(Step)-Parenting is Hard

Mostly as a short note after the last, in which I indicated that I've started a new blog, mostly to just be clear that I still intend to post on this blog as well, I've decided to take a moment to post about the truth that being a (step)-parent is hard. The parentheses there indicate that both parenting and step-parenting is a difficult task, and since I don't get any of the "you're not my dad" crap that I might, I figure it's probably about the same thing save that I was launched into this in the middle instead of at the beginning.

Kids are tough to raise. By their very nature, they're idiots, and yet they're more than intelligent enough to be able to cause all kinds of mischief or to create all kinds of (idiotic, from our perspective) reasons for their foolish behavior. "I just didn't want you to have to be mad at me," I heard the other day as a follow-up to an admission that our signatures had been forged on a detention slip from school. They're needy, dependent, selfish, foolish, ignorant, and complicated people, none of that being their fault, and we, as their parents, are completely responsible both legally and morally for their (proper) development -- half the time in spite of them.

When the kids become teenagers, it seems to get harder. They get "ideas" and want "independence," meaning they come up with things to do, wish for more freedom, and yet want none of the responsibility of actually being independent. It's easy to see, from where they sit, all of the freedoms and privileges of being an autonomous adult, and yet it's equally easy for them to overlook the countless responsibilities that go into having those freedoms and privileges -- many of which happen, to their eyes, behind the scenes. Having to work and earn a living is rarely a reality for children or teens as life and comfort is usually just handed to them or purchased with very little effort and low expectations. It's really a recipe for frustration, I think, on the part of those responsible for them, particularly when their lives are filled with often-difficult decisions and self-discipline that they follow through with for the benefit of the children that are very likely to take them for granted.

Take, for instance, Moody and Sullen, who I'm happy to report is no longer either moody or sullen most of the time. She lives in fantasy land. The only things she talks about are characters here or there, comic books, stories, or drawings. Frequently, she believes these things are real to the point where my wife and I kind of worry whether or not she can distinguish reality from fiction. She just came in here a moment ago in crisis because she needs to use the computer. This wish was almost granted because the child also just found out that she has failing grades in three of her four subjects and a low C in the fourth in school. She had a meltdown about that a few days ago (which is also when she revealed the forged signatures on the detention slip she got for having failing grades at the time of her progress report from school). She's a "changed person" now (yeah, right), and so I figured she suddenly remembered some homework that she had to do, probably forgetting the fact that it's a holiday weekend and thus that she has a little more time for it than she usually would. Nope. She is having a crisis because she's drawing a picture of a character from a video game that she had taken away from her because of her terrible grades, and she cannot remember what that character's shoes are supposed to look like and can't find a picture of them anywhere in the book she just got about said game even though she's not allowed to play it again until she has straight A's, which looks like it might not be ever.

The other child just doesn't make any sense almost ever and is perpetually in a bad mood if not given her way (frequently enough looking sour and claiming that she's thinking about how much she "hates us" because we won't let her do things like go for a walk in the rain or stay out at the park until after dark with no dinner), and these are our daily challenges, or at least small, almost meaningless examples of them. Of course, I've mentioned many times the chores required to keep up with them, the physical and emotional burdens of taking care of them, and the stress that they so innocently (or otherwise!) bring into our lives with many of their decisions. I'm using my new blog to remind myself right now of how to deal with these kinds of stresses, so if you suffer from them, check out what I have to say over there too.

So this is a tribute to parents: parenting is hard, so if you're going out of your way to do it and do it at least fairly well, pat yourself on the back, especially you women that do all that you do and you men that step up and do more than many!

On the other hand, if you're a jackass and making your kid into a little model jackass like yourself, you can get bent!