Step-family Talk

I know, I know…. I said I was going to define a good father today. And it IS the subject of this post, but I don’t want to define a good father yet. I want this to be the most interactive post I have yet written. You see, I have a theory and I want to test my theory. Unfortunately, if I say anything about it, it will skew the survey I want to take. So, I shall not mention my theory until tomorrow. What I ask of you today, is to take a minute and write down the first five things that come to your mind when you think of defining a good dad. And then, I want you to post them in the comments. Don’t worry, if your definitions are the same as others. I want an honest gut reaction to this question. So, if you would be so kind, write your answers out on a piece of paper before you go to the comments section.

I am going to be bold and directly request the opinion of some other bloggers out there. The following list is sites that I read all the time and opinions that I value. There is no special order:

Sympathy Pain
The Anvil Tree
Freaked Out Fathers
The Molks
Be a Good Dad
Be a Good Mom
Down With The Kids
Parenting Under The Stars
Death By Children

If you are reading this and not listed here, I encourage you to respond to this article, the larger the survey, the better. Tomorrow, I will have a regular posting. Wednesday I will summarize the results of the comments and give my theory.

Again, the question is, “What five things first come to your mind when you think of defining a good dad?”

The last couple of days, I’ve been on a rant about what I feel society has lost with the breakdown of traditional values and conceptions of what it means to be a man. Today I want to focus on why it’s important for children to be a father and tomorrow I will look at defining a father.

I have found several good articles on the impact of a father in the household. Check out this article on the Importance of Fathers I’d like to point out a couple areas of this paper.

The first shows the accelerating trend of children living in mother-only homes. In 1950 about one out of every 20 children lived in a mother-only home. By 1998 nearly 1 out of every 4 children lived in a mother-only home. Prior to 1950 the main reason for a mother-only home was attributed to death. Now the main cause is unwed motherhood or divorce.

The second shows just how much of an impact having both parents in the household has on a child:

Adolescents who live some time of their childhood in a single-parent household, which most often are mother-only families, are twice as likely to drop out of school, twice as likely to have a child before age 20 and one and a half times as likely to be idle–out of school and out of work–in their late teens and early young adult years. (These risk factors can be moderated when single-parent families have increased income, close ties with family, friends, and community, and when children have a positive relationship with the non-resident parent as well as the resident parent.)

The second article I want to point out is from the Child Welfare Gateway and is called the Importance of a Father in the Healthy Development of Children I’d like to highlight a couple areas of importance. Children with highly involved children are more likely to develop effective social skills, are 43% more likely to achieve mainly A’s in school, are better able to cope with stress in a school setting, the rough play usually associated with fathers actually helps children manage aggressive behavior.

Later in the article, there is reference to the protection a father offers their children. Fathers act as a barrier against maltreatment. Sixty-four percent of all maltreatment cases are perpetrated by the mother. The major factor in these cases is that the mother is raising the children are their own. When a father steps into the picture and shares in the responsibilities of raising children the mother’s stress level decreases. The probability of a child being maltreated in a two-parent home is nearly half that of a child living in a single parent home.

Fathers, if you think your job isn’t important look again. Just by being part of the family you increase your children’s chances of getting a good education, learning socially responsible behavior, having a quality relationship of their own, and grow up safely without the threat of maltreatment. If improving the odds of a good life for your child isn’t enough, let me also add this. Active fathers have better overall health and reduce mom’s level of stress, which in turn helps make for a better marriage.

I want to continue along the lines of yesterday’s subject. The purpose of the topics this week is to show the importance of a stable father figure in a child’s life. This figure can be in the form of a mentor, a stepfather, or a biological father. Later this week, I will show significant numbers and studies that address the importance of the impact a father has on the life of a child. Today I want to return to the idea Lewis proposed in the Abolition of Man that society must teach its children right from wrong. Teaching right from wrong also means teaching children how to discern popular opinion from the right belief.

I had a couple of days off earlier this year and was blown away by what passes as daytime entertainment. The majority of shows were either courtroom television or sensational talk shows. Apparently watching someone get sued or watching a woman parade five men across the stage as the possible father of their child is what we value today. Shows like The Simple Life teach us that its okay to have no work ethic, no knowledge, and no responsibility. Either I missed the boat and the wisdom of thousands of years has really been teaching us that it is better to get money from by taking it from others rather than earning it, that committed relationships are a waste of time and the virtuous are those that let others pick up there slack, or we’ve had a serious breakdown in standing up for what is right.

