Is family only about blood, or do step-parents count too? In this episode of It’s A Hard Knock Life, Siu Lim is joined by her husband, Marc Le, who stepped up to the plate as an 'instant dad' to her four kids—including two teenagers!
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00:00And he's okay, there's no problem, you know, but I just want you to know, I see you as my son. I don't see you as my step son.
00:13It's a hard knock life, but stepping in as a step parents. This is Sue Lim hosting for you. And today, I'm going to have somebody yours truly, my man, Mark Lee.
00:26Hey, how's it going?
00:27Today's episode, we're actually talking about the family affairs of just, I don't know, navigating through relationships, love, and basically being, you know, a step. Congratulations, by the way, being a new parent.
00:46Oh, yeah, I wish I got a prize for it. But you know,
00:48you do you have my heart. But okay, so I'm just gonna dive right into it. This is Mark. Before you know, let me summarize for you. So this is actually like, I feel like I'm not the host for this. I feel like I'm also like this, you know, speaker, because usually I let other people speak. But today, I'm going to talk for you. I have four kids. One's 18. One's 16. One's 11. One's 10.
01:13And then it's me and I'm 38.
01:15And then there's another fifth child. I want to say that dating again, after having a divorce was not an easy thing. Okay, because obviously, the next person that intakes me doesn't just intake me, they intake for other people. And I have this brave man here, who stepped in, or stepped up, I would say. And I don't know, I just, it's kind of
01:44weird, because I don't know what to ask you, because I know everything already. But tell me becoming a stepdad of four kids. How's that going?
01:51Um, yeah, it's funny you ask, because I still don't really count myself as a step parent. For anybody that's with keeping up with current events, Sue's kids are based in Turkey. So I'm like a part time step parent, if that makes sense.
02:08Yeah, and I'm a part time mom.
02:10So it is still hard, though.
02:12It is hard. But I mean, I guess I always knew when dating you that there would be a time when all your kids would be visiting or that we'd all be under one roof. And I guess that was a responsibility that I was just kind of, okay, when it happens, it happens. And it's one of those things where you never really know what's going to happen till you do it.
02:39Yeah, so you can imagine being, you know, like, I don't think you've ever imagined having four kids under one roof was hectic for those who have maybe even one child under one roof. It's hectic. Oh, let me okay, let me like update you on Mark's background. Do you have kids?
02:59No, I do not have any kids. But I also am divorced. So previous marriage, and also had a fiance. And then that's didn't go as planned. And then I ended up here in Malaysia.
03:16Yeah, but do you did you ever imagine yourself having four kids? Or one kid to say?
03:23I was about to say, I've never been. I'm the oldest in my family. So my youngest brother is 20 years old. So there's quite a big age difference. So my upbringing involved changing nappies for my other brothers and sisters. And through that process, I kind of knew that geez, this is not that fun. Changing nappies, looking after the kids, looking after my brothers and sisters.
03:52It wasn't that fun. So from a, I would say, mid 20s to late 20s, I kind of knew that I'm not wanting kids too fast. You know, it's not something that I had a huge desire of having. And especially all the all the toddler stuff, you know, it gets messy. It gets very
04:16messy.
04:46I'm also probably a pretty patient person. So when the kids first came over, sorry, just jumping back to my background. I'm also a product of a step parent. So my mum remarried when I was three years old. So I have no recollection of my biological father.
05:11And my stepfather, who I call my dad, has taught me everything I know. You know, like I actually refer to him as dad. He's taught me how to be the man that I am today. When the kids came to visit us and stayed with us for what was meant to be a month.
05:32And it
05:33They loved you so much that they want to stay.
05:37Yeah, I don't know if that was the case, but they stayed longer. So 18 and 16, I just figured, you know, you just be a friend to them. Be a role model. And with the younger ones, you can have a little bit more of a say to kind of shape how they think or how they how they act. So yeah, I just wanted to see. I want to see how they were as people.
06:03So for me, that was just being a friend to them. I didn't really want to tell them off straight away or tell them how they should live their lives.
06:11Right. You didn't want to act like the dad yet.
06:14Yeah, like the dad.
06:16Did you ever feel like, okay, did you ever see yourself as, okay, I'm the one, I'm a visitor in this family? Or did you feel like, okay,
06:28Yeah, it's funny how that works because it's my house.
06:33So, but yes, definitely. At that point in time, definitely felt like an outsider. And when that happens, even in my natural state, if I'm an outsider of a group, I tend to stand back and observe.
