What an emotional ride (past 24hrs)

lil charlie

Registered
This is going to be kind of long so just warning you now.

First off my Aunt Carol got pretty much the worst news you could get….That her cancer is a very rare and very aggressive type that will continue to pop up in different places until it takes her life. Then all hell breaks loose at my place early this morning. I caught my 13 year old daughter sneaking back into the house at 3:00am…more on this incident in a moment…1st some background on her.

She’s my step daughter and she has never really liked me much because I don’t put up with crap and don’t let them (her or her 10 year old brother) get away with stuff…which causes a lot of drama in our house. My wife thinks I’m too hard on them and I think she allows them WAY too much freedoms; she’s too busy trying to be a friend and not the mom. If I tell my daughter to clean her bathroom while we’re at the store I expect it to be clean when we get back…not find her on her phone and the bathroom a wreck. If I say anything to her, I’m mean and my wife says I’m “ridiculous†when I take her phone for not doing what she’s told. Of course they don’t listen to me when mom always backs them up. I tell them to do something and they go ask mom if they really have too. My wife and I fight a lot over this and I get told to leave her alone and let her raise her kids, not everything is my way. I also admit that I tend to be a tad controlling and like things my way. I let a lot of stuff slide because Caitlin ALWAYS gets very good grades and has never been caught doing anything super bad.

Caitlin just got her phone back last Saturday…I took it from her for a week because she came home late and when I went through her messages I didn’t like the “dirty†things she was saying to the boy down the street. Her mom and I told her she was no longer allowed to go to his house now that we know they are dating, no more trips to the movies without an adult, and he was only allowed to see her at our house after school where my wife and I can keep an eye on them. I guess my wife agreed to those terms but didn’t really like them and she says I’m being too strict and she told me to give my daughter her phone back and she was taking her and that boy and dropping them off at the movies to see Avengers. I flipped out and asked her why she was letting her go with him and I got them “it’s my kid speechâ€â€¦.she’s a good girl who knows better…blah blah blah…I raised her right and she’s smarter than that. So I gave her the phone back and told my wife she was making a mistake letting her have too many freedoms at 13 years old. I just let it go and decided to pick my battles. I found my battle this morning at 3:00am when Caitlin was caught sneaking back in through the doggie door; she was outside with that boy from down the street!
 
Shes busted big time. She got in trouble about six months ago (don’t remember what for) and I told my wife that she needs to keep a closer eye on her and needs to check her facebook account from time to time. My daughter is smart enough to erase all of her text messages several times throughout the day so if she gets in trouble that we don’t see them. I made my wife get the log in info to her account and she told Caitlin that she wasn’t going to be looking all the time by will be checking it from time to time. It was at that point that her facebook activity came to a screeching halt…. I told my wife that means she just started a new page so we can’t see what’s going on. My wife insisted that Caitlin is just not using it anymore, that there was no 2nd page. I told her she was being naïve and again got the “their my kids, I will raise them how I want speech”, again I chose to let it go and pick my battles.

Well after catching her coming back in I immediately took her phone so she couldn’t erase stuff and found her log in info to her 2nd facebook account. She tried to give me this song and dance about no one was out there that she was just laying in the grass…blah blah blah. Well that second account had several messages between the two here they have been sneaking out a lot…sometimes to our house, sometimes his (where he lets her in through a window) or at the local park. I found messages where she was complaining that the hickies he left looked like a disease and a post she made while they were fighting and it said “remember the days when a girl didn’t have to have sex with a boy to keep him around….me too”. I have been up since 3:00 going through her messages and I have only gotten to the past 3 months. My wife is all mad at herself saying she can’t believe her daughter would abuse her trust like that and that she didn’t know where she was at night. I told her she couldn’t be mad at herself for no hearing her sneak out, Caitlin herself posted about how it takes her 10-15 mins go get out with no noise.

Now is not the time for the I told you speech to my wife but tonight we are having it. It will be lock down city for my daughter and I don’t care if my wife (or her mother) likes it or not. My mother in law is always trying to be my daughters savior…. Time to put my foot down and not care who gets stepped on in the process. I refuse to allow her to get pregnant as a teenager. FYI...the mother in law is on my daughters friends list with her seceret page so WTF was she not letting my wife and I know the crap that our daughter was posting about. She too is more interested in being my daughters friend than a parent. I feel better now, thanks for letting me rant... The good thing about boys is you only have to worry about one pecker....his! With a daughther you have a million peckers to worry about. I am paying the boys mother a visit after work too.
 
Hmm. I will pray for you brother. That's the very definition of being between a rock and a hard place. I do agree with your position though.
 
Melissa and I are going having a talk tonight where we will be coming up with a list of rules that we can both live by. She will have to agree to me more strict with her and I know I will have to agree to let up a little. I will do that as long as we can agree and start joint parenting. If it is not a unified force it will not work. I’m tired of having the same old fight of me being too strict and her not doing anything. I don’t like to always be the bad guy
 
the best punishment to a teenager, is to take away the cell phone and computer....:thumbsup: dude i know what you're going thru, teenage girls :banghead:
good luck with this, hope everything turns out in a good way.
 
