The Wife is a bit frustrated with me .... "The kid is home and you are letting everyone know that YOU are in charge"
Wow,
Interesting how a Skid can rain on what is usually a fairly steady state of marital bliss.
My perspective is that it is not about me, it is about him.
He stinks so I tell him to shower. When he is in the shower for less than 5 minutes I send him back to do it again, and again and again until I am confident he did it right.
When I open the door to his room and the stench of unwashed or poorly washed young male body comes wafting out to toxify the entire second floor of my house ....... I make sure his grungy ass gets out of bed, the laundry starts and the sheets get washed and he goes in for his 3 round trips to the shower until he is clean. I had to walk him back and forth between his room and our room for the sniff test and give him the lecture that "if you shower every day your bed, clothes, pillow and our furniture don't get grungy body grime stains on them and they don't stink ....... EVER! Changing clothes on a body you have not washed in days does nothing for your. You still stink, and now your fresh clothes stink ............"
When the zit crop and greasy state of the hair gets worse day by day while he stands in front of me day after day with a growing cloud or pigpen like stench around him and tells me "Yah Dad, I showered today" I just start to see red and I climb up his ass and stay there until he does it all and he does it right.
Too bad Military School is not 24/7 365 days a year. I don't mind paying someone else to constantly extract his head from his ass. It is a lot less stressful than having to do it my self.
Whheeeeewwww 3 more weeks and we're are off for our 10 day summer vacation after which SS leaves for his SpermClan 5wk summer visitation. Then we get him back for another 10day vacation and off to school.
A little of this kid goes a long, long, long way.
But, he really is overall a good kid and I am proud of him, except for the hygiene and honesty issues. Which we are working on. And the Skid adventure continues.
three more weeks, three more weeks, three more weeks,................
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Any cute girls in your 'hood Rags?
That would be a sure fire way to get your son interested in his hygene! Lol...
That is true...
girls don't want stinky, greasy boys...
~You can see clearly only with your heart. What is truly important is invisible to the eyes~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's
Rags...
My husband met my son when he was about a week old... he was the first male figure that held him...
We got married when my son was 7 months...
My son's sperm donor has NEVER EVER been part of our lives nor my pregnancy etc...
My husband loves my son as his own... (he is 20 months now)...
I can totally see my husband acting like you in the future with our son...
I DO want him to be strict... and set high standards for my son as well as for his daughter...
I just felt like saying that...
And also, I have an OT question for you...
What does your son think of his sperm donor? especially compared to you?
I'm scared that in the future my son tries to kiss his biodad's ass... after all my husband is doing and will do for him... and you never know...
~You can see clearly only with your heart. What is truly important is invisible to the eyes~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's
My SS is the ultimate "blender". He blends readily with
the SpermClan and my Wife's family both of which have much lower standards for themselves and others than my Wife, myself and my family (Parents, Brother, etc....) do.
He blends very well downward in performance but struggles a bit with holding himself to the high standards his Mom, I and my family hold ourselves to and expect from him. However, he has no issues that any normal 16yo boy does not have. He is a good kid.
That said, he will be the first to tell you that he much prefers the life he experiences with my 1/3 of his extended family and the first to tell you that his is much closer with my Parents, his Uncle and Aunt (my brother and his wife) and his cousins (my niece and nephews)than he is with my wife's family or BioDad's family.
As for what my Son (SS) thinks of BioDad, he knows that BioDad is not a sterling example of much of anything especially of a responsible parent or mature adult. However, we have always talked BioDad up to my SS as far as BioDad is his "Father" (choke on my words here but we do it for my SS benefit), and that SS should love him whether he respects him or not. The same applies for his interface with the extended SpermClan (3 other out of wedlock half sibs, grandparents, Aunt/Uncle, cousins, etc....) We counsel him to love them as family and enjoy the time he has with them even if they do not behave or make the same decisions that he or WE would make.
Interestingly, he usually returns from visitation with very little to say other than that he had a good time. Then over a few weeks things will start to come out that bothered him while he is with THEM. "I wish Dad would take care of his own children so GrandMa and GrandPa could enjoy their retirement instead of giving most of their money to Dad and spending the rest raising my sibs"..... There are many other similar examples of things that bother him while THERE that he works through and shares as time passes after a visitation.
He loves his BioDad and they have a fun together for no reason other than they are on approximately the same maturity level (video games, fantasy card games and tournaments, etc ....) BioDad is in to his LowRider and snowboarding also. Neither of which my SS cares about. So, overall they have little in common other than my SS knows that he is supposed to love him and is a good enough kid that he will keep his opinions to himself in order to preserve his BioDad and SpermFamilies delusional and tenuous grasp on reality to let them think that SS is one of them. Which he is most definitely not.
