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Is this a fake letter? I hope this is a fake letter! It almost has to be - right?
Dear Care and Feeding,
I’m a stepmom in a blended family. My husband has a 5-year-old son, “Corey,” from his first marriage, and together we have a 5-year-old daughter and a 3-year-old son. We used to have Corey on Sunday afternoons, but his mom took a new job when he started kindergarten and pushed for custody changes. Parenting two kids all week is exhausting, and now we have Corey Friday through Sunday every week too. Corey has a lot of trouble every time he switches over from his mom’s house to ours, and tattles that his stepsister “isn’t following the rules”—but it’s because his mom is a helicopter parent, while our house is about independence-building. He’s clingy and needs help with everything, and the weekend is miserable for everyone.
Corey’s aunt takes him after school four days a week, but not on Fridays. This means we have to arrange once-a-week afterschool care for him, which is expensive and inconvenient, and I usually end up having to be the one who leaves work early for pickup because that care ends at 4:45 p.m. I’m exhausted by this and the full weekend of managing our two kids plus Corey that comes afterward, including driving him to activities, like soccer games, that his mom is happy to sign him up for and then leave to us to deal with. I need Corey’s aunt, at the very least, to take him on Fridays to make it fair, but she refuses because she blames me for her sister’s divorce. When I asked my husband to talk to his ex and her sister about making the childcare arrangement fairer, he said he’d do it but then made excuses and never did. I know the divorce was unfriendly, but it’s been nearly five years and I’m tired of dealing with this. Corey would benefit from more predictability with his aunt, I know. I also think if he wasn’t scheduled for weekend activities he’d become more independent. I can’t get any support for any of this! How do I get my calm weekends back?
—Overworked Stepmom
Dear Stepmom,
I am trying, really trying, to be sympathetic. But it’s hard for me to cheer you on, particularly since that cheerleading would come at Corey’s expense.
This is a 5-year-old whose father left him and his mother. For Corey’s entire life, his dad has had another family, including children he seems to be more devoted to; Corey “gets to” spend limited time with his dad—one afternoon a week, for years!—and his dad’s second wife makes it very clear that having him around more than those few hours once a week is a burden. Why wouldn’t he act out?
When you married your husband, you became a stepmother, however reluctantly. Your having two kids with Corey’s dad doesn’t negate his—or your—responsibility for his other child. What did you think or hope would happen to Corey?
A change in custody arrangements because Corey’s mom has a new job could have been a boon for this child: whole weekends with his other parent, whom he saw so little of before. And this could have been an opportunity for you to step up and be a real stepmom—to really get to know him, to love him, to include him in the full life of the family you’ve made with his dad. Instead, you’re focused on the inconvenience and expense of finding childcare for him on the one weekday afternoon his aunt can’t (or maybe even just won’t—but it isn’t her responsibility, it’s his parents’—as in all three of his parents) and the misery of having to look after all three kids on weekends. You even begrudge the poor kid any scheduled weekend activities, because getting him to them is another inconvenience to you.
Of course Corey is “clingy.” Of course these transitions are hard for him. I’m relieved your husband didn’t do as you asked. (Though he is not at all blameless in this situation.) He should have said no when you proposed he tell his ex-wife and ex-sister-in-law they weren’t being “fair” about parenting duties, instead of pretending to agree with you, making excuses, and then not doing as you instructed.
If you can’t get it together to care for this child in the way he deserves—the way every child deserves—you’re not only harming Corey, you’re showing your two biological children how to be unloving, withholding, and cruel. As to your calm weekends: You’ll get them back someday, but now is not that someday.
