quite the efficient liar.
It is so sad and what makes it worse is my husband is allowing it.
My stepson has a list of chores he does everymorning and every evening. If he gets them done by a certain time he earns tv and videogames; essentially he decides if he watches tv and/or plays videogames. The last few mornings and evenings he isn’t getting them done. He just tells my husband that they are done. When I bring this up, my husband keeps saying, “I trust him. If he says he did them, then he did.” Okay, I understand that he wants to trust him. So do I. But he is 9 years old. Someone has to check up on him. Someone has to make sure he doing the stuff he says he is. Someone has to parent him.
Right? Am I crazy? Am I micromanaging? Honestly, please tell me . . .
It is driving me a little batty. Not because he isn’t doing what he is supposed to. Not because he isn’t getting in trouble. But because my stepson is learning how to lie. AND THERE ARE NO CONSEQUENCES. This is so bad. What a horrible lesson to learn and to teach your child. I really don’t think my husband realizes that my stepson is lying about other things, too. He just wants to believe him.
I tell myself just to be quiet. Keep it to myself. Because I know every time I bring it up, I get in trouble. I am the one yelled at. I am the bad guy. So I stay quiet, well, as often as I can.
It just amazes me how well my stepson can use his manipulation powers to wrap my husband around him. It is so easy to use guilt and saddness and frustration to trap him.
His biomom just visited us and spent some time with my stepson and I have seen {occasionally} when my stepson has used that to his advantage. And my husband doesn’t see it or doesn’t want to see it.
Kills me. Absolutely kills me.
The kid gets to stay up later, not do his chores, not get his homework done, have my husband do some of his homework, eat unhealthy snacks – with no reprocussions.
I look at this and it worries me for the future. For my stepson’s future. For my future. For my husband’s future. For all of us living in this home. What is he going to be like when he is a teenage and has all these other life influences and we can’t scare him into being good???
Who can blame him though? There are no boundaries, no real rules. My husband doesn’t enforce the rules we have set for the kid. He has a 50% {or more} chance of getting away with the behavior. Quite frankly, those are good odds. Most of the time I think my husband is going to let him get away with it. I am shocked when he doesn’t. I can’t imagine how my stepson feels.
The problem is my husband doesn’t want to be the bad guy. Who does? It is a choice we make when we have kids. Better they hate me than the police or worse. Better they get in trouble in my house than at someone else’s. At least I do it with love. At least I do with care. At least I am looking out for his best interests.
But it isn’t my choice. It is my husband’s.
Would love some advice ANY ADVICE – other than the one I am giving myself to “Be quiet and let it all play out.” Which seems to work most of the time.
4 comments
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October 24, 2007 at 3:45 am
kwjwrites
I so empathize with you. My stepson plays this game, too. He likes to use “you’re not my REAL mom” on occasion, or the ever-famous “you hate me, I know you hate me.”
He once stole over $600 from his father and I, and when confronted with the evidence, lied through his teeth about it. We called a family friend, who happens to be a cop, and threatened to have him taken to juvenile detention.
I feel your frustration. Hang tough. In the long run I believe they know who loves them, and who is there for them, though it might take them years to actually tell you they know.
October 24, 2007 at 3:57 am
insert soap into mouth « Stepmomster
[...] too surprising. My previous post is about this very [...]
October 24, 2007 at 3:13 pm
izaday
Thanks for your comments. I appreciate you telling me your perspective. I have realized that being quiet and just going with the flow works better than ruffling feathers. It is just so hard sometimes because I live here too!
November 18, 2007 at 5:49 pm
Anonymous
I have a stepson now. He’s 8, and, like yours, doesn’t have consistent parenting. The mom lets him do whatever he wants, buys him whatever he wants, has no rules and gives him no responsibilities. Waits on him hand and foot, allows him to talk to her however he wants, etc. His father, thank god, isn’t like this. However, the second the dad is out of the room, he does whatever he wants, anyway. Dad can’t be in the same room 100 percent of the time, either. I understand this. This kid is so annoying. Has to have 100 percent attention all the time. Speaks awfully to adults. Thinks we are his servants, that he can make messes and leave them for us to clean. It all stems from his mother’s abhorrent nonparenting style. Unfortunately, I am the one who pays the price. I don’t love him. I don’t even like him. I didn’t give birth to him. But I have to deal with him. Anytime I tell him something, he looks at his dad like “do I have to listen to her?” Thankfully, he upholds everything I say to the boy. But you tell him to do or not do something, and you’re telling him 100 times a day the whole weekend. He’ll do what he wants. If he gets caught, he gets caught. No real punishment except being yelled at. If he doesn’t get caught, then, once again, he gets his way……