My Three Sons

by Gary W. Edson
(Palo Alto, California, USA)

My wife and I have three sons, the oldest, Sean, is 15 and is from my wife’s earlier marriage.

My two biological sons are several years younger at 6 and 3 respectively.

Even though I have lived with and actively raised Sean for over nine years, there still seems to be a schism, where I am still not fully regarded by him as a full parent with authority.

One night my wife, Kathie, was to attend a school board meeting at the grammar school across the street. It was a hot night so we decided to have a picnic dinner outside at the same school and take advantage of the playground equipment.

Another board member dropped off her young son, so I was left to watch the four boys.

I was sure the oldest, Sean, would be a help by playing with the three little ones.

When he chooses to, Sean can be very good with younger children. For some reason, that night Sean chose not to be of help and became by far the hardest one to handle.

The evening began with Sean teasing and challenging the two five-year-old boys.

When dinner was served, Sean got upset that he had to drink “only iced water” with his meal. We don’t usually allow Sean to drink soda at night, due to the excessive amounts of sugar and possibly caffeine involved.

Before we had finished our meal, Sean overheard the neighboring picnickers packing up to leave.

Against my better wishes, he left the dinner table to see if he could “bum” a soda from them.

Well, he hit the jackpot.

One of the women, who obviously regarded soda in the same dim light that we do, said that he could have the last four sodas since she didn’t want them around: two colas and two lemon-limes, all with lots of sugar.

He returned and showed us all very proudly what he had done.

I told him that I didn’t want him drinking the sodas, noting the sugar and that two of them had caffeine which would keep him up late.

We were already going to have popsicles and I worried that would be sugar enough.

Rather than listen, he got up and proudly showed the others that he could fit all four of the sodas in his baggy pants pockets. He popped one open and began to guzzle it in front of the other boys, who all, of course, wanted some.

He refused to share.

I asked him and the boys to stop.

He persisted in teasing and fighting with the kids. The fight turned into a chase with Sean guzzling the soda as he ran away.

As I cleaned up the table, I hoped that things would get better and cool down.

They didn’t.

So I walked across the playground where Sean was still taunting the kids and I asked him to “just put the sodas in the cooler”, and I opened the cooler.

Evidently, he decided that this was a great “next play” so he ran toward me with the three remaining sodas and threw them into the cooler at a full run, one at a time, like he was dunking so many baskets.

My immediate thought was that he was making a shambles of the popsicles still left in the cooler and I put my hand to stop him from throwing the sodas, asking him to stop.

He threw the second and third ones in, hitting my hands as I waved for him to stop.

I took the sodas out to see if there was anything left of the popsicles.

Sean couldn’t understand why his sodas were not being safely protected from the five-year-old boys, and why I was suddenly holding up my hands to stop him from throwing them into the cooler.

He immediately yelled very loudly “You bastard!”
at me, grabbed the sodas and went back to sit on the playground equipment.

I stood there for a while not knowing what to do.

What bothered me the most was that Sean was modeling some very bad and disrespectful behavior for the younger ones and that these sodas were continuing to cause an unbelievable amount of trouble.

Sean popped open the second one and began to guzzle it down as fast as he could.

Very quickly, some strange neighborhood kids wanted to know where he got the sodas and asked for one.

Sean responded that he wasn’t going to share them, and picked up the two remaining sodas like he was expecting another fight over them.

I thought, “Oh boy, now we’re going to have another fight and chase over the sodas.”

Thinking I would diffuse the situation, I asked Sean once again to give me the sodas.

He refused.

I walked towards him and said, “Please, just give me the sodas.”

He yelled, “No!”, got up and backed away about fifty feet yelling at me.

I got closer to him asking for him to hand me the sodas, and that I was very serious about it.

He looked like he was about to run away and I grabbed his shirt as he was about to turn away.

I held his shirt saying, “Just give me the sodas.”

He finally said, “Okay, you can have the dammed sodas” and he threw them on the ground.

I thought, “Great, the problem was solved”.

He started crying and walked back to the house not saying anything to me.

I stayed with the three younger children for another ten minutes or so until Kathie returned from the meeting.

I explained to her what had happened and I went back to the house to talk to Sean.

He was clearly upset and couldn’t understand why I had acted as I did, especially my throwing the sodas out of the cooler.

He was also confused, thinking I was going to drink the sodas myself.

I told him that I was very disappointed in the way that he had behaved, with his teasing the kids, his drinking the two sodas even while I said not to and especially his showing me such disrespect.

We talked calmly and clarified much for each other of what and why things had happened.

Sean was still very upset and continued to cry.

It became a defining moment for him as to our relationship.

We had always had a friendly, easy going bonding when he was younger, but as the youngest ones took more of my time and attention, I think that Sean had felt left out in the cold, and my assertion of authority over him alone was further proof to him that things would not be the same between us.

I think that all step children must feel a bit separate and unequal in their own family.

The whole situation comes to the surface especially when the step parent exerts their authority.

It is a difficult thing to handle.