It’s been really foggy here in the valley. I mean the kind of fog where you have almost no visibility at times. It’s in these moments when I remember that when I was a teen I said I would never live in the valley. Only my kids came along and suddenly my upbringing came into play. The thought of bringing up my kids in a big California city or raising them in a small town in the valley loomed before me and I chose the small town in the valley.
There is something about not seeing the sun for days on end. It makes the time endless and mundane. Going to work in the fog and coming home in the fog gets old. Wednesday, just when it got to be too much to handle, my husband called a meeting. He decided we’d go to the coast to have a sand seminar. So off we went and 30 minutes later we were driving in full sunshine and 20 degrees warmer. We went to sit on the beach. The temperature was 74 degrees, the sun felt so necessary on my skin and our work still got done thanks to the modern technology of an ipad.
It is those little moments of a two hour break in the sunshine that makes me realize how adored we are by God. He really cares about the little things in my life and letting me have a little moment was so refreshing. Recognizing the blessing of a car, an ipad, a job where I can sneak off for a day, the sun, the warmth, the sand, the shore, my husband. I really have a great life. It’s those little things that make life worth living and in those moments where my selfish self doesn’t take the things that God has blessed us with for granted.
I have to say that I have a husband who adores me as well. The fact that he noticed I needed some sun and that he was able to move some meetings around to take me is pretty great. The fact that he sat quietly and didn’t complain when I brought my work with me wasn’t lost on me. He really is a great guy and he loves me. My heart is full!
Psalm 16:1 Keep me safe, O God, I’ve run for dear life to you. 2 I say to God, “Be my Lord!” Without you, nothing makes sense. 3 And these God-chosen lives all around – what splendid friends they make! 4 Don’t just go shopping for a god. Gods are not for sale. I swear I’ll never treat god-names like brand-names. 5 My choice is you, God, first and only. And now I find I’m your choice!6 You set me up with a house and yard. And then you made me your heir! 7 The wise counsel God gives when I’m awake is confirmed by my sleeping heart. 8 Day and night I’ll stick with God; I’ve got a good thing going and I’m not letting go. 9 I’m happy from the inside out, and from the outside in, I’m firmly formed. 10 You canceled my ticket to hell – that’s not my destination! 11 Now you’ve got my feet on the life path, all radiant from the shining of your face. Ever since you took my hand, I’m on the right way. -“The Message”
It’s been crazy busy around the Young house. Friends, family, church, store there are lots of obligations that came on all at once. We’ve had a wonderful season this year and I have to take a second to encourage all the stepfamilies out there. This year, we finally were able to come together and have a really great season. Statistics tell you that it takes 7 years to blend a family and we were no exception.
This year my resolution is really simple. This year, I will breathe in deeply the presence of God, I will not measure my life’s success as a human doing but rather a human being. I don’t know about you but I am my harshest critic. I will turn 46 this year and I think I’ve come to the conclusion that my plate will always be full but I don’t have to eat everything off of it everyday. I’m sure I will one day die with a do-to list left behind and I’m sure someone will come behind me and finish it. This year I want to be focused solely on being.
I hope these first seven days of the year have been great to you. I am continually thinking of all of you and I there is still much to be said!
This was the scene at my stylist’s as I was getting my hair done. It went like this:
A girl and her mom walked into the salon. My stylist says to the young girl:
Stylist: Hi! You didn’t go to school today?
Girl: (smiles) Nope! I’m getting my piercing today.
Stylist: So your dad said yes?
Girl: ummmm
Mom: No, she didn’t ask him because she knows that he is going to say no.
Girl: So, yeah we’re not going to tell him.
Mom: (looking nervous) Yeah, when he finds out he is going to be mad. He doesn’t believe in this. There will be hell to pay for this.
Girl: (rolls her eyes) So? I know people who have two piercings.
Mom: (laughs nervously and shrugs)
Clearly we see a mom who is not in control of her daughter and who has serious anger issues towards her husband. Sadly, they acted like two teenagers against the establishment. You have to see what the long term effects of this is. The daughter learns that men’s opinions don’t matter and that you do what you want to do behind your husband’s back. A mother is teaching her daughter how to dishonor her husband and her father.
The wife clearly has no backbone and no idea what it means to help lead a house and family successfully. Fathers matter, they hold their family in safety. Whether society tells us that they matter or they don’t, fathers really matter. I don’t remember a single time when my mom went against my father over his opinion when it came to his children.
