I usually shoot to be uplifting or at least say something challenging in my posts but with an ever-rising blood pressure, I've chosen this as the best path today to just vent! I have a 14 year old son. Not just any 14 year old. No. He's one that was born in Ukraine to a horrible home situation for his first 6 years, then lived in an orphanage for the next 5 and then came to live in the US. I met him when he was 9 and had a small influence on him then but he's been with me since he was 11. So as of March, it's been a full 3 years since he's been under my care to mold, shape and be responsible for. As you can imagine, we've had our share of ups and downs.
And today, we're having a down.
My fiance and I are getting married in February. Less than a month away in fact and we have a baby on the way. He also has two kids ages 5 and almost 2. They're with us every weekend which means than between the weekends that Roma is with his dad and gone for boy scouts, he spends about 1, maybe 2 weekends a months with the kids. They have their typical sibling rivalries. I can certainly understand how those work. My brother and I could be brutal to one another growing up. I get when a child gets caught up in the moment of their emotions and take it out on each other. It doesn't go without reprimand but I get it. Kids need to learn how to process that stuff and they usually learn it on the ones they live with first and foremost.
Today though my son did something that was pre-meditated and just plain mean to the 5 year old. Fortunately, I caught what happened before the 5 year old ever knew what was going on. All of a sudden, I realized that all the progress that it seemed he had made in so many ways could easily be taken over by the orphanage mentality. He saw where he could be the bully and took advantage of it. We've had our suspicions about this before but nothing that was so blatant and 100% obvious as what happened today. It confirmed that he's lost what little trust he had started to gain and again we're back at square one in many ways. It's a tense house right now...he's cleaning his room in silence and I'm blogging to keep from doing or saying something I may later regret. Eric's calmly taking out his frustrations by putting the electronics on lock-down.
I never assumed that taking on parenting would be easy. Please no "did you think it'd be a walk in the park?!" comments - side note: why do parents no matter how novice or seasoned say these things to each other? Has it ever brought about some sort of benefit besides feeding the one's ego who said it? Side rant over. Anyway, like I said, I knew walking into being his parent that I would be in for some trying days. There are just some days where the frustration hits me more than others; when I can see that not only does this mentality apply to the current situation but it probably has also been in play during x, y, & z. And the kicker is when he tries to throw in an excuse - some way that it's not his fault or that he didn't mean it "that way" when it's very clear that he did. Nothing pushes my buttons more.
Some people think I'm too hard on him. That I don't give him enough leeway. That I don't give him enough room to just be the kid he wasn't able to be in his home situation or the orphanage. You know what I have to say to those folks? YOU take him for a week and we'll see what you have to say then. I'm not in the business of making up for lost time. I'm in the business of raising a contributing member of society that turns to God and family when troubles come rather than excuses, shitty "friends", or worse things like alcohol, drugs or other things that I'd rather not think about. Yes, he's got a lot of excuses that are valid - horrible upbringing, abuse, neglect...you name it, I bet it fits in there somewhere in his past. But when you've been an asshole because you relied on those excuses all day, at the end of the day, you're still an asshole. I'm in the business of teaching him to take some responsibility for those actions when they're things aimed at a 5 year old that never even knew it happened rather than dealing with the consequences of it when it happens on a much larger scale and no one was there to intervene.
So all I know is that today I'm aggravated with him. Earlier this week I was proud. I'm sure later this week I'll feel something else. I guess it's all par for the course and it's good that I found this outlet to deal with the emotions of today. My blood pressure is down. Maybe now I can be in the same room without wanting to go into an instant tirade. ;)
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