It Doesn't Magically Get Easier

The title really says it all here, and the "it" that it refers to is the role of parent or step-parent. Luckily enough, I missed the direct-hit on this one, but that doesn't mean that my wife and I avoided spending time and effort talking it over this morning as simply has to be done in the case of parenting.

The younger one, Clueless and Belligerent, flexed both her her muscles this weekend. She decided to go to her friend's house Sunday night to stay over, calling and asking permission to stay, which we agreed to. We figured we were being reasonable in requesting the child's name and phone number, which we had despite the fact that a short argument about why that's important had to ensue first. Through a variety of interesting circumstances, the reality was that she had originally planned to go over on Friday instead of Sunday and had a sudden change of plans, and so we actually had this information written down by the child, at our request before she would have been leaving. Thus, when she called us on Sunday afternoon, we simply asked her where she had left that information and let it go. Here's a lesson: check any information provided by a child, particularly a clueless child. It was a first name and a cell phone number and nothing more.

Well, Sunday passed to Monday, and the hours rolled by. We didn't have an exact time that Clueless would be home, but we figured "before dinner" was reasonable enough. We also kind of figured the other parents would be sick of having extra kids around earlier than that, so mid-afternoon was kind of in our minds' eyes. Three came and went. Four came and went. Five and then six came and went. I left to go train like I do every Monday night at a little after six. Apparently, seven and eight came and went too, as did a series of unheeded phone calls to the provided cell phone number. Just before nine, right when my wife had hit full-stride in "what do I do now" worry mode, the child plodded her way up the driveway in typical lazy, slow, unperturbed, clueless fashion despite the fact that it was well after dark by that point (a point we've already discussed with her a couple of times this summer concerning her sojourns to the park). The plodding, despite that being her normal modicum of walking, was a little surprising, but because of "mom worry mode," it was overlooked at the outset.

My wife is sometimes a real all-star. Here's what my reaction would have been: "You need to sit your dumb ass down in a chair so we can have a talk," in all likelihood. Goodness knows I heard that enough times as a child and am not enough of a child-glorifying hippy to believe that a child acting foolishly shouldn't be told they're being dumb. The kid knows better; we've had that discussion several times already. My wife approached her from a calm, centered position of honesty, gently asking her to have a seat and displaying the honest emotion, concern, as opposed to the reactionary emotion, anger, that I think is probably justified in this situation. They had a talk.

Apparently, the following facts we revealed as justification for this situation (late return, on foot, alone, in the dark, waaaaaay later than is acceptable:

1. "We slept until noon." (I don't know how this justifies anything, but we're dealing with a thirteen-year-old that I refer to as "clueless," so, um, whatever);
2. "Her cell phone died and we didn't feel like recharging it." (that explains why she didn't call, I guess, though wildly unacceptably);
   
3. "They're poor, so we couldn't recharge the phone." (riiight... if they're that poor, their teenage daughter wouldn't have her own phone -- this was an act of desperation when she saw in my wife's eyes that no one was buying the previous attempt at explanation for the lack of phone calls);
4. "I didn't see any reason to hurry because every time I come home late you guys just make me go to my room to think about it, so if you're just going to send me to my room, you obviously don't want me around, so I didn't need to hurry." (this is why I call her the Anti-Logic Emitter... way to miss the point of getting sent to your room, kid... and, oh yeah, give me a break!);

To my knowledge, there was no explanation given for why these other parents, if they exist, let some kid walk home in the dark across a distance that was, apparently, "pretty far," which for the lazy child could mean anything from a quarter of a mile to five miles. The park is a little over half a mile away, though, and it's further than that, I think. Perhaps most disparagingly, the child doesn't see why this is a big deal. Teenagers... sigh.

Today, my wife and I set out together to come up with a just punishment... one the child would definitely find to be "not fair" but would suit the situation perfectly. Here's how we roll when we roll best!
Step 1: Honor thy mother and father -- We exchanged stories about what our parents would have done to us in this situation and rapidly agreed upon "it would have started with yelling and a belt." Grounding would certainly have been included afterwards, and so grounding landed on the menu with many a "that child is just lucky she's dealing with us instead of with our parents!"
Step 2: Do as my father diddeth and overdoeth it -- My dad was famous for ridiculous proclamations like "you're grounded until you're 30!" HA! I'm thirty now, Dad! Off the hook! Back to the point, my wife wanted to ground her from all of her little social media outlets (phone and computer, her favorite things in the world, and going to the park or to any friends houses, next in line) for three months. "Whoa!" I thought, but then I remembered how the child deals with punishment, given below because it really did happen, and decided it wasn't that out-there.
Step 3: Do as my mother diddeth and get creative -- My mom invented terrible punishments that were way worse than groundings or beatings. Usually, they were tailored to the crime: make a mess, clean it up; hurt someone, make amends and repayment, etc. We started thinking up all kinds of interesting paperwork that the child will have to provide to go anywhere in the future, and she'd be grounded, per the usual, since it just plain fits.
Step 4: Compromise -- We decided on "grounded for a month" from those things where we were extra tricky about it. We planned to tell her that she was grounded for two weeks, and if she didn't pull her normal stunt, it would stick. When she did (and she did) pull her normal stunt, it doubled to a month. It's a month. The child responded as we expected. Don't forget, if a month sounds like a long time, that this would be the fourth time in four months that this kind of issue has come up. I think the following two months after that month are "probation" in which she cannot be late for any such return home.

She was sat down again after school today to have her punishment laid upon her. "You're grounded from the following for the next two weeks because you...." The child apparently cut my wife off in the middle of this sentence to get to her normal stunt even faster than usual.
"Okay, fine, I don't really care," she blurted, putting on airs of aloofness and nonchalance.
"Make it a month then."
"Okay, fine, I don't really care," she blurted again before launching into some ridiculous explanation about why she doesn't care that my wife refused to try to recreate for me (probably to my lasting benefit -- I deal poorly with the Anti-Logic Emitter that is that child's mouth). Very little arguing ensued because my wife cut her off with a "you don't need to talk in this part" and moved on to the next part of the conversation: finishing the explanation of the punishment and then sending her off to her room to "think about it," which I seriously doubt happened.

To my surprise, the child keeps milling about the house now, looking sullen and angry and shooting us rather dirty looks. Usually when she loses something she wants or can't have instant gratification on it, she goes to her room and disappears for the rest of the day unless forced out, and 100% of the time she's sleeping when that forcing happens. It's like she just gives up because her will isn't happening right now, her way.

So, again, I say it: step-parenting is hard. Luckily enough for us, we heard some rather nice discussions in the last couple of days that indicate that this sort of thing is rather typical of teenagers, particularly girls, and so I'm rather content just letting it be that way. I'm not here to make that child happy, at least not as my first priority; I'm here to help her grow up right. Happiness can follow.

Ah, but again stress creeps in. She knows that I start making dinner between 5:30 and 6, which is now and will happen soon, and she just made herself some toast I'm not sure I'm going to let her eat because she knows better! I better go....