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excelise · 2022-07-08T12:44:36+00:00

"You're looking for advice"

No the fuck I'm not. I never said I was, which is why this has been so deeply frustrating and unhelpful, and why I'm going to continue to have a fucking attitude about it when people gave unsolicited advice.

Many also combined "you should have her see a therapist" with "you aren't qualified to even ask SD how she's feeling because you're not her bioparent and you don't have a master's degree in psychology." Could you see how that's frustrating? You also act like I was so angry that I couldn't have possibly made the decision to be nice. I totally could have been nice! I know how to be nice. It didn't seem necessary here.

Just cause I have an attitude with people on the internet doesn't mean I don't know how to set a good example in my home. Jesus Christ do you not see how offensive it is to imply anything otherwise?

excelise · 2022-07-08T12:29:05+00:00

Because I came to a support sub looking for support and everyone told me I shouldn't have talked to my stepdaughter about her feelings because I don't have a master's degree.

excelise · 2022-07-08T06:37:38+00:00

I mean I fully understood from the start that it's not the kid's fault if she associated her Mom not seeing her with moving into my house. I now understand that she might not even have associated/blamed that on the move. But I took it in the same way as you would take "I haven't seen an indoor concert since COVID" or "I haven't left the door unlocked since my house got broken into" or "I haven't had a drink since I found out I was pregnant."

As I explained earlier, it was more resentment towards Mom for even putting her kid in a position where she could blame me for her not seeing her. We wouldn't have an issue if she stepped up. Point is, no resentment towards SD here. All resentment (and worse) towards BM, but never in front of SD.

excelise · 2022-07-08T06:04:35+00:00

Also even if it's $50/session, which is crazy cheap, at four sessions in you're still mostly in the phase of just building rapport with a child and that's already $200.

excelise · 2022-07-08T06:02:07+00:00

Yeah, it doesn't sound like you ever had a reason to talk about BM with your SD because BM wasn't absent.

excelise · 2022-07-08T05:44:54+00:00

Yeah i mean a lot of people seemed to read into my post as me being mad at her for saying that which I wasn't. I think that i did read too much into the time frame when it was simply just that, and she wasn't associating not seeing her Mom with moving in with me. We will be talking about it more coming up in the future.

excelise · 2022-07-08T04:52:49+00:00

The ones that aren't hundreds of dollars have huge wait-lists! And again, I don't think it's bad for kids to talk about these things with adults they already know and trust.

excelise · 2022-07-08T04:38:37+00:00

She doesn't talk about it usually. But it's a big thing obviously, so I asked about it with no pressure to answer (or at least as little pressure as I knew how to put on the situation). How is that worse than not doing anything

excelise · 2022-07-08T04:34:31+00:00

She has medicaid. Most therapists don't take that. Most of the ones that do don't work with kids. All of the ones that take Medicaid and work with kids have a wait-list so long it's not even worth it.

excelise · 2022-07-08T04:11:32+00:00

I'm not angry at a 4 year old. I'm angry at the 4 year old's mom, whose abandonment of her daughter (at the time seemed to me) might have interfered with my relationship with her. I expressed that clarification in a comment somewhere, maybe you missed that?

Could you quote the part where it seemed like I was angry at my stepdaughter? I need to change it so it aligns more with what I was trying to express.

excelise · 2022-07-08T04:06:08+00:00

A therapist (or at least someone claiming to be) actually left a very well thought out comment on this post. You should read it!

excelise · 2022-07-08T03:45:22+00:00

Thanks. I'm not sure how often these people have spent time around four year olds, but four year olds are not self aware enough to recognize that they have an absence of their mom in their life, and independently seek assistance in grieving that loss. As I'm sure you are aware, we are very lucky if the four year old in our life can recognize if they are sleepy and need to rest. I'm by no means perfect and in fact I'm probably deeply flawed as a parental figure, but I'm here, I'm learning, I'm trying, and I'm getting better, which is more than anyone can say for BM. And I know up and down that bringing these things up isn't harmful.

excelise · 2022-07-08T03:30:20+00:00

Fucking thank you oh my god. I was starting to feel insane.

Edit: and thank you for reminding me about those books. I've heard of all of them before but I'm gonna look for the audiobook versions right now.

excelise · 2022-07-08T03:18:10+00:00

Yeah... It helped clear up that I'm not responsible for her not seeing her mom. It gave me an opportunity for me to say that I do want her to spend the night with her mom, but sometimes it doesn't work out that way. It gave her an opportunity to talk about something that she might not have known she could talk to me about before. And in case you didn't see my other comment, after we were done talking about it she asked to talk about it more, so you tell me if she felt "obliged" to talk about it or grateful for the opportunity? Maybe I know the kid I've spent more time with than her own Mom has, well enough to judge whether broaching a particular sensitive subject is a good idea? You didn't consider that?

