I ask a woman how her life is going and she tells me about her children. She’s very forthcoming. I hear about their failures and successes and their disappointments and their accomplishments in sports.

So I ask again how she is enjoying her life and she tells me about her children’s teachers and how dedicated they are and how they go the extra mile for her sons and how much she appreciates it and how happy her sons are at school.

I persist and ask her if she has any close friends and how much time she spends with her peers and she tells me how her sons’ friendships are a little disappointing to her and that sometimes they get left off birthday party lists and how much it hurts her when that happens and how she wishes adults were more sensitive to her children.

I ask the same woman who happens to also be a wife how she is enjoying her husband and she tells me they “work together” as parents and they are almost always on the “same page.”

I press in and ask the woman if she has a life outside of being a mom and she gives me that blank look as if I have no idea what I am talking about.

Posted on March 14, 2017 at 8:19 am in Adolescence, Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, Grace, Grief, Parenting/Children, Single parenting, Step parenting, Stepfather, Stepmother, Teenagers   |  RSS feed |   Reply   |   Trackback URL