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“Family Time”

Doublehelix's picture

How much family time do you spend together, how much one-on-one time with the kids, and how much personal time do you guys get? On off weeks, my partner and i usually work on our own projects in the morning and then come together to spend time in the afternoon till bedtime. (Covid19 schedule) When SD is here, we don't really get our personal time bc she'll incessantly try to have conversations with us while we're doing whatever we're doing until the next family activity. 

We do things together, she's not neglected for sure, but SD comes back every other week asking for an itinerary of the upcoming week. I almost feel like she acts like a guest on vacation and we're supposed to be her cruise directors. Uh, you're with us this week so just be a part of the household? Sonetimes I feel like she's just sitting around waiting for the next thing on the entertainment schedule rather than settling into her life with us. My partner and I don't pre-plan all our days, esp now during the pandemic as there isn't a ton to do anyway. Is this constant need to be entertained just that age (8.5) or is it a consequence of going back and forth between 2 homes?

Winterglow's picture

Draw up a list of chores for her to do - that'll keep her from getting bored (or at least from expressing it). Or give her a book and tell her you want a resume of it at the end of the week.

Look at how your DuH treats her and you'll probably see why she feels the need to be entertained. Does he treat her like a princess? Nothing is too good for her? If so, then why would she lift a finger to do anything if Daddy is always there to make her life special? 

Doublehelix's picture

Sometimes i think it's partially my presence. When I'm out, she's resigned to the fact that daddy's busy, but when I'm home, it's like "oh, now we're a whole family and can do things together" or "doublehelix is always doing something interesting, let me go bug her." she's always asking when I'll be home from work (varies daily bc we haven't returned to work FT yet), and in my head I'm thinking "well after a day of work, my first thought is NOT about rushing home to entertain you." Her dad of course would like me to join all the activities bc who wouldn't want another adult to interact with, but are even bioparents that are still together joined at the hip like this?

Winterglow's picture

No, bio parents are most definitely not joined at the hip. They're allowed to have lives. 

 

Kes's picture

The constant need to be entertained is solely there because one or both parents pander to it.  Never encountered it in either of my bios, but then exH and I lived on a farm and there was always work needing doing.  I see it in my 5 yr old only child granddaughter, sadly.  My daughter seems to feel she must have constant, and I mean constant, input from a parent. 

Doublehelix's picture

Her dad is more reasonable, hence why she's always bugging me. Her mom is always saying "i need to plan activities for her so she will be stimulated. I don't want her to be home with nothing to do." Uh, she has things to do, she is just not doing them. I think SD is comparing the households. Like "mom did xyz with me, what do you guys have to offer?"

Doublehelix's picture

I honestly wonder how a day in the life with mom goes. That even if she has pockets of personal time, does she spell out the plan each day??

hereiam's picture

I remember when SD's oldest daughter (estranged, so I never really refer to her on this site) once said that she only wanted to come over if DH had money to spend on her and was going to do fun things.

I stepped in and told her and the younger SD (now 29, who is the one I am always referring to on here and has a different BM) that he was their dad, not their entertainment center and the point of coming over was to spend time with him, doing whatever he/we happened to be doing, even if that was nothing. I nipped that shit right in the bud.

Doublehelix's picture

But also I notice all my friends kids have a higher expectation that they're always going to be doing something than I remember having growing up. As working professionals vs our immigrant parents, yes we do have more of the means and luxury, so maybe that's why...

SD thinks spending time with dad means they need to be always doing something together. After a day of going on a long bike ride and having dinner together, SD watched some tv before bed while her dad and i were doing our own things. When he told her it was bedtime, she pouted "but we didn't spend any time together tonight." He didn't buy that and quickly pointed out that we already did tons of things together that day.

