My 2 Tyrants, April 2009

As I dig through my life in the name of not being a hoarderspring-cleaning I recently happened upon some paperwork from my son's high school. It was dated last year, back when he was in the 9th grade, back when we were knee-deep in his IEP process. It listed his academic history and his family history. The academic stuff I was used to. But seeing us in black and white letters (other than the ones I type here) threw me for a loop. The descriptions of us were clinical, anesthetized, devoid of love.

I was: Stepfather (a word I've come to loathe over the years)
Mom was: Mom (as always)
Baby girl was: Half-Sister

Upon seeing the words, "half-sister", I was transported right back to the moment when I first read them: sitting in an administrative office on one side of a fully occupied, large oval table. My face twisted up just as bad a couple weeks ago as it did while I was sitting at that table reading over this same report. I was hurt. I was disgusted. I was insulted.

How dare they call her "half"! I remember thinking. What the f-bomb does that even mean? (Confession: I don't curse out loud, but I do tremendously in my head) They don't know how my son at the age of ten jumped, both feet in, to care for his baby sister. He didn't half help his mother get ready for the hospital when she went into labor (while I was speeding along in an ice storm to get to the hospital). He didn't half often rock her to sleep once she was born. He didn't half feed her. He didn't walk halfway to the trash and leave her dirty diapers on the floor when asked to throw them away (though now every piece of garbage in his hands never ever seems to make it to the trash). Conversely, his sister has NEVER half loved her brother, NEVER half hated him (as little sisters do), nor only half terrorized him, nor asked that he pick up only half of her when she is too tired or lazy to walk.

Of course I know that my son and his sister have two different fathers so they have only their mother as the shared parent --- their single source of shared DNA. But in our home they are 100% siblings who receive 1000% of their parents' love. My daughter is none the wiser and my son has never considered otherwise. I don't anticipate them changing course from this path and should they ever decide to I am fully prepared to fiercely shut down one and/or both of them.

My mother's father was DAD to the 6 kids he had with my grandmother and he loved the 3 she already had when they met as if they were his own. As a child my uncle and aunts were my uncle and aunts, period. Just as their cousins were my cousins, period.

I know it's just paperwork and unfortunately I know every blended family isn't bursting at the seams with joy or basic cohesiveness. But if it matters to you, keep at it! Thank God real love and real family are stronger than any school, doctor's or government agency's paperwork.

Long live all forms of family!


E.Payne is the author of Investing In An Emotional Letdown and I Didn't Invented Sex. For the past 3 years he has posted 600+ articles about fatherhood, marriage and everything in between here at Makes Me Wanna Holler.com. To learn more, click here.

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The smoke has cleared from my son's meltdown on Monday night. I've caught up on the rest I lost by staying out until nearly 2 am and then not being able to sleep once I returned home. All the punitive measures were put in place before I wrote that post: his phone only works when he calls his parents or grandparents, all the Wi-Fi in the house is disabled, all the keys (including the one at the front desk) were in my care and he was yanked off his basketball team (they only had two games left anyway). When my wife came home that evening she said, "What'd you do put him under house arrest?"

I chuckled the way you do when something isn't funny and poured myself a glass of Mount Gay on the rocks and took a huge swig. Her eyes widened with concern.

"I'm good," I assured her. "I'm not going to get drunk at 7 in the evening." Truth is, I drink so infrequently now, I can barely hold my liquor. I'm too old to be getting plastered anyhow.

"You should talk to him," she said, pleadingly looking towards the back of our home. "He needs to hear from you."

A few hours later I did talk to him, but not as his mother did, stern but nurturing. I simply spoke my mind as a man should when the air needs to be cleared.

I told him that I was sorry the man who should be his father isn't around and I can only imagine his pain (he was gone before he was born). And that he was correct in labeling me a step-dad, as I am the dad who stepped up. As one commenter put it, most folk don't get to chose their family. I chose him. I also told him if he should ever want to pursue that man I'd support him.

I told him that the day I "put my hands on him" (something he accused me of doing) is the day he wakes up in the hospital and I get carted off to jail. There was some grappling that night, all from me, but never once did I raise a hand.

I told him he was wanted (something he screamed to the contrary that night). What I told him was that it wasn't that we thought he didn't do anything right, but rather we don't understand why he opts not to do anything right.