Sick of the day time television I turned on the radio. I quickly learned that the more bling in your grill the more likely you are to find yourself some bitches or hoes. Apparently if you’re a guy this is the ultimate goal in life and if there aren’t any women any more, their either bitches or hoes. I wonder how a musical ‘artist’ would react if you asked him to which category his mother belongs.

Tired of all the media palaver I decided to take my son to the zoo. So, I loaded up the wagon, the baby bags, and my son into the van (Which pimps everywhere would recognize as disappointingly absent of any spinners, chrome or low profile 22’s—if you don’t know what I’m talking about turn on MTV for about 30 seconds.) and we headed off. I turned on some talk radio along the way. I thought here I will find something stimulating–turns out that the general consensus among the various discussions is that we are still so rooted in traditional values decreed by crusty old white men that society can’t advance. We aren’t recognizing equality of the races or the genders. Have they turned on a radio or television or looked at a magazine lately? I’m not quite a crusty old man yet, but I am getting there and I can certainly say that nothing I’ve come across lately has anything to do with those nasty old traditional values.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against any person getting equal pay for equal quality of work. I have nothing against equal voting rights. I have nothing against equal representation under the law. I have issues with anything that gives a societal advantage to a person because they happen to be a particular color or gender. What I am saying is that I have to disagree with their conclusion that society is failing because we want to persist with traditional values. A big issue I have with the break down of values is a homogenizing of the genders. It is one thing to give equality to status, but it is another to try and neuter everyone. Men ought to be men and women ought to be women. I learned this at the zoo. Everywhere I looked there were differences between the males and females of the species. Each had an important role to play for their species. The male animals in the zoo weren’t trying to be females and the females weren’t trying to be males. I could look at the peacocks with their extravagant feathers and tell my son that that was a male. I could look at the peahen and tell my son it was female. And when each plays the part particular to its gender the species continues.

In our society men and women ought to recognize the different roles they play in raising our children. There is no “more important” role. In this we are equal. But, there is definitely a male role and a female role. And I’m not talking about petty little things, like who should do the cooking, the cleaning, the housework and such. I do the cooking at our house and I would love nothing more than to be the stay –at-home parent. I am talking about the real gender differences.

Men are typically more aggressive and have a different style of play with children. When our children are infants we carry them differently, which gives the infant a different perspective on the world-this may seem trivial, but it’s not. We have deeper voices that have a profound effect when it comes to reading to our children. (More on this later) Men reason differently from women, entirely different areas of the brain are used when men and women are given a particular problem to solve. Fathers teach their daughters what to expect from relationships with men in a way that mothers cannot. Men connect with their son’s in ways women cannot. The same is true in the other way. Women teach our son’s things, husband’s can’t. Women have connections with their daughters that men can’t have. Men and women ought to have different responsibilities within a household.

When we neuter our society we only make it more convenient for men to shuffle off their responsibilities. If anyone can do it, then let someone else do it will be the mentality. It is the mentality. Many men are feeling their obligation is complete once they’ve achieved conception. And we are getting more and more baby’s momma’s and less emphasis is being placed on husband and wife. And why should there be an emphasis if we are no longer going to be men and women, but neuter and neuter?

I’ve been trying to figure out how to define a man all morning. When I first woke I was sure that this was going to be easy. I was ready to start of the paper by recapturing my midnight adventures. I woke to the sound of the dog barking and then my wife pushed me out of bed saying “I heard someone down there.” I heard nothing, but my wife was positive there were prowlers about. As a “man” it would be my duty to go downstairs and protect my family. The dog wasn’t interested in anything going on in the house; the neighbors were unpacking their car after a late night trip. Having discovered the cause of the dog’s barking and having reaffirmed my wife that no predators were lurking about downstairs I went to back to bed, my manly duties fulfilled. Or have they?

I did some quick research this morning and found two good articles on manhood. The first The 10 Qualities of Man suggests that I fulfilled one of the ten roles of a man. The other What Does it Mean to Be a Man I might have fulfilled part of the role of husband but there are eight other aspects of being a man that still need to be addressed. I provided links to the articles so I’m not going to go into length about them. I will say that I agree with the aspects or virtues proposed by both articles.