06:51Yep.
06:52And then yeah, I'm an observer. So from observations, then I will not only position myself to how do I talk to this person? What's the best way?
07:03Yeah.
07:04So yeah, I definitely felt like an outsider. But I think that's a natural feeling for it for anybody that is not on the inside, right?
07:12Mm hmm. Yeah. And did you being in that position? Now, you mentioned that sometime the telling off bit, any step parent will, will tell you that that's actually pretty difficult, because you don't know.
07:29You don't know, you're kind of like, am I a parent right now? Or am I their friend? Because when they do something that might frustrate you or never say the less like piss you off. I don't know what situation that would be.
07:42I got lots.
07:42Okay.
07:44No, like, like you said, I'm like you said, I'm a neat person. So when things were left lying on the ground, then I'd come home. I think for me, I'm also a person that leads by action. So if they see me picking it up off the ground, then maybe they will be like, oh, that's probably what I should be doing.
08:11And you want to make it pretty obvious as well that you're picking it up. So you might ask, Hey, whose t shirt is this? And then that's mine. Okay, cool. I'm just gonna pick it up and put it in your room. Okay. Yeah. Whether they're worse or not, I'm not too sure. But at least I'm leading by example.
08:28Instead of coming in to yell at them, right?
08:31Yes, yes. Funny story about yelling at them. But I saw a different side of Sue. Because obviously, I just know Sue is, you know, a partner, she's always bubbly. She's, you know, we have our sad times, we know, we might have a little disagreement about something. And then, you know, we've raised, we would actually don't really raise our voices. But no, we'd have sad moments.
08:57Like we don't, Mashallah, we don't really fight fight. Yeah, we don't raise our voices. We have conversations. Yeah. But then when the kids came, oh, it was like World War Three. Man, I remember coming in one day. And I was like, who's this? What is happening in here?
09:18You know, to be fair, I warned you that I was a different person as a mom. As a mom, my you know, I am very gung ho. I'm very like, you know, as a person with him, I'm very chill. I'm like, yeah, go with the flow. When my kids came in, I actually feared him seeing another side of me just because I looked at myself like a monster, like a mommy monster, because I knew that in order to discipline these kids, there was gonna have to be a lot of
09:46not yelling, yelling and, you know, threats and whatever moms need to do to get things to happen. And for those who know, mothers have a hard time like it's like when you say something is everything is ignored. But then I saw this happen with my eyes is that when I tell them, Hey, can you get the dinner set up? I'd have to say this like 20,000 times nothing would happen. The minute Mark walks in.
10:14I think he said it like once. Everyone got up and did it.
10:20That was that was pretty cool.
10:21Yeah, I mean, like that, I would say that was towards the end of the three months, because I was still trying to figure out. So for the first month, there were things let's just take the untidy like, things were being untidy. And I figured it was just the adjustment period. Right? So I bit my tongue a lot. And I told you this, right?
10:42I was like, for the first month, I bit my tongue. And then you're telling me, Oh, yeah, they're actually extending this day. And I was like, Oh,
10:48got it.
10:50No, just kidding. But I was like, okay. And so after I found out that they were going to be longer than a month, I kind of thought, okay, now I can do a little bit of parenting.
11:01Okay.
11:02Yeah, because just partly because they're gonna be with an environment, maybe they can learn something in this process as well. So I remember. So I remember that time I came home, and all hell had broken loose with Sophia. And then she like locked herself in her room. And then you don't want to talk to her. She don't want to talk to you. No one want to talk to anybody.
11:30It was like a teenage girl against the mom. And like, we were just like, butting heads. And it was awkward silence and everything. And go ahead.
11:39Yeah. And then I thought, okay, well, let me just pop in there time to parent. Yeah, time to parent. And I guess the way that I would like to parent is more about talking in a calm voice. And with reasoning. I do this with my coaches at work as well. So I do this with you.
12:07Yeah, in a calm and reasonable manner. And I think that was the first time Sophia had ever felt heard. You know, because I asked for her opinion. It wasn't me just coming in and saying
12:22you're being her friend. Yeah, yeah, being your friend, but in your eyes, like kind of parenting, too, you know, but it was it was because I always say in these podcasts that when we have kids, we forget that at one point, we just have to be their friend rather than their parent. And that's when it was good, because he stepped in to be the parent friend. Yeah, the parent friend. Yeah, the parent. Yeah. Yeah. So that was kind of like my first bit of parenting, I'd say.