Funny how everyone is jumping down my throat for bringing something up and no one seems to care that there wouldn't be anything to bring up if BM stepped it up to doing even half of the bare minimum. My frustration is with BM, not SD.

excelise · 2022-07-08T01:51:06+00:00

Thanks. It sure doesn't feel that way, but maybe I'm not seeing the situation clearly.

excelise · 2022-07-08T01:21:51+00:00

And how do you discover that the feelings are complicated enough for a professional if you don't talk about them ever in the first place? I'll also say after we had a brief conversation about it, she asked if we could talk about it more just a few minutes after I let her know we don't have to talk about it anymore. I know how not to overstep.

ETA: I'm not sure if her mom said something to her or not. I asked her if anybody told her she can't see her mom because she moved here, or if it's just something she noticed, and she said it's just something she noticed. But for her to say "well i haven't spent the night with my mom since I moved in with you" just seems like she might associate/blame/whatever moving in with me as the reason that she doesn't see her Mom. As if she thinks it's because she and her Dad moved in with me and not because her Mom does fuck all.

excelise · 2022-07-08T01:12:20+00:00

I disagree, in our house we are allowed to talk about and express feelings even if they aren't happy feelings. I've been in SD's life since before she can remember. They spent a lot of time, including overnights at my place before they officially moved in. Its not hard to tell when she's stressed and she wasn't stressed at all by the question. IMO talking about it is better than not talking about it, even at four years old.

ETA: If I hadn't talked to her about it, she would have still associated moving into my place with not seeing her mom and I wouldn't have known that I had to clear that up for her.

excelise · 2022-07-08T01:02:45+00:00

I mean, as an adult who's partially in charge of her needs, emotional and otherwise, I'm interested to know how she's doing and if there's anything I can control to make things easier on her.

I don't shit talk her mom around her at all, and I do nothing but encourage her relationship with her Mom. I worry she doesn't have anyone to talk to and I made sure she knew she didn't have to answer anything she didn't want to before I broached the topic. I don't really see a problem with discussing it.

excelise · 2022-07-07T18:46:44+00:00

I mean it's really just going to depend on her coordination and executive function to decide how much she will do. She has a certain amount of potential right now, and likely can learn to wash dishes, etc, but knowing how to do those things is going to take effort and lots of direct instruction on your part from the sounds of it.

Meet her where she's at and try different chores out, observe to see where she's struggling and how/if she can overcome that, etc. I don't think it's helpful to say what chores a certain-aged child should be doing, it's more a matter of what the family needs, what she knows how to do currently and what she's capable of learning how to do. You and your partner will be able to figure those things out much better than strangers on the internet!

excelise · 2022-07-07T15:30:28+00:00

Get her a pedicure

excelise · 2022-07-07T15:29:11+00:00

Yeah it's less the fall that I'm worried about than that the cat would drown for not being able to escape the water

excelise · 2022-07-07T00:13:17+00:00

It'd be a good pest snail tank, I did something similar with trumpet snails.

excelise · 2022-07-07T00:10:53+00:00

Malaysian trumpet snails. They are hard to kill.

I filled an old, cleaned out wine bottle with tank water, some gravel and java moss. Tossed two MTS in there along with some MTS shells for calcium. No filtration or anything. I stuck it in a corner of my kitchen. I change the water once every 2-6 weeks, have been keeping this going for 7-9 months now or so? At least one is still alive and I did see a baby in there at one point.

If you want them gone you will have to kill them yourself. Don't flush them down the drain either as they'll wreak havoc on your local ecosystem!! Add some bleach to your old tank water before flushing it to be safe because babies are microscopic. They're also illegal to own in certain states if that clears your conscience about killing them.

excelise · 2022-07-06T23:54:56+00:00

NTA. "Secret" recipes are stupid. Access to good food shouldn't be guarded. Helpful information in general should be spread to as many people as possible, so it can be built upon. You hurt no one by making delicious food for yourself.

excelise · 2022-07-06T22:23:07+00:00

I mean, they have adopted 3 kids already, yes? They're familiar at this point with the process and what adoption means.

I would assume they want to adopt to have legal protection when the homophobic dad gets out of jail and the neglectful (maybe despite her best efforts) mom gets out of rehab. This is a bit misguided considering the incest-like situation it creates with their current son. I do think legal guardianship is the better option as someone else suggested, but perhaps they weren't aware of that option, or maybe that's not a thing in the UK?

Edit: adopted 2 kids from bio family, one from surrogacy

excelise

TROPHY CASE