The articles have a Christian slant and at first I was inclined to make a defense for them, but then I remembered The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis. He made the argument for me, the virtues extolled in these articles are not exclusive to Christianity. Lewis does a wonderful job at pointing out that they are the central themes in almost any wisdom literature throughout the ages. He calls these values that man have followed throughout the ages as the Tao. It is a way of living that is consistent with Natural Law. Lewis suggests that defying these natural laws leads to a corruption of society. He warned us that society is now trying to do that very thing by taking some observations of the law to disprove other parts of it. Much like cutting of a man’s finger and using it to point at the man and say he doesn’t exist.

We are losing site of the values and virtues that make us men (See the articles) and prevent us from becoming mere animals. It is the qualities that are the trunk that separate the rational mind of man from the animal mind–what Lewis calls, “men without chests. We have used Law to destroy Natural Law. We are forbidden to teach virtues in our school and show our students right from wrong because such teachings lay to close to religion.

If we are to teach the virtues of Man to our children it must be done in our homes. This, I believe, is job number one of a father (though not limited to him—mom’s must teach it too). My biggest concern is for the growing population of society that includes my students, where men are not there to teach these virtues either because society says it is cooler to be a baby’s daddy or because economics say no government aid if Dad is in the house. (Either eliminate government aid all together or stop forcing split-ups of the house hold because a woman can’t receive aid due to having a father in the house.) Many of my students have gone generations now without a father figure present and are growing up with no opportunity to learn it because we can’t teach it in school.

Not every male need be a father, but as a society every male ought to be a man. I met a young man the other day, Ikaika Alama-Franics. He just got drafted for the Detroit Lions, and is using his new status to demonstrate the vary virtues talked about in the articles. He is taking time away from his hectic training schedule (and it is hectic!) to teach students like mine about perseverance, commitment, and dedication to a positive way of life. This is what a man in today’s society ought to be doing. Take responsibility for a youth. We must not forget the “it takes a village” mentality from long ago. We need to stop fearing our children and we need to stop being afraid to let them know that there is a right and a wrong.

As Lewis says, in The Abolition of Man:

If they embark on this course the difference between the old and the new education will be an important one. Where the old initiated, the new merely ‘conditions’. The old dealt with its pupils as grown birds deal with young birds when they teach them to fly; the new deals with them more as the poultry-keeper deals with young birds - making them thus and thus for purposes of which the birds know nothing. In a word, the old was a kind of propagation - men transmitting manhood to men; the new is merely propaganda.

Yesterday was Father’s Day and it has had me thinking about what it means to be a father and what it means to be a man. Since I started writing for this blog I’ve been slowly learning about a community of men out there that are speaking up and speaking out about fatherhood and it’s encouraging to see. I notice that the men writing these blogs throughout the community have all sorts of different backgrounds, but they all seem to have one thing in common, they all enjoy being a father. You can tell they do, it comes out in the way they describe their children, their wives, and their lives. I’m not sure the reason that each of them feels the need to write about their experiences, but I am glad they are doing it. My reason for writing this is that I get even more joy from being a father by talking about it. I learn more as I reflect, question, discuss and share the experience and the more I learn about being a dad the more I like it. I imagine the same is true for the other dads that are out there writing.

There is another reason I like seeing blogs about fathering written by fathers. It gives testament and validity to the importance of being a father. It also gives the world a glimpse at an important aspect of what it means to be a man. Being a father and being a man are two important concepts for me not just because the implications of both are important to my children, but because I see the devastating affect that the absence of these two aspects can have on society. I have the privilege of working with an extremely challenged section of society. I teach children that have dropped out of school and are now trying to recover credits and get a diploma before it’s too late for them. Many of my students are on probation, some have been to prison, some have children of their own, some have drug habits, and all of them were unable to cope with a traditional school setting. One final trait that these students share is that most of them did not have a father or father figure in their lives.

Most of my students, will tell you their grown. But, if you ask them what that means they will respond with something about having achieved a certain age or having spawned a child. For the girls in my class, it means that they are raising their children on their own—yet few of them know how and even less know how to model responsible behavior to the children. For the boys in my class its even worse, they feel they deserve some sort of recognition for having several baby’s mommas. For them, the responsibility ends at the moment of conception. There are a few that have some involvement in their children’s life after the child is born, but again they don’t know what their doing or how to model responsible behavior. I know a lady that has worked with this population of students and had a great response to “I’m grown!” Whenever some student says that she responds with a smile as says, “Oh really? Let me see it then.” At this point the student gets a bit nervous; she lets them sweat for a second then asks them to show her their insurance card. She tells them a real man carries an insurance card.

