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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Reading that, I couldn't help but think this girl might have a mental illness or a learning disability of some sort. Or maybe she's simply traumatized from the experience of being abandoned. Who wouldn't be? Whatever the situation, the LW won't do herself or the girl any favors by staying in this relationship. Dad needs to focus on his kid.
You are in the same house right? You are a family now. YOU moved into her life several years ago, and she is a product of how she was raised. I am afraid, you have a hand in that. Dad is clearly negelecting her and it appears you enabled him. Where are the in laws? What was up with the Nanny and what were the Nanny's instructions? How isolated is this girl? What kind of school is she going to?
Does she love you?
No she is not the popular girl on the playground. Yes she will struggle in school. She might be socially dysfunctional but people get over that all the time. People get over the white lie self-aggrandizment. (Kids do that. Even adults do that.) If she is not fashionable enough, take her shopping and limit her wardrobe to a few pieces that will match. Go for a spa day. Take her to the club and work out. Can you do these things? I think you can do these things. I think you can be, if not the world's greatest mother, at least a friend. If these are not things you are willing to do, please do her a favor and leave. You will cause more damage.
Rent "The Sound of Music." Are you more sympathetic with Maria or the Baroness?
I have to confess that the context of this letter troubles me deeply, and my angst is for the teen, who seems to be disfuncitoning at the whim of a raft of wealthy and neglectful adults.
Mom is crazy and out there somewhere...
Dad is focused on a new life with a trophy girlfriend and a condo with a view.
Trophy girlfriend is now recognizing the concrete realities of a 16-year old, who will be part of her life for two years until, blessedly, the girl can be appropriatetly shipped off to college, where she can bounce around until something else happens.
The nanny, whom so many writers feel is a solid and loving individual, strikes me as a bit obsessive and neurotic as well as incompetent.
I was raised, in part, by nannys and housekeepers, a custom in my mother's family of origin, and possible in my childhood until the money ran out. For me, it was the single source of affection and perceptual self-awareness in an otherwise brilliant but drunken household where both parents engaged in addictive behavior as a foundation for other malignancies of function. (frankly, I would not have an adult life without the affection and discipline of a caring nanny or five - my mother used to fire them when they had "bonded" with me....) A good nanny educates to self-awareness, self-actualization and self-care, which seems to exclude this nanny on a sweeping basis. In fact, I suspect the relationship is, by now, somewhat crippling.
With as much money as seems to be floating about, and given Dad's obtuse neglect of everything but finances (perhaps) for the last four to five years, it would seem to me that the best solution for the kid is to ship her off to a very good, very small, very private private boarding school where, in the hands of skilled educators in a holistic environment, she may have a chance to focus and "catch up". it will certainly not happen in the dis-abling environment that this young woman finds herself in.
Kudos to LW for defining her own boundaries of interest. that said, I find her values horrific, but apparently effectively well-matched with her boyfriend. I suggest that with the girl safely in boarding school, these two feckless folks can become entirely selfabsorbed while watching the surf from their new residence.
But - I don't think that love and affection create the basis for this adult relationship of what may be functional convenience. If it were, LW's attitude about the offspring of her "beloved' might be entirely different. From all that is said, one suspects a relationship between two folks for mutually opportunisitic interfaces... her proffering foward youth, he proffering forward some relative affluence.
Stepparenting is not something that anyone intentionally seeks out, I suspect. I certainly did not. That said, when I fell profoundly in love with a woman who was divorcing a toxic husband, I realized that it was a "package deal", very, very early on, and moved forward accordingly. Being part of his life and upbringing was a profound honor, frankly, in retrospect. Was it easy? Na. was it worth it? Yep, first for the woman that I love, then second, for the relationship that my stepson and I carved out, on our own, out of mutual awareness and respect.
Or coming home and having your father foist daily care off on a nanny and might see his daughter once a week or so. She admits that in the fours years of her relationship with her boyfriend that they almost never saw the girl and had little to do with her. Is that normal for a father to treat his child that way?
Well, as I said before, we don't know anything about the cultural background of this family, or what is normal in their world.
Right now living at my house as family is the 11-year-old niece of my wife, a very nice child, whose mother (my sister-in-law) is divorced from the father who is remarried with another child.
Her mother has returned to her own country, leaving the child with father, step-mom, and little sis,and for whatever reason things weren't working out the the child was being left alone for long periods in a run-down apartment complex in a gang-infested neighborhood.
Now she is living with us and is perfectly happy, and speaks to her mom and her dad on the phone from time to time, and occasionally visits with her dad and step-mom, e.g. for Christmas.
Is this ideal? It seems not, but what is the point in jumping on the father and telling him that he is a lousy dad? Who knows what problems he has in his life? He is poor, he is working his butt off in a low-paid job. At least his daughter is well taken care of, fed well, has friends, and is getting a US education.
More important is that some responsible adult takes care of the child, regardless of the exact degree of consanguity.
In the example of the LW's letter, it seems to me quite possible that since the nanny appears to love and want the child, and may be the most important adult in her life, that the father probably ought to pay the nanny to continue to take care of her and have her visit as desired by both sides of the equation.
Human society is much more complex than many Salon readers allow.
And, yes, I agree that some LW's have been reasonably supportive or compassionate towards the LW, but some have been extremely vicious.
Now, time for breakfast.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