12:53Now the 18 year old, how did you I mean, a lot of times that a step parent will step in, they find that the older kids are tough, especially the first one. My first one is 18. How did you find it with him? I mean, do we we all nervous about, you know, how you'd get along with the kids, and especially the first one?
13:16Well, I wouldn't say I was nervous, but I did wonder how I would connect with Yusuf. Yusuf is the oldest, the 18, because he is, he loves crypto, and he loves technology. And I'm not a huge techno geek. And also my previous career as a rugby player, so I'm like a jock, right? And as, as stereotypes tend to prevail that jocks and techno people don't really get along.
13:44So I did wonder to myself how that was going to affect the household. And also my relationship with him. I think he looked up to me for physical things. Yep. So you know, he would ask me what, how do you do this, that in the gym and stuff like that. I probably wasn't as curious as I could have been in regards to, oh, how do you do this with, you know, Bitcoin? Or how do you do this with this app?
14:13But he's a very, very smart, bright kid. And I respect that a lot. So yeah, the, the communication was just different.
14:23Like, I know a lot of questions are going to be asked when I asked this, but do you ever feel like it's different? Having a stepdad versus being a biological, like, you know,
14:34yeah, biological dad. I mean, for sure. There's a huge difference. Because I've never been a dad, right? Or a biological father to anybody. So I can only compare it to what I know, which is me growing up in my experiences, and then being a step parent. So honestly, with with Adam and Asya, they're the two little ones. They're at a perfect age, because you can, you can shape how they think.
15:04You can shape what their habits, whereas Yusuf and Sophia, they already have habits built in. And so no matter what I say, as a parent, there is a lot of breaking down barriers and then rebuilding.
15:19And that's just with anything like, you know, I deal a lot with everyday people who need help with their diets. So I have to break down their current diet and then rebuild them up, which is very, very hard. Whereas with the younger ones, you start from scratch.
15:35And they were more like, they're like sponges. Yeah. And they kind of just shadowed you, especially Adam. Adam's 11, and he just shadowed him and took him to like a different level of fitness, I would say as well, right? Yeah. Adam's so, he's so cool. So cool.
15:55Like I mentioned before, I even, um, the kids even, I mean, they met him before, but like, met him as someone coming in as a step parent, I had to kind of brief them. And I, and briefing them made them kind of like, okay, understand things a little bit more on how to respect you and all, you know, not just like an enemy or anything. But I also wanted to know, you having a stepfather, did you ever ask your dad for advice?
16:25Did you ever think about, uh, okay, I, I, I need to, yeah. My, my step dad. Yeah. Yeah. Asking for advice all the time. Yeah. I mean, he's, he's my dad. Right. So, um, he's, you know, I've asked them for, geez, tons of advice. Yeah. My dad, my dad's step dad was, he's a very strict man. So there was a time when I wasn't allowed on the phone after like,
16:55you know, there's a curfew on the phones, you know, six, seven o'clock at night. So I wasn't allowed on the phone. And then one time this girl that I was trying to date rang up after the curfew. And I don't know what was wrong with her, but she yelled down the phone and said, Oh, you're not even as real dad. Oh dear. Yeah. You're not even as real dad. And you're putting all these rules in place. So I'm like, I don't even know this conversations happened. And then my dad comes in.
17:24Because your dad picked up the phone.
17:25Because my dad picked up the phone. Yeah. So my dad comes into my room. I was like, Hey, um, I just got off the phone to your friend. And she said that I'm not your real dad. And that you and I'm your stepdad. How, how do you feel about that? Have you like, do you go around telling people that I'm your stepdad or your dad?
17:53He actually said this in a very calm way, by the way, like you? Yeah, exactly like that. Okay. I was just shocked. Right? Because I didn't know this conversation had happened. So I was like, uh, well, yeah, I just, I just told her that you're my stepdad. And he goes, Okay, that's no problem. Remember, he's raised me for 13 years, like 1314 years at this point. And he's okay, that's no problem, you know, but I just want you to know
18:23I see you as my son. Oh, I don't. Yeah, he's like, I see you as my son. I don't see you as my step son. Okay. So right at that point, I was just thinking, am I in trouble? Because this girl just went haywire on the phone. And, you know, isn't through till now kind of like reflecting on it that you're like, Oh, that was quite a noble thing that he said.