Wow!!! So very sorry to hear about your troubles. You are right you guys do need to be unified!!! I will suggest one thing. If your wife disagrees with you, do it when the kids are NOT around! Prayers sent to you and your wife for strength and wisdom! Might want to have a talk with the boys parents as well, just to let them know what is going on.
 
Stay strong brotha... I don't have kids..well, a Great Dane and a Black Lab, different style of parenting...:laugh:, so I can give no advice.... Goodluck, I agree 100%...
 
I have raised both ends of the spectrum...one boy and one girl. Even good ones push limits one notch passed where your breaking point lies. A must is a unified front from both parents. Kids can't deal with single options, let alone two.

I tend to run about this speed when it comes to parenting. Hopefully a little laugh to ease the day. Good luck.

 
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the best punishment to a teenager, is to take away the cell phone and computer....:thumbsup: dude i know what you're going thru, teenage girls :banghead:
good luck with this, hope everything turns out in a good way.

Done and Done. Her mom will be driving her to school and picking her up so she can't hang out with him on the bus. Plus Im calling the school and any classes she has with him will be changed. Im a prick...I know!
 
That's a bummer man. I think you are doing the right thing by talking with the wife and getting on the same page. I also agree with sitting down with your mother in law and the boys parents. Only thing to remember is what you were like at 13 and remember it felt like the whole world is out to get just you.

Good luck man. Keeps us posted.


Did you see the. YouTube video of the guy shooting his daughters laptop for being bad on Facebook?
 
I have raised both ends of the spectrum...one boy and one girl. Even good ones push limits one notch passed where your breaking point lies. A must is a unified front from both parents. Kids can't deal with single options, let alone two.

I tend to run about this speed when it comes to parenting. Hopefully a little laugh to ease the day. Good luck.



This is th video I was thinking about when I took her phone this morning. When she does get a phone back it will be one without internet access where she can set up more accounts.
 
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Wow!!! So very sorry to hear about your troubles. You are right you guys do need to be unified!!! I will suggest one thing. If your wife disagrees with you, do it when the kids are NOT around! Prayers sent to you and your wife for strength and wisdom! Might want to have a talk with the boys parents as well, just to let them know what is going on.



His dad is also a POS...single mom with two kids and hes the oldest. I sat him down a few weeks ago and told him he could only see her at our house and lips will not touch. My wife has spoken to his mother a few times on the phone but that will change this afternoon. My wife and I will be going to their house to fill the mom in on whats been going on and to let her know that the two are not allowed to be around each other anymore so if she see's my daughter with him to please send her packing. I also plan on making my daughter apologize to the lady for being at the house when she was not supposed to be there... hopefully the embarrassment will help a bit. If not is will at least make me feel better.
 
Oh man, I'm so sorry you have to go through this...my parents went through the ringer with my sister, so I know how hard all of this is on family. Your story sounds incredibly familiar; my ex boss was in a blended family, and the one daughter of the 5 kids that wasn't his was the one daughter Mom protected, constantly. All you've described is exactly the sort of behavior he saw, and Mom would always step in and tell him he's being too harsh, blah blah blah...

Fast forward to just after she graduates from high school, and mind you, the other 4 kids are doing great, abide by the rules, good in school...well, this one daughter barely makes graduation, gets tangled up in the "wrong crowd", dates the wrong guy, winds up in jail for stealing beer from a store. Not long after that, she loses her license because she's forever in trouble, speeding, etc...I told my ex boss years ago how funny it was to see how "his" children, who lived under the same roof but listened to and obeyed the rules he'd set forth, were in college, getting married, starting careers, and the one that Mom coddled because she was "hers and not his" is the one kid that had so many issues, you often wondered if she'd ever grow up. Mom did come to resent all the daughter was doing to hurt everyone in her life, and eventually tough love was the only way to wake her up. Happy to report that all is well and she's with a good guy, works, college...but, it took YEARS and if 4 kids in the same household can grow up within the rules of the house, why didn't she? Her life, and theirs, would have been so much simpler...

Share that with your wife is she doesn't come to terms with what's going on right now. You can't be your kids' buddy and expect them to grow up being responsible. Ask her how she'd like to raise a grandchild now? How would she feel seeing a mugshot of her daughter? All very real things that happen to kids every single day if they're left to raise themselves...

:please:
 
lc, good luck on this one. One parent trying to raise children to be productive citizens and the other not working with the first is a REAL *****. Let alone being a step parent and being told these are my kids. Hang in there.

Ex-wife and I had our verbal fights about our kids. She was soft and I was firm like steel. The kids hated it. I told them, I mean what I say, and I say what I mean. Kids knew I pulled no punches. Guess who they come to to talk?
 
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