July 8, 2003
Fatherville.com Monthly Newsletter
Total Readership: 1,961
Welcome to the July 2003 edition of the Fatherville.com Newsletter. (Article Archives)

Keep Struggling With You Fatherhood
No matter where you are at on your journey the path of Fatherhood will always be challenging. All of us, at times, struggle with various aspects of fatherhood. The new, first time father struggles with no longer being the center of attention. The stepfather sometimes struggles with the challenges of maintaining balance in a "blended family." The divorced father often battles with the behavioral challenges that can come from parenting children who are only present part of the time. 

So, what are some of the biggest challenges you face as a father? Drop us an email and express some of the concerns you have as a father. Have you also found some solutions to some of your biggest fathering challenges? Let us know and we'll publish as many of your responses as we can.

A Salute to Special Needs Fathers
In this issue I am featuring an article by Jeff Stimpson entitled "Good Night." As a father Jeff faces unique challenges raising his son Alex who has a number of special needs. Being the dad of a special needs child brings its own kind of fears, feelings, and frustrations. Jeff's essays are always filled with insight, clarity, grace and passion. You can find more of Jeff's articles on his personal website at Jeff's Life.

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Good Night by Jeff Stimpson

I've heard that new parents never sleep. The story of my sleep as a dad is linked to the story of our overnight nursing, which we got when Alex came home in July after 13 months in the hospital. 

Alex sleeps, and sleeps well, in a room next to the bedroom of me and my wife Jill, in the glow of a three-foot-high goose lamp. 

For four months we had nurses watching Alex sleep, and some episodes during that time made me afraid of being alone with Alex all night. Once his air concentrator quit. Once there was a flood under the kitchen sink. Come to think of it that was caused by a nurse who tried to give him a bath at 5 a.m. but gave up and dumped the water into our wastebasket. 

Now that I have had some quiet nights to think, it's hard to believe the nurses were on our side. One of them told the nursing agency she was just beginning her own pregnancy when she could barely squeeze into the rocker beside Alex's crib. She disappeared around Halloween, which got us down to one nurse we liked and who we thought liked us. Weeknights at 11 the front door buzzer would erupt and a second later she'd slip through our front door with a cup of Dunkin' Donuts coffee and say, "Hello. Good night." I think she meant "good evening." 

One morning I calculated that Jill and I had suddenly soloed overnight for six of the preceding nine nights. For the first time, I felt like a father. Not long after, the one remaining nurse said she had to start leaving at six in the morning. A few days later the agency called and asked did I know that this coming Friday was going to be that nurse's last day, as she had taken another job. Her potential replacements included one nurse who used to wake Alex up at 5:30 a.m. because she was bored. 

Hello, good night. 

So we said thank you anyway, and begin picking our own sleep schedule. This has included skirmishing in the wee hours with Alex's Pulse Oximeter. The Pulse-ox probe wrapped around Alex's big toe measures his pulse and oxygen-saturation in his blood; the alarm goes off if his numbers dip or sometimes if he just yawns hard enough. The makers of the pulse-ox call it "movement sensitive." I call it "movement insensitive." If Alex rolls over to shift himself in a wet diaper, the pulse-ox cracks our sleep. Actually it cracks Jill's sleep, who eventually cracks mine. I wear one earplug - pre-fatherhood, I wore two - and she often hears the pulse-ox first. She says I sleep in a Flintstones-like state, where I have something that wakes up so it can wake me up. 

We've had three or four fights in the dark of the night. 

"I've gotten up three times already!" 

"I have to work tomorrow!" Once we talked about divorce. Then we went back to sleep. 

My family has slept alone for a month, and Alex seems to appreciate mom and dad's schedule. He used to fall asleep around 8 p.m.; now it's between 9 and 10:30 when I look into the crib and find the eyes closed. Sometimes he has an arm in the air. And I have learned that when Alex falls asleep, I should hit the hay no more than an hour later after filling Alex's bag of formula and wrapping the probe around his toe. 

I wish I could set the sensitive, sensitive machine to remain silent when he moves his toe. 

"Can you get this one?" 

"Can't you?" 

"I've been up three times already!" Has a pillow ever been this soft? 

