Poor parenting choices

Every so often I have a realization and something that's been eating at me for a long while makes sense. I have an insight about myself that makes it possible for me to stop visiting some vexing episode from my past. When it happens, I try to share it here. Let's hope that by doing so it not only helps me square things away, but maybe others can comment on the situation too and I'll learn more. And someone else might learn something too.

For this a-ha moment, I will revisit my relationship (or lack thereof) with Grace's father and stepmother. Though I have written about the topic here before, I'll recap the essential points. They met and began a relationship while Grace's father was still living with Grace and me, while he was pretending all was well with our home life. When I found out about that affair from him and he didn't show signs of remorse or intention to end the relationship, we separated right away. He moved in with Grace's eventual stepmother immediately and they've been together even since. About a year later, once our divorce was settled and everyone seemed to have the feeling that all was forgiven, the eventual stepmother introduced herself to me in a typed letter. In the letter she suggested that it was the time for us to meet, given that this would be the best thing for Grace. She also included some complaints she had about my parenting. It wasn't the first time I had heard from Grace's father or his girlfriend that they believed my parenting skills were lacking. I was, to say the least, insulted.

That was many years ago. Half of Grace's lifetime ago. The once-upon-a-time girl-on-the-side/mistress/girlfriend stuck through all the ups and downs, married Grace's father, and they have been together for the last seven years. I must say, I'm surprised; they definitely have defied all statistics I have heard regarding what factors can make or break a relationship. I assume they are a match made in heaven. They have two children together now, both toddlers. And so it is that Grace's stepmother has now achieved a new status -- mother. If there was any question about whether her parenting skills were adequate when she entered Grace's life, those questions are now answered by her birthing her own two children. I hear some anecdote about these munchkins almost daily. Grace loves to talk about her stepmother and those babies. The stories usually don't involve her father at all, just her stepmother and the babies.

How do I respond to these stories? It varies. Sometimes I react neutrally. I let Grace talk and then I just say something dismissive like, 'that sounds interesting' and try to change the topic as quickly as possible. Sometimes I intentionally lend a deaf ear. I don't respond in any way negatively. The next comment out of my mouth is something completely unrelated. Or if the story seems to be going on and on with no end in sight, I either ask an unrelated question or I say I need to excuse myself from the room. And then there's the worst response: when I actually listen to the content of what's going on with the woman and her children. Most of the time I have very little good to say about it. And during the whole interaction, I'm thinking in my mind of how much I wish this person and her children had never had the good fortune of having the small minute details of their lives take up my precious time.

Why? Why do I dislike hearing about Grace's stepmother and her children?

It would be easy to think that I was mad at her because, well, she ruined my marriage and stole my husband. Sometimes when I write about these situations here or talk about them in person, people say this must be the reason I'm so mad at her and not Grace's father. If it were otherwise, I would rant on and on about him, not her; the fact that I don't go off about him must mean that I'm still liking him. However, such a conclusion would be erroneous. Though the explanation seems to be logical, it leaves out an important detail. She was not, by far, the first affair my ex-husband had while he was involved with me (thus my surprise at the fact that the relationship actually lasted). No, the affair my ex-husband had with her just happened to coincide with him telling me many other details of his sordid dealings during our marriage and my choice to end it then and there. Many times in my retrospection I've realized that I could have saved our marriage, if by "saved" we mean something like, "keep it legally binding while extending sexual relationships far beyond the confines of monogamy." Instead I soundly chose to end the marriage. I told him I wanted him to move out, I told him I wanted physical custody of Grace, and I told him I wanted a divorce. And he never protested any of these points.

Still, the question remains, why do I so strongly dislike any mention of Grace's stepmother and her children? I believe this is the reason: it's because she, along with her now-husband, created a situation that was difficult for my child. I think it's fair to say that up until the point in her life when her parents separated, Grace hadn't faced anything quite as difficult as that. During that time, her father and eventual stepmother didn't exactly give her room to breathe. From the first visit Grace had with her father after the separation, his girlfriend was there. Grace and her father never spent a moment together without his girlfriend being physically present. And it wasn't just that she was physically present and with Grace; it was that she was physically involved with Grace's father openly in front of Grace. Essentially, I got the impression that Grace's visitation times with her father boiled down to her being included in her father's dates. I wasn't the only person who suggested to Grace's father that this might not be the best thing for Grace at that time given the goal of building a relationship with him now that she was seeing him a small fraction of the amount of time she used to. Teachers, counselors, Grace's godparents all questioned the wisdom of this choice. Yet he and his girlfriend stood fast -- they were there for Grace and there was no need for anyone to be concerned about their choices or their parenting styles.

As you may well imagine, I considered their choices at that point to be poor. They should have realized that this all was going a little too quickly for Grace. I addressed this a couple times to the court through legal process and through mediation and was basically told that I had no legal or moral grounds to make the argument. Grace's father was her father, and his choice to include his girlfriend in everything was not abusive or negligent, therefore there was nothing more to be said. So I swallowed that bitter pill. But as if that wasn't enough, Grace's father and his girlfriend went one step further and actively questioned my choices in parenting. They said I was too strict with Grace and didn't let her be enough of a free spirit. They said I punished her too much, scolded her too much. (Mind you, my use of "they" here really refers to Grace's father's criticisms given in the form of "Amy and I feel that you...") I suppose what "they" meant in their criticisms of my parenting was that I should parent a little more like they did. Like maybe I should take Grace out with my friends to bars and let her sing karaoke while I got a bit soused. That's what her father did, anyways. In the back of my mind I thought of Grace's father, 'you leave your kid so you can be free and wild, you don't give so much as a protest with respect to custody, and for you the most logical next step in addressing our responsibilities as parents of this kid is to question my parenting?' And where did the girlfriend fit into that whole picture, exactly? She hooks up with a married guy who's still living with his wife and kid, has him move in with her once his wife asks him to leave, and then suddenly she's an expert on parenting?

