Jacquelyn's Space

What to do?

What to do when you have a stepson who’s mother does not always give the best advice? My stepson (he plays the trombone) has a band competition tomorrow. Last week, his band teacher asked all the parents to make sure the kids were bringing their instruments home and practicing outside of school. Well my stepson brought his instrument home from school yesterday but did not have his music. I asked him about it and he said that he was not going to practice – his mother told him that there was such a thing as practicing too much, and that if he practiced too much, he may freeze up at the performance. I was flabbergasted! I have never heard that logic before. At least not in matters of playing an instrument. Let me tell you, I was in band and also play the trombone, and I have never practiced so much that I froze up at a performance. Quite the contrary in fact. The more you practice the more comfortable you are. I think in some things you can be too rehearsed, like for a speech, and your delivery may come off as too monotone but I don’t think any teacher or many music performers are going to tell you not to practice.

I asked my stepson if he asked his band teacher about it. He said no, so I asked him what did he think his teacher would say about that – he kind of waffled on that. I think he knew what his teacher would say, he just did not want to practice.

I just think his mother is crazy. This is the same woman who a week ago was telling us to curtail our parenting time to make sure our son was able to participate in all his activities. She is afraid that we will keep him from band activities (track also, and social life) and therefore he will not have the opportunity to get a scholarship. She made a big deal about him having this opportunity for this scholarship. Yeah – most people who get music scholarships practice their instruments. They practice their instrument guite a lot, until they are sick to death of it and beyond (and if you play trombone – until your lips are red, puffy and numb). So if his mother wonders why my hubby and I don’t take her seriously; why we think she is a double talking liar, it is because instances like these.

 

This one time at band camp….

OK, it didn’t happen at band camp, but I was in band (I played the trombone) and I had tryouts. I had only been playing the instrument for about a year. It was tryout time to see which band (concert was intermediate and symphony was the top band) you would be in and what chair (which part) you would get. We were given a peice of music to practice and then we would have to tryout in front of the class. I practiced my butt off. It was a good thing too becuase I was terrified of playing in front of people by myself. I didn’t have a problem with playing with a group or with the band but to have to play alone was very scary for me. So I get up in front of the class to do my tryout. I was sweating and shaking. My arch enemy, Beth sniggered at me from the saxophone section. I started playing. First we had to do scales, then a few other things and then perform our practice peice. By the time I got to that portion of the tryout I was starting to lose my vision. I started the peice and I lost my vision – I could not see! I was lucky I practiced my butt off because even though I could not see, I still was able to perform because I knew the peice (through all the practicing it became automatic) at that point. I also was starting to lose my hearing by the end of the tryout. It was crazy. Even though I lost my sight for the tryout and was super nervous I actually did very well, because I practiced. I got first chair! I made it in the symphony band! My band director was amazed at my playing. I will always remember that.

 

Today has been a good day so far. I received yet another compliment on my work in the class I do not like so much (Reading Pop Culture). It is so nice to have one’s efforts recognized. I love professors who do not hesitate to let a student know. That is really classy (since we have been talking about class in that class -hehe). I am going to post the compliment here so I can look at when times are rough – like next week is going to be.  

 

Jacquelyn,

Once again, your posts have been exceptionally strong. Your main post is, in a word,
awesome – it’s exactly the way to show that (a) you’ve read, and (b) more
importantly, you’ve been THINKING while reading. 

Terrific work.

Best,
Dr J

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Next week I have a paper and a presentation due for this English class. It is going to be a lot of work. I hope I do well. I also have 2 tests, one in Psych and another in Algebra. On top of all that I have to have a monologue prepared and ready to perform on Monday for my acting class. YIKES!!

 

A great thing I did today was I applied for admittance to U of M Flint. I am so excited! I really want to go to U of M Flint. I will know if I got admitted in June. I can’t believe I will be graduating in about 2 months! I have to start thinking about my next steps. Should I stay at Mott a little while longer and pursue a 2nd associates degree that I want (and take some more math – I would need more math for my bachelors degree and I might as well take it at MCC; it is cheaper) or am I ready to move on to the University? I am going to miss MCC. I could also attend Rochester College here at MCC too. I need to talk to some guidance counselors and interview some psychologists to firm up my education plan and goals. So much to do, so much to think about.

