Notes from the Meeting of the RSA

There should be monthly meetings for people like me. Somewhere I can go and feel I am not the only one suffering in silence. Or worse suffering silently ALONE…

Reluctant Step-Parents Anonymous

I wish my life had been some rosy picture of domestic bliss. It would have been lovely if the child coming to me from my husband’s previous marriage had been a happy, bubbly, child looking to love and be loved. No. I got the damaged goods of an ugly breakup with continued hostilities from all sides.

I am in the middle of a domestic battle zone. Every day, from the moment I got married, to now, is a gearing up for battle of the spiritual and sometimes emotional kind. And it’s all my fault for being the rebound wife of an emotionally damaged man.

I’ve met some of my contemporary counterparts, other 20-30 something stepmothers who allow their step-kids to call them by their first name. That rubs me raw almost as much as women with biological children that allow their kids to call them by their first name, and that other special class of mother who has friends, not children, and raises them as such.

I am sure there’s a special level in Dante’s Inferno just for them. If there isn’t, there should certainly be. Something is wrong with the widespread ignorance of the younger generation and it’s not a coincidence that there’s a hands-off approach to parenting that is acceptable in American society today. There’s something to be said with having a healthy level of respect for one’s elders, if for nothing other than show. 

Ghosts of Stepparents past

I had a stepmother once. For the brief eight-year period that my father remarried during my youth, I had a stepmom who demanded I call her by her first name. She and my dad had no other kids.

In hindsight, I don’t think she ever wanted to have children, and in some way maybe she sensed the impermanence of her marriage to my dad early on and didn’t want to muck it up by having kids of her own with him.

In either case, I distinctly recall the day I asked her if I could call her “Mom” since I called my mother Mommy. She very firmly, almost angrily (from my point of view) demanded that I never call her that and call her by her first name. Just wow.

To this day, I am a little offended by that demand she made on me and my brother. Almost like she didn’t want to be my parent and was making it very clear that she was not, never would be, and had no desire to be confused as such when out in public with us.

I had difficulty calling her name in public.  Couldn’t call her my stepmom, there’s that evil word again. So I was left to refer to her in the 3rd person like she wasn’t even there. Talk about having hang-ups.

Ghosts of Stepparents present

I am also a reluctant step-parent. Raising someone else’s child because I understand that if I don’t, every wrong move he makes would be repeated two-fold by my other children who will inevitably follow in his footsteps if I don’t attempt to teach them all differently. It is a sink-or-swim situation, not something for the weak, the inept or the unwilling.

Am I wrong for having asked/demanded that my stepson call me mom? Maybe. But I couldn’t think of another solution when at age 4 my youngest wanted to know why his “older brother” got to call me by my first name and he couldn’t. Frankly, I thought it was a good ass question myself. So I decided that he would call me “mom” and I got a lot of flak for it from both his dad and his bio mother.

Whatever… I did what I had to in order to survive. Imagine going overnight from having toddlers to having to parent a sulking, rude, and spoiled 10-year-old? Probably the worst experience of my life. I probably didn’t handle it as well as I could have, but having no example to compare it to, having no precedent for my behavior, I made it up as I went along–at the same time trying my best to handle the intricacies of my turbulent marriage… it was no picnic.

Ghosts of Stepparent Future

I will forever remind myself of this–

In the words of one of my favorite artists, the ubiquitous BadBob and his screaming man:

This too shall pass…