SD often asks me what i want to do on the weekend, likely hoping that I'm going to propose some fun family activity. I say i'm already doing it, eg sitting down to enjoy some crochet lol

Mommajay's picture

Ugghhh. My 3 year old can entertain herself. My stepson who is 12 will stare at us or the wall if there isn't a screen to look at. I think it's how kids are raised. During COVID school, I gave my stepson a list of things to do if he didn't know what to do. It consisted of things like: read, write a story or song, build something, complete a chore, reorganize your room, make up a game for you little sister, play outside, etc. Maybe your list can be better than mine lol 

Doublehelix's picture

I'd need to come up with 50 activities to get thru a day! Blum 3

she has so many books, Legos, art/craft supplies...at her age, I would have been so busy with all these things! But noooo...they're not good enough bc she has to do them alone. Even her dad says "these activities are better done with someone, to at least show her how to use them properly." Ok who has the luxury of sitting down with their kid to do art all day? A SAHD whose partner is supporting them, that's who. Or rather, do you think your kid is not smart enough to figure it out on their own? We constantly talk about how we learned to tinker and figure things out on our own as kids, important problem-solving skills for the future!

Rumplestiltskin's picture

Early after my divorce i felt like when the kids were at their dad's, i should do the boring things, and when they were with me, keep it fun. I told my cousin about it and he said something like "but what if they never learn patience or how to deal with routine things?" It was eye-opening, and he was right even though he had no previous experience with kids. They won't develop any creativity, either, if they just consume entertainment all day long 

lieutenant_dad's picture

This.

DH used to keep a very strict routine of never doing anything EXCEPT spend time with his kids on the weekends he had them. Which, to a certain extent, made sense since he got such little time with them. But, that meant that the boys never saw him interact with friends, never saw him running errands, never saw him juggling multiple commitments, etc. Weekends with Dad were 100% centered on the SSs.

DH tried to get me to do the same when we moved in together, and I obliged because it made sense to do fun things with the kids during the 48 hours with him. But, I totally cracked after a year or so. It was SUCH a confining feeling like I was glued to home to make DH and the SSs happy.

After talking to DH, and as the boys were old enough to spend time alone, we started living a normal life on those weekends. I was Betty Crocker when I felt like it; otherwise, food was whatever was available, even if just sandwiches or bowls of cereal. Friends had a party? We'd go. Wanted friends to come over? We invited them. Needed to spend the weekend on chores and home improvements? The boys got to work right along side us.

We did have some activities that were "us and the boys"-centric that we'd do, like escape rooms. But, those got fit in when there was time. We rarely ever planned for a weekend of just fun unless DH and I needed a break, too.

Doublehelix's picture

I am reminded of this now as I see my poor dog's face, lol  When SD was at mom's during the custody battle, our dog got so used to being home with just us, and sitting beside us while we worked or watched TV. Now that SD is back regularly, I notice she retreats to her doggy house in our bedroom a lot more...as if she's trying to hide...

Dogmom1321's picture

Family time? We have a sit down dinner every night, but that's about it. Once in a blue moon we will all watch a movie together. We have done family vacation trips in the past - and honestly, DH and I both don't enjoy them with SD10. Sad but true. 

When SD was younger we would do some crafts together, but that's about it. 

As SD gets older, she's isolating herself more... the typical "staying in your room and not coming out" phase. 

DH is very handy and we both like working in the yard, house projects etc. SD doesn't like to help when we invite her. If she does help, it lasts 10 seconds with some random excuse, "oh my hands are hurtingggg, I'm going inside." Okay, fine. We're not going to beg you to hang out. 

SD will go out to eat with DH sometimes... but that's the extent of their one-on-one time. I know they love and care about each other, but their relationship just really isn't that close like it used to be. And like I mentioned the vacation thing... DH honestly doesn't enjoy a lot of alone time with her (complaining, being moody, dramatizing everything, etc.) He has voiced that it gets on his nerves too, so I don't blame him. 

SD10 doesn't voice "being bored" that often at all because then we just ask her to clean her room and go out on her bike. Both of which get in the way of her vegetating in her room apparently. 

