Someone’s Listening

            Sally fidgeted on her mother’s lap throwing the toys her parents brought for her.  “She’s just like me when I was a child,” her mother complained.  “She never settles down and is always into everything.  I just can’t keep up with her.”

            I told Sally’s parents that she might be affected by her mother talking about her actions in front of her.  I suggested that children learn about themselves in part by the stories they hear. 

Realizing the power in their words, the father tried a different approach.  He talked about how he and Sally have such a good relationship.  He looks forward to coming home at night so that he can be with her.  He talked about how much he loves her, and how she is the joy of his life.  Before he finished talking Sally left her mother’s lap and moved across the couch to sit next to her father.  She gave him a hug and snuggled next to him.  After a few minutes, she went back to playing with her toys. 

            It is a common practice to talk in front of small children, sometimes even older children, as if they were either deaf or foreigners incapable of understanding what they hear.  The reality is children understand many words they do not yet have in their vocabulary.  It is estimated that most children over the age of 18 months understand about 500 words more than they can speak. 

When the mom talked about Sally to me, she was telling Sally a story about herself.  This story let her know how her mother sees her, and what it was about her that made her important enough to have this story told. 

            Most of the time, when people complain about their children, it is simply to connect with others.  “I don’t know how I’m going to get that bottle away from him” is said in the same spirit as “She just started walking.”  Parents are often not seeking help as much as a way to share what is going on with their children.  They believe the same events would be happening whether they told these stories in front of their children or not.  This is simply the way their children are, and it’s great to be able to share the challenges of being a parent. 

If you think that way or recognize yourself in these examples, try an experiment.  The next time someone asks you about your child, think of something that is working and talk about that.  “Sam loves it when we read together.  It’s our favorite time of day.”  “Sally has such a good time when she takes her bath.  She loves to play in the water.”  Or if you have been teaching your child to use her words instead of screaming and you have had any success at all, say, “Kathy is learning to use her words.  She’s doing better all the time.”

            The more specific you can be about the behavior, the better.  Avoid generalized statements like, “Sam is a good boy.”   This tells Sam little about what he does that is good, and only gives him two alternatives, good or bad, to live up to.  Plus, children love stories.  As stories go, the good boy/bad boy story is pretty dull.

If you do this, however, don’t be surprised if you miss commiserating.  These statements are not nearly as interesting as “I thought I’d die when Kathy had a temper tantrum in the middle of the grocery store yesterday.” 

            Let your friends and family know about your new way of talking about your children.  They will be able to support you better if they know your intent, and no one will mistake your efforts for bragging. 

Most of all, be patient with yourself if you have difficulty doing this.  This new way of talking often feels awkward at first, as if you’re not telling the whole story. 

Of course, you aren’t.  But try it anyway.  Someone is listening.  

And baby makes (how many)?

Like me, my husband, Dave, comes from a blended family.  Dave’s mother died when he was 7.  A year later, his father remarried June, a widow with four children.  Immediately, June decided to get pregnant.  Years later she admitted that this was an attempt to bring the family together so that she and Dave’s father would have one child that was biologically theirs.  The baby was Jeff, now 53, an easy to love person who is one of my favorite brother-in-laws. 

It is no small decision whether to bring a new baby into a blended family.  If the answer is yes, consider this.  When?  Is the family still reeling from coming together?   Are the children still grieving the loss of their parent?  Are they still getting used to the stepparent?  Is the biological parent feeling overwhelmed?  Is the stepparent trying to figure out how to belong?

As much as a new baby brings joy, it also brings stress and exhaustion for parents.  For children, they can feel displaced.  A new child demands and needs parent’s time when there may be precious little time to go around to begin with.

So if you have already made the decision to have just one more child between the two of you, than know that this child, like all children, is precious and is another important member of the family. 

If, however, you are deciding whether to have a child now or later, consider if waiting a little longer might make it a lot easier on everyone. 

On Becoming a Country Girl

“Mom,” my son, Jim, calls out from the door, “your chickens are in my truck.”

“You brought the chickens?”

“Yeah, they’re in the truck.”

“You mean they’re in a box in the truck?”

“No, Mom, no box, they’re just in the truck.”

“Well, so what’s stopping them from jumping off the truck?”

“Mom, they’re in the cab.”

In front of the porch sits Jim’s truck.  All four chickens sit on the front seat, cooing and clucking, all the vocabulary they have to discuss moving vehicles and this alien world.  Wide-eyed, they stare at me through the window seeming confused and disoriented.  They hardly seem like the same birds I gave my son six months ago. 

