Confrontation

Children confront you with your own stuff. All parents know this and as a new stepparent I'm starting to realize how true this is.

Chris is a lively boy with an ADHD diagnosis and an indomitable will. He's alsot 13 and is practising his clout in the world. One of the ways he does this is by incessant battles of will with his mom. Also his battles are always physical, barring her way to the kitchen, taking any object and keeping it away from her, endlessly and all the time.

Joyce calls it "puppy behavior". She sais: "Every day, sometimes more than once, he has to prove to me that he's stronger than me. It's playing, it's learning his strength, trying his wings." She has endless patience with him that way and sais it's all going to go away when he get's a little older. Then he's going to start protecting his mom, just like his older brothers do. I can't wait!

What's interesting is my reaction to it all. I'm totally impatient and intolerant of this type of behavior. When I want to go to the store I don't want a 13 year old blocking my way (or Joyces). I want to do my thing and not be bothered by his endless puppy behavior. And when I tell him to stop I want him to stop, this instant!
Well, Chris isn't going to change his behavior towards his mom just because I'm around and she tolerates it, even enjoys it.

I'm learning to just go away, leave the room or even the house when they are roughhousing around like that. I always get very emotional, very angry and charged. Afterwards I cry and the penny drops: too much like the way it was in my family. The constant threat of physical violence too much for me to handle. It's not my place to to force Chris to be other than he is, that would be more of the same stuff that was done unto me. I don't want that, not for him nor for me. In those moments it's difficult for me to see a little kid trying out his strength, I see a situation that is potentially explosive and it frightens me. My personal reality from growing up in a violent home.

So I'm confronted with my own childhood... I'm learning what parents seem to know intuitively: Stepchildren are your mirror, they'll show you what's what in your life.