**Long story short, give SD some alternate activities that she DOESN'T like and eventually she will quit complaining. Sounds like she's entitled and can't wrap her head around the world not stopping for you to entertain her. 

Doublehelix's picture

Yeah seriously...like watching movies together, why should we all waste our time watching some crappy kids movie that only one of us is enjoying? I honestly can't wait til she doesn't wanna hang out with us anymore lol

Dogmom1321's picture

Make the next movie the "family" y'all watch about some boring animal documentary. I'm sure she will go do something else on her own. Tell her she can pick "next time." Lol, after a few of these attempts I'm sure she will start to get the hint and will prefer to do her own thing. 

P.S. - 8.5 is definitely old enough to be able to entertain yourself. Growing up (probably like most of us on here), my mom never had a schedule or planned activities with us. We played with the neighborhood kids outside, read, draw, wrote stories, rode bike, played basketball, etc etc. My mom was busy doing adult things to "play with us" and I never even questioned it. Your SD and DH can figure it out. Does he push you to do one-on-one things with her?

Doublehelix's picture

SD tries to guilt trip "you don't want to spend any time with me?" My mom always told me she would have loved to have been able to tuck me in etc, but she was working from home for minimum wage and had deadlines and a mortgage. So "want" does not always translate to "can" - are we adults or what? I didn't go to college, get a job, gain financial independence for myself and then dream of playing pretend games all day??

thankfully no, while he'd probably love to see it, he doesn't push one on one time. He tries to read with her and lately he's had to help fix her Legos a lot that she didn't follow the instructions correctly for, so that's their one on one time. Also dragging her on errands...they're at the hardware store now and she literally asked 3x where they were going bc obviously she was hoping for a different answer.

today she said "i thought of a project we can all do together." What makes you think we all want to do a project together? lol if you want to build and decorate a car  for the dog, we encourage it. But why do we have to be involved?

you're almost 9 girl...how long are you gonna sit around wasting your life away waiting for someone to play with you? Mind boggling...

Dogmom1321's picture

The more I read, I feel a lot of this behavior is attention-seeking too. From her POV, it seems she wants everyone to "jump on board" with her ideas of projects. She wants that instant gratification and someone to "ooohh and ahhhh" over her. The whole "you don't want to spend time with me" is irritating, because you know she is saying this to get a reaction out of you. Even if you AREN'T busy, your first second of downtime isn't obligated to spend it on the SKs. And that's okay! She just wants to be the center of attention. 

JRI's picture

SD13 after a whole day at a ranch riding the horse Daaad bought her, with all the rest of us there all day "admiring" her in the summer heat, " Ok, what are we going to do TONIGHT?  Go to a movie?"

But Karma hit her because her own daughter was even worse.  She complained that after a whole day walking through the mall shopping for SGD, when they got home, SGD had the nerve to say, " What are we going to do now?  Bake cookies?"

Lol.

Doublehelix's picture

I used to be sad my mom didn't play with me...now I get it lol

Dogmom1321's picture

Lol, SD used to say the SAME thing to DH when she was younger! He would reply "We just went to the pool all day!" or "We just spent $_______ going to the mall!" I'll never forget when we first started dating she was 5 and we were STILL in the car otw home from buying a barbie. "Aw, I really wanted ice cream on the way home." He called her "BM's name _____ Jr." I almost died. It was spot on true. Something he definitely shouldn't have said TO HER anyway. But so true. Never satisfied and always wanting more. 

Trying to Stepmom's picture

DH and I have talked about this and it has been said to SD multiple times - we are not here to entertain her. We are going to continue with our lives and she can join us when she is with us. 

When she was younger, she used to get upset when she found out about something (she thought would be fun) and did it without her. As she got older she would ask about our plans when she'd come of the weekend. If it didn't sound exciting to her, she'd make up some excuse and stay at BM's. That still happens to an extend to this day (she's 14 now). 

