A Joyful Place Called Home

  The holidays seemed to be a jumble of dashed plans.  Our children have a stepmom this year, so we are trying very hard to work with everyone’s family schedule. In years’ past we had split the children to go to their Dad’s by the 23rd or so and then they woud return home by school’s start.  This allowed them to do the gatherings here with church and concerts before leaving to be with family there.  This year, however, had been a year of “going by the paperwork” comments in the summer so we had looked forward to having the children home for Christmas Eve and Day this year as the paperwork defined.. In December we found out that tickets had been purchased for a show at the other parents that would mean the children would leave the day school was out. This posed several problems at our end, Christmas parties were missed for our youngest that were culminations of her church year, and it meant that all the plans for our holiday at home were suddenly pre empted.  Wanting very much to understand and to offer a hand in peace, I agreed to the change, and then we would have the children the 26th through school starts to do our own family Christmas.

You know the story.

On the 26th I picked up the children, but there were reasons and family that meant that they wanted to return on the 27th to their grandparents home for hunting and cousins and time to see the that side of the family. Their parents there had  not really been “off” the week before Christmas so they would like the children to stay for another week.  Our Christmas could wait, I want to “get along” and so I allowed them to stay.

It worked for everyone but my husband and I. We were left with no family Christmas time…which wouldn’t have been as tough except we had savored the first “together” Christmas since fall.

Hard decisions…but ultimately my personal stance is the children need us both, and they live in Alabama every.single.day.  What the other parent often doesn’t realize in the notions that you get to spend “all that time with them” is that  normal life means they are in school from 7:30 to 4 then with school, homework,gym, church, and life you truly don’t see them much at all during the week….and the role you play as parent at that time usually means you’re not in the top 40 to spend time with. Strip away many weekends and holiday and the family relationship suffers….we work hard to create alternate experiences as a family that don’t revolve around a holiday, but it seems often, the very weekend we plan away happens to be the very weekend they are needed in the other household. We pay for dental, school, clothes, food…and while we receive child support, it doesn’t begin to cover school tuition and truck insurance, much less the true costs of rearing two children…..so money that might “entertain” them is used for necessities and other “fun” items like electricity, phone, and water.

I am thankful for my children’s new extended family.  There is value in family relationships, and the new family has gone to effort to include our children in their activities. My words have always been “children will not be hurt by being loved by more people” It is a little difficult though, to have the facebook and other venue third hand comments at time While I recognize we both parent these children, I am their mom, and the new wife is their step mom….I have an adversion to “stepmom” as well, but after 8 years, I realized that truly I am my children’s stepmom, though I raised the older two as my own. My marriage to their father made them my own in my heart, but their mother in Oklahoma is their mom. They can love us both, differently but as their ”mom”. 
 Somehow it seems that it must be assumed that the new wife and I must be at odds.  Somehow there is a question of “is enough being done for the children” that make it harder to simply continue reaching out in friendship. A birth parent, who is not divorced, never has to suffer that way….their parenting, handling of the children are not questioned….nor do they have to always be aware that if a child is angry they may issue the words “well, I’ll just go to Dad’s” which I have faced before when rules were enforced at our home with teenagers. They don’t have to spend legal fees to reaffirm their parenthood….or choose when another parent doesn’t follow through on legal responsibilities… It is  a hard thing to know if you follow through with what you were entitled to, and someone else didn’t do his part, he will be put in jail  for not following through on court ordered debts to be paid. While they would be responsible legally for their own prediction, our children would see is as “mom vipored dad”….a stance I wouldn’t wish that for their Dad, who is working and has begun a new life with someone else….so we go forward without the agreement being fulfilled.

  Sometimes we have to go through a teenager using one or both of us against the other one….as happened this Christmas on the day we were to meet. It is usually simply done in excitement for the holiday, but friction arises when children are allowed to be the third party on planning instead of the adults firmly setting the meet times/dates/etc.  Any child, even ones who aren’t trying to be, will be caught in the middle if the adults do not work closely together….they don’t want to disappoint either of us.

Our children return  home on Saturday, we will meet 3 and a half hours from home, our son driving the first leg by himself for the first time.  The trip is 6.5 hours long…..

Teenagers are a wonderful delight…but they are a handful as well.  This Christmas did not turn out as well as we had hoped, but we allowed the children to see both sides of the family and that matters.