Chores and Regressions

Most children have them, so why don't some stepkids? Some parents feel that because their child only spends part of the time at their house, that the children should have all the fun possible while they are there.

Not that I'm against fun.

But chores teach children integral pieces of growing up by taking care of their own things and learning different skill sets. If they live at your house even part of the time, they can learn how to take care of it, and develop a respect for all the different things that they see the adults do around the house. The kids may even start to pick up after themselves, (not that I've experienced this with a 13 year old boy, and may never see it happen, but I am optimistic).

Chores should be fairly balanced however, as while the stepkids may be at your house only part of the time, they probably shouldn't be doing chores almost all the time. But it is perfectly acceptable to expect them to keep their rooms picked up, laundry put away, beds made in the morning, doing the dinner dishes, and a once a week chore, say, mowing the lawn.

Now mowing the lawn around our house has been a contentious issue. This is the first summer where my stepson has participated in the once a week mowings, and even then he only mows one side of the yard. (I started mowing full yards when I was 10-so I know this muscle bound boy is more than capable.) He comes in and complains that the yard is too big, that he's beat, etc. etc.

My biggest issue with this 13 year old boy is that he still wants to be babied. I'm all about nurturing him and cuddling him when he wants to be cuddled (which surprisingly happens quite frequently) but there are things that 13 year old boys normally do, such as: mowing the full lawn when asked and not whining too much about it, cutting their own steak when they order it at a restaurant (more on this in a minute), and not giving up on a physically demanding sports camp after one day. (See Persistence and Basketball Camp post).

All right, the regressions into "Daddy will you baby me" mode have thoroughly flustered and frustrated this stepmom this summer. One of which is when our son orders a steak at a restaurant, (or Dad cooks a steak at home for that matter), the boy won't cut his own meat, he bats those long eyelashes of his, looks at his Dad with those big blue "I'm your poor little boy" eyes and his Dad cuts his steak into little bite size pieces. Now you're probably sitting back and thinking that I'm a heartless bitch, and maybe I am sometimes, but the boy is 13!

I'm fairly certain this doesn't occur at his mother's house, but for some reason at our house, he regresses a little bit, (and not just on steak cutting either, it happens in other areas, but this is the example that sticks out most to me).

My husband and I had a long discussion on how our son shouldn't be babied any longer and treated more like a teenager. I approached the topic gently, since the boy is his son and I had a feeling that my husband babies his son because he feels guilty for not being there for all his childhood years. My husband acknowledged what I had suspected and agreed that his son is a little soft and that he would start to watch for and work on those aspects of their relationship.

I want their father-son relationship to stay intact and be as close as they are now, but I also desire that his son be able to function in the world on his own as an adult.

The Transitioning Bedroom

I knew it was coming, we all did, the "I'm too grown up for this bedroom". (We made it out fairly easy actually--he still wants his bunk beds for the built-in desk and cubby, and he liked the framed pictures we already had of trees and fish, thus avoiding the band posters). It was hinted at a few months ago when he complained that the World Map, United States Map, and Flags of the World poster on his wall were "too colorful". He also mentioned this about the little blue plastic cabinet with the red, yellow, and green drawers in his closet that stores miscellany, but it's still storing miscellany because it's in the closet where no one can see it.

Anyway, yesterday was the big clean out day, and it took nearly all day because every toy that was pulled out had to be played with or charged and then played with. It's great that he shows such sentimentality for the toys, but all that playing tires a little man out. The afternoon seemed to drag on without end for him and for us. (It didn't help that we also had to run into town to his bass lesson at 3:30).

While the sentimentality was precious, it also was a little frustrating. As usual he had to be redirected to the task, otherwise he would not have been able to sleep in his bedroom last night. At times he would get frustrated because he is at the nervous nexus of childhood and being a teenager and he wouldn't know if he wanted to keep an item or not. Our simple rule was to keep it if he didn't know, better to have it than to regret it later.

The important lesson from having to transition your bedroom from one stage of life to the next (or moving for us adults); is how overwhelming material items can be when faced with organizing and getting rid of the less important. All the moving I did in my early twenties taught me that I really only need the necessities. A list of necessities is going to be different for everyone, for me it was clothing, kitchen cookware, at least one if not two pieces of furniture for each type of room, and pictures to hang on the wall. (I would figure out the curtain arrangements after I moved in since windows are never the same size).

Our culture facilitates purchasing extra items at the store that we didn't intend when we went to the store in the first place. It's easy for all of us to eventually box up items, store them, and promptly forget about them because "we might use them later." It doesn't hurt to take the hard line and unload what we haven't even looked at for a few years.

What I do know for certain is that a donation center will be pleased with the load that we bring in this afternoon.