Toddler to Teenager in a Matter of Months

I think I mentioned before that once I got married, I would have a sixteen-year-old step-daughter. That happened this last Monday (yay!) Said step-daughter lives in Germany near Berlin with her mother. Her mother and my new husband were high-school sweethearts. She was a German exchange student and he was the president of the German club. After graduation he joined the Air Force and was subsequently stationed in Germany. She and he got back together, got married and had what the Big Furry affectionately calls his Teufelkin. R was born in Germany and moved to the U.S. when she was a toddler. Later after Big Furry and her mom divorced, she was moved back to Germany. Big Furry hasn't physically seen her since she was seven years old. A few years ago R and her dad reconnected on Facebook. I've talked to my new step-daughter a handful of times on Facebook and I stalk her regularly. She seems like a normal teenager. Right now she's going through a couple of major teenage things. One is that she's going through the "I hate my mom!" phase. That's normal. The other major thing is she's having a lot of trouble in school. Her main issue is that her proficiency in German isn't what is needed to excel in the German system. Big Furry says she speaks "Dinglish" (I guess its the German form of 'Spanglish' that we get around here with Mexican immigrants) She has been in Germany for several years but this is her first year in a wholly German speaking high school. As a result she's failing. Miserably. I talked to her this morning and she told me that she very much wants to finish school and become a Pferdewirtin. She wasn't sure what the word for it was in English. My German is just bad enough that I can tell its something to do with working with horses, i.e. a groom, or trainer. Her solution to her "I hate my mom!" problems as well as the school issues is to move back to the good ol' US of A and come live with dad. In fact this morning she told me unequivocally, "When I turn 18 I'm coming to live with you and dad!"

*Insert freak out here*

My first reaction to this is to hyperventilate. I have NO IDEA WHAT TO DO AS THE STEP-PARENT OF A TEENAGER! *faint*

I was in middle school when she was born. I am only barely biologically capable of having been her mother.  Realistically, there is no way I would oppose this so long as Big Furry and her mom can work it out. She seems like a good kid and talking to her she seems level headed enough, but, she's a teenage girl. I was one. I KNOW. Big Furry is going to have to be the parent. I'm more than happy to provide moral support and feed her but I'm scared. There are several things to think about. One, she has a boyfriend. She's going to have to make a decision there about what she wants to do. Two, socially and legally, things are quite different here. There she can smoke pot, buy and drink beer and wine, and have sex with her twenty-two-year-old boyfriend without any interference from the law. Here, all of those things are illegal and if she does them, they will get her and others around her in trouble. Three, she lives about thirty minutes outside of Berlin. Its a city. A big one. Here there are a whopping seven thousand people in the ENTIRE county. The high school here is adequate and if she wants to work with horses we can easily get her foot in the door with that. We have friends that are both large animal vets and horse breeders. But then again, we have all of the trappings of small Midwestern towns: A socially homogeneous population that tends to shun outsiders. The high school is very cliquish. She could easily be just as miserable here as she is there, only for different reasons. She can't come here and decide that in six weeks she's homesick, or that she hates it, and buy another international plane ticket and go back. If she's here, she's here for an entire school year.

This coming Sunday there is to be a Skype conversation with all parties involved. There are lots of things to think about. There are legal issues with international custody arrangements, financial considerations, and trying to figure out what is best for both families. Big Furry has been so accommodating, accepting, and loving towards the Bird that I owe the same to him when it comes to his child. He has been caught off guard by the return to parenting a toddler. I can see where he's coming from, except he's parented a toddler before. My only experience with teenagers is having been one. If she does come to stay with us, it will be right around the time that this baby is due. I would love and appreciate any advice that anyone has on the subject. If you read this blog, post it far and wide. I'm standing on a new frontier. Hopefully its going to be a new and exciting adventure in family building and not a disaster waiting to happen.