afternoon all
my relationship with my partner has ended due to a difference in parenting. I am a step dad to her child and her dad has never been in her life. She really is a great kid, and I love her like my own. I have been her dad for 7 years now. The problem was me and her mum have very different opinions, she is a very much leave her be, yes mum. I’m more a I believe every child should have structure and rules in place, this I believe helps us guide a child. It’s really silly really but here goes, so I haven’t implemented many rules, but the few I did caused so many arguments and the poor kid was always in the middle of them :(. The rules were as follows:
if she is to eat crisps, chocolate and sweets she needs to ask. My reason for this is so we can keep her eating of bad foods to a healthy level. If you don’t have this in place she could potentially be eating unhealthy amounts of high in saturated fats, and sugary foods.
Her mum argued it again and again saying if she is hungry she should be allowed to eat, even know this rule was only for crisps and chocolate 🤦🏻♂️. We are not strict, she eats sweets etc daily, but as parents we should keep them at healthy standards.
her Mum was allowing her to have candles in her room at 13, I said she isn’t allowed to light candles in her room. My reasoning for this was due to it being a safety issue, if she was to knock it over, something fell on it and set light, or maybe the cat that is regularly in her room could knock something onto it or over even. I’d prefer her not to have something like this as she is our child and I couldn’t live with myself if something bad happened and she was scarred for life or even worse….
her mum argued this again telling me it’s controlling, she needs to learn, she isn’t stupid. My counter argument is, she isn’t stupid you’re correct but even fully grown adults have died in house fires due to such incidents. Also she liked to play with the candle wax, which in itself creates a danger and proves she isn’t mature enough to be left alone with candles yet.
at 12 she wanted to start using foundation, I didn’t like thought of this and said you can have make up, and even concealer in case you get a spot etc… her mum wasn’t having this and argued this again and again until I eventually just said ok. My reasoning was she had gorgeous tanned skin, no imperfections. Foundation wasn’t needed, if she had really bad skin and it was causing her to have confidence issues etc, I’d have understood. Foundation will block her pores etc, and won’t help with spots etc. we live in a world where kids are trying to be adults to soon.
the only other thing we had in place was no baths after 8 clock, unless you come home late of course. Generally she is home at 3:30, so I was trying to introduce routine and structure into her life, and it’s good practice as this has her all clean, hair done etc by say 9 clock ready for bed. Her says it’s pathetic, and no need, I’m just being controlling.
now I know people are gonna agree and disagree, the problem was there was no medium..,. Everything I implemented was an argument, and a soon as I wasn’t in let her do as she likes. As you can imagine for the kid this isn’t healthy, she is getting mixed signals on the rules which then made me look the bad guy. The child has no rules in place what so ever, no chores, I just feel as much as this keeps the peace in the household, it’s lazy parenting, maybe I’m wrong but I’m sure someone will tell me haha. I’m not even allowed to give her chores, because this then leads to arguments and I then fall out with the mum, I just couldn’t stay in a relationship that I either had to become a yes dad, and have no say in the child’s life, but she wants be to be her dad 🤷🏼♂️ it’s so bad that we found out she was on FaceTime to fully grown men with her friend and her mum defended it by saying she wasn’t on her phone, it was her friends. 🤦🏻♂️ I’m like this is a serious duty of care issue, and we shouldn’t be excusing this behaviour. Now don’t get me wrong the kids not a problem at all, as a parent I expect her to huff, puff and argue 😂😂 I can deal with that no problem, but I can’t be fighting with my partner every other day, I can’t image how bad the arguments will become when the kids 15/16 😱.
the final straw was when I said she can’t have a chocolate bar at 10 clock as it’s getting to bed time. Her mum once again pulled a face and started saying what’s the problem, it’s just a chocolate bar. Surely a lot of parents would agree 10 clock is a bit late to be eating chocolate when she will be going bed in next half hour.
anyways, thanks for reading and sorry for the essay, just dunno where to turn.