Stepdaughter was outside hanging in the backyard patio with her computer yesterday late morning, and I said to her dad, “She seems pissed.”
“Yeah, she is,” he said. “She’ll get over it.”
“I don’t want her to ‘get over it,’ it doesn’t resolve anything and would probably lead to a lot of resentment. I’ll go talk to her and let her get it out.”
Despite Mr. W feeling that “getting over it” IS a resolution, I disagree, so I went outside with the baby and told the stepdaughter, “I get the sense that you’re pissed, so I want to give you the opportunity to air it with me.”
She jumped right in. She said she’s tried to be “the one positive happy influence in the house,” but the negativity is affecting her health. She feels like she’s a roommate living here, no worse, she corrected, like a tenant. She doesn’t feel like she’s part of a “family” and instead feels like she’s always on eggshells because she’s not allowed to do anything. She feels picked on because she wants to bring friends over, do things in the kitchen, watch TV, do laundry, and feels like she’s constantly being told not to. She said the laundry thing the other night was “the last straw” because she thought, ‘Great, I can’t even do laundry anymore?’ She said she hasn’t been around and yes she does come home late, but that’s because she doesn’t WANT to be here. She says the baby crying affects her, too, and she wakes up at night when she hears the baby, too, and doesn’t get uninterrupted sleep through the night.
I told her that I completely understand what she’s saying and how she feels, and that her feelings are valid, but life with a newborn has everyone on eggshells, not just her. I said no one has a problem with her cooking in the kitchen, watching TV, having friends over, or doing laundry, it’s just the HOURS she chooses to do them. If she’s doing all these things after 10pm, she knows the household is asleep and it takes an hour to put a baby down, and another hour to calm her down back into sleep if she is woken up by noise. Yes, hearing a baby cry and getting your sleep interrupted is hard, having to be quiet around a baby is hard, but that’s my life 24/7. I’m well aware of how hard that is. But when she’s out all day and then does laundry cuz she absolutely has to at 10:30pm, it makes me wonder if someone sprung on her at 9:30p that she has to perform in uniform the next morning, so that she had to rush back home and wash her uniform really quickly at 10:30p.
She said that she knew she procrastinated on the washing of her uniform, which is why she didn’t argue with me, she just apologized. But even so, she doesn’t like the new lifestyle we’re imposing on her and again, she feels like she’s being targeted for criticism. She feels like she can’t do anything without someone telling her she’s too loud because the baby’s sleeping. (The problem is that if she chooses to only come home after 10:15p nightly, then just about everything IS too loud for that hour.) She says she’s a college student and she WANTS to have her friends over and she WANTS to be able to watch TV or whatever late (she sold the TV in her room for Haiti money so she watches now in the living room). Last night, for example, she had her new bf over from 10p-12a. He’s super-good about staying quiet, tho, so I never heard them. So basically, she’s resentful that she has to live in a household where the lifestyle has changed to accommodate a newborn, and she doesn’t want to change her lifestyle to make it suitable to what’s going on in the house.
She said she’s already talked to her mom and wants to move in with her mom.
I asked if her mom was upset. She said not at all, her mom said that this is just how life is with new parents of a new baby. Her mom thinks the stepdaughter will just “get over it” and encouraged her not to move out, but said that if she wanted to go stay with her mom for a week, that she could do that. So the stepdaughter is going to move in with her mom for a week at some point this week as a “trial” to see if it would work for her, “and then maybe you guys can get a live-in nanny or something.”
I told her that this is up to her and she can do whatever she wants, but that it was important for her to understand that we’re not kicking her out. She nodded. I told her I need her to also know that I don’t think badly of her, she’s not a bad person and even earlier yesterday I’ve thought about how lucky I am that she is a wonderful person. I acknowledged that she hasn’t changed or done anything differently from before the baby, but I understand what she’s saying and I agree that that her lifestyle is just not compatible with the necessarily changed lifestyle in the house right now and yes, it’s causing everyone to get a little resentful. I said that yes, a live-in nanny would be great, but not at the expense of losing her. I meant that as in, losing a relationship with her, not as in I’m not letting her move out, I hope she understood that. I got teary-eyed and she reached out for my hand. Then she said she loved me and I said I loved her, too.

After that, she seemed to come around. She probably felt good she got the communication out. She said she and the bf (who came over w/o her telling me, at least, but I left it alone at that point) were walking to Subway, would we like anything? Mr. W and I both declined, and they left in good spirits, returned in good spirits, even watched a little of the Superbowl with Mr. W. Then the bf left for a bit, then came back later as I found out the next morning (that’s how quiet he is!).

I asked her later in the evening, after I put the baby down, when she was planning to go to her mom’s. She said maybe tomorrow (today). I said this is probably a great week to go because the baby’s sick. Allie definitely has the sniffles, and I’ve been using the bulb aspirator on her. (Thankfully, she doesn’t appear to mind being “deboogerized” much. She usually smiles after I suction.) I’d meant that the baby would probably be fussy from being uncomfortable, but the stepdaughter took it as it’s a great time to avoid catching something herself. I’m not sure if she still wants to move out, but I’m torn between hoping to have a room free for the possibility of a live-in, getting some quiet, and having a spare room again, vs. having a damaged or at least less close relationship with her. Mr. W said it wasn’t worth worrying about because it’s not my decision anyway. When a 21 yr old adult decides she can’t tolerate living in a house with a newborn, she gets to leave. It’s not her baby, after all.