Three weeks before our first trip to Europe, I stopped in the feed store and fell in love.  Penned in the middle of their floor was a congregation of about twenty baby chicks, three weeks old and about the size of quail.  I had wanted chickens since we moved to the country a year ago.  The idea of going to the barn to gather eggs, or of chickens scratching in the weeds picking at bugs and seeds, left me feeling like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.  But thus far I had hesitated to have baby chicks since our cats might not understand the bigger picture of them growing up and becoming a living part of our mini farm.

If I get them now, I reasoned, they will be six weeks old by the time we leave for Europe.  My daughter and granddaughter can guard them from the cats while we are away.  By the time we return from our trip, they should be nearly grown.   With all pieces of the fantasy in place, I bought two Rhode Island Reds, and two black and white speckled chicks.

Since I hadn’t planned to buy chickens, the barn wasn’t ready for them.  Besides, it was the beginning of April and still cold at night.  As a temporary place to house them, I set up the bathtub in the guest bathroom with shredded paper, their feed, water, and a box laid on its side for a place for them to sleep.  I then dangled the heat lamp from the shower to make sure they stayed toasty, an ideal home until they got bigger and looked less like feline dinner.

All went well for about a week.  The chicks grew at an amazing rate.  After awhile, they seemed not to mind when I would reach in and pick them up to gently stroke their shiny feathers.  Like little acrobats, they would perch on my arm, fluttering to find their balance before hopping back into the tub. 

After the first week, however, there was trouble.  Montana, one of the Rhode Island Reds, was loosing her back feathers.  Her sister, pecked at her as if she had a neurotic tick, like a chicken in serious need of therapy.  The balder Montana got, the more her back looked like a target for her psychotic sibling.

Sharon at the feed store said she never heard of this happening, but suggested that I put something on the chicken’s back to protect her.  She wondered if maybe Vaseline would work.  I had to do something, and this idea seemed as reasonable a solution as any. 

Covered with the greasy goo, I returned Montana to her chicken family.  Instead of forming a protection from her sister, however, the Vaseline alerted all three of the chicks that something was seriously wrong.  Disturbed, they launched an attack, their only solution for this odd, grease-covered fowl.

Without hesitation, I reached in and rescued her from her assailants.  She let me put soap on her and even seemed calm when I put her under the bathroom sink faucet, warm water running off her back.  When she dried, however, she was nearly as greasy.  Two more baths later, she still had a film of fat on her.   In just a week and a half, we were flying to Barcelona.  I still needed to pack, plan, organize, but Montana’s wet body nestled into the towel on my lap anchored me to the role of caretaker for this hapless chick.  How crazy was I to think I could raise baby chickens?

More to commiserate than to ask for suggestions, I finally called my son, Jim.   “Maybe they’ll take them back at the feed store.  I have to get ready for our trip.”

“Mom, I’ll be right over.”  When he arrived, I told him, if he wanted them, they were his. Relieved, I watched him gather the chicks and joyfully packed them into their box and drive away.  That was six months ago.  Jim separated the chickens until Montana’s feathers grew back, built them a deluxe chicken coop and tried to raise chickens in the middle of Carmichael where he was living with his grandmother.  It used to be a rural area, and Mom’s neighbor had a couple of goats and chickens.  But that was then.  Now, clearly defined as a residential neighborhood, chickens are illegal.

So here they are.  Full-grown egg laying chickens like I had wanted from the beginning.   I still am not sure how all of this is going to work out.  I’m not exactly a country girl, but at least I have chickens.

Montana, the last of the original four baby chicks, died July 11, 2012.  She was seven-years old.

Next week, the blog will return to its series about blended families.

Love – Too much to ask for?

Of course you want everyone to love each other.  When people come together to create a family, it is normal for the members of this new family to think that everyone should love each other.  Biological parents especially want their new spouse to love their children, and want the children to love the stepparent in return. Stepparents think they should love the children, and children are often confused. 

The problem is that couples get married because they are in love with each other, usually not because they want an instant family complete with children. And even if they love the children before the marriage that can easily change.  Rather delightful children before the wedding vows can become surly, defiant, or worse afterwards for numerous reasons, especially towards the stepparent.  There are many reasons for this, but it creates a bind for the stepparent, who may be doing their best to parent these children. 

As for the children, I rather relate to them from a personal experience.  About a year and a half after my father died, my mother started dating someone she had met at the Senior Center in her area.  I was in my thirties when this happened, and I completely understood and appreciated my mother going on with her life.  But when I met Bill, a rather decent, elderly gentleman, I couldn’t get over the fact that he seemed to like my mother.  And I immediately disliked him for it. 

Things are even more complicated with children.  This new person moves in and often begins a process where the entire family changes.  The stepparent almost always does things differently than the biological parent, and has new authority to make things happen. 