This scenario was nothing new. I see it al the time and always with bad results. I have never seen a woman, who keeps secrets from her husband regarding their children, end up in a place of honor with honorable children. The reason is because it’s the abdication of leadership. Where there is no leadership, the chaos runs wild. There should be a healthy respect of parents and a desire to please them. When a woman undermines a father by keeping secrets she most often ends up with results she could not have foreseen especially in her daughter. A daughter looks for significance and value from her father. When she finds out her father is worthless in the home and not worthy of her mother’s honor, then she looks to other men to fulfill that value within her. A mother who keeps secrets from her husband does her daughter a disservice.
Likewise, when the shoe is on the other foot, and a father keeps secrets from a mother, the daughter looks suspiciously at men. Men lie, men don’t tell the truth, men keep secrets, men don’t care what women think, is the message she gets. The abdication of leadership has long-term effects.
When I goofed up as a child my first response was, “My parents are going to be so mad.” I knew I had disappointed them with my actions. This girl at the salon had none of that towards her parents. Her mother clearly wasn’t strong enough to stand up to her daughter and this will have bad consequences to it.
What I see today is the clear abdication of leadership in parenting. I see that no one wants to be the bad guy. Parents just want to be liked. Parents fear rejection and we are definitely afraid of losing our children. We’re afraid they’ll run away. Where are they going to go where there is a warm bed, and three square meals a day and run of the house? I don’t think my grandparents ever feared their kids leaving home before it was time. I hear parents say, “You don’t want to push them away.” Some of those parents have kids who are doing things they shouldn’t be doing. These kids don’t love their parents more, they surely don’t respect their parents more, and these kids are looking for boundaries somewhere.
Our kids depend on us to be leaders, our kids are not equipped for leadership and we certainly aren’t doing them any favors, nor are we teaching them how to lead productive, united lives with the family they will one day form. Although, they don’t act as if they want leadership, they thank parents later for their leadership.
I know a young woman with three kids who each have a different father. She lives at home and was never married. Now that she is older she blames her parents for never saying no to her. Her parents say now, that they didn’t like the guys she dated but when it counted, they didn’t put their foot down. Now it’s too late for the whole family. Is it the parent’s fault ultimately? Not entirely no, but they share responsibility. The things they allowed in their home, is a direct result of the fruit they all now have to bear.
This deal about, well if I as the parent don’t let them, then they’ll sneak and do it anyway doesn’t hold water. It clearly doesn’t allow you to abdicate your responsibility. When the child respects you and understands your rules and the consequences it may not stop the behavior but it helps. And if they go off and do it anyway? Then your account will be clear before God that you did your parenting to the best of your ability and that you were stood your ground morally and ethically. Then who could blame you?
Today my husband turns 47. He’s been really cool to hang out with and he makes me laugh most days.
I enjoy my time with him. I love our talks, our date nights, our ability to sit in a room together and say absolutely nothing and be completely comfortable. I love that he puts up with my dog and loves her because I love her. I love that we love to walk on the beach together. I am happy to work alongside him and that we are each other’s best friend. A better friend I could not have. Oh, and did I tell you that when he calls me darlin’ with his accent, it kills me? I love him more as the years go by.
I have been blessed to be your wife, Douglas Young! You are kind, merciful, loving, easy-going and a great man. Have a great birthday and a wonderful year. I know God has great and exciting things for you this year!
This is an ongoing series on stepparenting. To read the previous entry click here.
Lady Tremaine suddenly finds herself misunderstood and the magnifying glass is on her. Why is there no peace in her home? Why is she always disapproving? Why can’t we all just get along? Why does she take the blame for everything?
The children on both sides of the coin are vying for control. One child told his stepmother, “Every time I hum a song using da, like ‘da da da dadum dum’ it really means I’m praying for my dad to ‘da-vorce’ you.” So each time they got in the car to go somewhere as a family, the child would sit behind her in the car and as the music would play on the car stereo, the child would kick her seat and hum along using the “da”. By the time they reached their destination she would be furious and the child would be in control and loving it. Her husband simply didn’t believe her because the child was only 8 years old, at the time, and it seemed too manipulative a move for a child this age.
Stepmothers need to take an honest assessment of the situation they are in. If the home is becoming hostile and she is getting resentful and feeling like an outsider, she must back off and take a hands off approach to the children. She can’t step into a stepmother role, rather she must be seen as a mentor. This is not easy because our idea of a family is a mother and father. Only we have to remember that these children have a mother and father, for the most part, and they haven’t asked for another.