18:49Yeah, I mean, do you? I mean, definitely. I can feel it. But I'm gonna ask anyways, do you think he was hurt? When? Oh, yeah. 100%. Yeah. 100%. But he didn't. Yeah, show it or yell it. You know, he didn't. Like, like I said, he didn't say, I'm your dad. I've raised you for 13 years. He didn't. He didn't say that. And I remember that feeling as well. Because I remember.
19:19This is not like him. You know, usually come storming in or, you know, so I think maybe at that point in time, it could be maybe that's how I would like to parent. I don't know. I took a I took a page out of his book, my dad, because there were moments when
19:37it was like me and the kids, me and your kids, we would be out. And you I don't know, you'd be out somewhere else as well. But we weren't together. So it'd be me and the two boys. And then I'd see a friend. And then they're like, Oh, who are these? Like, who are these people? Who are these miniature people that kind of look like him, actually? Who are these miniature people? And then I would just say, like, Oh, they're my kids.
20:04Oh, they're my kids.
20:34I don't know what happened. It just suddenly just all came naturally to everybody. We were all on the same page at one point. It was just like, that's dad. He's gonna listen to what he says. If he says wake up. I remember what one thing that frustrated you was the fact that they all slept so late. He's an early bird, just like me. And one thing about teenagers and kids at a certain age is that they will oversleep. They will sleep until I think my son was sleeping until like
21:04one, man, like two, three, man.
21:08And this are both of us to be fair with you. I mean, this this was driving us nuts up the wall. And we would come home like, what, three, four, that's the end of our day. But nobody's woken up yet. And he's just like, what the heck? So at one point, he put like, like a whiteboard up. He and he actually bought a whiteboard. And he wrote down a schedule. Yeah. Like what time they should wake up whatnot.
21:35So this is Yes, it is like a month after right. And I was like, Okay, look, I understand that school holidays, but there's got to be some form of structure in place. They have to have a timetable. So the way that I got instead of me going in and saying this is how stuff is done. We are going to stick to this. I got them to buy in. So going in and asking them, Hey, if you were a
22:04parent, what time do you think you'd like your kids to be getting up? And then Oh, well, reasonable time, you know, we're on holiday. So reasonable times like 11 o'clock. Okay, cool. So you think it's reasonable time to get up at 11 o'clock and like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, you said it, not me. You know, so that's 11 o'clock. And then like, so what do you think you guys should do before you watch TV? Oh, and then you know, things like brush your teeth, get changed out of your pajamas and have something to
22:33eat. Okay, you said it, not me. Right. And I wrote it down on a whiteboard. So and then also because I was staying up quite late. So okay, what do you think is a reasonable time for you guys go to bed? And then yeah, it was the younger ones at 10. The younger ones at 10 or 11. And then the older ones at 12. Fine. You know, as long as there was some structure in place, then that's okay.
23:01And he wrote it out on a board. Some days were good. Some days were bad. I have to admit, like they did it some days not but it actually at the end, they respected it, which was the most important thing was that they respected the schedule and respected the house, like how it worked and everything. So that was fun, fun times. Yeah.
23:20Um, so I think like, because I'm a pretty calm person, this works on my really like this whole podcast. I'm like, Come on. I can be quite expressionless. So the moment I do raise my voice a little bit, that's when everyone's like, Oh, geez, he raises voice. He must. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's when he they know. But what advice would you give other parents or step
23:50parents when coming into a family?
23:54Ah, that's an easy one. Observe first, and try to understand the child before sitting out any boundaries or rules. And this also depends on the age, right? We're working, we were working with two very, we're working with teenagers, and then we're working with, you know, nine, nine, 10 year olds.
24:18So
24:21understand the crowd, understand your, your demographic, and go from there. But do observe first, because I don't think I don't think I've ever been in any type of relationship where when someone comes in really hot, or aggressive, it's never worked out well. Yeah. And you can think about that from
24:47school teachers, you know, you think about your favorite school teacher is was your favorite school teacher, the person that just yelled at you the whole time. And, you know, or was your favorite school teacher, the one that asked questions got involved with your life, you know, was softly spoken. That's just my two cents.
25:05There's no right or wrong, but I'm gonna tell you, you did it right. It's a hard knock life, but someone has to do it. Thank you so much for Mark for joining my podcast.
25:16And being such a supportive, you know, being so supportive. Okay, so that's about it. I hope you guys join us next time. See you soon.