Something happened today that moved me to write this. I stand in awe, and nogothenburg good kind, at the lack of respect our girls give their father parents at times. I”m not talking about just the not listening part of that but the down right insolent behavior part. I don’t get it from them myself real often, though they have tried it with me at times too. I have no reason to believe it is any different with their mother. If I had to guess I would say that it is probably worse with her because I think she has allowed it. I wrote in an earlier post about an argument the girls got into with their Mother and that the girls were upset with Mom’s SO because he called them out on their behavior. So I know he is witnessing the same and like me, has a hard time with it, because it just isn’t right and shouldn’t be tolerated.
I can only draw from my own experience, but I will say that for whatever reasons, it would never have occurred to me to speak to my parents as if they were equals of mine. Nor would it have dawned on me to talk back to them in a disrespectful tone, privately or certainly publicly. I would never have yelled at them. I would never have argued with my parents the way these girls do. I don’t know why the difference. It’s not like I recall a sit down lesson where my parents said thou shalt not..I just developed a sense of respect and of right and wrong and I cared for both my parents’ feelings. Whether or not they were proud of me was important to me. I’m not going to feed you a line of hooey and say I was a perfect kid by any means. I wasn’t. I fibbed, I took things that weren’t mine, tried to run away once, and I played my Dad when it suited me to do so. As a teen I experimented with things I shouldn’t have, made my share of bad decisions and I think I learned from all those things. With an element of luck, my brain and a moral compass, I think my parents made me as ready to step out into the world as they possibly could have. I still blundered occasionally but was able to hold steady jobs, finish school, go on and finish graduate school, buy a car, a house, stay out of debt trouble pretty much, launch into a career and stay on the right side of the law.
How do kids come up with the notion that it’s ok to step all over their parents? I have to assume it is learned behavior. I mean a little person is too dependent upon parents to act that way. When they do try to assert themselves like our little one is now at the age of three, this I think is when it begins to be learned or not. With our girls, I wasn’t around, so I don’t know what was and wasn’t done in this regard. I can only surmise. I have had a picture painted for me of a home where Mom and Dad really didn’t get along most of the time. I’ve been told there were lots of harsh words, hurt feelings, and sleeping separately. Ultimately something happened in that relationship I’m told, that any marriage would have struggled to survive. Theirs didn’t. At the heart of what happened to break up the marriage was total disrespect and lack of regard for the feelings of the other. So if that’s the case, and you had these three little kids who heard everything, didn’t understand everything but were left to draw their own conclusions, I can see where they may have come to believe that this is the way we treat each other. It’s all about me, my point of view, my perspective, my needs and heck with everyone else.
So the divorce happened and the parents set up camp against each other rather than work together to raise their kids. No judgement here really, unfortunately it happens. When two people split and it’s a hostile split, they obviously still have feelings for each other. As long as that’s true, it’s so easy to fall into that me vs her, me vs him mentality. More harsh words, not only to each other I’m afraid but also to the kids about each other. I think this probably unwittingly served to reinforce to the kids that neither parent was worthy of respect.
This is what I think might be much of the reason for the things we see in these kids as teens. You take just being teen angers and superimpose that on the other, and you have a real formula for trouble. Our eldest son, as I wrote about in a previous post, went through a real hard time at about 16-17 years of age. And interestingly enough, this is right where we started having escalation from the girls, they are 17 now.
I have heard our son say to his Dad “if you were more of a man…” this was in front of my Boss at the time at their home at a fourth of July picnic. I saw our home trashed by him when we were on a family vacation once and he opted out. He was supposed to take care of the place. I have witnessed time and again my husband get his feelings hurt by our son, invitations that should have been extended to father son events that weren’t, countless Father’s Days, birthdays and Christmas Days with sometimes nothing for his Dad, not even a card. I have witnessed utter disregard for directives, my husband being shut out of important life decisions and milestone events. It took 2 years after our son moved away to go to college before he actually said to his Dad that he realizes now how important he is to him, all that his Dad has done and the sacrifices he made and that he loves him very much. I am really glad of this. I know it means a lot to my husband and now we are in a pretty good place with our eldest.
The girls are a different story. I don’t know if it’s just our girls or if it’s to some degree a generational thing, but the girls have no problem airing differences in front of anybody. There seems to be no part of them that is embarrassed for people to see them acting the way they act sometimes. Whether we are talking about their friends, our friends, their friend’s parents, their grandparents, aunts…the neighbors, the pizza man, absolute strangers out in public..the girls just let er rip!
