Messages By: mac2372

My son is 4 years old, 5 in Feb. 2006. When he was first born, me and his father were not together any longer. I was with someone else, he was single. He come to the hopsital when he was born and had regular visits with him, he took responsibilty. He only paid $25.00 a week CS, and made pretty good money, but I told him as long as he was a part of our sons life and helped me when I needed additional help that 25 was fine.  Well 4 months later he got his self a new girlfriend (who was my long time rival I might add) Suddenly, visits slow down (his family would still see him) CS stopped.My son almost died in the hospital and he lived 30 min. from the hospital and she wouldn't let him come see our 4 month old son who almost died. He claimed he didn't have a way, but she had a brand new car sitting in the drive, if she was half a woman she wouldn't have brought him to see his son. Well........she didn't. He survived, without his dads support. A couple of times they would split up and he would call me and me being stupid and neuve would take him back. Then they would get back together. Now all these years later, I'm remarried to a wonderful man who is a great daddy to my son. His real father has not seen him in a couple of years. Me and my husband has talked about him adopting. The real father is having CS garnished out of his check $42 a week. I have asked him to sign his rights over, he said he would if I drew up papers stating that I didn't want any future support. But I decided, what gives him the right to get out the responsibility of this child? So, I decided against it.  

But..........should I? Is that $42 a week mean that much that I should let this worthless piece for a father be in my sons life any longer? He adores my husband. What do you think? 

It's unfortunate that you all are having to go through this. I was the BioMom in a similar, but not identical scenario about 2 1/2 years ago. In my situation, daughter's future stepmom swooped in during the course of a whirlwind courtship and carried on in large measure as though I was dead, or worse, the Wicked Witch of the West (she believed my ex's stories about me for a long time...much of which were half-truths or outright lies).

At least where I live, the boilerplate language under "Shared Parental Responsibility" in divorce decrees states in plain English that, essentially, thou shalt not encourage the child to use the titles "Mom" and "Dad" (and any derivatives thereof) for ANYBODY except the biological mother and father, respectively. I think it can reasonably be inferred that such practice should be discouraged. In fact, my daughter was NEVER encouraged to call her stepdad "Dad", for the very same reasons (they are quite close, she may well be closer to her stepdad than to her biological one). You claim you see no harm in what you did, i.e., allowing Savannah to call you "Mom." Does it occur to you or to your husband that to do so can be confusing for a 6-y/o?

There is NOTHING wrong with a step-mom wanting her stepchild to be close to her and be comfortable with her...far from it. My own daughter had a great rapport with her soon-to-be ex-stepmom, but calling her "Mom" crossed a line, and I did tell my ex- (calmly, I am not justifying shouting matches and court threats) to put a stop to it (see above boilerplate). Please put yourself into BioMom's shoes.  Would you want YOUR children calling some other woman "Mom"?

If BioMom has other issues with, or is using the child to get back at, your ex and you, that's another matter. I am confused, however...in one place in your post you describe the "struggle" to get close to your stepdaughter, and "his ex- has caused much turmoil in our home", yet "Things were just fine and peaceful until Savannah started to call me Mom." Is the nomenclature issue just the latest in a string of arguments between your hubby and his ex? It may be better to "lose the battle," so to speak, and concern yourself with the relationship with your stepdaughter, as opposed to worrying about the title...maybe Savannah could come up with a special "pet" name for you?

-bact 

What do you mean by protection? Do you mean an adult diaper at night?

You point out that this seems humiliating, but your teen has a choice- which is more humiliating, wetting the bed and having everyone know about it, or, using an adult diaper that no one has to know about? It seems like using an adult diaper would be the best choice- perhaps your teen wont even wet the bed during this trip, but just in case, the adult diapers should be worn.

If I had a teen who was a bed wetter, I know that I would have them bring and wear the adult diaper at night. Again, no one has to know about this!!

Last suggestion: have you consulted a Dr. about this issue? There are safe medications that have little to no side effects that can be used, in some situations, for bedwetters.