Tonight when I come home we will fix Alex up with another probe, and in the wee hours of tomorrow I will scurry to find Alex's hand in the air and him unmoving in the glow of the goose. If Alex will be doing anything in the middle of the night, it's rolling around and smiling before he goes back to sleep. 

Jill and I will try to go back to sleep. But sometimes we will lay in the dark of our home and think, What's wrong with his left eye? When will he talk? How come he has that bald patch on the back of his head? How can any little kid stay alive in New York City? What about cancer? 

Hard questions, at hard hours of the day. But I remember my sleep in those first 13 months, when he was in the hospital, and I'll take this new kind of tired.

Respond to this article.

More of Jeff's articles can be seen at: Jeff's Life

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This Months Fun Fathering Tips by Peter Atkinson

Rainy Day Fun 

School's almost out so here's one to help with any rainy days that are ahead. Like everything in WOW DAD!, it takes little or no preparation so you can use it even in last minute rainouts. 

Take a bunch of pennies and mark them with a magic marker or by taping on bits of colored paper. Hide them around a room or around the house and have an easy-to-do instant treasure hunt. 

Try to make a note of how many pennies you started with. Any that aren't found will turn up later and the special marking will make them a great little reminder of a fun time. 

Any Day Fun 

Here's a great one for a lazy summer day that you can do just about anywhere. 

Circle a small patch of ground with a piece of string or a shoelace. Now sit down together and have a look at what you've got in your mini-corral. Look for insects, odd pieces of plastic or metal, bits of leaves and tiny plants that might otherwise be overlooked. You might even be able to leave the string in place to revisit it over the summer and watch the changes. 

You can do this in different places and get completely different results. 

Like the 'Take Some Time' tip in the book, this is a great opportunity for you to slow things down and just talk together. 

Hint: The longer the string that you use, the more there'll be to talk about

Peter Atkinson is the author of WOW DAD! 136 ways to be the wonderful, fun, smart parent you always knew you were. You can buy the book or get free samples at www.wowdad.com. Peter can be reached at peter.atkinson@wowdad.com

Be The Wonderful, Fun, Smart Parent You Always Knew You Were
WOW DAD! – Updated with 91% more fun stuff for 2003
Not arts & crafts but simple, fun things you can do anywhere
and anytime. Available exclusively online in PDF format – visit
for the Free Samples! www.wowdad.com/indexfatherville.htm
Hope For Stepfathers By Ken Canfield

If you're a stepfather, you're part of the most rapidly emerging group of fathers in our nation. Recent estimates have placed the number of divorced mothers who remarry at around 80%. Every new stepfather walks into an emotional mine field as he tries to simultaneously recover from the wounds in his own past, build a new marriage with his wife, and settle into this new family situation with his wife's children and possibly children from his previous marriage. And all this takes place in the aftermath of your wife's ex-husband, who still seems to linger mystically-if not physically-in the shadows of this new household. It isn't surprising that a large percentage of abuse cases occur in step or mixed families. 

But there are those of you who are truly instruments of hope and healing to fatherless homes, and you deserve praise for your willingness to step in and be a father figure for those who have none. You face a tremendous challenge. 

As a stepfather, you're really more like a mentor than a father. You're a helper, a caretaker, a steward of sorts, who gives the children a needed perspective and becomes an important source of strength as they grow and mature. You don't actually have the responsibility that your wife does in raising them-though you can earn that responsibility over time-but you do possess a potential to influence them that is equal to, though different from, your wife's. 

Here are five ways you can ease the tension of being a stepfather: 

1. Keep encouraging the children's relationship with their biological father. What often happens in second (or third) marriages is that everyone in the household tries to forget the ex-husband completely. This new family has a good chance of working, you say, and you don't need to stir up memories and bring back all the tears. But no matter how hard you try, you can't forget him, and neither can the children. If you try to ignore his existence, trying to keep his bones in the closet, so to speak, you can be sure that sooner or later, probably during a confrontation, your children will not only drag those bones out, but will use them as weapons against you and your wife. 

The better alternative is to be open and honest about him in your household. If he is still trying to be involved with his kids, encourage him in that, remembering that he is their father, and that his children have a need to be reconciled to him, and to feel at peace about their relationship to him. You may grow to have a lasting and rewarding relationship with your stepchildren, but setting yourself up as the "new father" and asking them to accept you as a replacement to their real father is only asking for turbulence in the future, if not right away. 

