how to disengage when you're full time
Hi, I've been looking for about a month and am now ready to post. I have 7 kids, 5 I've birthed & 2 not. As today is the first full day of summer I'm dreading it. We are in our 3rd year of this, and its getting harder. Oldest Sd11 is a constant blood pressure raiser.
Bit of back story. My dh got full custody a year before I came in the pic. BM has almost 0 contact with them. She pays nothing, sends nothing, does not call & only occasionally answers when they call her.
My dh is in the military, I was full time parent when he was gone. SD11 made that hell. But he never believed me. SD6 only really knows me, but very much follows her sisters lead.
All kids are required certain things. Chores, hygiene etc.
A few weeks back, she hit BS12, he hit her back. Dh lost it and blamed me. He didn't care that she started it, he said I treat her horribly, that I'm too easy on all the others.
Well, in the last 6 months I've stepped back. I don't punish her, don't enforce chores, or showers.
She gets away with everything.
But my real question. How can you disengage, when they are full time? She wears dirty clothes for weeks on end, doesn't shower. Doesn't do chores or basic clean up. She's generally not mean to the rest of the siblings. But at this point I'm waiting on CPS to be called on neglect. But I'm not allowed to say anything, or else I'm picking on her.
I don't think it's possible
I don't think it's possible to fully disengage when they live with you full time, and your DH relies on you to watch over them.
It sounds like he needs to get his head out of his ass and parent his children, and stop leaving that to you .. but I'm sure you already know that.
If all kids are to be held to the same standards, hold them all to the same standards. Document/video exactly what's going on. Record conversations with her if you have to to show DH. I don't really have good advice here, but I hope someone else can chime in with something more meaningful.
Thank you, I obviously know I
Thank you, I obviously know I can't fully disengage. Especially if he's gone for months on end. But while he's home, I've had to step back.
Things like making her shower. But then nobody is watching her.
I know that the actual problem is him. He doesn't see how she is. He listens to her, and she is a very much fly under the radar child. Where as my kids are in your face, you know when they are doing wrong. So it is much easier to see & punish them for that.
Every time she begins to get punished for anything, she cries and tells him everyone hates her, and all the other kids are so much worse and she shouldn't be punished. He feels guilty and she's let off.
It drives me crazy, he preaches about fair and being a family, but he is the one that causes the separation.
Yeah but how does that work
Yeah but how does that work if he's deployed and not home for months at a time? CPS will still view her as the responsible guardian, wouldn't they? I would think she is named in his Family Care Plan as the primary provider while he is away .. which would put her and her own kids at risk
When he's deployed, I don't
When he's deployed, I don't disengage. I won't put all the rest of the kids at risk. But then I'm the bitch.
Now that he's home right now, I'm learning, I'm gonna be the bitch no matter what.
Is it really that you can never win? If I treat her as my own then I'm too mean. Even though I expect the same from everyone, age appropriate. But if I pay her no mind, then I don't care about the kids and it's my fault she's not close to me.
She ignores my very presence.
She might say a few words to me if dh is around, but that's it.
I get that even tho BM isn't around or in contact she very much has a strong hold on her, but none of that is my doing.
And I am keeping a log now. All the other kids write down the chores they've done. Dh has to remind & walk her thru every chore she has. And that's maybe once or twice a week. I also log showers and such. It makes me feel like a crazy person.
I'd like to not care, but I feel like I'm setting only one kid up to fail at life. And then I also feel like well if the bio's don't care, why should I?