If a battle is ensuing in your home you must step back. The house will become unbalanced. There is no way around this. It means the things you need to have done will more than likely not get done. If your rule is to bring your own dirty clothes down to the laundry room on Wednesday for wash day, you can bet that the children will forget or ignore. It’s not personal. It doesn’t add to your chores either. You will simply have less clothes to wash that day. On Friday when everyone is looking to you to provide the clean School Spirit Shirt, you’ll simply say, “I washed all the clothes that were brought to me on Wednesday”. If dishes weren’t done the night before, well then tonight you won’t be able to cook dinner. Don’t worry, cereal for dinner has never killed a family. The key here is to give the person with the responsibility the ultimate authority while saving your sanity.
One stepmother would get up each morning to get her stepchildren off to school. Because they had ignored bedtimes the night before, there was always a battle. She’d think to herself how she was ignored the night before and now she was paying for something she hadn’t done. By the time she dropped them off at the bus stop, she was angry, kids were angry, and everyone was miserable. One harried morning she was rushing kids to get up and get moving while getting herself ready for work. Then, one of the kids threw up. Not having the time to figure it out and get the other one to the bus stop, she told the sick child to go back and lie down and she would be right back. She loaded up the other child and ran them to the bus stop. When she came home the sick child wasn’t home. She was frantic and called her husband. They both went looking for the child and when they found him wandering the streets, he began to cry to his father saying that he had thrown up and his evil stepmother had grounded him for life and told him to go to his room and never come out. The father was enraged and asked how she could be so heartless? It had never happened but it didn’t matter, she must have had a tone or a look or something. She had a choice, fight, flight, or take a step back. Guess what? This stepmother took a step back. She removed herself from the responsibility of getting children ready for school. Do you want to know the result? The children’s father was frustrated in no time, yelling, rushing out the door and the bedtime rules which seemed harsh before, became law. When her husband would come to complain about how hard it was, she would pat him on the arm and say, “I’m sorry you are going through this. Parenting is hard work.”
In his book, Forgotten God, Francis Chan asks the question, how much do you love the church?
I read this with interest and thought about some things that are really disturbing to me. Recently, my son was called a bible thumper in youth group. It made me laugh, although my son was angry about it, but it was a funny statement coming from within the church. I laughed because it’s true! He is a bible thumper and his questions and study make me smile.
We read the bible at our house and we discuss it and we teach it and we try very hard to live it. Although, yeah, with teenagers we sometimes find ourselves defending and explaining ideals that they often find old-fashioned to our culture today. What was meant as a put-down wasn’t in my eyes because it’s our job to teach the bible to our kids. We love the church that much! Not even because we are pastors either. We loved the church before we were in ministry. We are friends of the groom, called to serve his bride and prepare her for a wedding. This is why I love the picture above so much. The people in the picture are caring for every detail of the bride in preparation!
What happens though when the church doesn’t know she’s getting married? I have a friend who is faithful to her church attendance. Her children are in Sunday School each Sunday. Get beyond the basics of Sunday School and her kids know nothing really about the word of God. They can’t pray cognitively for a meal or for themselves or others. Should not love for the church begin at home? I spoke to this issue with her. What I realized was to raise a bible thumper you really have to believe the bible. You have to know it, you have to read it. A thousand sermons at your left hand and ten thousand at your right, makes you no more an effective witness if you don’t know your word. How can your family stand against the trials of the world if they do not know the word or who the bride is beyond a mere acquaintance? So what is the fruit of our testimony? Is it not in part our children and our life? Does it matter that the people who I call friends and co-workers come to ask me to pray for them but my kids live like hell? How much do I love the church? It shows first in my life. No not one of us is perfect nor do any of us have the perfect family, I certainly don’t. I want to try to do better. I want to love the church so much that television or tiredness or overwork doesn’t cause me to forsake my family. I don’t want to depend on the little songs from childhood Sunday School to get my kids through. I want to be active and engaged in their education. I want them to know that I love God not just with my lips but with my action and my advancement of the kingdom in their lives. I ask what my kids are reading in their bibles, and no it’s not the only thing they read. We discuss viewpoints and my bible thumper has some deep thoughts that you’d never know about unless you ask. Bible study is not just for the pastor’s kids, it’s for everyone who loves the church.
The number one search engine term that people use to get to our blog is ‘I am a mistake’ which prompted me to write the blog You’re Not A Mistake. The second thing that brings people to our site are issues with children and we’ve written quite a bit on that.
The third is ‘why do men cheat’. I hadn’t written on it because I didn’t really think I had answers. I began to make notes as to what some reasons are that we hear in counseling as to why men cheat. Interestingly enough I found some common reasons.
