[blparent] When not to be a united front.

Thu Jun 28 09:52:26 UTC 2012

I tell my sons that there are things which their mother & I can say as grown 
ups which they can't say until they get grown up. They're 15&13 now & I'm 
sure things get said behind my back that don't get said in front of me. I'm 
fine with that. I remember being those ages. There are even certain things I 
tell them they can say in the house which they can't say out in public. The 
other side of this is. As their mother & I are no longer together & haven't 
been for several years now. So, there are rules which they have in her house 
that they do not have here. &, vice versa. I understand the hole grammar 
thing to you. However, I'm sure your children's fathers grammar was what it 
was when you met him. Remember this please ma'am. You can't go around 
changing other people. If his grammar didn't bother you then. Then you 
should probably ask yourself why does it bother you now? Deal with that 
issue on your own time & in your own way. But you can't change  him.  Also 
remember that you should direct your anger if in fact you are angry or your 
frustration in the right place. At your children's father & not @ them.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jo Elizabeth Pinto" <jopinto at msn.com>
To: "Blind Parents Mailing List" <blparent at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2012 00:07
Subject: Re: [blparent] When not to be a united front.


> Hi, Jennifer.  I get the "it's complicated" part of your relationship, and 
> also the issue of not being a united front.  Case in point, my stepson is 
> right now watching Family Guy, one of the crudest shows I've ever seen on 
> television.  I wouldn't allow the show under my roof if I could help it, 
> but my stepson's dad, who also thinks the show is disgusting, says I 
> should just tune it out--which is his approach to parenting, in general, 
> and the source of a lot of our conflicts.  It's my house, but it's dad's 
> TV and Dad's son, when it comes right down to it.  The language is awful, 
> and while I haven't heard my stepson saying the swearwords, he has 
> repeated a number of terribly racist comments from the show, thinking 
> they're funny, without understanding their meaning or the implications of 
> rattling them off in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I wish I knew 
> what to do about it, but short of dumping hot coffee into the back of the 
> TV set, which has crossed my mind more than once, I'm at a loss.
>
> If you have younger kids, you can tell them that Dad uses some grown-up 
> words that they can't say.  A while back, Sarah repeated some things she 
> heard her dad yell when he ran an electric drill through his finger.  I 
> told her she could say the words in her bedroom by herself, but nowhere 
> else. She went off to her room a few times over the next couple of days 
> and said the words, but that got old fast because she didn't get any 
> attention, and the words disappeared, for the most part, from her 
> vocabulary.
>
> You might try responding the same way to your husband that you would to 
> one of your sons if he uses bad language when he is addressing you. 
> Gerald and I got in an argument last week, the point of which is neither 
> here nor there.  But he raised his voice to me, and I said I wouldn't 
> continue the conversation if he was going to yell, and that we could talk 
> when he was more calm and willing to respect me.  He started to say 
> something else, and I repeated my original sentence.  It took three or 
> four repetitions, but eventually he gave up and left the room, and we did 
> take up where we had left off later, without the yelling.  I don't know 
> your situation exactly, but hopefully some of these ideas might help.
>
> Jo Elizabeth
>
> "A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a 
> song." Maya Angelou
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: Jennifer Jackson
> Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2012 9:20 AM
> To: 'Blind Parents Mailing List'
> Subject: Re: [blparent] When not to be a united front.
>
> Peggy,
>
> My marriage is a complicated question. My husbands response to my 13 y/o
> using the f word when he is angry with me is to be angry with my son for
> speaking to me like that, but seems to make no connection between his own
> use of that kind of language to and around the kids. I have expressed to 
> him
> that this causes our children problems at school and socially, as well as
> that it embarrasses me when he speaks that way in public. He tells me that 
> I
> am unreasonable and old fashioned amongst other similar responses. Yes, I
> recognize this is serious evidence of other problems in our relationship. 
> I
> keep working at it because I have 3 children with varying special needs 
> and
> I would have even less control over what he exposes my children too if I 
> cut
> off communication. Sometimes it is better than others. It truly breaks my
> heart that a man with so much potential to be a good father and husband 
> will
> not do what has to be done for his family. He is basically a good and 
> loving
> person to whom I think I could be happily enough married to if it were not
> for trying to parent with him.
>
> That is probably more than you really wanted to know, but somehow it's
> complicated just did not seem to cover it. I appreciate you sharing Peggy,
> because it helps to measure my own struggles against what is normal.
>
> Ironically, I was really thinking more along the lines of more benign 
> issues
> like historical data and casual grammatical violations like ending a
> sentence with the word at, or using the hideous ain't, when I wrote my 
> first
> post. :) Though even spell check agrees with me that ain't is not a word. 
> :)
>
>
> Jennifer
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of Peggy
> Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2012 7:25 PM
> To: Blind Parents Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [blparent] When not to be a united front.
>
> Are you and their father together??  The reason I ask is because with my
> middle son, his father and I are no longer together and to solve this
> problem I just tell Dustin ... you may act like that or do this at your
> dad's house, but here in this house it won't be tollerated.
>
> If you occupy the same household, does talking to their dad help?? 
> Getting
> him to change his behavior for the kids' benefit would be ideal but if 
> that
> isn't going to happen I would just say, what daddy does isn't always the
> right way to behave but this is what I expect from you ... However, expect
> the same in return ... Mommy's behavior isn't always ... Yea, you get it.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: Jennifer Jackson
> Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2012 8:02 AM
> To: 'Blind Parents Mailing List'
> Subject: [blparent] When not to be a united front.
>
> Here is a little parenting conundrum. I struggle with this in my own
> relationship with my kids and their father. I generally believe in
> presenting a united front, but what about when your partner says something
> that is just factually wrong or regular sets  bad example with his abuse 
> of
> the English language? How and when do you correct the facts? I have given 
> up
> on correcting the grammar violations he makes, but it is an ongoing issue
> with my kids because they are perfectly willing to point out that their 
> dad
> does the same thing I just corrected one of them for. I am just wondering 
> if
> anyone else struggles with this kind of thing and what other people think
> about it. I am not really asking for a solution as this is, of course, a
> matter that is mixed up with the greater picture of any relationship.
>
>
>
>
>
> Jennifer
>
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