Speaking of rights I told him he had too much going on for him, too many people in his corner, too many people loving him to piss away his own opportunities and be ambivalent about it.

I told him he was first, the first one I knew, the first one I loved. I've never once made a distinction between he and his sister.

And then I went in...

1. I told him the show he put on made him look like a fool and all that drama is best saved for the soap operas. And the next time he gets angry he needs to figure out a better way to express himself. As his parents we have to see through all that. I doubt a stranger will show him the same discretion.


2. I told him what makes a man a real man is his standing by his responsibilities, such as getting a woman pregnant and being responsible for the child he makes, or taking on a child as his own and never once balking at it.


3. I told him a real man makes mistakes, owns up to them and does his best to correct them.


4. I told him, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that a real man NEVER EVER EVER NEVER EVER curses at, or in the presence of his mother --- no matter the circumstances. A real man does not disrespect his mother, EVER! And that he HAD TO apologize to the one who gave him life --- the one who has him at the forefront of all her thoughts and actions.


5. I advised him that his punishment had yet to be handed down but it was going to big and it was coming swiftly.

And he said, "Okay."

'Twas a few days before Father's Day and all through the house,

Everyone was a sleep except this lively mouse.

I stared at the ceiling, wide awake as could be,

Getting up several times with the urgent need to pee.

But that's not what had me wide-eyed in the night,

It was what transpired a few hours earlier, a very caustic fight

Between a teen at the end of his rope, the victim of course...

Enough with the rhyming. Before the clock struck midnight my son very clearly informed me (who at the time was boiling over with frustration) that I wasn't his dad. I was just his step dad.

Here's a little secret: I've been dreading those words for years.

But I laughed. Can you believe it? Maybe it was a defense mechanism, maybe it was because I had many more words to say than him. Maybe my bottle was corked just a bit tighter than his in my effort to always embrace reason and seek the positive.

But that doesn't mean I didn't react.

The Man caught an adrenaline rush, pushed the Dad and Husband out of the room and stared down flesh not even half my age. The flimsy knife the boy had brought to the Man's gunfight broke against the man's older, wrought-iron skin.

The boy...ahh, the boy...a boy I've known for a very, very long time....the boy in the big body...he's still just a boy...he proved that more than ever before...

Then it was the Man's turn...

But the Wife was there to keep the The Man from pulling his trigger, neutralizing and reminding him where he was and who he also is. She went to find the Dad even though it took her nearly four hours to do so. I assume she probably suffered the most in the midst of the chaos. I apologized, but she insisted I did nothing wrong.

The Wife convinced the Husband to come to bed. But the Man couldn't sleep and the Dad all but disappeared until the sun rose. He washed his face, shaved and emerged to face the day at peace and filled with the awareness of the teachable moment he now stands in and the structure that must now and forevermore be employed. Eerily, I'm at peace. I kinda figured the day would come. You just know as an outsider trying to become an insider (even once you're inside) that the day will come --- whether it's sooner or later. God bless those who've remained unscathed.

I am the stepdad: The dad who STEPPED-UP to do what another man never had the courage to pursue. Although meant as a slight. I actually take it as a compliment. Go figure?

Stepdads STAND UP! Happy Father's Day to you! You have to contend with so much more than those who come by it naturally.

My hat is off to you.

Be blessed.

By the time you read this post I should be comfortably in the air headed toward sunny Barbados to join the female half of my family. Yesterday, I experienced a real travel nightmare that left my son and I grounded, exhausted and starving and cut our trip one day short. I'm convinced the T in travel is for terrible. If it wasn't it'd be called something else, maybe, "schmavel". If teleportation ever becomes an option in my lifetime I will be be one of the first people on line to get vaporized.

But it is what it is. Rules are rules. I'm pretty black and white on that, especially if I don't have the time to contest it, such as in an airport. Yesterday my wife and I had to split up for the sake of salvaging our reservations. Since she has family on the island, had set up the accommodations and rented the car, I opted to stay home with the boy and renew his passport. Plus, I'm the one who's cooler under fire. I know how to speak to people who annoy me without appearing annoyed and when required, I can drive like a bat out of hell. All of these traits came into play yesterday. And thankfully by 5 pm all was resolved.