I will try to keep this as brief as possible but I am having real issues here and I don't know what to do anymore!  I am 37 divorced I have 3 kids 16, 13 (both girls)..then there's the boy 11 yrs old.  He has issues in school won't do this or that seems I get a call from the school with complaints about him every other day not doing homework not participating in class, disruptive etc etc. Well 2 yrs ago they told me he shows signs of depression.  ** A little background here, his dad is bipolar and so is my son's 1/2 brother from his dad's previous marriage**  We did not dismiss it but we did not see what they were describing at school at home.  He does have anger issues I won't deny that.  His dad and I split up when he was barely a year old. His dad wasn't much in his life until he turned around 9 he became more active in his life since he finally got straightened up on his meds and quit the "extra curricular" drugs!  Anyways, past couple of years he's had soiled underwear in the past but not too often and not that bad..typical boy stuff I would assume.  Then it has steadily got worse.  At first he would complain he was constipated and wouldn't have a bowel movement for several days he would then would complain it hurt to go to the bathroom. I tried laxatives and suppositories then complained his stomach hurt when he took them then had diahrhea (sp?). 

Back in October I got a call from the school that it was an emergency. My son had wrote a note that he would die soon and the school took it as a suicide note I ended up having to take him to a county psych hospital at the demand of the school in which they admitted him and kept him for a week diagnosed him as depressed stuck him on zoloft and a couple of anger management of classes.  Now we go once a month through the MHMR since I don't have insurance to keep him on the pills.  Anyways the soiled underwear is worse and it's just gross!  It's like he just poops in his pants and doesn't think anything about it.  Everytime we do something that require physical activity he's running back and forth to the bathroom. At first I thought it was his way of getting out of doing his share of the chores.  I'm thinking my gosh anyone that can run back and forth to the bathroom as much as he does shouldn't have underwear caked with poop!  It's to the point he SMELLS like poop and the kids complain about him at school that he smells. I asked him if it bothers him he said no he doesn't notice, but I Can notice when he's got poop in his underwear because he walks funny and complains his butt hurts.  I even bought him adult pull ups because I got tired of throwing his underwear away instead of washing them it was THAT bad. I figured that would click on him to either get to the bathroom or wipe better or something!  Nope, he just thought that was a way for him to just go ahead and keep on going since he wasn't ruining anymore underwear this way. Went back to underwear and have been making him clean his own underwear by hand and do his own laundry, this isn't helping either.  Yes I've taken him to the doctor the doctor just prescribed him some more over the counter stool softeners which seemed to make things worse.  We were walking through the grocery store the other day and all of a sudden he bends over and starts dancing and crossing his legs Im like what is WRONG with you? He said he had to go to the bathroom and he wasn't going to make it I said good gosh why didn't you go already it doesn't just hit LIKE THAT.  He said it did.  So he got home today came up to me and gave me a hug and REAKED of poop. I was like oh god, go take a bath and go wash your underwear.  I asked him why he can' t wipe any better, he said he does I said there was no way he could have and have THAT much poop in his underwear so WHY are you doing this and I told him I didn't want "i don't know" as answer.  He said it just happens!  So I don't know if he's just being lazy or if this is  a real medical issue or if this is a mental thing.  The doctor didn't seem to get what he or I was trying to tell him what was going on when we there last time that we have a real issue here!  He will be in 6th grade next year and will have to change in front of a bunch of other kids in PE and he's going to get the snot beat out of him for having poop in his underwear by other boys.  He's in 5th grade now, he's 5'6" weighs around 160 and wears a 10 1/2 mens shoe.  He's a big boy and gets picked on a lot by other kids because of his size already.  The psychiatrist just also placed him on Concerta because he is showing signs of ADD or ADHD and he does have an older 1/2 sister that is ADHD.  We've come to the point that after showers we have to do "butt checks" because he doesn't wash his butt really well and there's still goop still in his crack after the bath.  I think what is bothering me most is that none of it bothers him at all!  HELP!

You still didnt explain how a kid craps on the floor and just leaves it there and this is medical and not mental? Why can't you accept that it is a mental issue? Is that too painful to accept? Is it easier to have the excuse that he "cant help it?" Even if it were true that they dont fell an "urge" how do you explain the kid who sits in his own mess until his butt is raw? He cant smell, or feel, or see crap in his own pants? Give me a break.

P.S.  Keep your religion to yourself! 

"Please do not tell the millions of infertile women who need treatment that they are just too uptight to get pregnant. I was appalled that a doctor suggested that on today's show. If you are going to include an infertile couple on a show or comment about them, you need to know what you are talking about. Clearly Dr. Phil and the above poster have no clue what it is like to go years and years without having a baby or to have real medical problems that prevent conception by normal means."

AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Infertility is a medical condition. I could not believe that a medical professional would tell that woman to "take a vacation". SO ridiculous. Maybe cancer can be cured by going to Maui? Such misinformation. :(