I am a 55 year old woman. I live in a very traditional part of Catalunya with my partner and his son who is 18. When I first moved into the family home, he was 14 and going between his father and his mother’s houses every fortnight but she has since left the country and he is with us full-time.
It has been a great challenge for me – he is an adolescent and not an easy character to share a home with. I began my step-parenting life in what are known to be the worst possible circumstances. Childless woman, father with weak boundaries, poor relation between natural parents, trying to make home in the ex-marital house, living in a different culture and with two new languages and a child who has been parented by two people who swither between being over indulgent and over strict but with little or no consistency.
He is like most teenagers I suppose, but I think he is more closed, more dishonest, more angry, more selfish, more lazy, more fucked up than normal. I don’t know – it’s not something you can see until it is far in the past and is a story rather than your everyday reality. I am not an expert but I think he is a boy with a grudge. He’s not affectionate or intimate with anyone in the family so I try not to take it personally but it isn’t easy.
Problems we have had with him – refusing to go to school, never doing homework, rages when someone tries to limit his games on the computer, stealing money from both of us, stealing and using our credit cards to play online poker, not showering, not cleaning teeth at all, never cleaning room, being rude and aggressive, demanding more and better things like mobile phones or computers or replica guns, refusal to eat any food except meat and pasta and pizza.
So, here I am writing to keep myself sane, looking for peace, understanding, healing. I meditate and pray and read as much as possible about how to bring up boys in general and stepsons in particular but I have the feeling that the only answer is Patience!
Would be lovely to connect with others in the same situation but I will use this space as much for myself as for communicating with others. I want to stay anonymous so I can write what I feel honestly.
If you do find me – let me know and I will be happy to hear from you.
Resident Adolescent 