.

All I can think is that really, the Lovely Man is not that comfortable with structured rules, perhaps equating them with harshly authoritarian parenting styles.

(Whereas I see them as an essential framework for creating healthy boundaries and familiar expectations within which everyone in the house can – hopefully – flourish.)

Also, I think the Lovely Man tends to overestimate the Boys’ current contributions and underestimate their capacity for more meaningful contributions.

I said to him last night:

Do you really think that at 8, nearly 10 and nearly 12, the little they do now is all they are capable of doing?

He must have seen my point, because this morning he announced that the Boys will have three new chores to share between them each morning – picking up food from the floor beneath the dining table, tidying the bathroom and tidying the comics.

There was moaning and grizzling and general resistance, but not too much. As the Lovely Man pointed out, each task takes about three minutes – hardly an oppressive degree of exertion.

And the rules? I’ll be reprinting and reposting them tomorrow.

What could do with a shake up in your step household?

Just asking

Does anyone else find it really, really difficult when your partner wants you to look through photos of his kids as babies that were taken when his first family was intact?

Mixed in are inevitably photos of the kids’ mum, posed with them and smiling, and I see them even though the Lovely Man doesn’t specifically show them to me.

Inevitable, too, are the accompanying stories beginning “This was when we had just had Boy A…” or “That was just after we had bought our house in X-ville.”

“Our” and “we” in these stories never means “him and me”, naturally.

The whole experience makes a sad little underline to my own childless outsider status.

Some days when the photos come out I can handle it, at least for a while. I don’t want the Lovely Man to feel that his Boys’ babyhoods are on lockdown and can’t be talked about or shown off.

Today, though, I’m not coping with it, and I think I need to find a way to tell him.

Does this kind of situation come up in your stepfamily, or am I being over-sensitive?

Storm’s coming

You know how maestro piano players are sometimes described as playing a piece of music “stormily”?

The Lovely Man is in the study at the moment, and I can tell he is writing his email response to the Boys’ Mum’s most recent sound-and-light-show communication because his typing is noticeably stormy in volume, tone and rhythm.

It’s a bit sad that the amount of conflict she orchestrates means that I have learned to distinguish between an email being typed to her and an email being typed to any other random person FROM ANOTHER ROOM!

What are the storm warnings that stepfamily drama is brewing in your home?

Seeing tail lights

It was so GOOD to arrive back in our city after the last five days with the Boys. As one commenter suggested, it was definitely a relief to see tail lights at the end of this particular trip!

Interestingly, Boy A’s behaviour towards me got markedly better three-odd days into our time together, as sometimes happens.

Problem is, often the first three days pass and the hostile behaviour doesn’t abate at all, so this improvement isn’t something we can ever count on.

I really notice that pattern of ongoing hostility and anger from Boy A when the Boys’ Mum has had a flare-up about something in the time between our visits. I suspect there’s way too much emotional and information leakage from her to the Boys… it’s obviously very hard on them.

Nonetheless, the whole emotional switcheroo of angry kid/ok kid/enraged kid/happy kid totally does my head in. Talk about walking on eggshells!

So anyway, it’s a fine thing to be on my home ground, spending time with my friends and living the life of a single girl with no responsibilities for the next couple of days until the Lovely Man gets home. (He has stayed on in the Boys’ city for a Monday school-based handover.)

Happy weekend, everyone!

Shades of beige

Monday was the first night of our regular week with the kids.

As usual, Boy A was fairly hostile towards me: he refused to respond to my hello, and every comment I made (not to him – I don’t waste time trying to make conversation with him directly) was met with a shrug or a smart remark.

For instance, I was talking to the other boys about making Crepes Suzette for dessert this week and describing how we would set fire to the crepes before serving them.

(Setting fire to foodstuffs has gigantic appeal to boys, in my experience.)

At this point, Boy A butted in to snidely suggest that he’d rather pour petrol than liqueur on the crepes. To which I replied that he was quite welcome to add petrol to his own serve.

Normally I wouldn’t have responded that way; that night had me teetering alarmingly close to the cliff edge of my self control.

His rejoinder?

“Yeah, that’s really funny.”

Oh, right, because it was all about me being funny at his expense.

Anyway, by 5pm I’d had it and retreated to the bedroom with my laptop for much of the rest of the evening, feeling besieged and frustrated but glad to be avoiding further hurtful comments and pointed exclusion.

Later, once the kids were finally in bed, I asked the Lovely Man how he felt the evening had gone and whether there was anything extra I could have done to support him with the kids.

I was expecting to talk about specific tasks, like me doing dinner so he could cover homework duty – that kind of mundane stuff.

Instead, I heard:

“I think it was good that you kind of made yourself scarce and kept a low profile in the bedroom, because Boy A finds it difficult when he thinks you’re too much in the foreground.”

*Cue crickets*

Finally, I found my voice.

“I’m all in favour of keeping things low-key, especially in the first 24 hours we have the Boys, but I am NOT going to hide out in the bedroom or generally fade into the wallpaper because Boy A prefers it that way. His behaviour is the problem here, NOT MINE.”