Within a few short months of our separation, Grace's father told me that his girlfriend loved Grace as much as he or I did. I almost choked on my words trying to protest that. A woman who doesn't see value in a man spending even one moment alone with his daughter immediately after the dismantling of her nuclear family, even when many other adults in the child's life are strongly suggesting that, and this is a demonstration of love as strong as the child's own mother and father? That in only a few short months of her seeing Grace once a week for a few hours while she was making out with her boyfriend, she had reached a level of intimacy and affection for this child as strong as the feelings the child's mother and father, the ones who had sacrificed day after day and year after year for her well-being? This woman loved this child as much as her mother, who twice put her education and career on hold for years because her child needed to come first? This woman, who had never so much as seen the child's school, loved Grace as much as the two parents who had spent night after precious night, year after year, watching their child struggle through classwork and homework and a possible diagnosis of ADD?

The response I did give to his suggestion that his girlfriend's love for Grace was equal to ours as her parents was to ask him whether he agreed also that his girlfriend's love for Grace exceeded that of her grandparents and godparents. The logic behind this argument was that, though we knew these other people loved Grace a great deal, certainly we both agreed that our love for Grace was greater than these other people in her life. He didn't respond.

The details I've given above all took place in the year immediately following my separation from Grace's father. If I continued through the next 6-7 years, citing other instances that were poor choices in parenting on this couple's part, perhaps even negligent, we'd all just be bored very quickly. Though the couple seems to have settled down a bit in recent years with the addition of more children to their life, those critical months of Grace's life were not treated with care.

But here's the point: this is why the constant cutesy stories about this couple and their new children ire me so much. I don't want to hear about this man (Grace's father, my ex-husband) and this woman (Grace's stepmother) and their children. They questioned my parenting, and worse, they questioned it at a time when they themselves were guilty of putting their own needs before my child's. Their parenting was lacking. And now I am faced with hearing Grace talk about them in a glowing way as parents to their two new children. My very child, the one who I fought hard for the well-being of, she is glorifying the role as parents of these two people who I believe didn't practice what they preached at a critical time in Grace's life.

Practically speaking, I've told Grace all this. In calm tones, in implicit messages, in yelling, in anger, in tears. I've explained it all to her many times. When all that didn't seem to make a dent in her enthusiasm for relating every single event in her father's family life, my husband, Grace's stepfather, took a stab at it. He tried to explain my feelings to her from the perspective of being the child of divorced parents. Yet still, she didn't stop. Sometimes when she brings up these stories, I just turn to my husband and start a different conversation, hoping that Grace will remember that the topic of conversation is one we don't want to have in our home. But she doesn't understand that. She just keeps talking, even telling us to pay attention to her because she was telling her story first. It's as if she can't accept that this is painful to me. It's as if she needs me to forgive her father and stepmother and be excited to hear about their kids. Why? Why can't she accept that they hurt me once and that hearing about their life day after day after day, when I've asked not to be told about it, is like reopening a wound and pouring salt into it, a wound that I would just as soon would never be reopened?

There is a bit of this that I understand from Grace's perspective. Grace really likes these two kids. I imagine that in her mind she believes that I will like them someday as much as she does. They are, after all, her siblings. But it's a little wacky for me in my mind. I can't seem to find a way of explaining to Grace that, though she thinks these kids are terrific and that they are really cool to her because they are babies and her siblings and lots of fun, I do not desire to know these kids or to be affectionate with them. Sure, I've been around them. Grace and her father and her stepmother seem to have no qualms about me interacting with these kids. I'm not cruel. I don't give them dirty looks or spit hateful words or all the rest. I think the last time I even saw or spoke to Grace's stepmother was shortly after the second one was born; we had come by to pick Grace up and they were eager to invite us in so we could see the new baby. I really would have rather not come in, but what are you going to do, refuse and say you're going to wait outside in the cold because you don't want to be in their home or see their infants? And there this mother was, beaming, showing me her new baby. I smiled and asked her how she was recovering. Whatever. Thank you southern upbringing that allows me to feign congeniality in the midst of my discomfort.

I guess it still comes down to me feeling like my perspective is missed. More than missed, it's entirely ignored. These tiny children are being used as objects of affection in the hopes that I will get over my feelings of the past and believe that these two were always good parents. I don't want to see the kids. I don't want to find out how they do as parents to their own biological children. I just want my daughter to be ok and I want to move on. I don't want to constantly be reminded of people from my past and their attempts to reconcile their past wrongs towards me. Wrongs that they don't even accept ever existed.

Now I ask, is there any chance that Grace will be able to understand my perspective? Ever? Or will she continue striving to find some way to get her two families to actually reconcile and enjoy one another? Doesn't everyone have a situation in their family, intact or not, where they figure out that two people don't get along? And you learn to work around it and not mention them to each other? Is this situation so very different than that?