I have spoken to them before about the fact that it is not ok for them to speak to their parents as if they are equals. That in fact they are not equals, but contrary to their belief, their parents are in charge. For as long as their parents provide for them, this is the case; so while it is fine for them to express their opinions on things, there is a right and wrong way to do it. I have tried to impress upon them that to communicate to their parents as if they are dictating terms on anything, or in an argumentative way, certainly in a smart mouthed manner is not, repeat not, acceptable. I know they hear me, and they don’t do it every day, but they do still do it. I don’t pretend to understand it, and I don’t put up with it. If they go there with me, I nip it and I tell them to go away, to go to their room and not speak to me again until they can apologize and speak civilly. I used to do same to our son when he lived at home. I also call them out when they disrespect their Dad and if I hear them on the phone doing that to their Mother, I call them out on that too.
Over the last few days we have had a major blowout over choice of extracurricular activities. One of our daughters went around her Dad through her Mom and got what she wanted. Dad is not happy and is making it known. Other daughter rarely does but in this instance has come to the defense of her sister. Yesterday at a soccer game in front of their Grandmother and everyone else in the bleachers, after their Dad made some sort of snide comment that admittedly would have best been unsaid, our daughter says to her Dad, “why don’t you just let it go…sheez”. I think I mumbled something under my breath like here we go. Then, not one to recognize when to stop…at all…daughter goes on to say “I mean how long are we all going to have to listen to this crap.”? To which, as expected, Dad wheels around on her as she deserved and said her name rather loudly. Daughter then says WHAT in a very disrespectful manner. Dad says to her come with me, so he at least tries to remove her from the crowd and get her alone to reprimand her. Not having any of that, she barks NO! To which again as expected, Dad takes her by the arm, and do you think this child goes with her Dad? Nope, not our girl. She sharply pulls her arm to herself away from her Dad all the while loudly shouting leave me alone, stop touching me, get away from me. It was so pretty. While her Grandmother, probably her Father and certainly I were all quite embarrassed by her outbursts, she was clueless and couldn’t have cared less what anyone around thought of her.
On the way from the field to the parking lot, the girls were messing around with their little brother. As we walked out, the defiant one said to me, I mean seriously how long are we all going to have to put up with Dad’s attitude? I said to her, I don’t know the answer to your question, but I have told you before that it isn’t appropriate for you to speak to your Dad like you are an equal, you’re not. You shouldn’t have spoken to him and acted the way that you did and you know it. She said nothing in return, as it hadn’t been all that long ago over something else, I had reminded her in no uncertain terms that I would not put up with her speaking to me in that smart mouthed way. She remembered and to her credit, did not continue to go there with me. I hope the girls change in this regard. They are both loaded with this attitude that they are the most important people, above all others. It isn’t my favorite thing about them by any means.
Lessons learned
- I see with our little boy, how my husband and I just sort of naturally get each other’s back with him and his little toddler attitude. We say things like, did you say thank you to your Mama, you don’t talk that way to your Daddy and did you just hit your Mama, you go apologize right now. We also demand that he do as his brother and sisters say and apologize when he’s crossed the line. I hope our kids get what we’re doing and carry it on when they have children. It’s what I suspect was missing in the family they grew up in. I don’t think their parents had each others back with the kids much at all. I think it’s this crucial teaching within a family that helps little people know what the world expects, how to be civil, respectful and treat others, particularly their parents with respect.
- Kids learn how to act from their parents. You can say whatever you want to say to them, but what shapes them is what they live. If you don’t treat your spouse and your family members including your kids with respect, they will lack it for you and for anyone else. Believe that.
- Not only does this concern me within my own family, I worry for the girls after they leave home. If this trait follows them into adulthood, they will find it difficult to form meaningful long lasting relationships with others, they will have difficulty forming and holding onto friendships, they will have a hard time keeping jobs and just have a difficult time in life in general. Our eldest son was fired from the first three jobs he had. He said it was misunderstandings over scheduling. Maybe it was….three times.
- I love these girls but I believe they have a major awakening coming when they go out into the world if the don’t check the attitude. Time will tell…in the meantime they’ll continue to hear it from me when they overstep their boundaries. My husband says I’m tougher on this because I’m from the South, well that may be true, but if it is, then I’m glad that’s where I come from!
Good StepMom