I love her concept of a man. It’s all summed up in one simple card. Her concept of a real man has nothing to do with how many tough they are, how big of a player they are, how much money they make. It’s all comes down to a card that says I’m responsible for myself and my family. This week I’m going to explore what it means to be a man and a father and why it is important that men everywhere step up to those titles.

Yesterday I picked up my 13 month old son from day care and the instructors had helped the children in the nursery put together a present for Father’s Day. I learned something yesterday. I am an English Major and have read plenty of poems in my day. I’ve come to appreciate poetry, but never have I been moved to tears by a poem. Guess what, this dad got a surprise. My eyes welled up in response to a cute little poem that was part of the present. It’s wasn’t a Shakespearian Sonnet or The Love Song of J. Alfred Proofrock, but it got me.

I learned that being a dad means that you surrender a degree of control over your emotions. Okay, maybe it doesn’t mean that. One of the predominant images that I’ve seen of a dad is the stoic. He’s the guy that has a hard time giving a guy a hug, saying “I Love You”, or “I’m Proud of You”. He’s the guy that never cries. (At least he never let’s anyone see him cry.)

But, I’m beginning to suspect that the stoic dad is really a stage act. It’s embarassing having one of them there sentimental emotions sneak up on you. I’m guessing that the stoics are probably an angry lot, because anger is a rather unfriendly emotion and tends to scare the others away. Setiment won’t sneak up on anyone when anger is tromping around and scarry all the other poor emotions away. The problem with stoicicism is that if you act that way long enough it becomes a way of life that is hard to shake and you can’t really show the right emotion to your children when they need them.

I hope to be the type of dad that never fears telling my son I love him. And I’m willing to let the occasional random sentiment strike me, if that is what it takes to remain emotionally available to my children. With that in mind, I want to share the poem with every father out there. Mom’s if your reading this and you have a little one and still need to get a gift for dad. Here’s an idea.

My present was a picture on construction paper that reads “Happy Father’s Day!” In the middle is a tie with the poem and on the sides are my son’s footprints. The poem reads:

Footprints

Walk a little slower daddy,
Said a small child
I’m following in your
Footsteps and I don’t
Want to fall

Sometimes your steps
Are very fast
Somethimes they’re hard to see
So walk a little slower daddy,
For you are leading me.

Someday when I’m all grown up
Your what I want to be
Then I will have a child
Who’ll want to follow me

And I would want to lead
Just right
And know that I was true
So walk a little slower daddy
For I must follow you.

Biography lends to death a new terror. –Oscar Wilde

Yes, I’m leading off with another Oscar Wilde quote. There is truth is those words above. This blog is turning more towards an autobiographical journey through my experiences as a stepfather rather than just a place for advice. It’s becoming more of a, “here’s what happened to me when I applied what I’ve learned from the experts.” It is a very liberating format in many ways and a terrifying format in others.

On the one hand I get to share my life with the world and people get to laugh with me on the good days and offer me words of encouragement on the rough days. I’ve got a place to vent when I need it and I’m forced into the habit of reflecting on my day, which is good meditation and one habit I would recommend to everyone.

On the other hand when I share my life and my opinions there is always the fear that people will judge me harshly based upon decisions I make or how I feel about certain things or if I my actions prove me to be hypocritical.

Today’s post is a tough one to write. I haven’t really had an opportunity to interact much with my stepdaughter since her last episode at the dinner table. I have been going through a big internal struggle with how I want to proceed with our relationship. I want to trust to the common consensus that the stepparent doesn’t do the parenting and should act only as a mentor and friend to the stepchildren. But, I get so angry watching my wife get abused by the vicious words my stepdaughter launches on her. I get angry when I work all day to provide a house and home for this girl and even though she is completely dependent on us she has the audacity to command us to do things in our house and claims we can’t tell her what to do. I want to take control. And I could. I could bring calm to the house, but it would come at a terrible price. It would mean making her life miserable, for I doubt she would see a day she wasn’t grounded for many a month.