He may not be my blood but I raised him and he thinks like I do, values what I value, believes as I do, sounds like I do when he puts his thoughts in to words and has as much respect as I do for his BioDad........ NONE!
I hope this answered your questions.
Best regards,
Success is rarely final. Failure is rarely fatal. It is character, courage and consistency of effort that count. Vince Lombardi (with some minor Rags modifications)
contradictory
Rags, I'm a fan, but the stinky kid you initially complained of seems to contradict this reply. If he has your values and thinks as you do, believes as you do, etc. why the battle to get him to bathe his person?
Doesn't make sense to me. Am I missing something?
My bioson is 6 and I recently had to threaten him that I would resume his baths if he didn't spend more time under the showerhead. He shrieked and said, no way. He now baths for a minimum of 10 minutes and soaps and scrubs from his rooty to his tooty.
So I don't get this at all....seems like a different person than the one you write about. Also as for rooms, I guess I am a cruel witch b/c I have room inspections, daily, for all kids including bioson. Rooms are kept clean and dirty clothes are dumped in washer room every morning and every night. Bed linen is changed once a week. They know the drill and are very compliant.
hmmmm......
Evil Diva
Evil Diva,
I think that Rags was referring to more complex and deeper patterns of behavior and thought, other than "not bathing enough"... I don’t think that hygiene defines one’s very own motives as a human. Remember he is dealing with a TEENAGE boy; I don't believe that the way you act as a teenage really defines the rest of your life because it doesn't. Teenagers are defiant, they deal with a lot of insecurities because they KNOW that they are not kids anymore and THINK they are adults, but yet don't know how to act like one... and in general, think the world should spin around them... for the most part...
Ultimately, even if he turns out to be a lil' dirty as a grown up... Rags didn't say that this kid is a clone of his... he didn't say "he is exactly like me". Whereas Rags can hold hygiene very high in his priorities, this kid might not... and that doesn't mean that they can't have many other things in common...
When I was a teenager I was pretty messy, I always had my mom up my A$$ arguing about cleaning... NOW that I have my own family I try to have EVERYTHING very clean, and try to teach my kids to pick after themselves etc...
When I was a teenager I made poor decisions in general, that now I see as unnecessary, pointless or plain stupid.
~You can see clearly only with your heart. What is truly important is invisible to the eyes~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's
His bathing issues are the result of
difficulties he has with time management. His hygiene is not so much offensive in the short term but is more of a compounding issue than anything. He bathes just enough not to reek when you are with him in the evening but he is not clean enough for his clothing or bedding to become soiled and odoriferous over time. The past two weeks have been an adjustment for all three of us and he is beginning to take the time to clean himself more effectively. Mainly because his Mom has re-donned the hat as disciplinarian and has been very direct with him over the past several days about his hygiene and the fibbing issue.
At school his days are extremely structured. Now that he is at home with his Mom and I working every weekday I think he has slipped back in to his ...... "I have plenty of time to get everything I need to done" so he procrastinates then has no time to shower or finish his chores effectively so he half asses them. When we ask he does not want to disappoint so he says "Yes I did .....". He certainly did something but usually far from well. Grrrrrr!
I don't think this is as much a belief issue as it is a lagging maturity problem.
I had my own versions of these types of issues when I was his age though hygienne was not one of them. I worked through them as most teens do and they became issues in my past. I am confident that this will be the case with my Son (SS).
Best regards,
Success is rarely final. Failure is rarely fatal. It is character, courage and consistency of effort that count. Vince Lombardi (with some minor Rags modifications)
You just described
SS Zippy's hygiene routine!
"When I open the door to his room and the stench of unwashed or poorly washed young male body comes wafting out to toxify the entire second floor of my house ....... I make sure his grungy ass gets out of bed, the laundry starts and the sheets get washed and he goes in for his 3 round trips to the shower until he is clean. I had to walk him back and forth between his room and our room for the sniff test and give him the lecture that "if you shower every day your bed, clothes, pillow and our furniture don't get grungy body grime stains on them and they don't stink ....... EVER! Changing clothes on a body you have not washed in days does nothing for your. You still stink, and now your fresh clothes stink ............"
Except I do not bother with the sniff test -Zippy just came back from his BM's (she who used to scream at DH re Zippy's lack of hygiene) now could give a rat's butt if Zippy every washes again because she is now the NCP-
Zippy just came back with a face full of acne from not washing at BM's all weekend and looks terrible-there is not a girl on the planet that would not look at Zippy with disgust and FINALLY Daddykins is smelling the coffee!
Step Parenting – you might need to step back before you step in something!