I've been babysitting for a single father for extra money and it has been exhausting. The child is Fenster, a 4 year old with the mind of a kid half his age. You do the math, I know you're capable.
Every statement or question is "Daddy does it this way" or "Did Daddy say that was okay?". It'd be fine if this sentence variation came out once in awhile, but not every other sentence. I've babysat alot of children in my time, but I've never seen one so dependant on a parent. He can't do anything unless it's done for him, including *gag* wiping himself.
He'll watch Dora the Explorer, and have no answers for the simplest questions. Where's the damn monkey?! It's in the middle of the screen and he can't tell me. It's like he's waiting for someone *his dad* to tell him, even though he knows the answer.
It took him until Friday to speak my name, claiming in a helpless way that he couldn't remember. Yet occassionally my name would slip out of his mouth on accident, but a second later it was again lost.
For the entire week my title was "Scuze me?".
I believe Fenster's father has unintentionally turned him into a needy, whiny and anxious kid. How so, you ask?
You see, Whalin' is a 50 something year old man who had a prior wife that had raised his prior children into adulthood without him. If it weren't for the little boy in his life, he'd be a man in the midst of easily retiring to a big house in a rich community, with the means to do whatever he pleased. It was a comfortable future, but a lonely one.
He'd met a somewhat young and irrisponsible girl, fell madly in love with her, and she left him months later. Apparently she'd had a bun in the oven, and she didn't want him to know about it. She gave the baby up for adoption illegally.
I don't know how Whalin' found out about Fenster and the adoption, but he fought it and went into debt doing so. He now owes his lawyer tens of thousands of dollars; so much for the walk down easy street. To him, it was worth the monetary value because he obviously didn't want to live the rest of his life alone. He has a companion for the next 18 or so years, for better or worse.
The result is a massive amount of guilt on Whalin's part and overwhelming devotion to this boy because of it. Fenster is the two children he never got to raise. Fenster is the kid without a mother to love him. Fenster is his second chance, his only chance.
The most difficult part of being around the boy is that I feel with some time, not just a couple of weeks, I could help him. I've already broken him of some of his habits, but not without his stunned resistance. He has become so accustomed to his father running to his every whim, allowing him to do anything he wants as long as he whimpers for it enough. I've been stern in a soft way, focusing on his puppy dog act. Once he figured out that I wasn't reacting to it, he actually began to ask without whining.
He is only four years old, and he is absoloutely not a bad kid. His father is not a bad father for overcompensating, spoiling and giving in.
But it's a path, isn't it? It's starts at this point, where the habits are established and become a part of his character. It's difficult to be inside it, see it, and know there's very little you can do to curb it.
Every statement or question is "Daddy does it this way" or "Did Daddy say that was okay?". It'd be fine if this sentence variation came out once in awhile, but not every other sentence. I've babysat alot of children in my time, but I've never seen one so dependant on a parent. He can't do anything unless it's done for him, including *gag* wiping himself.
He'll watch Dora the Explorer, and have no answers for the simplest questions. Where's the damn monkey?! It's in the middle of the screen and he can't tell me. It's like he's waiting for someone *his dad* to tell him, even though he knows the answer.
It took him until Friday to speak my name, claiming in a helpless way that he couldn't remember. Yet occassionally my name would slip out of his mouth on accident, but a second later it was again lost.
For the entire week my title was "Scuze me?".
I believe Fenster's father has unintentionally turned him into a needy, whiny and anxious kid. How so, you ask?
You see, Whalin' is a 50 something year old man who had a prior wife that had raised his prior children into adulthood without him. If it weren't for the little boy in his life, he'd be a man in the midst of easily retiring to a big house in a rich community, with the means to do whatever he pleased. It was a comfortable future, but a lonely one.
He'd met a somewhat young and irrisponsible girl, fell madly in love with her, and she left him months later. Apparently she'd had a bun in the oven, and she didn't want him to know about it. She gave the baby up for adoption illegally.
I don't know how Whalin' found out about Fenster and the adoption, but he fought it and went into debt doing so. He now owes his lawyer tens of thousands of dollars; so much for the walk down easy street. To him, it was worth the monetary value because he obviously didn't want to live the rest of his life alone. He has a companion for the next 18 or so years, for better or worse.
The result is a massive amount of guilt on Whalin's part and overwhelming devotion to this boy because of it. Fenster is the two children he never got to raise. Fenster is the kid without a mother to love him. Fenster is his second chance, his only chance.
The most difficult part of being around the boy is that I feel with some time, not just a couple of weeks, I could help him. I've already broken him of some of his habits, but not without his stunned resistance. He has become so accustomed to his father running to his every whim, allowing him to do anything he wants as long as he whimpers for it enough. I've been stern in a soft way, focusing on his puppy dog act. Once he figured out that I wasn't reacting to it, he actually began to ask without whining.
He is only four years old, and he is absoloutely not a bad kid. His father is not a bad father for overcompensating, spoiling and giving in.
But it's a path, isn't it? It's starts at this point, where the habits are established and become a part of his character. It's difficult to be inside it, see it, and know there's very little you can do to curb it.
1 comment:
I know what you mean. When I first started going out with The Hubby, The Girl! couldn't even open the showerhead to take a shower, couldn't flush the toilet, couldn't open a can of pop. And I'm not talking about a 4 year old. an almost 9 year old chillum. The worst part of it was that she was soo picky with food that she would not eat more than 3 ounces of anything at a time. I had to literally put 3 grains of rice and two beans in her plate. No vegetables or weird (by weird I mean shrimp/crab/anything that was once alive) meats. The Girl! will be 12 in a couple of months and she's never picked up for herself (at her mother's house. Here we try to make her do things but its mostly: I don't know, or I never did this before). Did I mention that she's the same size and shape as a girl 4 years younger? And that because she's petite and has big ole eyes she has learned how to give daddy "the look"? umn, yeah. I made it my mission to teach her how to be a real woman. Starting with making me some breakfast (her mother, The Whore, only learned how to cook way after she got married to The Hubby). I don't want her to follow those footsteps.
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