I got another compliment from my professor in that class I dislike. Maybe I will end up liking the class after all  hahaha. This week we are discussing class in America. I am going to post what I wrote because I am proud of it.

Class In America (with comparisons to the British)

 

Why are we so hesitant to talk about class? I was thinking about this and I am still not sure this is true. I do not have any studies to back up that America is talking about class so I am willing to concede it might be true that most Americans do not talk about class issues. I feel this is because for one thing America was supposedly trying to get away from the class distinctions of our British oppressors – you know way back in 1776. This country was created on the principle that all men (ok, all white men) are created equal, so having class distinctions kind of negates that. What we learned though is that people classify and stereotype everybody and we cannot get away from that. Another reason why people may not talk about class is they may be in a class of people they really do not want to identify with. It may hurt them to realize the truth. Yet another reason, and I believe this to be prevalent, is that people (like me) may not know exactly how to classify themselves and are hesitant to classify themselves and most other people. I think a lot of middle class people may feel this. Also, there are two ways of classifying people – by wealth and by mindset. It begins to get sticky when you have a wealthy person who leads a trashy lifestyle (like Paris – can she even be classified as upper class anymore even with all her millions; not in my book. She is as trashy as they come) or a poor person has an upper class mindset, is educated (think homeless guy with a Phd). There are subcultures within the main classes (working class, lower middle, upper middle, professional, etc) and it is hard to put a label (if that is what you really want to do – I am not a big proponent of this) on everybody. Some people may be able to fit into a couple of different class structures. Some people are on the way up, while some are on the way down. Overall I think it baffles people and it is something that is not at the forefront of our minds unless we are upper class or intellectuals. In my opinion, they are the ones that have time to think about this – the rest of us are just trying to get by.

 

The exception may be the people who are proud to be redneck or hillbilly, like Jerri, Sam and Jessi Rae (249) from the "White Trash" article. They don’t think about it too much though, they just are what they are and are proud of it. Ignorance is bliss, huh?

 

Why do we aspire to be "rich and famous"? In this country, I think the majority of us are raised to be a success. Being rich equals success in many people’s eyes. Also, having money equals freedom. If you are well off you can do what you want, when you want. You do not have to kow tow to anyone. We value our freedom in this country but at the same time we are slaves to money. In America, it seems that everybody wants to have a type A personality and they think there is something wrong with you if you do not, you slacker. It is part of our patriotism, that drive, that can do attitude. We are schooled this from birth. It may have started as a "We’ll show them" attitude after the war for independence, again way back when our country was forming. I think I have read something about Americans having Puritan beliefs; hard work and no play. As for fame, being famous equals having money, riches, which in turn equals freedom or at least hot chicks, hot cars, and all the bling you could ever desire.

 

Why don’t we despise and mock the rich? This too I disagree with. There are times and people who despise and mock the rich. Here again I am just telling you my opinion. I cannot produce any hardcore evidence of this. I guess we may not do it to the extent the British do, but I have a prejudice against rich people. I have seen some American comedy/comedians that do this and even some sitcoms. What about shows like "The Fresh Prince of Belaire" where Wil Smith is the poor kid that comes to live with rich relatives. There was some mocking going on there and at times the richie people would learn from the "poor street kid". Or I am thinking about "The Nanny" with Fran Drescher, also mocking of rich going on there and the nanny gets over on the rich guy. I am also thinking about "Frasier", here are two upper class brothers with a working class father. There was a lot of mocking going on there. Ah, Dave Chapelle mocked just about everybody. Even in today’s culture, to like the things that are seen to be upper class – such as the symphony, the ballet, opera, art museums, is portrayed as not very soulful; wooden maybe; white bread; boring; la di da!; etc… Stuff like that is certainly mocked. If there is not much mocking going on in other areas it is because we all aspire to be rich or at least comfortable, so we would be mocking are own desires; we would have to despise ourselves. Also, in America, we are raised to be successful, and that means rich. "I’m rich bitch!"