Her last stint here (of about a week), she blew up about DH not spending enough time with her. They had just spend about an hour doing stuff together. It was real quality time stuff too, but when DH tried to help her realize that she just brought up stupid stuff from the past. 

Doublehelix's picture

We get that too when we do things w/o SD. I dunno if I should expect her to comprehend it, but we all know that life moves on when she's not here, and it's not like me and her dad get upset if she does fun things with her mom lol

That whole "not spending enough time" rant just comes of boredom. If SD was playing with her friend, she would not be complaining that dad was not spending enough time. 

Today, he was actually ranting about why does he have to be there to watch SD and her friend play, or that SD is still constantly trying to engage him to play with them, that he had the expectation that he would get some time off. I said, "you don't have to play with then and your expectations are not unrealistic." It exhausts me to see him let her walk all over him. Like, of course you can't get any work done if you let her come in all the time with 100000 questions and play with everything on your desk as she waits for you to be done so you'll be free to play.

Even when she's watching her own cartoons and I'm trying to read, she's still trying to talk to me. 1. Can you not see that I'm reading and do you think bothering someone is appropriate? and 2. I don't know why you keep insisting on asking me who my favorite character on your show is when I'm not watching and I don't care. Why can't you just watch? Why must there be so much conversation?

Winterglow's picture

Tell him to cast his mind back to when he was a child. Then ask him how much time did his father spend entertaining him. Get him to go into detail. 

Mine sat at the same table at mealtimes, occasionally watched (as in maybe on a Saturday afternoon) a TV programme with me, drove me (not if the weather was fine) to and from school and at age 8 still took me on the occasional bike ride (once every 3-4 months or so. These events became less and less frequent as I got older because there was a school bus, because he had things to do, because I had things to do. 

I cannot even imagine expecting my Dad to play with me or watch me play. I was on the secondary school field hockey team at age 13 (no mean feat) and he never saw a single match... and I never held it against him.

Doublehelix's picture

Haha don't get him started...he is extremely bitter about his parents not spending time with him and not exposing him to every activity on earth - excuse them for being immigrants trying to make ends meet in a foreign country. My cousin complained about the same thing and now trying to make up for it with his own kid, but he has also realized after speaking to many ppl, that his dad did spend enough time, he was just an extra needy kid lol

i recently read somewhere the more significant correlation for a successful child is the happiness of the parents, and not the time spent with them.

as for my own childhood, I spent so much of my own time learning and discovering. Parents couldn't be bothered to buy bubble solution so I was left to experiment - ratio of soap to water? Which soap works best? I tell my partner I don't think you always need to sit down and lecture to SD - there's so much to learn thru play. and yeah, I was bored too playing by myself with no expectation that my parents were gonna entertain me, but I realize that resourcefulness is such an important life skill now. How are you going to be an adult if someone always has to tell you/show you/help you?

Rags's picture

My SKid was a mutant.  He was great at self entertaining pretty much his whole childhood. Particularly when he was a toddler.

He would disappear for hours with occasional role call to his mom and I.  "Mommy! Daddy!".  We would each answer "Here!" and we would not hear him for another hour or two.  

Truly a great kid.

Other than 7wks per year of long distance SpermLand visitation we had SS 24/7.  The three of us pretty much did everything together.  His mom and I would make it a point to have just us time fairly regularly but other than that we were the 3 Musketeers.

We learned to enjoy the periods he was on SpermLand visitation (5wks summer, 1wk winter,1wk spring).  This gave us extended dedicated just us time so when he got home settling back in to our usual routine was pretty easy... other than the 2wks or so of post visitation behavioral detox and the week or so of pre visitation behavioral degradation.

