When We Are Wrong We Promptly Admit It.

When we were wrong we promptly admitted it.  Last night I fell back on my promise to myself that I would cease and desist in any complaining that I had about my stepson who I love dearly. 

I got it in my head that he was taking too long in the shower and this just a few days after receiving a water bill that was 10 times its normal size. I had at the time asked him in particular to exercise a little restraint in terms of the length of those showers that he so loves to luxuriate in. I was justified I thought to myself when I called him to task on it but it landed on my gentle stepson like a ton of bricks even though I thought I proceeded with my admonishment in a firm but even tone.  I chose to vent instead of letting it eat me inside.  A day later and it was time to seek him out for my apology. 

And of course it wasn’t about the water it was the financial insecurity that rears its head every so often in my alcoholic brain. 

When wrong, promptly admitted it.  And before this post I will have told him so.  

Alone at the Wheel

As I sit alongside my wife in a crowded hotel as she sets up for her craft show, the assembling admirers of her handiwork exclaim: “Did you make these?”  Yes my Margaret retorts in her uniquely demure fashion.  She has acquired the talent to be a little more aggressive albeit in a shy way. Nonetheless you can tell she is proud of her work and that is no small feat as she has a standard that even a high hurdler would find challenging.

What I find so calming to me is that it is here that I want to be today. I get the day off from my vigorous workout regimen. I have my computer and so I can write and I even have the backup which I have seemingly abandoned my journal and pen. This weekend has been a blessing for me as I feel this sense of not being an island, which was my own, self-imposed exile I sentenced myself to. 

I have a family and for that I am grateful.  As a childless male I have been blessed to take up stewardship of another who has left his post without so much as a tear being shed.  I spend no time feeling sorry for this biological father because luckily for me he has resigned his commission without so much as a departure letter. 

Lucky, blessed whatever you would like to call it I can continue my legacy if not in name but in the footprints I leave after I am long gone. Does anyone know how to make plaster casts?

The Ineffective Parent

As I continue to take psychology online I was studying about the ineffective parent. 
It never occurred to me that my parents neglected my needs but as I sit here I realize now that they did and they did mightily.  I recall that while growing up I needed outside references to help me make up my mind about myself.  My friends proved to be invaluable in endorsing the fact that I was indeed a good friend.  I know that that description is a rather broad generalization but at the time it meant a lot to me because I never felt I knew where I stood at home except when I was being chastised.  At times when my father was inebriated he might brag about me while I was in earshot but I never took those accolades seriously because I thought it was just his way of showing off. 

 I have lived with my own struggles as a stepparent because I had not been cognizant of   my own personal experience with mediocre parents. Little did I think that I might dole out my own brand of ineffective parenting to my own stepchildren? Who knows if they have been or not but I am sure that at times between my arrogance and silent scorn they wished they were someplace else. But for the most part I have been lucky not to have failed as miserably as my parents did.  They did the best they could with the resources they had. That piece of 20^th century psychobabble is just not enough not anymore anyway and it’s within my province to make sure that I don’t repeat the mistakes of my father and mother.

The Main Ingredient

The main ingredient for me as a step dad is keeping my mouth shut.  So many times I have had to kick myself to keep me from offering advice to my stepson.  What makes it so difficult is because the advice I am offering seems so simple, logical and clear-cut to me. I say to myself he will certainly thank me for doing it.  I can tell you that it never works. I have to let him arrive at the answers by himself.  It is always better for him to think it was his idea not mine. My wife knows and that is gratification enough. 

My Crystal Ball

As a step dad I need participation in the running of my home.  When I feel like I am being used I try to filter it through my body instead of my brain.  My brain can distort and deceive me. The question I ask myself is what do I want my marriage to look like?  It is not only from the eyes of what my wife sees, expects to see, wants to see or even thinks she sees.

As a father a stepfather I have to define what I want and listen to what she wants.  Let’s see if I have the courage to tell her what I want. She may just agree with it.  