 

What ideologies drive American concepts of class? How does it differ from the Brits? This is a hard question for me. Capitalism is a big one that drives American concepts of class. The ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ and the ‘in betweens’. Supposedly anyone can make it in this country. If you are one of the ‘have nots’ then you just didn’t work hard enough or weren’t smart enough to achieve the American dream so therefore you do not deserve it. This differs from the British by the fact that their ‘haves’ wealth is inherited and their ‘have nots’ even if they become the ‘haves’ can never be seen as anything other than upstarts or new money. They would never be classified as upper class no matter how much money they have. In America, most people, once they hit a certain income bracket and aren’t too trashy can achieve upper class status. I am not sure this is the case in Britain.

 

How does pop culture help confront or cover up class divisions? It helps confront class divisions by mixing it up. Do you know what I mean? Musical styles combining, things coming out into the mainstream that in the past were just culture or class specific. It may help cover up class divisions by giving us the false impression that the divisions are non existent.

 

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Terrific post, Jaquelyn – your theories are backed up by plenty of compelling evidence, and you’ve stood up to the questions with confidence and clarity.  Well done. L. Juchartz

  It was a good week, overall. Last Sunday I was having room service breakfast at the Palmer House in Chicago – that was wonderful. I actually took a picture of our cart! We went to the Art Museum, which is one of my favorite places. Later in the evening we went to IO improv and saw comedians/actors put their talents to the test. Then we went up to the 96th floor of John Hancock Center and had dinner and drinks. We could see all of Chicago. I tried to take pictures but they turned out blurry.

Wednesday I had lunch at Applewood Cafe, Mott Community College. http://www.mcc.edu/3_academics/divisions/bus_applewood.shtml I love that restaurant. It is run by the culinary arts department there. They basically serve gourmet meals for cheap because it is a teaching restaurant. It is overseen by a chef. The food is always good and very pretty (I have pics) haha. This Wednesday, for Black History Month, Kuungana performed. Kuungana is an African dance and drum troupe. It was wonderful to hear the drums (reminds me of Santana) and the dancers were awesome. I want to learn to dance like that. It would be good exercise. http://www.rhythmologist.com/

Thursday, Chuck and I had dinner with our son. We had a lot of fun. Our son also had a concert for band (he plays the trombone) that evening. It was nice. They have a competition coming up so this was like a dress rehearsal for all the kids.

Now the reason I am so happy this weekend. Saturday my professor (for the Engl class that I dislike) emailed me and told me what a good job I did on last weeks assigment. I emailed him back and thanked him for letting me know. I needed that! I am not getting bad grades on my assinments but this class is very difficult. It is a ton of writing. I think keeping a blog is helping me with my writing. Ideas flow more readily from my brain.

 

This is going to be long but I have to write it out. Writing is like therapy. It is about Chuck’s ex and her idea for their son. That ho really does make me angry – the nerve of her! I guess I shouldn’t ever expect to be anything but angry with her though – the way she treats Chuck! I wish she was a nice person or at least more likeable. I have always wished I could like her for my stepson’s sake but unfortunately I cannot. If you really knew her and have been through what Chuck and I have you would feel the same.

 

My husbands ex-wife wanted to meet with him or us (not sure which but I went) regarding their son’s (he is 14) schedule. He tried to get her to tell him what she wanted via email so we would not have to meet with her, but she insisted on a meeting. I already knew this wasn’t going to be good, although I always hope for the best. I wasn’t really sure I wanted to be there (his ex is just icky – she has issues that my sensitive soul picks up on, but more about that later) but since I drive Chuck (and we had just gotten out of work and school) and I also drive our son, I thought I might as well be there, at the very least, to support Chuck.

Chuck’s ex has physical custody. Chuck has parenting time every other week-end, one evening a week, two weeks in the summer and the alternate holidays and child’s birthday. He had to fight to get that extra weeknight evening and extra week in the summer. A lot of non-custodial parents have much more time than what he has. He is a good father too. It is not like he is a deadbeat or anything, like I know she tries to make him out to be. One time she tried to tell me he was abusive towards her; I laughed in her face. If anyone is abusive it is her, at least mentally/verbally abusive. But that will have to be a blog for another day. Chuck could never hurt anyone. Hell, I can’t even argue with him (on the rare occasions I am being a bitch, haha – or we have a disagreement)  because he just doesn’t argue. I think that is why she ultimately had affairs and left Chuck – he didn’t provide enough drama for her. I think she wants someone to argue with. But again, I digress.