I want to believe that if I trust to the wisdom of those who have parented before me that things will improve. I like to imagine that one day she will come to understand and appreciate that everything I’ve done is for her best interest. But, right now, I’m questioning why I should be acting in her best interest. Is it making my life any better? Trying to win her affection requires that I spend time and money doing things with her, time that I could spend doing things that I enjoy and money that I could be spending on things I want or bills that need paying. I try to tell myself I do it because I love her. But, I don’t know if that is true. I’ve been avoiding her lately, because the mere presence of her makes me angry, because I know that one out of every two sentences that come from her mouth are either going to be a demand for money, time or an act of defiance.

I will continue to try, because I love her mother dearly. I’ve heard that emotion follows action. So, I will act lovingly and hope the emotions follow.

My brain is either metamorphosing into it’s next stage of development and it’s apparently a very painful process or Sam Kinison accidentally astral projected into my head, whatever the real cause of the headache I can barely keep my eyes straight. Mom’s not home yet and my son is eager to run about the house and play so I need to stay down here until she arrives. So, I turn on the TV to subdue whatever brain activity is still left and nothing numbs the brain better than television. I flip through stations and I get angrier and angrier, Paris Hilton has been ‘reassigned” to imprisonment in her million-dollar home. This isn’t helping the headache so I jump up to the movie selections and God Bless him, there he is, Pauley Shore. Nothing numbs the brain like the Weasel weasin’ the jui-uice, buddy.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this.” My stepdaughter is walking the down the stairs and hears me talking to myself.
“Doing what?” she asks.
“Watching Encino Man,” I answer.

She plops a seat in the recliner and Pauley works his magic. She becomes nearly catatonic as she stares at he screen. I barely notice my son standing at the edge of my chair. He is looking me straight in the eyes, I can feel them calling to me, “Come back father, come back.” So powerful is his will that my eyes are ripped from the images on the screen and are drawn straight into his. When he knows I am looking he drops his head and shoulders back in his most anguished “woe is me” pose and cries real tears. Then he throws his head in my lap and I know he is hungry.

The kitchen is less than a dozen steps away but with my headache I might as well be heading to the back 40 to find and milk Old Bessie. I get up anyway and grab a bottle of milk and my son and together we return to the comfy chair and Encino, California. I arrive just in time for a makeover montage as Pauley and Sean Astin clean-up Brenden Fraser and give him a new wardrobe. My pupils begin to constrict and I’m nearly out when—

“I like those shorts. Is that really how you guys dressed in high school.?”
I crawl back to a more conscious state and a pounding head, “What?”
“Did you dress like that in school?” my stepdaughter asks.
“No.”
“Was it just because your school wasn’t cool?”
“Are you for real?” I ask, “He looks like a golfer and a camera man collided, do you think that’s cool?”
“No, but wasn’t that how everyone dressed?”

She’s really going to make me do this. She’s making me think about the past. Mental visions of my high school days flicker and sort through the various stored images of friends, rivals, and the girls I fawned over. No, I can’t recall people dressing like that. Granted it was a small school, but those clothes had to have come from a slightly earlier era. I check the info button. Encino Man comes from 1992. I was a junior.

“No,” I say, “You have to understand, nobody dresses like Pauley Shore. He does his own thing.”
“But what about the rest of them?”

I’m really starting to doubt my own memories, perhaps we really did dress like that. “Think of it this way,” I say, “The people making this film have been out of high school for years. They are dressing up their characters in what they think high school kids at that time wore. Do you think that these people were any more knowledgeable about what is cool than an adult is now ?”

My stepdaughter laughs. She’s sees how true this is. But just to drive home the point I remind her that we never, ever, dressed like that…I think.

One day after the all out war with her mother, my stepdaughter greets me and her baby brother at the door. She is always excited to see her brother. Seeing us, not so much. But, she is in a good mood and I know it is safe to come in and joke about the outfit she has chosen to wear around the house. The shorts and t-shirt are normal, but where the striped socks come in to play I have no idea. I thought they went out of fashion when Pippi Long Stocking decided to stay in Villa Villekulla. I shake my head and remember that my fashion choices as a child were a bit eccentric as well—such is the privilege of youth.

