July 17, 2016 – recently (past few months) I’ve been finding myself at odds with Ania. Our parenting styles are becoming so different, and it’s putting the two of us in a consistent ‘bicker’ with each other. Every day I grow more and more frustrated with the situation and fear I will just explode.

In my opinion, Ryan has been taking advantage of her ‘summer rules’ and not respecting or appreciating them. Examples include: they pretty much stay up all night together (one night until 5:30 AM). She let’s him eat whatever he wants at all hours of the night, long after dinner. She gets upset when there are times in the day when he has to be left alone (e.g. for us to do our work), even though we agreed BEFORE summer vacation began that it was a necessity to have our alone time.

The list goes on and on.

She gets pissed off at me for doing what I believe is necessary to keep Ryan in check. Tonight, for example, I told him he needs to be in bed early (and by early it was like 11:00 PM) in order to be ready for tomorrow when Nana will take him to work with her for a special treat. He got upset with me, and basically said ‘no’. The minute I start to put my foot down and tell him, “if I say you’re going to bed…you’re going to bed,” he gets even more upset. And then SHE gets upset because it’s a ‘Hitler’ way of parenting. And in her mind we have to TALK to him about it instead of just dictating.

Or another example: tonight again he didn’t finish his dinner. His friend John was over and he joined us for dinner as well. John finished everything he was given. Ryan didn’t. They came inside and they both wanted chocolates. I let Ryan have one so as to not embarrass him by saying no, since he didn’t finish his vegetables. But then they both came back for more and I told John he could have one, but told Ryan he couldn’t. And there again, Ryan got upset with me. He later told me I embarrassed him and sometimes he doesn’t like how I talk to him in front of his friends.

But I’m your father Ryan! If I need to enforce certain rules of the house, I have to do it. I don’t care who is around or if it embarrasses you or not. (Though today I told him I’d work on pulling him to the side instead of saying something in front of his friends). But Ryan – you need to respect the rules of the house! Don’t take advantage of them and do whatever you please.

And all this time Ania completely disagrees with my approach. Sorry – I can’t help it! If I see my son defying me NOW at age 8, how will he be at 15 Ania? If I can’t get him to go to bed now without yelling at him, how will this get any better? If I can’t raise my voice, put my foot down, and PARENT this child…even if it means yelling at him to get my point across…then why the hell am I even here.

For the first time tonight, I found myself wanting to leave. I feel like I cause nothing but aggravation for everyone in the family. I can’t be the parent I feel I need to be, I can’t speak up for fear that you’ll get all upset at the situation, I can’t do anything right. When I cook dinner, something is wrong with it. Despite the fact I do virtually EVERY single fucking thing in this household – yardwork, breakfast in bed, cooking, laundry, cleaning…and all this ON TOP OF trying to get America’s Footprints earning money and trying to build Optimus – you STILL aren’t happy.

And god for bid I don’t spend any time with Ryan for most of the day. You think I don’t want to? You think I’d rather be in the office sitting a computer desk all day? You think I’d rather be driving all over the fucking country trying to get Optimus built or make money with KITT?

You walk around the house with this attitude everytime I do something wrong. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells with you lately. Say or do one thing, and that’s it – the day is ruined. I try my damndest to give you both the life most people dream of. Yet it isn’t enough.

I am tired Ania. I don’t know what else I can do to please you. For the first time ever I just want to walk away. As I write this, words can’t express how aggravated I feel. I’m pissed off. I’m upset that my own son thinks he’s the king of this house and can dictate how our days go. I’m pissed off that you get upset at me everytime I “ruin your zen” by having to yell at Ryan or raise my voice. I’m pissed off that you seem to have no confidence in my abilities as a parent. You believe in this modern day bullshit of “let’s talk to the child”. I think I’ve done a damn good job attempting to try your approach. But let’s get fucking real – we’re his parents. If we say we’re going somewhere and he doesn’t like it, too fucking bad! He goes where we go.

Ryan – I want you to know that every decision I make in life is to help make you a better person. I try to impart my wisdom and my experience to you everyday. Most times I feel muzzled, but still do what I can to get my message across. You are my world. And I would drop everything in a heartbeat to spend more time with you. But the reality is that I can’t. If I don’t start making money for our family this year, I don’t know what we’ll do. Therefore I’m doing what I NEED to do to help maintain our lifestyle and to build an even better one for all of us. I need you to understand sometimes that means I’ll be away or unavailable for a while. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to be with you. I’m just doing what I need to do for our family.

Ania – I want you to know that for the first time ever, I started questioning our future. Where do we go from here? We have totally different approaches to parenting. And these differences are separating us. I am no longer happy. I haven’t been for a very long time. In fact I am miserable. I feel like you just don’t appreciate what I do for this family anymore. You might appreciate certain moments, like surprise trips to the beach one day. But as soon as we walk in our house, the mood changes. Like the good times we had just vanish. And within 10 minutes we’re back to a stressful household with everyone ‘tensed up’. You need wine or music to bring your ‘happy’ back. Apparently I don’t do that for you anymore.

I don’t know what else to say. This is just me expressing my emotions they best way I know how. If I bring any of this stuff up, it’ll just lead to more arguments and frustration. It’s just not worth it to me anymore. With everything that’s been happening in our lives lately, I feel like I’ve been beaten down so hard that I might as well just stay down and die already.

Something needs to change. Time will tell what that something is.