Overall I think she has issues with control and jealousy. She wants to control our relationship with our son, or wanted Chuck to just disappear from his son’s life. She certainly never wanted another mother figure in her son’s life. She is jealous of Chuck and my relationship with our son.

OK, so this is what she wants. You all tell me (if anybody ever reads my blogs) if you think this is reasonable. She wants Chuck to give up, to take out of the parenting time order, his every other week-end and give up one week in the summer. I am not sure about the one evening a week but I am sure she wants that out to. She wants their son to be able to decide when he sees his father. So basically Chuck would not have any set parenting time. According to her, their son has too many activities in the summer for us to be able to have him for two weeks. Also, she does not want their son to miss out on ‘anything’ and she is afraid he will miss out on a lot of stuff if he has to go see his Dad. Basically, she wants Chuck to give up his parenting time for their son’s social life.

We know that his son has band camp in August so we were hoping to get a week in June and a week in July. Chuck was supposed to have his son for the 4^th of July holiday this year but a trip may or may not be in the works for his son to go down to FL and spend time with ex’s family at a NASCAR race. We were not consulted about this and are still not sure of any details or if it is going to happen at all. It is something that Chuck’s son really wants to do so we did not raise a fuss about it. BUT Chuck should have been consulted since A. it is his holiday this year and B. what parent would not expect (and should be) consulted about their child leaving the state for a week. Oh yeah, the ex is willing to give up one of her weeks of vacation time. WOW, what a sacrifice. They never go anywhere!! I think last summer they went on a ‘vacation’. It was a week-end trip to Michigan Adventure. Family vacations are important to us – see blog below – and we always go somewhere every summer. We know that we will not be able to do that with our son much longer but we were hoping to do it this year. Chuck should still get his two weeks in the summer even if we sit at home one week because of our son’s schedule. She told us at the meeting to plan a vacation for another time other than summer! What and take him out of school? We would not want to do that but like that would ever happen. She just gets pissed off because we take our son places. It all goes back to the jealousy thing. She does not want her son to have a good time with us.

Chuck’s ex also stated that she is sure their son will be at our house quite a bit because he loves coming over. I know he likes coming over but we are already competing with his social life now. I can’t imagine what it would be like if we did not have a set parenting time. It has already been difficult dealing with her over issues regarding parenting time, why would now be any different? If our son wanted to come over but she felt that it was more important that he stay at her house, who do you think would win out? She has a lot of influence over her son (as mothers do) and she has no problem lying and manipulating people, including her son, to get what she wants. Did I say it has been difficult dealing with her over parenting time issues? It has been very, very difficult to downright impossible dealing with her. All the instances of her flying off the handle, calling my husband and yelling at  him, coming up to his work and yelling at him, lying, and her under-handed tricks could fill many blogs. We cannot trust her now. We cannot trust her to not influence their son against visiting his father. In my opinion, she has made a consistent effort to try to push my husband out of their son’s life and this is just one of her little tricks disguised in concern for her son’s social life and school activities. No, no, we cannot trust her and it would be cruel to put all that responsibility on our son about when he should visit and not visit. I told Chuck’s ex at this meeting Wed (and before) that we do not trust her. I should have articulated more of what I meant because she took it to mean that I was just trying to hurt her. She went on and on about how what I think about her does not matter to her. That is not the issue – I don’t really care; I don’t care what she thinks about me either but trust is at issue here. If she really feels that Chuck giving up his parenting time is what is best for her son then we need to trust her to make sure that their son is given room to make his decisions without her manipulating him or influencing his decisions. We cannot trust her not to do that. Even in the best of circumstances (which these are not, believe me) it would be hard for any parent not to influence their child to stay with them, etc. She has never shown herself to be a positive influence in regard to fostering a good relationship with the other parent. Every parent, whether there is divorce or not, is obligated to promote a good relationship with the other parent, unless of course the other parent is totally crazy or unsafe. She is not interested in doing this.

