One thing I really try my best to avoid is living in the past. With that in mind, I always seem to think of the future. The day my daughter was born, for example, I started to think about her future. I had to figure out what type of bond I wanted with my daughter, I knew that I didn’t want to end up with a struggling relationship like I had with both of my parents as a teenager. I wanted to be the Mom that my daughter would come to for anything, even if I felt it was a silly thing to be worked up over. I wanted to be a compassionate, understanding and loving mother. I wanted to be the Mom that would listen and bring herself down to the level of her child, even if I didn’t quite understand, at least have an open mind and my listening ears on.
From a young age with my first born I was able to deter her from having any major issues, I was a single Mom for the majority of her young years and she was an only child until about age 4. The four years alone with my daughter really helped build the relationship I had dreamed I would have with my daughter. To this day, no matter what is going on in our lives, my daughter and I have this bond that continues to remain unbroken. That is not to say that we don’t want to strangle each other from time to time, after all she is at that body changing/hormonal age. This age is rather frustrating at times but at other times it’s more comical because I have learned a lot about how difficult I am when hormonal through experiencing that with my daughter. It’s a lesson being learned and to me, life is all about learning lessons and building on who you are.
I thought ahead and in turn created a wonderful mother/daughter bond like no other. I firmly believe the bond my daughter and I have can hold water against any challenge that arises, I truly believe I have a mission successful situation with her, we just work well as a mom/daughter team.
In 2006 I gave birth to my first son and that was a challenge, he was unlike my daughter and rather than have the “what bond do I want with my son mindset”, I had to do whatever I could to simply survive the sleepless nights and really grumpy baby years, this lasted until about age four when my son finally had some counseling and psychiatric help which taught us that his struggles were that of a mood disorder. My son wasn’t meaning to be the way he was, he had a mental health issue. That is fixable, but sadly so much of his younger years were spent simply surviving because two years after he was born I gave birth to another baby boy; this meant I had a 6 year old girl, a 2 year old boy and a newborn. Thinking beyond the current day at hand was near impossible for me in those days.
Now, as I work to build a blended family situation that works with my boyfriend whom I adore, it’s showing that my thinking ahead attitude must click back into action. There are things going on with my boyfriend and his daughter that were unforeseen. In all honesty I know that this is a young girl who is experiencing so much at an age of changes and that in itself is difficult. I find myself having to step back to my young age of 12 when my parents were divorced and I had to learn how to cope with all of the changes. I struggled for years, long into my adult years actually, I also had many therapy sessions and had to overcome anxiety as well as accepting the horrible decisions I made as a broken teenager. I would never wish another child head down that path of self destruction, you see I had a teen Mom so that was something that was always kept in the back of my mind; never would I become a teen Mom. It was just not going to happen to me, because I bore witness to my own mothers struggles being a teen mom. With my boyfriend’s daughter and my own daughter, they do not necessarily have that background of being raised by a teen Mom to keep their mind on as they grow older.
The question at hand is, how do I assist in getting my boyfriend to form the right bond with a child who is a female and at the age of changes. In all reality, at this current stage in his daughter’s life she simply seems to need a female figure, preferably her mother. I have noticed this with my own daughter, the older she gets, the more time she seems to want with her Mama. It makes perfect sense because no matter how much of a loving father you are; only the female or the Mom can truly relate to what the girl child is going through and be able to support them in a positive way thorough it. The only way a young girl can be helped at this point is by having understanding, compassion, tough love and support, all of which my boyfriend is doing without much success.
See, I worked to focus on the future with my children and now that my middle child has proper meds I can focus on the bond I want with my two sons. Every day is a new challenge. When it comes to children, whether you parent in separate households or the same, the only thing that matters from day one of being a parent is that you work to have a bond that is unbroken, that can stand strong through any weather.
Sadly, the longer you wait to have this perfect bond of parent and friend … the harder it is to get it and the success rate goes down. You cannot truly form a bond with a near teen or teen that was never there to begin with, all you can do is keep an open heart and an open mind to realize some things happen one way now in order to give way to a better result down the road.
I do think tweens/teens remember and reflect on the efforts we made when they were going through rough patches, though it may not be for a long time. That means, like you said, that every single effort is worthwhile, if not now, later, to the child. Kids are def. worth the effort, even when it’s hard. 🙂
I don’t think I have any good answers, but I can definitely relate. My step-son came to live with me when he was 13 and he was right at that same time of changes in his life. I think it’s a learning process and my best advice is to listen to them and takes queues from them about what they need at the time.
I can understand how she’d feel a greater need for her mom during this time of change. Those are awkward years sometimes with dad. Good luck with all of these transitions.