As a stepfather, you can never truly be a father to your children. This presents you with some real obstacles, but also gives you certain advantages. You don't have blood connections to your children, so there won't be the natural emotional attachment, but the pressure and expectations biological real fathers face won't be there either. You may have more difficulty establishing close relationships with the children, but whatever you do accomplish with them will be a bonus instead of a half-fulfilled obligation. 

2. Discuss discipline and exercise it with extreme caution. Perhaps the greatest point of tension for a new stepfather is knowing how and to what extent you should be involved in the discipline of your children. Here are two examples that illustrate right and wrong ways of handling the situation: 

Janice married Reggie because they needed each other. Both of them had problems from their previous marriages, and they decided they could help each other heal. Reggie believed in strict discipline, and so naturally he began to take control with Janice's kids, and Janice felt it was right to yield to him. But Reggie was bringing expectations upon her children for which she had never prepared them, and instead of protecting her children from his heavy-handed discipline and criticism, she gave him full authority over them. He had taken it upon himself to impress upon them his own views regarding their music and many of their other habits-things that she had never really worried about in the past. 

As you would expect, the children didn't take to Reggie very well. The family entered counseling not long after he moved in, one son became a delinquent, and one of Janice's daughters underwent psychiatric care and was eventually placed in another home. This family demonstrates the major and lasting fallout when a stepfather dives in or is pushed into a role as disciplinarian with his new children. 

Norm and Trudy are a far different story. After Trudy's divorce, she and her kids were utterly disillusioned. When Norm, who had never been married, met Trudy and they began to think about marriage, their plans included her four children. They discussed his role in discipline-he would be there to back up Trudy and support her decisions, and if he had any questions or disagreements he would bring them up in private, away from the kids. 

This kind of sensitivity on Norm's part not only won him a loving wife, but her kids viewed him as an answer to their prayers. His devotion to Trudy has strengthened their marriage and her children's sense of security in the household. Men like Norm should give us all hope that there are men who can provide children with the male leaders that they need. 

3. Schedule regular times away from the kids as a couple. Even more than in first marriages, it is vital that you and your wife spend time alone, strengthening and revitalizing your marriage. Besides the benefits you will see as a couple, your stepchildren will take great comfort in your commitment to one another. They've already seen one marriage end, and some children even blame themselves for it. Their outlook on life each day will be greatly improved if they sense love and commitment between their mother and stepfather at home. 

These outings can also serve as times of reassessment and planning as a parenting team. If all wives are ambassadors of sorts between fathers and their children, they are even more essential where stepfathers are concerned. Your wife is really the key person in the situation. She knows you well, and she knows her kids. She also knows the children's father: his influence, and his strengths and weaknesses. This can be a time of real enlightenment in which you ask for feedback regarding your relationships with the children, compare notes, and gain valuable insights into the kids' behavior. 

4. Practice acceptance. It's good to realize from the beginning that this new family will take some getting used to. It will take time for them, as well. There will be times when you feel like an outsider. That's why it's so important for you to take the initiative and show the children unconditional acceptance. Be flexible when it comes to mannerisms and personal habits, and be a healthy model of someone who cheerfully adapts to your new family members as they are-faults and all. Your openness and willingness to deal with their idiosyncrasies and unique family atmosphere will be contagious, and will encourage them to accept you more easily. 

5. Don't force her children to call you "Dad." In marrying you, your wife has brought her children some new (and not entirely welcome) obligations and commitments that they have not chosen to make. Forcing them to accept you on such terms will only cause resentment, especially with older kids. Instead, allow the children to define their own comfort zones as they relate to you. Your desire for a quick and smooth transition is natural, but it will be best served by patience, as you earn the respect and love of your wife's children in their time.

Respond to this article.

Article reprinted with permission: © Fathers.com www.fathers.com All Rights Reserved.

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Until next month...hang in there dad!!

Michael E. Farrell
Fatherville.com - Where Real Fathers Write About Real Fatherhood

You may reach me at anytime: mike@fatherville.com
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