Childfree Abby - He Does Not Want To Parent Your Child05 May 2006Message ID: 125mlojo67efl28@news.supernews.com
Dear Amy: After reading a recent column about giving kids chores to do, which I believe is the way it should be, my spouse of a few months said he would never ask my daughter to do anything. He absolutely wants nothing to do with discipline or even telling her that she can or can't go to her friend's house. He says it's not his place to correct her. Basically, his answer to everything is: "Go ask your mom." She is 16. If I'm not home, he should have some authority and not let her do whatever she wants. My older daughter and I will be going to Las Vegas to celebrate her 21st birthday. My spouse said that he doesn't want my youngest daughter to stay home with him because he doesn't want to have to take care of her. -- Solo Mom in Colorado Dear Solo: What you interpret as your husband's intractability I see as evidence of his comfort level as a parent. He's just not ready. Your daughter is too old and your marriage is too young for this stepdad to move in and discipline her. Instead of trying to force him to be an equal parent to you, you should lead the way by being the primary parent and letting the two of them get to know each other and develop a relationship. It takes so much time to learn to be a parent -- and to embrace the role. You've had a lifetime. Your husband has had a few months. How can he make the judgment calls that you know in your bones how to make? Your husband needs to figure out how to be an integral part of your family. For now, he should be your support while you demonstrate how to be a parent. Leaving your daughter alone with someone who is telling you he doesn't want to take care of her isn't fair to either of them.
Dear Solo, I must say that I disagree with my esteemed counterpart when she states that your new husband is simply "not ready" to be a parent. I think that the situation goes far deeper than that. I don't think he wants to parent your children at all. Why, do you ask, do I think this? For one thing, "taking care" of a sixteen-year-old is not at all like taking care of a toddler. You don't have to feed, change or attempt to toilet-train an able bodied sixteen-year-old in full possession of her faculties. With a sixteen-year-old, you make sure that she is in school when she is supposed to be, know where she goes at night and with whom; and finally, that she is home at a decent hour. This really doesn't take much, and it takes less if you have a good kid. If your husband doesn't want to handle this for a few days while you are away, you can pretty much bet that he has no interest whatsoever in being a parent to your child. I really wonder why this is coming as such a surprise to you. I don't think he developed this antipathy towards parenting overnight. Given that you have married this individual, I feel that I can assume that you dated for a while before you tied the knot. Since you dated for at least some time, the topic that you are a "package deal" and have at least one child living at home should have come up in the conversation at some point. At that time, you should have discussed parenting, with an eye to all that means, should the two of you marry. Granted, a lot of other things should have been discussed also, but too many to note here. Now, if he was not honest, or in any way misled you about his feelings concerning your children at that point in time, shame on him. However, if he was honest with you and you ignored this, perhaps thinking that he would "come around", then shame on you. If the topic did not come up at all, you are both complete jackasses who never should have married in the first place. That said, what do you do? Honey, you can't get what there ain't. Or as an acquaintance of mine once so aptly put it, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him f*ck the fish." He does not want to parent your child - he has dug in his heels, and you simply cannot make him. I would also hazard a guess that no amount of "quality time" and "relationship building" is going to change this. So, turtledove, you are going to have to accept the limitations of this relationship and work around it, if you want it to work at all. Make sure your kid knows the ground rules and adheres to them. If you are going out of town, and you feel a sixteen-year-old cannot take care of herself for a couple of days, maybe she can stay with a friend or a relative.
Childfree Abby
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