Link
I’m a stepmom in a blended family. My husband has a 5-year-old son, “Corey,” from his first marriage, and together we have a 5-year-old daughter and a 3-year-old son. We used to have Corey on Sunday afternoons, but his mom took a new job when he started kindergarten and pushed for custody changes. Parenting two kids all week is exhausting, and now we have Corey Friday through Sunday every week too. Corey has a lot of trouble every time he switches over from his mom’s house to ours, and tattles that his stepsister “isn’t following the rules”—but it’s because his mom is a helicopter parent, while our house is about independence-building. He’s clingy and needs help with everything, and the weekend is miserable for everyone.
Corey’s aunt takes him after school four days a week, but not on Fridays. This means we have to arrange once-a-week afterschool care for him, which is expensive and inconvenient, and I usually end up having to be the one who leaves work early for pickup because that care ends at 4:45 p.m. I’m exhausted by this and the full weekend of managing our two kids plus Corey that comes afterward, including driving him to activities, like soccer games, that his mom is happy to sign him up for and then leave to us to deal with. I need Corey’s aunt, at the very least, to take him on Fridays to make it fair, but she refuses because she blames me for her sister’s divorce. When I asked my husband to talk to his ex and her sister about making the childcare arrangement fairer, he said he’d do it but then made excuses and never did. I know the divorce was unfriendly, but it’s been nearly five years and I’m tired of dealing with this. Corey would benefit from more predictability with his aunt, I know. I also think if he wasn’t scheduled for weekend activities he’d become more independent. I can’t get any support for any of this! How do I get my calm weekends back?
—Overworked Stepmom
Dear Stepmom,
I am trying, really trying, to be sympathetic. But it’s hard for me to cheer you on, particularly since that cheerleading would come at Corey’s expense.
This is a 5-year-old whose father left him and his mother. For Corey’s entire life, his dad has had another family, including children he seems to be more devoted to; Corey “gets to” spend limited time with his dad—one afternoon a week, for years!—and his dad’s second wife makes it very clear that having him around more than those few hours once a week is a burden. Why wouldn’t he act out?
When you married your husband, you became a stepmother, however reluctantly. Your having two kids with Corey’s dad doesn’t negate his—or your—responsibility for his other child. What did you think or hope would happen to Corey?
A change in custody arrangements because Corey’s mom has a new job could have been a boon for this child: whole weekends with his other parent, whom he saw so little of before. And this could have been an opportunity for you to step up and be a real stepmom—to really get to know him, to love him, to include him in the full life of the family you’ve made with his dad. Instead, you’re focused on the inconvenience and expense of finding childcare for him on the one weekday afternoon his aunt can’t (or maybe even just won’t—but it isn’t her responsibility, it’s his parents’—as in all three of his parents) and the misery of having to look after all three kids on weekends. You even begrudge the poor kid any scheduled weekend activities, because getting him to them is another inconvenience to you.
Of course Corey is “clingy.” Of course these transitions are hard for him. I’m relieved your husband didn’t do as you asked. (Though he is not at all blameless in this situation.) He should have said no when you proposed he tell his ex-wife and ex-sister-in-law they weren’t being “fair” about parenting duties, instead of pretending to agree with you, making excuses, and then not doing as you instructed.
If you can’t get it together to care for this child in the way he deserves—the way every child deserves—you’re not only harming Corey, you’re showing your two biological children how to be unloving, withholding, and cruel. As to your calm weekends: You’ll get them back someday, but now is not that someday.
Link
no subject
Just to nitpick this a little, you're genealogically correct, but there's a difference between how kinship terms get used to express degree of genetic relation and how they get used to express social affinity. And my family would absolutely have used "stepbrother" in that circumstance (and did, in a slightly different but very similar circumstance). I also know other families that do similar "this isn't our genetic relation, but it's how we relate to each other" things with kinship terms. E.g., my wife's "brother" is actually her first cousin, and it was years before I learned that.
This is why I use kinship terms as my rebuttal to transphobes: can I call a man my father if he raised me from my earliest memories to adulthood and I had no other father figure in my life, but he wasn't present at my conception? Yes? Then you can deal with gender reflecting social affinity and not just biology.
no subject