Sitting in my office I am the picture of rage. Earlier I was disrespected by one of our kids –one who is not my own– and it happened in front of a large group of the family including one of the boys who is my own. Long story short, this kid told me to shut up. Nobody reacted to it but me and I had to shove down my immediate reaction of, ‘excuse me, who do you think you are to tell me to shut up?’ and just take it.
I don’t really know how to act. I walk around on pins and needles more often than I should, because I don’t want to show anger or feed into any of the negative behaviors these kids grew up around. I don’t want to be just another version of that guy. I also don’t want to be disrespected. I also don’t want to swallow my anger. I also don’t want to take my anger out on my partner. I also don’t want my kids to be raised seeing me be openly disrespected and feel like it is okay. Honestly, I don’t know what to do or how to do it in order to create a situation where I feel respected and am able to feel like I am teaching the kids here how to be respectful.
This too is the rare situation where I feel like I am fighting the battle alone, because of the culture clash. What I deem as disrespect feels like it is seen as nothing at all. Walking in the house and not saying hello to me is disrespectful in my book, but seemingly not in theirs. This is one of a small list of problems that appear when you are working to merge lives and cultures and dealing with the habits of people. It is difficult for me, because the way I want to behave is unacceptable and I really have no outlet beyond the words for dealing with the emotions that crop up in these circumstances.
There is no merging families manual. Perhaps here in these pages I’ve been writing one. Call it a ‘how not to’ guide, based on how well I’ve managed things thus far. In fact this very blog–this public airing of things is likely tops of that list. As such, I am not going to be approaching such life topics ever again.