“Transference is a phenomenon in which one seems to direct feelings or desires related to an important figure in one’s life—such as a parent—toward someone who is not that person.” – Psychology Today
For a long time Kiddo was really angry with her Mom. It was her Mom who she had been with when she came into foster care, and for the first few months Kiddo was in foster care her Mom flaked on Kiddo pretty badly – understandably so because she was in crisis herself – but Mom missed a few visits and phone calls and Kiddo got angry. And when Kiddo gets angry she gets ragingly furious. And she does not get over it quickly.
It was fascinating and frustrating that I was the one who bore the brunt of Kiddo’s fury at her Mom for many months. Kiddo and Seth bonded well and quickly once Brother left, and they were two peas in a pod with me left out in the cold for a long time. Seth even had a talk with Kiddo at once point about why she was so mean to me. He never got an answer, but warned Kiddo she needed to start treating his wife a little better because I was being good to her and didn’t deserve the Wrath of Kiddo.
Once we got Kiddo into therapy, she was inexpressibly awful to her therapist, who was also a woman. Oh man, that poor therapist! Kiddo would not let her play with the toys with her, would sometimes not let her therapist talk to her, and would say mean things to her. The therapist thought it was good for Kiddo to have someone to direct her anger at though I still sometimes wonder if we should have tried a male therapist at that time and if we would have gotten further therapeutically if we had.
We speculate that Kiddo was super into Seth and anti me because once Kiddo came into care her Daddy started showing up for her. He came to all his scheduled visits, which were frequent, when previously he had been pretty absent in her life. She wasn’t angry with him anymore, she just craved his love and affection and was getting it. So men were ok in her book. Women, according to Kiddo, betrayed her. Her mother and her grandmother had let her down in different significant ways.
It took a good solid year before Kiddo learned to trust me. And it was around the time that she started getting along with her Mom again that she started to get along with me.
Now Kiddo and I get along like a house afire. She has a good, solid, trusting, loving relationship with her Mother now, and with me. Her Mom is a super busy woman though, as she works full-time and is a full-time student, so she has a limited amount of attention to give to her kids by necessity. Kiddo only comes over to our house on weekends most of the time, and I have all the time in the world on weekends so I give her all my attention. We snuggle, we giggle, we laugh, we get in Nerf gun fights, nap together, watch horrible Disney channel tween shows together, and are generally glued at the hip.
Now it is Seth who is the outsider on occasion, whenever Kiddo’s Dad has done something to upset her. On the whole, Kiddo absolutely adores her Miss Seth. It verges on hero worship at times. Her own Daddy has let her down pretty badly in a whole host of ways. He’s said and done some thoughtless and even cruel things to her. In contrast, Seth has consistently been there for her for as long as she can remember. She calls Seth “Daddy” a lot of the time, and we know that she is filling up her daddy void with attention from Seth. Once in a while though, when she is really angry with her own father, she acts out against Seth. Seth takes it with grace of course, but I know it hurts. I’ve been there.
I am happy to say there is another man in Kiddo’s life, and that’s her Mom’s significant other. They’ve been together for 6 years, and he’s a Good Man. He’s consistently there for Kiddo and Brother, but he’s more formal with the kids than Seth and I are. He’s a hard ass sometimes, which Brother really really really needs. In fact, at times I think Mom’s SO is the only person in the world that Brother fully respects. I wonder if the same transference issues plague the relationship between Kiddo and her Mom’s SO, but have never asked. One of these days I will.
Kiddo needs structure and discipline like Brother does, but I think she needs Seth’s softer approach as well. Seth and Kiddo have had some deep conversations about her feelings that I don’t think anyone else could have had with Kiddo. Seth has developed an amazing way of talking her down after she’s thrown a fit about something, and getting to the root of what’s really bothering her. So occasional transference or no, the relationship between Kiddo and her Miss Seth is a beautiful thing.
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