Ready…..ok!
One of our daughters, when she was in Junior High, decided she wanted to try cheer leading. I have to admit I thought oh brother. I flashed back to the girls I had gone to school with who cheered, and I can’t say they were the nicest girls I knew. They were popular to be sure, but they weren’t very nice, at least to most kids they went to school with. I thought oh great, now I have to live with one? After some discussion about the notion that her Father didn’t consider Cheer a real sport nor a valid extra curricular activity, he gave in and let her try out. Well of course our gal made the squad; things always just kind of work out for her that way. Her sister was mildly irritated at this development and true to her form, she let her displeasure be known to anyone and everyone who would listen. Our girl cheered for one year. I think maybe because she wasn’t a main cheerleader but cheered for wrestling or something, ultimately she was less than enthused about the experience. Also I believe she found it to be too heavy a load in addition to also playing soccer and basketball and to try to keep her grades up all the while. My husband wasn’t sorry to see her drop it. He has always wanted the girls to buckle down, work hard and maybe just maybe earn some scholarship money for college.
So in danced our daughter one night and pronounced that she wanted to try out for cheer again. This, her junior year. Her Father of course was in hopes that she would focus on scholastics and soccer maybe do some weight training, conditioning, running….all with the goal of impressing someone and maybe be picked up by a school. I’m not certain she shares the same aspirations. Of course the kids have no concept of how hard it is to pay for college. We have three and one behind them. So to her …eh… What’s the big deal? So her Dad shuts her down and walks away. She then of course appeals to me. I asked her how long her Father had to digest this. In her typical fashion, she had to have a committment in 2 days. I reiterated her Dad’s desire for her to concentrate on Soccer and his very real fear she would get hurt while cheering. It had happened to our friend’s daughter and she had to have knee surgery as a result. I then asked how long she had been hatching this idea and how long had she known she wanted to ask permission to do this. Oh she just got all the information the day she came home with it. Yeah ok, right. I told her to give her Dad time to think about it and not to badger him or she would,ensure his answer would be no. I went on about my weekend. She came to me a couple of times and whined, I kept telling her she needed to discuss with her Dad. I also told her that her Mother and Father would have to agree and cooperate as it would have to be a shared expense. Cheer isn’t cheap. Sunday night, the night she said she had to know and what did she do? She left without talking to her Dad. I had actually set it all up for her, had him primed to talk. She failed to execute.
So…the girls go to their Mother’s for a couple of days and what do you think our girl did.? You can probably guess. Yep. She got her Mother to agree to sign her papers and foot the bill for the entire activity. She then of course tries out and makes the squad. So the girls come back home and I hear first door slam….Dad off to his upstairs retreat. Second door slam…youngest twin straight to me in the kitchen…she says why can’t Dad just be happy for her? Huh, I say? She made the cheer leading squad and Dad is so mad. Ahh, great! Door slam three. Cheer girl storms upstairs to her room. The baby and I just look at each other. I had no idea how big this was about to become.
Independently, each of the three of them come to me to express their thoughts on this matter. Sister wants to be happy for cheer girl and thinks Dad is totally over reacting. Of course she knows little of the reason why her Father is so upset. Cheer girl is happy she made the squad, believes she can focus on soccer like her Dad wants her to and thinks Dad is being completely unreasonable, what’s the big deal…he isn’t having to pay for it and why can’t he just be happy for her. Hubby has moved on from reasons he doesn’t want her to cheer to now feeling totally disregarded. He told her no, she did it anyway and last but not least, their Mother didn’t even talk it over with him she just over rode him and did it.
It’s now been about three weeks since that day and much has transpired. For two weeks my husband didn’t say three words to our cheer girl, that is, until last night, After soccer, rah rah girl headed downstairs to have a word with her Dad. In the meantime her sister is telling me that the comments her Dad was hurling out at the soccer games had gotten negative attention from their coaches. Now, my husband has always been a walk along the sidelines make remarks kind of Dad but I could imagine his remarks as of late were more harsh just because he is angry. Volume arises from downstairs, eventually cheer girl comes upstairs, said she’d tried and went to bed. The girls both said that maybe their Dad should take a break from attending the games. He hasn’t gone since and says he’s not going to attend another one. It’s too bad, he has always been their number one fan as well as sole financier of all extra curricular activities.
A few nights later, another blow up but this time cheer girl happens to be on the phone with her Mother I guess, so my husband’s words and tone were overheard. Soon thereafter the kids’ mother was texting me. I had to do something, things were out of hand, so on. I told her I could appreciate her opinion, however like we have too many times before, she’s getting one sided versions of events, that my husband is upset, but that I would talk to him, see if I could move things forward. Well we did have a good talk that night. Many things were said. I understand him, but I did tell him I could see this impass was having an effect on our whole family and that something had to give. I also told him I really felt Dads sometimes think they are only heard when they get loud, which just isn’t the case. I firmly believe that a teenager’s comprehension is in no way tied to the volume at which material is presented to them. He must have done some soul searching that night because he slowly began to lighten up toward our daughter and now a days, though they certainly don’t talk about it anymore, at least the chill is out of the air.
Lessons learned
Life is hard. I do believe that you really show who you are when things don’t go your way. I think my husband lost his way a little bit there for a while. He wasn’t showing who he really is, he was tremendously disappointed and he didn’t handle it well.
I’m not certain how I feel about our daughter setting up a situation where her Mother overheard her Father that night. I don’t think it was cool. I’m also not sure how I feel about my Step ex enlisting my help with the situation, though I’m more ok with that
part than I am the other. I was going to talk to him anyway, I always do.
I told our daughter that when you decide to do whatever you have to do to get what you want regardless of who you hurt in the process, there are consequences. I think she saw, with the severity of her Dad’s reaction, how uncomfortable those consequences can be. I hope she learned something from it. I’m not certain she did.
I learned many things from my late husband. One of those was relationships grow out of conflict and that for me to interfere to try and make things better, short circuits the process. That made a huge impact on me so I have tried very hard to remember it and not to do that. I do step in at times of conflict between my kids and their Dad, but I take care how and when I do it. Had I talked to him before he was receptive, it wouldn’t have worked. I had to support him and his point of view during this whole fiasco. I think it’s the right approach.
Teenage years are hard. It’s the time when a kid starts to make decisions, assert themselves and take some control over their lives. Sometimes they’ll get it right and sometimes they’ll misfire. So did we. Our parents loved us just the same. And so will we love them.
Good StepMom