Before I am able to allude to a Pippi Long Stocking joke she has gobbled up her little brother in a hug. He is doing his best to escape from her clutches. The time for the sock joke has passed, I decide she wouldn’t get it anyway. So, I turn to rescuing her brother. Usually, this is a big ordeal, because she can’t understand why her brother comes running to me to be held all the time and won’t tolerate her holding him. Today, she sets him on his feet and dashes up stairs. “It’s a big project.”

My son’s eyes caught a glimpse of the sleeping dog and he rushes across the room to wake his playmate. Its 5’oclock and I actually have five minutes to myself. I grab a pen and create a grocery list, because as soon as Mom walks in the door I have to scramble. There’s lettuce to be picked. I’m excited. Tonight I will make my first meal using food from my first garden. But, I haven’t even penned the second item on my grocery list, before a blur of sock and high pitched excitement comes scrambling down the stairs.

“My room is so awesome,” shouts my daughter. “I wish I had a couch in it though.” I suggest she takes the lounge chair from the living room. No time for punctuation, she said, “ReallycanItakeitnowIcancarryitonmyown.” And the chair was halfway up the stairs. This from the girl who finds carrying a plate from the family room to the kitchen is too much work. I hear the thud and slide of the chair move down the hall and then the excited slam of her bedroom door.

I chuckle, check on my son and realize the dog food is still on the floor and he has found it. Fortunately the dog finished of the food, so my son had contented himself with splashing his hand in the water bowl. I move the bowls out of his reach and let him get back to chasing the dog. Back at the table I get one more item on the list and then once again I hear the thump of blue stripes racing down the stairs. “My room is so awesome,” shouts my daughter. “I need a different lamp, can I have that one?” I tell her it okay by me if her mother doesn’t mind. I know her mother won’t mind, but I want Mom to get a chance to give something to her daughter. “Okay,” she says, and then dashes back up the stairs. I hear, “My room is so awesome,” trail behind her.

I shake my head and laugh once more, because the striped bundle of energy that can’t seem to keep her enthusiasm over her room to herself is grounded and her room is all she really has and she’s making the most out of it. Her hero, Paris Hilton (I groan at the thought), could learn a lesson from her. A lamp and a chair and suddenly you’ve got an awesome place to stay.

In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane ~ Oscar Wilde

When first I became a stepfather I figured I would have some serious issues with which to contend. My stepdaughter lived for ten years with few rules or expectations. I was informed of this by both her and her mother. I said no problem. I had plenty of rules and even more expectations. I would knock those issues out, one at a time.

I had my adversary, an eleven year old girl. My goal was to make this girl respect her mother and myself. I expected her to balk, but I figured that logic and consistency would prevail. I should have been tipped off early on in our relationship, when she asked me a question for which I was sure I had the correct answer.

She asked me, “If the house were on fire, who would you save first, me or the cat.?” I answered that I would save her first. She asked me why and I thought here’s a great opportunity to build up her sense of self-worth, and I answered, “Because I wouldn’t be able to take it if we lost you in the fire.” And she said, “But what about the cat? Don’t you love her?” And I said, “Of course we do, but we love you more.” Surely, this was a good answer. I imagined I had scored big on our bonding, until I saw that not only wasn’t she happy with my response, but she was bawling. I looked at her and the huge tear drops that were falling and I was stunned. She filled in the silence with “You don’t love the cat as much as me.” I stuttered for a moment and she ran to her bedroom and cried some more. What was that? How did my response illicit that response? Clearly she was insane. Oscar Wilde had never been so dead on as that day.

Witty as he may be, I was in the wrong. My stepdaughter should not have ever been my adversary. Nor is she insane (though I still sometimes wonder) She was trying to make sense of her position in the household. She had come to me asking her what it was, and though I think I gave her a good answer it set her off. Perhaps, the cat was the only thing she knew still viewed her the same and I somehow ruined that by saying I loved her more. Perhaps, she didn’t know how to handle being told she was loved by her the new parent in the house. I will never know why she went off like that, but if I had known better I would have recognized that there was more to her reaction and I wouldn’t have so quickly dismissed it as insanity.

I chalked it up to just one more unique challenge and continued on with the rules. We locked horns many a time and grew further apart. I was new to the relationship and had not yet earned the right to lay down the rules and set expectations on her behavior. Now, we are two years into a long battle and I have to go back and try to do the thing I should have done the first time. Earn her trust.