Care & Feeding: My Partner's Son's Girlfriend's Kids ...

[minoanmiss]

My partner moved in with me during the pandemic. She has two adult sons, both of whom were living overseas when we got together. Her son, “Zach,” has recently moved back to the States, is now living in our guest room, and is currently looking for a full-time job. He is fine. His current girlfriend is not. I hesitate to call her a single parent because I haven’t seen her parent her kids. They scream at the top of their lungs, hit each other, and get into fights over everything. They don’t wash their hands, cover their mouths, or bother to flush the toilet when they are done. “Please” and “thank you” might as well be foreign words. Their mother’s answer is to throw a tablet at them until they shut up. Whenever my partner or I try to intervene like separating the fighting kids into separate rooms, coaching them to clean up after themselves, or turning off YouTube, she perks up and tells us not to parent her kids.

Recently, we had company over and used the firepit I had in the backyard. The 8-year-old kept trying to toss random trash into the fire. No matter how many times I told him to stop, he would ignore me and start up again. The last time he tried, I grabbed his hand and forced him to dump the trash on the ground. So he bit me. I don’t have kids, but my grandniece is a toddler and she understands this is unacceptable. His mother was polishing down another beer when I went up to her. I explained what happened, and she started to rant about how I can’t touch her kid, I can’t talk to her kid, and screw me for telling her how to raise them. So I told her to get the hell out of my house. It caused a scene where Zach had to drive his girlfriend and her kids home because it was obvious that she was too drunk to. Zach apologized, but I told him that his girlfriend and her kids were no longer welcome in my house. He could go visit her instead.

This sparked a fight with Zach and his mother. They feel I am acting like an overbearing ass, and I am quick to remind them, “my house, my rules.” Zach is perfectly welcome to move out into his own place or in with his girlfriend. Everything is tense. My partner agrees that the kids are out of control and their mother doesn’t do anything about it, but she says I “escalated” things. We have been trying the soft pedal approach. It has gotten us nowhere. I love her, but it is crazy to expect us to tolerate this behavior in our own home. Zach is pretty far gone on his girlfriend, and I know my partner is wary of pushing it, but come on. I need an outside perspective here, please.

—Crazy Kids

Dear Crazy Kids,

It sounds like your partner wants the house to be a comfortable place for her son and his girlfriend’s children, regardless of what it costs you. Talk to your partner first and let her know that the last thing you’d want is to cause drama with her son, but explain to her why what his girlfriend’s kid did was so dangerous. Let her know that you have been as patient and understanding as you can be, but that it’s simply obvious that this woman won’t step up and adequately parent her children. Ask her to back you up when it comes to talking to her son; bring up some of the kids’ other noteworthy shenanigans to remind him just what you are dealing with. Let him know that if there’s a marked difference in these children’s behavior, they can be welcome in your home again. Stick to your guns and don’t let either of them convince you that you have to open your doors to kids who don’t respect you.

—Jamilah

Comments

[cimorene]

LW and any host is free to have rules about cleaning up after oneself in their home - you can just not invite people, disinvite them or ask them to leave, and if the poor behavior is from children it's completely reasonable to remind them to flush the toilet and wash their hands and to ask them to keep their voices down, for example. All of these are requests that the child be courteous to the host and the people around them, and the mother is mistaken in categorizing them as "parenting her children". Yes, it's her resonsibility to tell them these things, but that's because the parent is responsible for her children's behavior. LW would be within their rights to explain to HER that people are not welcome in their house who don't flush the toilet and wash their hands afterwards, or not welcome to eat in their house without washing their hands first, or not welcome to make the room too uncomfortable for other people to be in, and then expect her to enforce this on the children instead. Or to address themselves to her instead of to the children in the moment of each infraction ("Alice, Billy hasn't washed his hands and he isn't welcome at the table until he has." "Alice, I'm afraid the children are being too loud again - if they can't calm down, you could ask them to go outside perhaps.") Perhaps the mother would prefer this, but I think it sounds like she actually just wants the host to let her do whatever she wants in their house and... uh... that isn't reasonable at all. And not how going to other people's houses works, even if the people in question are your in-laws.

[mrissa]

I agree, and I feel like we're in a cultural moment where "parenting someone else's children" has gotten applied to most interactions between adults and children, to the detriment of everyone, I feel. Among other things, a lot of smaller children have very short attention spans, so if you have to run to fetch a parent to say "no" when the kid is doing something destructive, the link between the action and the reprimand will be substantially lost. It's fine to say "don't play in the fire, kiddo."

[minoanmiss]

This is absolutely true, and so it's interesting to see it stated as a contested postulate.

[melannen]

It's really unclear to me what the situation *is* here with GF's family. Are they "company"? In that case it's absolutely valid to expect company manners and GF is 100% in the wrong for accusing LW of "parenting her children", but also, they ought not to have been invited to a fire pit event. Have they more or less moved in with Stepson, think of it as a second home, and come and go all the time? In that case they aren't going to expect to be on company manners and he may not have had the option of keeping them away from the firepit, but also, he needs to have discussed things with his wife set firm boundaries with Stepson and GF about what the rules are for living in their house a long time before now.

Do LW, Wife, Stepson, and Girlfriend all have completely different ideas as to what their guesting status was? Seems very likely.

[cimorene]

This is true, but I cannot agree that washing your hands before meals and not yelling loudly when other people in the room have indicated discomfort are "company manners".

[melannen]

If you are at home among your family, it's up to your family where the line is (especially for young kids.) Kids need screaming time *sometimes* and if "outside" or "in your own room" aren't possible, well, it's up to parents to decide on the compromise. (Honestly, I need screaming time sometimes!) And at home, handwashing and toilet flushing really does fall under let me parent my own kids - if I was visiting someone else's house, I might think it was gross that they didn't all wash their hands before lunch, but I wouldn't criticize their kids for, it either, and a lot of that stuff can be about choosing your battles.

If they're "at home" when they're at LW's house, there's discussions to be had and compromises to be made about to what extent they need the freedom to make their own choices in their own home, and at what point they need to agree to shared standards with the other people to live there and how to be consistent about them with the kids. Critically, they're discussions best had with the adults as a group, not by LW snapping at the kids.

However if LW's house isn't their home they should be always flushing toilets - with Mom checking if they don't - and being removed from the house when unwilling to stop screaming, no discussion needed.