She also stated that she does not get to spend time with her son because he is never home. I hardly think that is true. He is at her house 75% of the time.  It is up to her to make spending time with her son a priority. She says he is always at friend’s houses. For one thing, she gets to see him most every morning and most every evening. Another thing, ah, he is home watching TV the majority of the time Chuck calls him. If he was always at friend’s houses, Chuck would never get a hold of him.

Other issues at hand here are transportation, family being a priority, and just plain old teenager stuff. She tried to put on like she was so concerned with Chuck (Chuck does not drive due to eyesight problems) and I having to drive their son to anything he wants to do. We have been doing it so far, what is to stop us now? Sure it is difficult sometimes. Our son needs to do a better job a communicating the details of his activities (she has never been any help in this regard either) and what he wants to do. Chuck and I do what we can to keep abreast of what is going on with our son – we check the school website and have the newsletter delivered to us, but the rest falls to our son. If he wants to do something, he needs to let us know. After the meeting, Chuck and I were like "If she is so concerned about her son missing activities and times with his friends why doesn’t she step up and provide more of the transportation?"

She also said sometimes he keeps himself from doing things with his friends because it is on his Dad’s time and he is afraid to ask and hurt our feelings. This may or may not be true. He does not have much of a problem with that when he is at our house. I think he sometimes may be torn about which set of friends he wants to spend time with – the set at his Mom’s or at his Dad’s. We have always tried to have an open relationship with our son. He can talk to us about anything but I don’t think he realizes it even though we have told him over and over. I blame this on his mother too. She has told him in the past not to talk to us about certain things because he will get her in trouble. So now I think he is afraid to say much of anything. Chuck and I have told our son to keep us informed of activities, let us know anytime he wants to do anything, he is more than welcome to call his friends (no matter where they are from) and have them over – we have even offered to have a sleepover or party for his friends; it is on our son’s shoulders whether he follows through on his end. We do not want him to miss out on anything either and have been accommodating to changes in schedule, etc. Chuck has always been flexible with his parenting time. I cannot say the same for his ex. There will be spurts where she is fairly flexible about things but only if she is happy with her life at the time. There are times (most often) you can tell she is not happy with what is going on in her life because she takes it out on those around her. Now I know there are times when plans cannot be changed or activities/family functions/ whatever cannot be planned around whose week-end (this happens on our end too, but again Chuck has always been easy to deal with) it is but there have been many times we have caught her in lies. She will say NO to us just to say no because she just does not want us to have time with her son. For one thing, I get the feeling that either she does not think that Chuck, his son and I are a family or have the right to consider ourselves a family or she thinks that her family (and things that she may be doing) is more important than our family or anything we might want to do. I also think that she has let her son know this, if not in words then certainly in actions. It is sad, to always have to battle that. Add to that the teenager stuff; rebellion, friends being a priority over family, tons of activities to do … Well it is just hard to have any time with our son.

 

Some of the other frightening things about her idea of Chuck not having any set parenting time and letting their son decide are:

            What if we are disciplining (will we even be able to with an arrangement like that?) him about something and of course he does not like it and gets mad. He just says "I am mad at Dad so I am not going over to his house!"

            We will have less communication with our son and will be even less informed than we are now about what is going on in his life.

            What if he decides he wants to come to our house? He calls and we are not home, we have made other plans, or Chuck is home but no one is available to pick up our son? Are just supposed to hang around waiting for the phone to ring?

            The ex gets mad and says "well we will just revert back to what the court order says!" She has done this many times. Well there will not be much to the order anymore, will there?

             Not having a set parenting time puts more of a burden on our son. He would be put in a postion of having to choose between the parents at certain points. He has already said he does not want to have to choose between the two. Having the parenting time makes it easier on him because there are set times with each parent.

 

I think the idea is crazy. Too much competition for our son’s time! Too many chances for her to manipulate situations!

           

The bottom line is this: Our family and spending time with our son is important to us. At the same time we want him to do whatever his little heart desires (within reason of course, you know, not talking ’bout letting him blow things up for example). We need to find a balance between the two. Family should take precedence over everything but that should not be so heavy handed that it does not allow for other things. 

 

WOW!! This is soooo long. Heehe. It really helped to write it all out though. Tell me what you think – if anybody reads all this.