Hungry Men Cheat. No! Not hungry as in physical food but hungry as in something is missing. Whether a valid concern or a fantasy of what they thought a marriage was supposed to be, it doesn’t really matter because it still leads them down a wrong path. So the question is why are they hungry and what are they hungry for?
Respect. So often we marry men and then expect them to change. When they don’t become that fantasy man we thought they had potential to become we get mad. We begin to nitpick at their flaws. Who wants that? So suddenly the girl at the office who thinks he has potential and flatters him begins to look good. Just like you used to look before you decided he wasn’t all that.
Lisa Bevere made a poignant statement in her series Nurture. She said that women train their husbands and serve their children. That statement smacked me in the head. How many times have we determined that our husbands way of doing things are wrong and ours is right? What gives us the right? I think most women would respond negatively if the roles were reversed. Quit nagging about what he isn’t and appreciate what he is. I don’t think I have to go into any more details here. Make your man feel as if what he does for you is important.
Letting ourselves go. What does it cost us to put some makeup on and try to look like we care a little bit? There is this thing, I believe, in marriage where we become too familiar. I don’t give myself a facial in front of my husband. I understand he’s visual and I don’t want to put an image of my face with a mud mask as a visual in his head. I also keep myself in decent shape and I wear pretty things in and out of bed. We need to quit lying to ourselves and making excuses for our lackadaisical behavior. We would have been mortified if, when we were dating, our man had seen us the way we run around now. You put your best foot forward for strangers, why don’t we do that for our husbands?
Putting others above him. There is no one above your husband. Not your mom, not your best friend, not your children. You need to remember that. If you don’t put your husband as number one someone else will.
Be sexy, flirt shamelessly, have lots of sex, be nice to him, cook him dinner.
Finally, sometimes no matter what you do and how good you are at the things I’ve mentioned above, affairs happen. Sometimes, you married a bad man who didn’t appreciate what he had at home. Sometimes he didn’t put the boundaries in place in his life that he needed to keep himself safe. Sometimes he’s so busy looking around for the next best thing that he will never be satisfied with the good thing he’s found. There are men who hang with other men where cheating is expected and they fall to peer pressure. Then there is the power they feel in being able to conquer. These aren’t your normal decent men. Your normal decent man isn’t looking at other women with lust. He’s happy at home.
If you are honest you’ll see places where you can affair-proof your marriage. It won’t guarantee 100%, but it can make a big difference.
Ultimately though, I will say an affair is a decision that was made. Two people did not just get naked without a lot of boundaries being broken. So the responsibility of the action falls on the person having the affair. The actions that lead up to this devastating action is ours to examine and change before it’s too late.
This is an ongoing series on Blended Families. To read the previous post click here.
I’m sure Cinderella loved Lady Tremaine in the beginning. It always starts out with a love fest. I don’t think any stepmother would enter into a relationship with children who hated her. Cinderella, being an only child had to have imagined having two sisters would be a blessing. Lady Tremaine must have felt that one more daughter to love would be wonderful as well. Finally two broken families would become one complete one! Sounds romantic and safe doesn’t it?
If only that were the end of the story, we’d smile and go home bored. We don’t know the middle part of the story but we know it ends very badly. We know we’ve never seen Lady Tremaine smile. Not even once. We know that she has become angry and bitter. Have you ever asked yourself why?
Further we know from Cinderella’s perspective that she feels she is a slave, she gets no love and everyone hates her. This is pretty typical even today. In the story of Hansel and Gretel their dad was a woodcutter. How long must their dad had been out in the woods that their stepmother got fed up, and sent them to the witch’s house?
While these may be fairy tales of our childhood and great Disney animated movies we can learn a lot from them. For example, will the biological parent please stand up? Where are the parents in these scenarios? Where are the grandparents and the support systems that these families need? This is an important key to the entire process.
The honeymoon phase is that dating part of the relationship where everyone is happy to know each other. Only I wonder how much of this is imagination and wishful thinking and how much of this is real? In a dating situation it’s a lot easier to overlook the underlying issues but if we are honest we see the issues, it just that love clouds judgment in this stage.
I know a woman who thought her boyfriend’s kids were out of control and needed some discipline. When she broached the subject with him, he answered, “Of course my kids are out of control, I’m out of control, that’s why you are so good for us, you will bring us balance.” Instead of heeding the warning signals that were being thrown at her she became a Lady Tremaine within a year. The problem was the family clinged to her. They had fun with her, they wanted to be around her and she was flattered enough to overlook her intuition.
