The transaction ends here
Apr 9th, 2008 by Jill
One of the things I had to learn as a newbie stepparent is that I can’t do stuff for the kids because I’m counting on it earning me points, love, appreciation, affection, cooperation, understanding or anything else. I can do stuff for the kids because I want to do it, but I need to expect that the doing it in and of itself is what I get out of it. I might get satisfaction or pleasure from helping them or contributing to their welfare, but that’s the end of the transaction. I can’t create an emotional debt in them by giving to them or doing for them. I can’t do anything to earn any emotional or behavioral responses from them. The satisfaction I get by loving them comes from inside me — from the pleasure of loving them or the pleasure doing what I feel is the right thing.
The question I try to ask myself these days is, “Do I want to do this, or do I feel I should do this, regardless of whether it helps me build a better bond with the kids?” And if the answer is no, that’s okay. Giving to or doing for kids because I’m trying to get something from them that I think I couldn’t get otherwise seems like a recipe for pain and disappointment and estrangement down the road. Because of course I don’t ask the kids, “If I buy you those big, fuzzy slippers, will you approve of me?” They don’t know the deal I’m making with them. Even if I feel like I’m making it with them, I can be pretty sure they don’t know they’re making it with me. Because they’re not.
Bonding with the kids is important, but it’s different from providing for them and caring for them. I don’t think it’s fair to the kids or to the relationship to link the two things together to the point that they depend on each other and affect each other. I think parents of newborns know this almost immediately, long before the kids can communicate through language. As a new stepparent to kids who could talk, it was a little harder to see this at first. It’s can be easy to see kids who can talk as mini-adults. With adults we engage in much more reciprocal relationships. With kids, that’s not fair.
So, the “transaction” ends when I do whatever it is I’m doing for the kids. What I get out of it is the satisfaction of having done it. The transaction ends with the action. It doesn’t create a debt the kids are expected to repay.
Well said. I have been working on this, too. It has been a challenge for me because sometimes I can be quite sensitive when it comes to my stepsons and their actions (or lack of) toward me. I think that it creates a burden for the giver also when they expect something in return. And of course, you are disappointed when you don’t receive your perceived “whatever” it was you were seeking.
It helps me when I stand in their shoes for a moment, which allows me to observe things from different angles. We are the adults and must act as such.
Not to mention, I love how you pointed out that there is indeed a difference between bonding and providing/caring for the children. Sometimes I feel I confuse the two. But the bottom line is that I do love my stepsons; I guess I just want to be loved in return–which hopefully will come in due time. But who knows, they might already!
Interesting post, Jill. I’ve talked with my sister a lot about this (she was a SM before she was a BM).
“Bonding with the kids is important, but it’s different from providing for them and caring for them. I don’t think it’s fair to the kids or to the relationship to link the two things together to the point that they depend on each other and affect each other.”
That is so true, and so important. What a great insight. Thanks for sharing.