While I am inclined to use real names, I am also sensitive to the need for privacy by some. With that in mind, I will refer to the mother as "Christine" but the child gets no such respect so I will call him by his real name, "Dan."
When I met Christine, I knew she had a son as I saw him in the picture she had shown me. He looked like a decent kid as far as I could tell. She told me of them reading together, going to the park together, etc. Then I was hit with a piece of information that should have smacked me upside the head like a 20lb trout. Since she worked in Manhattan, long hours, her mother and father were "taking care" of Daniel.
ANYTIME the grandparents spend more time with the child than the mother does, a bell should go off in your head. Several questions should come to mind;
1. Do the grandparents require respect and set limits? The usual answer, (esp. for Greeks) is NOPE, not one iota.
2. Does the mother require respect and set limits? The answer, I would later find out, is NOPE. She spent so little time with said child that she did not want to spend it fighting with him so she let a lot (too much) slide during his most influential years.
3. Am I a masochistic SOB who likes to bask in the glow of disrespect, temper tantrums and fussiness that would irritate even Felix Unger?
Another alarm should have been the statement, "Dan has been kind of a fussy kid since birth. Crying, refusing to eat, frequently biting kids in school, hitting m..." WAIT! (insert red flag here) What was that? Biting kids? More than once? She even told me her ex tried biting Dan so he could see what it felt like but that didn't stop him. DING DING DING
Despite all of these signs I should have seen, I continued to date Christine. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't stupid but she has a lot of qualities to love... she is kind, warm, intelligent, sexy and sometimes pretty fun.
With that said, let me clarify right here and now... had I known what kind of kid Dan really was, I would have run screaming while the hair on the back of my neck was standing up!
Welcome to my misery!
For 10 years now I have had to tolerate the most disrespectful, lazy and utterly unrealistic kid I have ever met. I decided it was high time to document some of it to ease my internal suffering.
This is not about your average, "I am 16 and have developed a tude" kind of kid... oh no... these are things that will make the average person bite their lip, shake their head and mumble "If that was my kid..."
Even now, at 18yrs old, I often use this analogy when referring to him and it has been confirmed by many that this analogy is dead on:
He is the little kid in the grocery store... throwing a temper tantrum and holding his breath until his mommy buys him the candy he wants.
Seriously, would you say the right thing to do is give in to that kind of thing?
There is a very sad part to all of this... In the end, this "child" drew to a close a relationship with a woman I loved more than any other in my life. Sadly we could never come to an agreement with how to deal with this problem child.
WARNING: Some of the situations I document here may scare the weak enough to prevent them from ever having children. Some of it may cause nausea, light headedness and heart palpitations. Please do not operate heavy machinery during or after reading this.
Please read this blog in order using the Archive on the right as some bits of info may pertain to an earlier post.
This is not about your average, "I am 16 and have developed a tude" kind of kid... oh no... these are things that will make the average person bite their lip, shake their head and mumble "If that was my kid..."
Even now, at 18yrs old, I often use this analogy when referring to him and it has been confirmed by many that this analogy is dead on:
He is the little kid in the grocery store... throwing a temper tantrum and holding his breath until his mommy buys him the candy he wants.
Seriously, would you say the right thing to do is give in to that kind of thing?
There is a very sad part to all of this... In the end, this "child" drew to a close a relationship with a woman I loved more than any other in my life. Sadly we could never come to an agreement with how to deal with this problem child.
WARNING: Some of the situations I document here may scare the weak enough to prevent them from ever having children. Some of it may cause nausea, light headedness and heart palpitations. Please do not operate heavy machinery during or after reading this.
Please read this blog in order using the Archive on the right as some bits of info may pertain to an earlier post.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
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