All foster parents hear this or some version of this, a lot. And usually, I don’t let it get to me. But I have to admit that being with Blitzen and old friends and their biological children for an entire weekend was a little bit harder than I thought.
Now Blitzen did pretty well, pretty age appropriate for most of the weekend. She bonded with the other kids, didn’t need to control too much (well, you know, some but it was tolerable) and she didn’t cheat every single time that she played a game (I mean, you know, some but not every single time). But bedtime was tough, lots of kids and differing routines and it is Blitzen’s witching hour often times anyway. Add to that way too much excitement and a ‘girls’ room / slumber party atmosphere and frankly, we were just asking for trouble. Blitzen gets most ‘you are not my real parent and I hate you’-ish when I try to tell her what to do, so I don’t generally. Andrew and I lead by example and set expectations, and sometimes we have good days and some times we have less good days and sometimes we have something like just now. And I turn my back on my 9 year old, walk out the door to go sit on the patio in a wet chair with Mosquitos to try to reflect and to write. Because all the other moms get to tell their kid to just try to calm down, quiet down and get to sleep and I have to be sucked into a ridiculous conversation with an irrational 9 year old.
Andrew just came out to patio, children are quiet and sleeping, and Andrew is reminding me that 9 year old kids say stuff like that to their parents all the time, even when they are ‘real’ so I guess we’re right on target.
Stop pretending you’re my real parents
August 4, 2012 by Carrie Ann
4 Responses
Leave a Reply
FosterWee Partners
-
Tags
Archives
-
Well this is the crux of the issue isn’t it? If you were behaving like her ‘real’ parents well…let’s just say you wouldn’t be having all this fabulous summer vacation fun. But it can feel incredibly precarious – it’s such a delicate balance. Of course when she says these things, it’s because she can feel you in that ‘parenting’ place and needs you to be there, but feels the conflict of what that means. Anyway…a really touching post!
You, know, it’s probably really good she acted like that where the other girls could see and hear. Nine-year old girls are incredibly bossy and she will probably get an earful from the other girls on proper vacation behavior. Peer pressure can be good. Even the hardest head might feel something.
When she cheats at games and the other kids stop playing with her, does she ‘get it’ at all?
my bio son has said to me “stop pretending you know what to do! you are not always right! And I HATE you!”. Oddly, the stop pretending you know what to do part hurts more than the I hate you part. Probably because it is closer to the truth- a lot of times I am just making this parenting sh*t up.
I had a few versions of that growing up: “I wish I was adopted!” or “I was adopted. You are not my real parents!” Of course, I wasn’t adopted and they were my real parents. These are the moments that mitigate against B growing up with a huge, as opposed to a manageable, attachment disorder.