Focus on Better Behavior

I have never been able to predict where I will end up. I started having kids young. Sixteen to be exact. So I assumed that I might not ever get married. It’s really hard to get a date when you’re a teen mom. Then I met my first husband. I got married at only 19 and had two more kids by the age of 21. My husband and I were not compatible at all. Everyday was a fight and a struggle. When we finally divorced, I was only 23. That was a lot of living for one so young. I was quick to look for another partner and soon reconnected with my first love from high school. We ended up getting married. He had been married and divorced around the same time as me and had a son with his former wife. Wow, not only was I the mother of three on my second marriage, but now I was a step mother.

And you know, it was much harder than I thought. I did not really like my stepson. When he would come for visitation, he just didn’t fit in. He didn’t like my rules and didn’t want to help with chores. It didn’t help that at his mother’s home there was more money and less responsibility. I was so frustrated. I feel like over all, I am really good at parenting young children. I run a home based day care and I had a fourth child with my second husband. My children are well behaved and responsible. So what was going on?

The first thing I realized is that maybe my stepson didn’t see me as I did. After all, my kids were upset when their father and I divorced. Maybe he was resentful of me and the fact that my kids got to spend lots of time with his father. I also realized that because my rules were so much stricter than at his mother’s home, he might really feel like a Cinderella when he came to visit. But I didn’t want to change my family’s structure just to accommodate this one child a few days each month. I’m sad to say that I did not do a good job making changes to include this boy. He ended up not wanting to visit us as often and cut us out of his daily life. At the time I was somewhat relieved but now I realize what I did was so wrong. It wasn’t the boy’s fault that his parents divorced and his father re-married. I wish now that I had been more sensitive to his needs. I would now encourage my friends to take a co-parenting class or something to help with the transition of their new blended family.  Now my stepson is grown.  We don’t have much of a relationship, but I encourage my husband to invite him to activities and holidays.  It’s getting better slowly, but I don’t know if my relationship with him will ever be as close or loving as it could have been.