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Momentary Thought
I walked past a woman on the way back from the bathroom, and gave her a polite smile when we made eye contact. She gave me an absolutely delighted smile back. It made me want to sit down and have coffee with her and find out how she can be so pleased at 2:30 on a Monday afternoon.
High/Low
High: Well, would ya take a look at this!
Low: I have too many things to do at work, and not enough motivation to get 'em done.
Current Obsession
Work - specifically, a project roadmap that outlines a risk assessment and deliverables toward the proposal we've offered to management. Stuffy sounding, isn't it?
Grin Source
Apparently, I tried to kick Calvin out of bed last night. He tells me that I kept inching him closer and closer to the edge until he had to elbow me really hard to get me to give him some room. Of course, I remember none of this.
Singing
Listening to NPR in the morning has prevented me from getting any songs stuck in my head.
A Year Ago
More or less
Work stuff.
Storyteller
Bio
Dramatis Personnae
Who I Read
Recipes
I don't air the internal workings of our family very much here, but I'm in the unique position to be able to poll a fair number of people regarding their opinions, so I think I'll exercise that option.
Calvin is a marvellous father. I tell him quite often that if I were to have a dad, I'd want him to be just like Calvin. He seems to be quite effortless in his handling of parental stuff, although he does tend to be overly protective of Marie. To a greater extent than he was with Michael - the difference between a boy and a girl, I guess.
Calvin tells me that I'm handling my step-mom role quite well. I figure he's the expert so he'll know if I'm screwing up majorly. I love the relationship I have with Marie - of course, it's not all sweetness and light, and Calvin and I do have to play the heavy sometimes. But as teenagers go, she's pretty low maintenance. So far, anyway.
Our dilemma does not lie in our own relationship with Marie, but the relationship (or more specifically, the lack thereof) between Marie and her mother. Long time readers will recall that when Calvin and X(f) first separated, the kids exercised a week-on/week-off schedule, splitting their time evenly between their mom's household and their dad's. After a short time, Michael and X(f) had a falling-out, and Michael moved in with us full-time. Then, about six months after that, Marie decided to move in with us full-time as well. Michael's out of the house, now, and maintains a relationship with his mother that works for him. He's eighteen, and well capable of making the right decisions for himself.
It's Marie that's our concern, now. She's a very precocious thirteen-year-old, with her own very definite opinions. She maintains very little contact with her mother, and indeed has not seen her since Michael left back at the beginning of the month. X(f) lives less than two miles away - Marie's school is in her very neighborhood, as are many of Marie's friends. X(f) will sometimes go for a week or more without calling Marie. Marie will sometimes not return X(f)'s calls.
Calvin and I have discussed our concerns with Marie, who is insistent that there's nothing specifically *wrong*. She just seems reluctant to spend time with her mom, and sometimes seems frustrated or put-out when her mom does call. Calvin and I have not pushed her at all, other than to ask her if she's talked to her mom lately, and remind her to return X(f)'s messages if we've intercepted a voice mail. We've been letting her set her own limits and define her own relationship with X(f).
I think there's a lot of factors that are contributing to the situation. The primary one being that Marie is a teenager; her whole world is her friends, and her whole attention is focussed on what she and her friends are going to do on the weekend. Weekend nights are dedicated to hanging out with her friends, and very little short of an act of God will convince her to forgo her plans. Although I must say that over the past few weekends, she's stayed home of a weekend night specifically to hang out with us. And that makes us feel very, very good.
Another factor may be some kind of awkwardness that Marie is feeling toward her mother. She's sensitive to the very drastic change in their relationship, and so I think she's not quite sure how to relate to her mom anymore. There's a distance that will need to be bridged in order for the comfort level to return. That necessary first step is a doozy. Being a teenager, she's hyper sensitive to any situation that would make her feel uncomfortable.
Finally, Marie has admitted that her mom's personality rubs her the wrong way. There's a significant difference between the way Calvin and I treat her and talk to her, and they way X(f) does. We talk to her on a more intellectual level, asking her opinions and listening to her feedback. Her mom (according to Marie), will act too buddy-buddy girlfriend-ish one moment, then demand the "respect" she should get as Her Mother the next.
Marie has told us that she just "likes the way we do things" better in our household as compared to her mom's. And herein lies the dilemma. Is it okay for Marie to have a preference of one parent over the other? Should we be pushing her harder (pushing her at all?) to spend more time with her mother? X(f) hasn't seemed, to us, to be overly upset at this change in her relationship with Marie. She'll call occasionally, or IM with Marie when they're both on-line. She hasn't contacted Calvin or me with any concerns, and she hasn't stopped by the house to see Marie. Marie seems to be fine with this arrangement, and doesn't seem to be lacking anything. She behaves at home (other than the normal teenage angst and girl hormones that she refuses to acknowledge exist - well, and so did I at that age), she's respectful to Calvin and I, she gets good grades, and she has a lot of good friendships. There doesn't seem to be any telltale "signs" that there's some problem festering under the surface.
Heaven help us, though, because high school is coming up next year. ~shudder~
Our worry is, is thirteen too young to be making this kind of decision for herself? Will there be some lack or regret that she'll only discover when she's older? What kind of things is she lacking because she doesn't have regular interaction with her mother? What kind of things, from a maternal standpoint, is she not getting from me that only a birth-mother can provide? Will we do damage to our own relationship with Marie if we start trying to get her and her mother together?
Calvin and I have discussed the possibility of inviting X(f) over for dinner once a month or so, to allow her and Marie interaction in an environment that Marie is comfortable with. The prospect of that makes me cringe a bit, but if it would help Marie to be a well-adjusted individual, then I can handle it. We posed that suggestion to both Marie and X(f), and they were both "ih" about it. So Calvin and I, as I said before, have backed way off and are allowing them both to go at their own rate. Eventually, it comes around to X(f) being an adult, with the ability to make and enforce decisions, so if she wants to be lackadaisical then who are we to push anything? Some of the relationship-maintenance responsibility lies on Marie's shoulders, to be sure, in as far as she should return phone calls and be receptive to plans to get together. But X(f) is the grown-up, and can't rely on a thirteen-year-old's judgement to dictate. Regardless of how precocious and mature that thirteen-year-old is. (Sometimes more mature than X(f), in all actuality, but you didn't hear that from me.)
It's hard to know what to do, sometimes. We want to be the best parents we can be, and we always want what's best for Marie. Separating that from our own personal feelings about X(f) is our primary focus. Truth be told, Calvin and I have our own (sordid, tedious, aggravating) history with X(f), which we do our best to keep out of the picture when we're considering Marie's best interests. Calvin and I *love* being the parents Marie prefers. We love that she lives with us full-time. We love being intimately involved in all of the details of Marie's life - from her friends, to signing up for her freshman classes, to attending her high school orientation, to just hanging out in front of the TV. We love that Marie actually brags to her friends about "how cool her parents are". (And I LOVE the fact that she refers to me as her "parent". ~warm fuzzy glowy-ness~) All the stuff that X(f) is missing. We don't want to miss (or, being honest with myself, share) all of that. But that's the selfish side coming through. In the end, if forgoing some of that will allow Marie to grow up well-adjusted and happy, then so be it.
There it is, that's the situation. Any thoughts on the matter? Of course you know, we'll ask your advice, and listen very nicely, but then go out and do precisely what we want. ~grin~