Turns out that the Lovely Man hadn’t even noticed Boy A’s nastiness, and just thought I was relaxing in the bedroom because I wanted to.

I found it disturbing and a bit hurtful, though, that it’s considered preferable that I minimise my presence and role in the house to keep the peace and keep Boy A “happy”.

Ultimately, I think those kinds of accommodations devalue and disrespect me and enable Boy A to continue deferring his adjustment to our family situation.

I understand that the Lovely Man feels stuck in a lose/lose situation, juggling to keep everyone happy, but this incident has made me wonder – if my best contribution is made by downplaying my existence in what is meant to be my part-time home, why am I here at all?

As a stepmother, are you ever asked or expected to downplay yourself or fade into beige to keep others in your stepfamily “comfortable”?

Speak Up Week Challenge

A few months on from my adventures in extreme self-care, it’s challenge time again.

The challenge concept is a useful one. Especially the accountability factor – there’s nothing like thinking hmmm, what am I going to post as today’s self-care? to motivate me to actually take some time out.

Over the past few months, intermittent bouts of depression have made it clear that some aspects of the way I function as a stepmother need work.

Oh, I always have a smile, produce afternoon tea on demand, and generally find the balance of firm-but-friendly to motivate unwilling kids for the morning get-to-school marathon.

So, what should be different?

Should.

I HATE that word. It always implies a judgement imposed by someone else, almost invariably someone who through lack of experience is completely unable to comprehend the complexities of a given situation. Or, infinitely more cutting, a self-judgement.

I’ve been struggling, but not really with the issues I imagined would be problematic before getting involved with the boys. Originally, I was afraid I would lose my temper, not be able to be present with them, or get culture-shocked by the transition from life as a self-directed single woman to spending large slabs of time with three kids.

Unexpectedly, perhaps, it’s not been those factors that have been the problem; from an outsider’s perspective, then, it’s all happening as it “should” be.

There are shoulds actually being neglected in our various homes – they’re just a different kind.

Honesty, or perhaps authenticity, is the first one. There are so, so many times when I don’t speak up, or find myself going along with situations I don’t agree with. It’s a habit that was preserving surface harmony, but sapping my happiness underneath.

Being more honest doesn’t mean verbalising every frustration or criticism of the kids to the Lovely Man, or becoming hurtfully or abrasively assertive like a 90s cliché. I’m trying for increased authenticity, not a convenient whipping boy. And there are times when I need to accept that the Lovely Man and the Boys’ Mum will make their own decisions for their own reasons, and that those decisions presumably make sense inside their heads if not inside mine.

Overall, though Little Miss Shut Up (gotta get that one on a t-shirt) here really, really needs to morph into Little Miss Speaks Up.

But whether it’s expressing that No, I’m not comfortable loaning the Boys’ Mum our car for her holiday, asking the Lovely Man not to volunteer for anymore fifteen hour shifts on public holidays, or telling Boy A that I expect him to say hello when I collect him from school, the new focus is going to be on calmly and skilfully speaking up in a non-accusatory way.

I accept that asking for what I want doesn’t guarantee I’ll get it. Not even close.

But nobody is psychic, and especially in stepfamilies, if you don’t ask, you surely don’t get.

So each day, I’m going to try to respond clearly and honestly to situations that before would have seen me dropping my eyes and staying mute.

Recently, for instance, the Lovely Man said at dinner:

I thought you boys were really helpful with the cleaning up today, didn’t you B?

Now, one of the Lovely Man’s most endearing qualities is a hefty touch of Pollyanna. In fact, the whole lets-tidy-up process had been about as easy as pulling teeth from a Komodo dragon, with lots of go-slowing resistance from the Boys. So I gulped and said:

Actually, while it was good that you helped a bit, I think you could have actually made an effort tried harder rather than making us stand over you every second. Why do you think adults spend so much energy getting kids to do things they could do quicker themselves?

And I explained that it was because we value cooperating and believe that encouraging them to take responsibility for their mess helps build their characters.

OK, so they stared blankly at me, like I’d offered them vampire sandwiches for lunch.

But I tried. And even if nothing changes, saying it out loud felt so much better than the old nod-and-smile response that I would have given before.

Are there any ways you would like to be more honest in your stepfamily this week?

Star-crossed lovers?

One night during our recent Easter holiday with the Boys at my parents’ beach shack, the Lovely Man decided it would be fun to take them out for a traditional country-town Chinese meal, complete with lurid plum sauce and deep-fried everything.

As we drove back home through the darkness to the shack, honey chicken and sundry culinary delights gurgling in our tummies, Boy C piped up from the backseat:

Boy C: Do you know, Daddy, I think you and Mummy would make a really, really good couple. Like, with each other, you know?

Stunned silence from the front seat. The Lovely Man and I both, independently, decided against turning around and saying something like: “Actually, Mummy finally signed the divorce papers this week, so… nuh. Not going to happen.”

The Lovely Man squeezed my hand in the darkness as Boy C continued.

