As of late many have been asking for help or advise. I have found that I have repeated the same thing over and over and felt maybe it’s time to share a bit. For many here we spend a good portion of our lives as steps being told we have no place, no rights, well NOTHING! But I beg to differ and greatly. I feel what the world isn’t telling step parents is something very important that they need to know.
See there are rules, hidden underlined guidelines or boundaries everyone faces daily. The stuff you don’t read about in parenting books or self help crap they sell for $29.99 on your book store shelves. Paternal parents have these hidden guidelines. Every generation after the last follows them without thought. Because it’s taught and so deeply ingrained that we never question it. A child lies bio parents tend to it pretty much the same. Mom and dad together follow a basic hidden guideline to how they respond to the lie. Its that way with all behavior of children really. Yes some people take their reactions to these behaviors far off the marker but for the most part everyone handles the child the same in retrospect.
Now add a step to the mix and that parent if even allowed to be called one is told they have a whole new set of rules that are listed in black and white in every book, forum or conversation. truth be told I don’t mind it. Simply because I see past the red tape and found a new set of rules that help greatly. See as a step we are told be live outside the box per say. Well then ok outside the box i shall stand partly! See most normal people still follow that ingrained set of rules taught to us by our parents and theirs and then theirs and so on. So by all accounts I too live inside the box.
This gives me a different perspective and a second hand to help me when it comes to the children I am told I have no say in. Because I live in the middle. I can see a situation from both sides as a parent or parental figure. For example, Ex wife has told children to act out in our home. Now most fathers react to this in the same manner. But for the step we can see and react differently to the child after hearing this. Yes normal response from any parent is “Its my house you will behave as I state no matter what mom says.” But we can also see that the child needs another approach. Being I am not the blood mother to this child I can also say, “So you think because someone else says it’s ok you should do it?” Giving the child a moment to think for THEMSELVES not what mom or dad says.
This opens the floodgates for children on many levels. You now have presented yourself as someone not so much the parental figure but an outsider (outside the box person). Now maybe you don’t ask that specific question but you get the general idea. You also gave the child a chance to be themselves and to see the right from the wrong on their terms not terms a bio sets automatically because that’s what we as blood parents do. This starts to break the brainwashing or personal forcing of ones own thoughts and ideals that most instill on their children. It allows the child to think for themselves and to figure out what they see or believe.
Still we fight our own ideals as well. But if we remind ourselves that we are not just step parents but also the outside box person we open the doors to communication with these children. We allow them to freely be themselves when they feel they cant around bio mom or dad. Some say “You are just playing the friend role then.” No not really because remember we aren’t placing ourselves completely where society or that one parent want us. We are saying no to that brainwashing ourselves. We are saying, “I’m ok with being on the line, in and out of the box!”
Another example, my own step daughter decided that she would tell her dad she didn’t want to do chores anymore. But she worded it as if I force her to do chores not only at home but at family as well. This caused a great amount of drama. As usual her father came to me in a huff over this. I asked are you sure about that? Turning my attention the next day to the child. I kindly said we need to talk and asked her what it was she felt she was made to do. She got upset did the cry part, then the I don’t know part to finally saying I don’t want to hurt your feelings mom. Then said that she just didn’t like to have to do chores at home, cleaning up her room, vacuuming etc. She is 10, honor student and pretty much a very well behaved child. She does a list of chores at home along with school work and nothing any other normal child her age is given to do to learn responsibility.
So I went back to my husband later that night. Told him what she had said. I needed to make sure we all were clear on what was being said. When I repeated the conversation to him, he was now more angry than before. This led to her being brought into the room because she wasn’t honest with her father at all. When asked why she lied about the whole chore ordeal and where she has to do them she fessed up and said because dad was mad at me so she went along with it. Thinking since we had had an argument and were not on happy go lucky terms this would not have been brought to the others attention. I asked her why she told me the truth and threw dad under the bus like she had. We got no response at first but later she came back and said because she didn’t feel the need to make me love her. She had to have dad love her or she would lose him.
This is where me being in and out of the box helped. I don’t care is she doesn’t want to do chores she has to learn responsibility for her future. I have no desire to punish her for acting out, what kid her age wishes to do chores? None! But because of my placement she is more honest with me. This helps both her dad and I reach that underlined issue. Which after some more conversation was that due to her BM being gone and not in her life or honest with her she fears she will lose her dad as well. So she was willing to do whatever she felt made him happy so that he would never leave or do the things her BM had done.
Which for most kids this is the case, they will do whatever they feel is needed no matter how wrong it is to make a blood parent happy! And in old fashion living most parents take a child’s word over someone else’s. Media today shows kids getting into way to much trouble because they did wrong things to please a bio parent. I can tell you my sisters and I did many things wrong to make our father happy never seeing then how much it actually hurt him.
So if you feel you have no place as a step take pride in the fact that you have a special one.
Just A Step Parent? 