I have decided to blog my frustrations in an effort to be able to vent appropriately. Recently my boyfriend had been commenting about how we needed to weed the flower beds around the back deck and plant flowers in them again. My 17 yr old daughter has been planting the beds for the past couple of years. I bought the plants and when I came home last Monday, I told my 12 year old step son (for ease of another term since his dad and I aren't married but they live with me) that we were going to all work together that evening (my daughter, him, and me). While his dad was out there working, everything went reasonably well, however, once his dad went inside to get ready to go to work (6pm - 6am) things fell apart. I had given SS12 the easier job of cutting the grass. He stopped when his dad went inside. I told him that he wasn't done and to continue. He proceeded to tell me NO that he was done. After having words with him he proceeded to tell me 'NO' 3 times. I went inside and very calmly asked his dad to come outside and tell his son that he needed to do what I asked him to do. Irritated with the situation, his father says, 'well, what did you tell him to do?'. I told him that it didn't matter WHAT I had asked him to do since the child already knew what I had asked...what mattered was that he do what I asked him to do REGARDLESS...after all, we were out there working, he lived there too and he needed to help. Hi father tells him to go to his room. I said, absolutely not...he is going to work just like the rest of us. The father proceeds to get up in my face and argue with me over the entire situation. I said, 'fine...if you aren't going to make him listen to me then you'd better find someone else to keep him tonight because I'm not going to babysit a kid that's not going to listen to me.' His father drives off on his way to work...comes back a few minutes later (still angry) and tells his son to do what I've asked him to do.

Later, I tell his father that if he doesn't back me then this relationship will never work because I'm not going to be responsible for a child that won't listen to me.

The following night, we sit the boy down and the father reinforces what I say to the child about needing to listen and follow our rules.

Fast forward to Sunday morning (yesterday). My boyfriend want to go fishing but his son says he doesn't want to go. He asks if I mind if the boy stays home. I said, 'Yes, I do mind'. Then the boy is griping about why he has to go with his dad. (I've told him NUMEROUS times that if he chooses to be ugly to me, I have no desire to be around him.) It felt so good to tell him, 'where your dad goes, YOU go'. Yes, it felt good!