But there was one major problem:

For all the posts I've written about my exploits with my son, for all my claiming my son as, "my son," for all the doctor visits, tutoring sessions and emails and phone calls made by me on his behalf, I'm as official as the bootleg purses and watches sold on the sidewalks 42nd Street (before Mayor Bloomberg).

I stayed behind to set my son up with his new passport and my name wasn't on a single sheet of paper stating that I'm his father. After passing all of the necessary documents over to the clerk at the passport office, she looked them over and then looked up at me to ask, "Who are you? There's nothing here stating that you're his father?"

That was a gut shot that hurt quite a bit.

Thankfully, my father-in-law was with us to vouch for me, but all his vouching did was keep me from getting turned away without any consideration. At the end of the day, and I literally mean the end, my wife had to verify that I was who I was. And my son wasn't exhibiting any behavior that indicated that I was holding him captive against his will.

When I first met my wife she said any man she married would have to adopt her son. Since we've been married I've started the conversation several times, but nothing has come of it. Life gets in the way. There's not enough time. Simple procrastination. These are all things that I've observed as getting in the way of this process. And as a man with no claim to him it's not like I can adopt him by myself without getting arrested. When my son entered high school, I warned my wife that my signing off on all of these documents was going to catch up with us sooner or later. Yesterday that truism came to pass.

The craziness and the red tape didn't really bother me. As I stated before, rules are rules. The goal was to get the boy on the plane so whatever it took was whatever it was going to take. Having it officially brought to my attention that I am about as official in my son's life as a wet stamp with no glue on the back bothered me tremendously.

My father always says, you learn sooner or later, hopefully sooner rather than later. Later seems to always come with higher stakes and harsher consequences. Hopefully the hoops I had to jump through yesterday while being invalidated will be the highest our stakes ever get.

Opt for sooner rather than later when it comes to the really important stuff.

Today is April Fool's Day, but yesterday I felt like quite the fool...

A couple months back I had a conversation with my daughter's godmother and it went a little something like this:

Me: I don't want to say this, but sometimes I just want to give up...let them handle this mess and I'll just deal with babygirl.

DGM: Aww...you know you can't do that.

Me: Can't I? They're the ones that passed that boy around and left him up to his own devices and now everything is coming to roost and I'm the one who's gotta deal with it. My entire life centers around making things work for him and I'm tired of it. I don't even know what to do. I didn't sign up for this.

DGM: I know, I know, but it'll get better. Have faith. Besides, if you don't take care of things, who will?

An emotional outburst that isn't 100% correct, but it was 200% emotional. The godmother's last charge stuck with me. My father first uttered this to me when I was barely 20 reeling from the accidental shooting death (one of his idiot friends pointed a loaded gun at him) of one of my closest cousins. Grieving something awful, I didn't want to do anything but just get by in life. My father told me and promised me that that was not acceptable.

Here at MMWH as transparent as I am, I am edited. I give you guys all of my joys, but I rarely share the full extent of my sorrows or even my woe. What follows is an unedited piece of me.

I am not my son's biological father. Where that joker is is anyone's guess. Technically it should've made my entrance into his life easy. But it didn't if you take into account that his mother was both his mother and father for the first 5 (arguably 10) years of his life. And if a man is already present, even if she actually isn't a man, then you're in for a world of trouble.

The second the woman who would be my wife decided I was the one I was plunged face first into this trouble. I went from boyfriend to husband/father material overnight and quite honestly having only spent roughly 6 months as a capable adult (at the age of 28) I wasn't prepared for any additional responsibility. But that didn't stop me from trying and complaining. And for all you novice stepfathers out there reading this, don't be dismayed, you will get your stride but only after beginning your walk through a minefield. Unless somehow either mother or child welcomes you openly. No matter what it takes time. It takes the comfort of both you and the kid(s) and it will call upon more patience from you than you ever thought imaginable.

What made my walk so trying was that I simply could not please my future son's mother. Friends began to take notice and speak disparagingly of the situation I was in. And I disparaged them for their words, though I secretly wondered if they were right. To make a long story short things got better when I discovered that I needed to have a relationship with my son-to-be that was independent of the girlfriend. One she couldn't touch or pass judgment on. I taught him how to swim. I got him into superheroes. I began attending all of his little games. I talked with him as much as he would talk with me.