Boy C: Yeah, it would be perfect because you’re just like Harry Potter’s dad and mum, you’d be so well suited together.

More mute gulping from the front seat. Luckily Boy C didn’t seem to want an answer.

Boy C: They’d be a great couple, because, you see, Mummy’s so intelligent, just like Lily Potter and Dad’s so… ummm… so…

Boy B: Active! Dad’s really active, just like Harry’s dad! And they got together and had us, just like Harry’s parents had him.

(For the record, the Lovely Man is devastatingly smart. And the Boys’ Mum was apparently always a bit intimidated by that, despite being no slouch herself. The Boys, especially Boy A, often seem to feel compelled to insist to me how Very Intelligent she is, despite me never, ever saying a word about it or bringing up the issue of intelligence, of anyone, at all, ever.)

Boy A: What do you mean? Dad’s quite intelligent too, you know!

What came through very strongly from this conversation was that the Boys have a need to see the story of their parents’ marriage as special, almost mythic, within the family history. They need a love story, a sense of themselves as part of the family destiny. The divorce hasn’t altered that need; now the mythic love story they tell is just a little more star-crossed.

Harry and James Potter had their son, Harry, and were happily in love until the evil Voldemort killed them.

The Lovely Man and the Boys’ Mum had their three beautiful sons and were happily in love until the Evil Divorce Monster fell out of a clear blue sky and broke up their marriage.

(I could go further and add that Boy A, at least, identifies me directly with the Evil Divorce Monster.)

I can understand the Boys needing this sort of emotional family architecture to provide an account by which they can understand their existence. After all, if the way you see your parents’ marriage is that they were ill-suited and a bad match and their marriage was a mistake, then presumably in kid-magical-thinking terms, that makes you, their children, mistakes that should never have been made.

Then, of course, there are the obvious reconciliation fantasies at work in this little vignette. Those go without saying.

Fair enough.

One thing I never, ever, expected to experience in my stepfamily, though, was sitting in the front seat of the car while my stepchildren openly attempted to matchmake their parents based on the Harry Potter novels from the back seat.

How do your stepchildren think and talk about their parents’ marriage?

How do you and/or your partner respond when it comes up?

What’s the most unexpected thing your stepkids have ever come up with?

Draft house rules – your thoughts, please!

Thanks for all your input – it’s really helpful to know that I’m not developing into some controlling psycho-Nazi with a penchant for making the Boys stand at attention while singing a family anthem of my own composition each morning.

Here is the version I whittled down from the original novel-length document. I’d appreciate any input before attempting to plaster this lot to the fridge:

House Rules

Words

We speak courteously and respectfully.

No running each other down – opinions, actions, creative acts, cooking, etc.

We call people only what they want to be called.

No swearing or violent language.

When somebody’s talking to us, we listen and don’t interrupt.

We say please and thank you, and appreciate what people do for us.

We don’t whinge – we express our feelings but not over and over.

If we feel sad or angry, we say so, which helps us and others.

If someone has annoyed or upset us, we talk about it with that person.

Actions

Adults and kids from this house do not hit, bully or hurt others.

Limit violent play and stop when asked. Play gun games only with people who are playing gun games with you.

We respect others’ things by asking permission.

We respect others’ privacy by knocking on closed doors before entering.

If you don’t agree with an adult, you can ask for an explanation, but once you’ve heard it you have to do what you’re asked without arguing.

What happens when we break the rules:

• mild warning
• firm warning
• “I’m getting angry”
• punishment – withholding of a privilege, or withdrawal from the group

Bedtimes

Boy A – in bed by 9.30pm.

Boys B and C – in bed by 8.30.

Boy Jobs

• School bags and lunchboxes are put away as soon as we come home.

• We tidy away our rubbish – wrappers, apple cores etc – soon after making it.

• We put our plates, cups and cutlery in the dishwasher after meals.

• We keep the bathroom tidy – hanging towels, keeping toothbrushes tidy.

• We keep our bedrooms tidy – straighten beds, pick up clothes and toys.

• We flush the toilet and we turn the fan off.

• Our shoes live on the rack in the hall.

• We put toys, comics, books and stationery away before moving on to a new task.

• When the recycling bin is full we empty it into the big yellow-topped bin in the driveway.

We may need reminders to do the things on this list. If we remember without being asked, we will get Treat Points. And a lot of appreciation.

**********

I’m not sure about the Treat Points idea in the last paragraph? The Lovely Man originally wrote:

Often we will need to be reminded to do the things in the job list, and that’s OK. If we can remember to do them without being asked, that’s best of all.  If we are asked, we just do the chore.  If we do this stuff as we go, chore cards [an occasional chore blitz we do where the Boys choose from a pile of face-down cards with short jobs written on them] are really easy.

Personally, I felt that this paragraph just gave the Boys a free ride not to even try to do the jobs on the list without being reminded. I’m not sure if the Treat Points idea will work, but still….

What is your take on this brand-new, first-time beginners house rules list?

Too long? Too short? Too woolly? Too complex? Or just right? What would you do differently?