If there is another biological parent still around, any fantasies that mom and dad are going to get back together again, die a final death when the marriage vows are complete.  And if there is another parent that is threatened by this new marriage, it is possible that they might give messages, even non-verbal ones, that if the children even like, much less love the new stepparent, it will be a betrayal to them. 

In this arena of newness and loyalty binds, it is understandable for children to be slow to warm up to the new parent and for stepparents to be slow to love the children. 

So, take the pressure off of everyone.  Announce in a family meeting that in your family, no one has to love anyone.  In fact, no one has to even like anyone either. Both children and stepparents, often sigh with relief when this expectation is taken off.   What you do expect, however, and will enforce, is that people treat each other with respect.  This is regulating behavior rather than feelings and is much more likely to be met with success.

And just maybe, with time, love will get a chance to happen on its own.  Best of luck!

How Could Your Child Love This New Stepparent?

When your former spouse gets married, it means that your children are going to have another mom or dad who is going to be an important part of their lives.

This can be pretty threatening, especially if that person is nice, maybe even nicer than you at times.  Of course, at times, you are the one who is nicer, but sometimes that’s hard.  It’s extra hard if he/she is the one who has moved on, and you haven’t.  You are in the unenviable position of being a single parent, with all the struggles that go with that, whether they be financial, exhaustion, or just plain loneliness.  Even if you were the one who left, and had good reasons to do so, it doesn’t make your present situation less difficult. 

So it’s tough when your children come home and tell you that their new step-mom just made the best cookies with them.  Or they went hiking, camping, fishing, with the new dad or mom, and he/she is super cool.  (Of course, either gender could make cookies as well.)

It’s tough to say to them, even if you don’t mean it, “I’m glad you had such a good time,” or even, “It’s great that you’re getting along with this new stepparent.” 

Because the truth is, as much as it hurts, on some level, you probably do want them to be with someone who is nice to them and makes them feel welcome.  You want this because you want what is best for them, what’s going to help them feel good about themselves when they are away from you with their other parent.

The funny thing is, if you give your children permission to like, or even to love this stepparent, it will not only be good for them, but they will love you even more for not putting them in an impossible loyalty bind. 

So remember these 3 things: 

1)         This is hard.

2)         The more you let them love others, the more they will love you.

3)         You will always be their mom/dad.  No one.  That’s right, no one can ever take your place.  

And the Wicked Stepmother said…..

Is the wicked stepmother nothing more than a fairytale?  If you are feeling like the wicked stepparent, did you start out that way?

Stepparents find themselves in no small bind.  Women especially are more often placed in a role of being the children’s caretaker; hence, more fairytales have the stepmother as their antagonist.  But truly, all stepparents often find themselves needing to discipline, guide, and correct children.  This can be tough.  Children may resent this new person in the household.  They may be in a loyalty bind with the biological parent who is not living in the house.  This parent may not be happy that their children are being guided by someone they themselves haven’t come to accept.  As for biological parents who are in the same household, they may give mixed messages to discipline the children but not in a way that upsets the children.  

So here’s a couple of ideas that might help.

*          Be easy on yourself.  You’ve taken on a huge task.  Do the best you can.  Don’t take it personally if things seem to go poorly, especially at first.  

*          Be slow to be the authority.  At the beginning, take on the authority of someone in charge, but not the primary person in charge.  Like a babysitter who uses the parent’s authority to discipline, tell the children that this needs to happen because these are the rules of the house. 

*          Change existing rules slowly.  A stepparent often sees how the biological parent may have become lax about holding the structure during times of transition.  Or maybe the bio parent always was more lax.  Either way, changing things quickly usually meets with resistance. 

*          Make sure you take care of yourself.  One way to do this is to keep something from your previous life, the one you had before being in this blended family. For example, spend time with your old friends and do some things without the family that you used to enjoy.  This will help you to renew yourself with what is familiar. The more you take care of yourself, the more available you will be to take care of others. 

*          Have hope.  Things usually get better with time, especially if you and your partner are working together on it.  My husband and I created a blended family.  We have had our moments, lots of them, but we’ve now been married 27 years and have raised three wonderful children.  

Stepfamilies: A Personal Story

They say it takes at least 2 to 4 years for a blended family to feel united.  It took our family at least that long or longer. 

But when Jimmy and Jerry, the twins, were 16, eight years after we were married, and Amy was 18, Dave decided that he wanted to adopt all the children.  Since their biological father had chosen not to be an active parent for several years, that was not a problem.  What was a complication was that Jim was not sure if he wanted to be adopted by Dave.  He still felt some loyalty to his biological dad, plus we had gone through some rough times together as a family.  So we left it up to Jim whether he chose to be adopted or not.  He finally made his decision the day we went to court.  His answer was no. 

