is my mother a bad parent?

[huggybear]

This is quite a tricky subject for me. My mom remarried about a year ago and she and her dh have a 5 year old son. It is soooo obvious that her dh is top of her priority list and i feel incredably sorry for my little brother.

Her dh works away and so is only at home on the weekends. From the time he walks through the front door til the time he leaves nobody else counts. We (me and my family, i am the eldest) are obviously not welcome. My younger (but still adult) sister lives at home and feels in the way and unwelcome too. My brother who is a teenager is supposed to visit my dad at weekends. So that just leaves the 4 year old.

He has loads of toys but not much else. He is badly behaved and attention seeks but he doesnt get any. He only sees his dad at the weekend but he may aswell be invisable - anything to keep him quiet.

Her dh barely spends anytime in the house, my mom drives him to the pub and back, to the football and back etc and they frequently argue. She spends ages ironing his clothes including his pants, cleaning and cooking for him.

i dont understand it. My sister tried to talk to her about it but was just told that she was jealoue of mom and dh's relationship!

[bubbly1973]

could it be that your dm is very scared of this marriage not working out so has put all her energy into making sure that it works out, but unfortunatly forgetting along the way that she has other people who need her as much as she needs her dh?

[HappyDaddy]

That's what I was thinking bubbly. Sounds like she's desperate to keep dh and is doing everything she can, unfortunately she probably doesnt see that she's neglecting her other kids. She doesn't sound very happy to me.