Other women I have spoken to say all was well until they got married then the children turned on them. It really wasn’t that the children turned on them, it was that there are such delicate dynamics here. Day to day living is a much different animal than the honeymoon phase.
You must go in with eyes wide open. What are some of the obstacles? What do the biological parents think of this new relationship? In the movie Stepmom, there is a scene where the children are horse-back riding with their mother played by Susan Sarrandon. The children are discussing Isabel their dad’s new love interest, played by Julia Roberts, and they seem to like her. There is a poignant moment in the film where the children see the reaction of their mother and sense that she is not pleased at all. So they tell their mother, “If you want us to hate her we will.” Remember that a child’s first allegiance is always going to be with the bio parent. Even still Hollywood makes endings simple. Real life is not.
One of the healthiest thing a parent can do is give their child permission to love. Unfortunately that isn’t always the case in a divorce situation and so a war ensues where the prisoners of war are the children.
So what are some boundaries to consider discussing before you get married and blend a family? Here are some basic questions to get you started but there are many, many more and it is wise to begin to get a list together.
Will children have their own rooms or will they share?
Who will clean the room?
Are children allowed to play with each other’s things without permission?
If a child visits on weekends, will that child have special exemptions from the everyday household chores of the children who live in the home permanently?
Will the children be allowed to bring their pets from their other family home on visits?
Will the non-biological parent be allowed to discipline the children?
What does discipline look like to you?
What do children’s chores look like to you?
Are you allowed to open each other’s mail?
Are there certain things that are off limits? For example, can children come into your room and get your favorite lipstick, razor, blouse, watch?
How much input, into your new marriage, is allowed to be made by your former spouses?
Is a pet snake an acceptable family pet?
How will holidays be handled?
How much is too much to spend on clothing, video games, Christmas?
You can see how problems can arise quickly and escalate into pitting two camps against each other. Nothing is too petty to discuss at this point. It is no wonder we find Lady Tremaine angry when we meet her. I don’t believe any woman sets out to marry a man with children just to torment them and herself.
Finally, a word of warning, do not put this off or think it’s going to work out on it’s own. It just isn’t. Also beware that if you are compromising your answers to get this marriage started, you will face the consequences later. It is much better to discuss and find out that although you love each other, this will not work, than it is to drag yourself and your family through another divorce.
Finally, if you are already married, it is never too late to sit down calmly, not during a battle, and strategize. You already know what the issues are, now it’s time to lay them on the table and come to reasonable solutions.
This is third installment to read part 2 click here.
From Cinderella’s perspective we get the story that she was made to do all the chores and her only friends were mice. This is pretty much the perspective overall of stepchildren worldwide. While the biological daughters were getting their hair done, poor Cinderella was slaving for this family.
When a couple gets married for the first time, boundaries aren’t really an issue. They are established together and little by little as life unfolds, they discover things about themselves and about each other and boundaries are set and discussed. So it is no wonder that we believe that the same process of the first marriage is exactly how you would begin a second marriage.
Not so at all. A second marriage comes with a whole cast of characters that you didn’t have in a first marriage. A second marriage often has children already in place, it also has ex-spouses, ex-in-laws, friends who are friends with your ex, and well, you get the picture. It is a serious misconception that you come into this marriage as a man and a woman getting ready to begin a life together. You come in as two camps trying to make a life together. It is a much harder proposition to make several people happy, rather than just please two people in love.
Boundaries must be set before the wedding. This is one of the pitfalls I see to second marriages. The boundaries are necessary or there will be a lot of presumptions, miscommunications, hurt feelings, and battles. Think about it. If you live in a house, it has clear land boundaries. Let’s say you have great neighbors. You guys BBQ out in the back yard, if you forget to take the trash out to the curb on trash day, if he notices, he halls it out there for you, you guys like each other. One day your neighbor buys a new RV. Only it doesn’t fit in his carport, but if he removes your fence, he can park it in your yard because you have plenty of room! He neither asks you nor considers that you’d mind at all. He simply does it. You arrive home from work, your dog has run away, because the fence is down, and there is this big RV in your yard. Your neighbor looks shocked! How could you be mad? After all, he’s taken your trash out for years. Suddenly you have problems.
There is a saying that says: Good fences make good neighbors. This applies to second marriages. You are bringing two families together there must be boundaries or there will be battles. Those battles can increase and become a war in no time.
Next week, we’ll discuss what boundaries should be set and some serious questions that need some answers.
Pastor Susan 