Kids Won't Admit to Receiving Letters and More

>> Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Well, I've asked my stepdaughter twice if she's received the letter, pictures, and card we sent her (she should have received it by this past Saturday). She ignored my question both times.

I asked her if she'd seen the web site we'd made for them (we put up pics for them of siblings, leave them holiday greetings, etc.). It's just a site so they know we are thinking about them, etc. I sent her the link to the web site twice and asked her twice. She ignores those questions too. I've checked the stats on the web site and neither stepchild has visited the web site since sending them the link either time. Now, I know for sure my stepdaughter received the link because she answered everything else in those emails BUT the questions about the letters and web site.

What is the point of ignoring answering whether they've received our letter, card, and pictures of their siblings? Seriously, what is the point?

What is the point of not even bothering to look at the web site we made for them or refusing to answer? Maybe their mother told them we might have planted a virus in it or something and they can't visit the link. I know that's the reason she won't let them hook up their digital cameras (we bought for them for 2007 xmas) to their computer to download their pictures. God forbid they might download some pics of themselves and email them to us...that would be HORRIBLE. Who the heck knows. All I know is that this type of behavior is beyond comprehension.

What does this teach the kids?

You know what I wish? I wish my husband would call his kids on it. Call them on it and put them into a position to tell the truth for once in several years. Refuse to allow them to be disrespectful.

4 comments:

Smirking Cat February 11, 2009 at 9:35 AM  

They may ignore the question because they know their mother doesn't like them reading or receiving things from you. Sometimes the subtle disapproval is as blatant as a slap in the face to kids, but they don't specifically know what they did "wrong" (nothing besides love their parent). We have issues with that, emails and letters and phone messages that give the kids much anxiety when we ask if they got the message, if they got the email, etc. They seem to be wrestling with lying to protect the other parent, to hide that in fact they were not told their father called, and simply don't want to answer. Either way is a bad result for them, lying or hurting someone. I don't know if that's why the kids are avoiding your question, but it's very hard to know what they have been told, what has been implied, even what they have been made to feel about certain circumstances. Even if no one is directly telling the kids "You shouldn't like emails/letters/etc. from so-and-so", that feeling can be conveyed through facial expressions and other subtleties by a highly manipulative person.

Syn February 11, 2009 at 10:41 AM  

You've hit it spot on. After all these years and them getting older (they are 13 and 16 now), I was hoping that they'd get more independent, but their distancing themselves from us is worse, not better. My sd used to stand up to her mother and then came the time with sd said she wanted to kill herself because she didn't want to worry about her mother anymore and from that point on, she distanced herself from us. SS has always been distant...he knew from age 3 when he'd say, "mommy is home crying without me." His way to handle that was violence towards his younger siblings. Scary stuff for years. Therapists determined it was his way to keep himself distant from ME (hurt my kids, ensure there is no closeness between the woman his mother doesn't want him to like and himself). I know years ago my sd used to tell me that whenever we would call and they would talk to us, their mother would get real quiet and disengage from whatever they were doing together with them or act mad at them (they said her face would look mad) for talking to us...using anger or they thought taking her time away from them as punishment for paying attention to dad and dad's family. She'd cry when we'd pick them up, standing at the end of her driveway crying until we were down the road and around the corner. She'd cry on my front porch, clinging to the child and balling her eyes out. They couldn't go anywhere with us for a few days w/o her sending with them cards with her pic in each one that they were supposed to open every single day she was gone - one for each day they were away from her which ended up with them in tears every day. She's not dated since dh moved out in gosh...a decade and a half ago. Her kids are everything and there is no room for anybody else for her or for them it seems like.

She's definitely given them the message in her behavior that they will suffer if they talk or spend time with us and that SHE suffers when they do. I wonder, though, if they remember any of this or if it is just the "way things are" now. That they don't have any recollection of why they can't be close to us; that they just aren't anymore. They are 13 and 16 now.

They've lied to their paternal grandmother, saying their dad never calls them or answers when they call. I about fell over because they've initiated ONE call in five years or more and that one call - they hung up on my daughter when she answered. It was my daughter's birthday that day and she ended up crying and thinking her sister hated her. Happy birthday for her. When dad calls, he usually gets voice mail but he keeps trying until he gets them. If my daughter calls and they happen to answer the phone, they've hung up on her every.single.time. These are their half-siblings and they act like they are nobody to them. I really hate this situation.

Smirking Cat February 12, 2009 at 1:19 PM  

That makes me so angry. No matter how long I am in a situation like this, when the kids are manipulated and emotionally abused, I will never get used to or understand how a parent does that to her children. Maternal instinct, my ass.

Syn February 12, 2009 at 3:17 PM  

I've been a stepmom for 13 years and I still get angry over it. I was going thru some old paperwork a few weeks ago, looking for the child psychologist's letter about my stepson from a few years ago, and re-reading all the logs and stuff we kept had me so mad. Now this with the letter and stuff...it makes no sense to me how a "mother" can do this to her children. I was so upset the other day, I was shaking over it. I'll never get used to it either apparently.

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