Doublehelix's picture

Yes, I mean we eat together, we take the dogs to the park together, we watch movies together, we play games together, we are in the house together. When SD is here, we rarely hire a babysitter to do our own thing and leave her out or anything. What I meant is, do we have to do everything together 24/7??

a self-entertaining child, what's that like? lol the impression i'm getting from my friends is that boys seem to be better at doing that, though they may get themselves into more trouble lol obviously case by case and personality based, but I am reading Trevor Noah's book and he talks about how he was so great at entertaining himself that to this day as an adult, he has to remind himself to get some social interaction. 

Rags's picture

My Skid says the samething as Trevor.  He has to periodically make a conscious effort to socialize. Covid quarnatine and social distancing has actually done quite a bit to drive him to be more cognitively social than usual for him.

Every time we talk to him he repeatedly talks about how he has never in his life cognitively thought about spending time with people.  Now that he can't, it is something that is notably missing in his life.

He has never been great about staying in contact.  It can be as much as several months between talking with  him.   Since the Covid quarantine went into effect he is working one 12 hour shift twice a week.  They are only allowing a third of the workforce in the office at a time.   He has been calling us every week for more than a month.  That never happens.

 

Luna84's picture

I feel you! same age, same behavior. Although she's cool and doens't bother me, I'm not used to giving a child too much attention since my son is older and he's  not too needy of attention. But yea its like they expect entertainment (and spending!) all the time. We've been better because we're renovating the house and  we watch our finances closely so we just tell them to play outside or color etc. I also tell them that back in the day our parents didn't entertain us! We had to entertain ourselves. I schedule a movie night and now they (expecially her) need to go upstairs when its over then hubby and I get to be alone. I try to encourage my husband and tell him that I NEED alone time and my space or else I can get pretty moody. I'm not the type to be with the kids all day or work all day and go straight to bed, I need chill time and to unwind, especially with him. Luckly, he's learning and being supportive.

Thumper's picture

I will answer it this way.

When I was growing UP---out parents didnt run around entertaining us. Are you kidding me? IF we were going to have family time it was a dinner OR going out for icecream OR down at the shore most of the summers. Or on Sunday nights Watching Disney for 1 hr. My dad and mom controlled our TV's.

Parents were parents and the kids, well, we had toys, went outside, went swimming, rode bikes..played tag Kids stuff..

Some of you parents and step parents are running yourself in the dirt trying to entertain skids. I bet ya,,,BM told dh "YOU dont do anything with your childddddd". 

Sad acutally.

Doublehelix's picture

Yup. I don't think it's just the divorce that made it this way. I find this generation of parents caters a lot more to their children. My cousin vented to me that both her boys were upset bc they both needed her to play with them in 2 different areas of the house. Need? Is "play together or I'm not playing with anyone" no longer an appropriate response? lol

i think SD's mom is setting the expectation. They only have each other (no live-in bf) so it's not like mom has anyone else to distract her from SD...

Disillusioned's picture

My SD's were like that, especially YSD and especially when OSD stopped coming over and it was just YSD.

She would arrive and literally ask 'what's the plan' for the weekend. She expected dinners out, day trips, constantly to be entertained. Her favorite meals cooked, to watch her favorite shows, and that all conversation be either about her or with her. And who could blame her. That's how DH made it. DH catered to all of that.

Until that is I started going out and doing my own things with friends and family on SD's weekends. SD couldn't stand that because she ended up "bored" while DH snoozed on the couch and didn't have too much to say to her then...no one around for them to put on the big super close daddy daughter act for haha

Visitation with DH always meant 'vacation' to them

...it changed for OSD when she moved in with us full time for a coiuple of years and still expected vacation standard, only to discover it wasn't quite like that on a full time basis  

I don't think there is anything wrong with planning some fun things and making sure skids feel super loved and imporantant on thier limited time with their DH, but expecting to be the constant centre of attention and have everything revolve around them and treated as if this is all about pampering and catering for most important them is probably also why both my SD's grew up to be entitled adults who act as if nothing DH & I do, no matter how much time, effort, money or big-hearthearted they may be, is ever good enough

There needs to be common sense, good parenting, and boundaries!