But even still I found myself on the fringes --- good enough to cart the boy all over the tri-state area, but never good enough for a hardline opinion on how the boy should be raised. Not slamming his mother or any of the other key players for how he was being raised, but just offering a different perspective. A man who truly is a man (I know this is a very mysterious thing) has a vantage on what being a boy means that no woman will ever have. Sorry, moms. My father was practically unbearable to live with, but he instinctively knew how to deal with me in a way my mother never could.

Now to the point: In the fourth or fifth grade, my son was diagnosed as ADD-inattentive. He zones out in the classroom. He zones out if you talk to him for too long. He doesn't get up and start acting out, he just sits there goes bye-bye. This has affected my son's academic career and as I've documented here on the blog his grades are getting worse as more responsibility is being heaped on him. It has his mother and I scared for him, scared for his future and angry with him for not trying hard enough. But no matter how angry I've been something has always caused me to hold back. I've always feared there was something more beside some attention issue and a willful child. And I've caught some flack for it. Often I've asked my wife, what if we're punishing him for something he can't control? My son is practically 6 feet tall and has a savvy about him that in the eyes of most makes him responsible even when he is not... To my absolute distaste, I've sat with my wife at my son's school in entirely too many jive-turkey seances with scores of teachers informing us (me specifically) of absolutely nothing helpful. But I've been somewhat alone in my displeasure. I've been the naysayer, the killjoy, the one who pointlessly holds on to the fact that both my parents were educators and I've only seen one or two of those in all my meetings with these people.

Enter Dr. Bruce Roseman, an absolutely lovely wisenheimer (sp?) and a very capable pediatric neurologist. Yesterday he re-evaluated my son, initially on the premise that maybe he could give him something to help him focus. And if focus had been the issue then maybe I wouldn't be blogging this. Instead Dr. Roseman decided to open a Pandora's box on me: My son has a language comprehension issue. Similar in nature to dyslexia, the way he takes in, computes, packages, absorbs and regurgitates written and spoken info is off kilter. It definitely explains all the who's on first moments I've been having with him this year. What made matters worse is that the principal at his kindergarten caught it, named it and labeled it. But nothing happened for reasons that I don't know because I really wasn't in the picture back then. As Dr. Roseman sifted through all the paperwork I provided, he discovered a rather alarming trend. His current school system identified the issue without actually naming it and never took the necessary/required steps to address it. Then they branded him ADD which puts the responsibility on him.

"If you can't comprehend what's going on, you start looking around for visual cues. If you can't find those cues, you zone out. I mean wouldn't you zone out if you weren't grasping something?" Dr. Roseman asked me.

"Wouldn't anybody?" I asked him back.

As the picture became clearer and clearer I became overcome with a mix of anger and sadness. I thought of all the anger, all the confusion, all the punishments and my beautiful, beautiful son just taking it. It was too much to contain. As the doctor concluded his session with me my face was wet with quiet tears that I kept wiping away so the boy wouldn't see. But the doctor did. He patted me on my back and told me, "It's hard when you know something and you know it by yourself. I went through the exact same thing with my own daughter. You're a good man to do this...listen to what I had to say and not get riled up. And it can be fixed without medication. I have tremendous respect for you. You're not his stepfather. You're the father who sets the steps and I'm marching to your beat. You stepped up. Don't ever diminish yourself (which was something I definitely did when the consultation began) like that again.. ."

"Okay."

None of this excuses my son for his complete ridiculousness as a teenager. But it definitely changes the course of his education and puts learning, or rather the facilitation of that learning, squarely on his teachers' shoulders where it should have been in the first place --- not simply cranking out a curriculum, shrugging and stating he won't pay attention.

After the doctor visit I dropped the boy to the Y so he could shoot hoops for the rest of the afternoon with the rest of the on spring break kids. The tears kept coming for a while, but they eventually passed. And now I'm optimistic and encouraged.

Bottom Line: If you're a stepdad or even a stepmom and you're giving you're all despite the results, despite the gratitude, despite what might even make sense to you, just keep doing it. It's not about you or the biological(s). It's about that kid needing you more than you'll ever know. Keep on fighting...for them.


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