To satisfy Splozza, who wants a lively friends page

[mrsbrown]

I'm angry. I think I've made progress, because when I thought in the car that I was shutting down my emotions, I recognised that as my anger response. Then when I came inside I told them I was angry and then let rip. Unfortunately nothing's resolved. But I did say I was angry.

I wanted to play happy families tonight. I wanted to get the good food that happy, functional families easily get it together to buy every week. I wanted to give my children to an interesting cultural experience, that I've planned to do for years, but never quite managed. Wanting to do happy families seems to be the wrong thing for me to do.

We went to the Preston Market. We had cheap pizza for dinner. I gave G $20 and set him lose on the deli section while J and I bought the meat. We met up again after that and I wanted to spend the last 20min of open market time buying fruit and vegies.

G had mentioned when we left home that he needed the next Honor Harrington book. I told him it was on my PDA. When we arived at the market, G realised he'd been talking and had missed out on asking for my PDA so he could read the book. He asked for the PDA as we walked into the market. I raced us to the pizza place because the kids were obviously too hungry to be reasonable. I jollied him along and told him he couldn't have the PDA, because at the market was not an appropriate place to read. I know now I was playing happy families.

I jollied him along again a bit later while buying fruit and veg.. He started getting insistant, grabbing my bag to find it. I didn't let him have it. I explained calmly that the market was no place for him to read, we were participating in a family process, and he was expected to be involved. He lost his temper and asked me for the car keys in a very insistant voice. I told him no, if he didn't want to be involved in buying food, he could sit at a table and wait but I didn't want him to cop out. He grabbed my bag again and I held his hand to stop him getting into my bag. I explained that his behavior was unacceptable, that grabbing somebody, or something they are wearing is assault and is completely the wrong way to deal with anybody. It should never be used. He continued to hold my bag and ask insistently for the keys. We had a standoff for 5 min.

J tried to intervene early on but I asked him to leave it to me. Then suddenly J jumped on G's back and we ended up with the completely embarrassing, FUCKED, domestic fight in the middle of the market. Not that it was much less embarrassing, having a 16 year old hold on to your handbag, and lean over you while arguing loudly. Who can buy fruit and veg after that sort of incident? We came home after wandering for a short time and finding G at the train station.

I have several options:

1. Never take G out in public
2. Fully and completely describe exactly what activity I am planning and get G's complete agreement and a clear understanding of the rights and responsibilities we each have. (sounds like bullshit to me)
3. Keep fucking trying
4. Find some kickarse consequence for his behavior so I am sure that he gets how completely out of line he was this evening (we are still arguing this one. He doesn't understand what he did) (I'm still trying to work out if I was unreasonable in any way)
5. Find some way to get J to understand how FUCKED using violence with G is ( I guess I'm embarrassing him with this post)
6. Send G to live with his father, they can rot in this sort of bullshit together.
7. come up with a consequence, only to have G defy me again and continue this bullshit power struggle

I'm not happy with any of them.

Part of the problem has to do with the dissonance of G's position. He is a child, with an incomplete view of the world. He looks like an adult and mostly speaks and behaves like one. When I interact with him I treat him as an adult and then get surprised by his lack of ability to behave in the way I expect reasonable adults to behave. Then I come down on him like a ton of bricks, because I feel he can't afford to behave that way. He looks too old to make allowances for.

It feels a lot like when Z was two, and I realised that I was doing too much for him and needed to teach him to wait and make do with what he had. Z threw temper tantrums then too.

Comments

[mrsbrown.livejournal.com]

Hmmm yes,

there is always my anger response at MTB going on when I have these interactions with G or Z. I'm aware of how much an essentially interesting person fucked up his life through his attitude, and I don't want that for my kids.

[splodgenoodles.livejournal.com]

I have deleted my comment because it was out of line and not likely to improve the situation. My judgement was pretty skewed at the time.

Agree

[erudito.livejournal.com]

No, you weren't being unreasonable. G. was invading your space in a way which was way, way unreasonable. (And J's defending of your space was probably fairly primal in its sources.)

G's both old enough and bright enough to have a sense of other people's space. This is pretty elementary.

A traditional response to this sort of problem is boarding school. I have seen it work.