Four years later, Jim came to me and said that he had given a lot of thought to how much Dave had given him and us as a family.  In spite of numerous conflicts, he gave them a stable home, was an excellent cook, and was there for them through thick and thin.  With all the struggles we went through, it would have been easy for Dave to leave us all.  But he didn’t. 

Jim decided that for Dave’s Christmas present, he wanted to be adopted.  Keeping our secret, I hired a paralegal to draw up the papers.  On Christmas Eve, after all the other presents had been opened, Jim presented Dave, his dad, the rolled up adoption papers, wrapped in festive paper with a bow.  He also gave him a special pen that he had bought for the signing of these papers.  With tears glistening in his eyes, Dave took the pen and signed the papers. 

Are blended families difficult?  Ours sure was.  But looking back, I wouldn’t have done it any other way.  

Transform Your Relationship-One Hot Tip

There is one thing you can do that will likely transform your relationship right now, and it doesn’t depend on your partner.  Whew!  Isn’t that a relief?  But it may be harder than you think.  At least it was for me.  

What you can do is this.  Think about what you do in the relationship that probably drives your partner crazy.  Separate it from what your partner does that makes you crazy, i.e., I wouldn’t do x, y, or z, if you didn’t do a, b, or c first.  

I want to share with you how this happened in my relationship after I had been studying about personal responsibility in relationships for awhile. Like many people, I was an expert on my husband’s shortcomings.  Being a therapist only made me an expert with a capital E. One of his shortcomings was that he didn’t ever seem available to talk things out with me when we had a problem.  His avoidance of conflict made me wonder if we would ever be able to resolve any issue since we never talked in a healthy way about anything.  

But what happened changed my relationship with him and my awareness of the power of taking personal responsibility.  This happened about 15 years ago so all the details have become illusive other than I was sitting in the hot tub, and Dave was standing next to the hot tub annoyed with me as I was clearly annoyed with him.   I remember thinking that he had a point, but that I would never have said what I did if he hadn’t said something else first.  Like I said, this was a long time ago.  

But I remember what I did next like it was yesterday.  I decided to only take ownership of my side of the argument.  I told him about my awareness and did not add anything about what he had said or did.  I whole heartedly apologized and expressed understanding about how I understood that what I said would be upsetting to him.

My fantasy was that he would then feel free to take ownership of his side of the argument, and that he would say something similar to me complete with his own apology.  He didn’t.  He thanked me, and he walked away.  It was all I could do to not climb out of the tub, follow him, and let him know that I was still waiting for his ownership, his apology.   

It’s probably good that I was in the tub and the effort seemed too big.  What did happen, however, is that Dave started to become more available to have conversations with me about things that were problems in our relationship.  This was big.  In a recent tiff,  he emailed me, “I'm sure we can mend things. We're getting pretty good at that.”   I almost reached through cyberspace and gave him a hug.  

An Ending

As the moon wanes on its path to meet its destination with the sun for a solar eclipse, my dear friend, Carol, marks time, one rattling breath after another.  Last night, she told her husband to take the mask off, a mask to the C-pap machine that was ensuring that her breath would keep her alive.  She was done.  She was ready to accept that she would only have a little more time before she would take her last breath.  I don’t know what it takes to make that decision, but I admire the clarity of her message, the courage of her choice. 

I met Carol about 20 years ago.  I had given a presentation at a professional organization, which she attended.  After the meeting, she walked up to me and said, “I want to be your friend.”  Simple, direct, bold.  That was Carol.  I said yes, and our friendship began.  She knows my stories, my insecurities, and my secrets. I have trusted her that much. 

It's been a long struggle for Carol, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer three years ago.   I love her even more as her end is close.  My memories of her seem more precious now, impossible to take for granted.  My heart feels full; my body tired.  I don't know if it's my least or favorite time of living.  I hate saying good-bye, and yet feel more present, more in contact with the people with whom I had been sharing a vigil, more sensitive to all the nuances of being together, that I can't think of anyplace else in the world that I would rather be.

As of this writing, Carol is still holding onto life.  It's a mysterious time and space between here and there, a decision to let go that most of us fight our entire time on earth to avoid.

Dear friend, as your journey on this earth is drawing to a close, I hold you in my heart and prayers.  When it’s my time to go home, come help guide me through.  I trust you will.  See you on the other side.  Love you.  Jozeffa


In memory of Carol Cross, April 1, 1941 to May 25, 2012.  She will be missed.