The Introvert

 My own spouse, who was a victim of sexual  and emotional abuse as a child refuses to even discuss what happened to her during those times of her life. Every once in awhile she lets part of her story ‘leak’ to me but I noticed that that has kept her as a introverted and shy woman except with her immediate family and I.  She has made strides over the last 12 years living with me but I do not take credit because all I have done is provide her with an environment that allows her to express herself without fear of reprisal and a place of safety for her children, my stepchildren. So in her case above anything else her environment has influenced her personality far more than whatever she came into this life with. 

They Drive By Night

They Drive By Night 

The times are unprecedented right now, because we don't know for sure if things are getting better or if the worst is yet to come.  I know one thing, fear loves the darkness and the more light we shine on the things that keep us up at night, the better our sleep will be at night.  Attend to the things we can attend to and let the universe work out the stories we cannot. 

My Daughter In Law

In my term as Step Dad I have seen two of my stepchildren get married. (More about that later in a subsequent post)  My son married a Chinese citizen and he managed to pluck an Asian angel right out of the Socialist embrace. She grew on me like ivy up Wrigley Field’s wall via time-lapse photography. In other words: faster than Nestlé’s Quik changes white milk into the chocolate variety.

Shall I skip her innate beauty inside and out?  Yes she has that in spades.  And that she is quieter than a church mouse? I love that about her especially with a loquacious beast like me in the same household. Should I talk about how  she chips in more than her share of chores around the house?  With 6 felines that is no easy task.  Yes she possesses all of those traits but it is her authenticity and adaptability to be able to transform her lifestyle from East to West that I confess amazes me the most.  It has been almost two years since she has lived with us and I know that as anxious as I am for my son and she to make their own lives whether it being in Shanghai or in Flushing New York, my tears will fall when this China girl makes her own way with her husband my son. 

Shall I wax on about her talent?  Why not!  She is an artist, photography and computer expert and with very little tutelage from my wife a jewelry maker and creator.  These are but a small handful of her robust talents, which I know will take her wherever she wants to go whether she becomes a woman of the West or returns to her roots in the land of the Terra-Cotta Warriors and Horses. 

The Family Pow Wow

 

Upon entry into this Step Family I thought I would try to use communication as a tool for at least a basic understanding of some of the more overt concerns that usually go unexpressed in even nuclear families.

I lived under dictatorial rule growing up and my father and mother to a more limited extent used intimidation as the means of law and order in the little fiefdom I called home.

I immediately recognized that I could not be an autocrat and neither did I want my new family to feel anything like what I felt growing up.  However I was not prepared for a family that lived under a similar Code of Hammurabi that included verbal abuse of the highest magnitude if I was to believe some of the short stories my wife told me about her ex.  And I do believer her.

So what transpired as I called these family gatherings was me giving my well-intentioned soliloquies. I thought for sure my blended family would instantly hear and feel the love that was in every impassioned phrase I uttered. However what I experienced was that there was absolutely no feedback except for an occasional silent nod from my wife who seemed to appreciate at least the attempts of me speaking to her offspring.  From the children I either got silence or in the case of my stepdaughter: crying jags that my wife had to remedy.  Whenever I heard about these reactions I immediately went into a defensive posture exclaiming how did that happen?  I never took into account two things. My own arrogance thinking that these kids actually wanted to hear anything I had to say and the damage their own father had inflicted that they were never able to act out on.

What I found out was I had to choose my moments to speak and do it much more carefully. And those moments were when my stepchildren initiated conversation with me first not the other way round.  If it seemed appropriate, then I would try to express my concerns and even the resentments with as much sugar coating on the pill as I could muster.  The great communicator got his first lesson in humility. 

Step Back

Step back Step Dad. I love the fact that I have given up the chase, chasing my own tail that is.  There comes a time when my own masculinity takes a firmer hold when I stop and realize that I don’t have to be the lead dog when it comes to shepherding my step children. Their mother has been at it much longer than I and even though there is some aspects of parenting I think I can do better it’s best I leave it to the pro that my wife is.  She raised three children virtually by herself because her ex-husband wasn’t cut out for the job of being a father. No judgment some men are not up to the task just like I wasn’t blessed to have my own biological children he wasn’t cut out to be a dad. That doesn’t mean that I have to put on his shoes because I cannot. So for now as it nears that my last step child and his wife leave the nest I will slow my pace and follow the lead of my wife’s slippers.