Today, I thought I'd start a series of posts about my (mis)adventures as a stepmother.
This week, I'm dealing with an often said thing to stepmothers when they hit a point of frustration.
"You knew what you were getting into..."
Let me start by first saying I
When I married my husband, I assumed things were pretty normal. He got married, he had two children, he got divorced. When we met, he was in the thick of the divorce part. I was his friend back then, so hearing him get frustrated about his "crazy ex-wife" didn't affect me. I was an ear to listen and vent to and to offer my own perspective. Besides, don't all men call their exes crazy women at some point?
When things started to get serious between us, I asked him more about his children. I talked to them a handful of times. They both sounded shy, so I didn't press anything. After all, I was this weird black lady talking to their dad on Skype and over the phone from 2,000 miles away. Being a shy child myself, I could understand their inability to warm up to me in those circumstances.
When we started talking(and working towards) meeting and getting married, again...I assumed things would just fall into place. Eventually. I thought back to evolving relationship with my own stepmother. I initially was shy, and kinda freaked out that another woman was spending SO MUCH TIME with my dad. Then, she was just...sort of there. I didn't really think about it as good or bad, I didn't question why she was there or why I had to interact with her. I was a child; I was told not told to respect all adults and obey all rules. She was an adult and I tried to respect and obey her. I don't recall many times(until my teen years, when we had to start living together) that I ever disobeyed or told her I didn't like her. I didn't like her(because my mom didn't like her), but I was a kid-my opinion meant diddly squat to adults.
When we had to live together, I(in all my teenage wisdom) saw my dad being "controlled" by her. My dad was a cool guy- he always bought me things when he thought to and he paid his child support. I mean, surely SHE had to be the problem. There's no way my dad could be that much of a jerk to me without her pulling some invisible strings to make it so. Plus, I was hurting from the loss of my own mother(she passed when I was 13). I wanted someone, anyone to take out my frustration and confusion on, and like I said...she was just...there.
Then, I became an older teen/young adult. Our relationship was hit or miss, but it was overall better. I still thought I knew everything and she was just trying to fill the space in my heart that arrived when my mom passed. Sorry, nope, I don't WANT another mom, I had one. Flaws and all, she was amazeballs and you're not(all the time, anyway).
Then...I became an adult. She was still "my stepmom", but our relationship improved. I became a mom, she treated my kids as her grandbabies and I didn't fight it. She and my dad did their best to be there for my kids, and as a single mom, I needed any and all help I could get. She jumped in eagerly during holiday meals at my house to do the dishes, or stir whatever was on the stove or baste whatever was in the oven. She recorded shows that my kids wanted to watch but couldn't because of our tight finances. She and my dad bought them stuffed toys year round and Christmas presents, birthday presents, and "just because" presents. I'd talk to her for hours on end, about my budding faith, about mom life, about things going on in my life. She rarely criticized me for doing stupid things and defended/pleaded for me when my dad was telling me(in his harsh voice) that I was screwing up AGAIN. She called me "daughter" and I didn't fight it.
So, excuse me for thinking that my relationship with my own(soon-to-be) stepchildren would be just like that. I thought I AM a stepkid so I know EXACTLY what I am "getting myself into, thank-you-very-much."
Except.....I had NO FREAKING CLUE.
My first encounter with my stepchildren was, at first, what I expected. I met their mother, I saw them for the first time face-to-face, it was a lot of awkward silences/nervous laughter at the wrong times, and looking down at feet for me.
I went to greet my stepson. I tried to shake hands with him. I knew what it was like to force physical contact from a relative you can't stand, I didn't want to be that person. I thought a handshake would be non-invasive.
"Hi, remember me? I'm Jenn. How are you doing?"
He looked at my hand like it was a freak of nature. He looked at his mom. Back to my freak of nature hand, just hanging there in mid-air. He looked down at the ground.
"My mom says you're not my REAL mom. That you're JUST marrying my dad. And I don't HAVE to call you mom or anything else. And you're not replacing MY MOM. You're not going to be MY MOM."
Uhm.
I looked over to their mother. She sneered at me.
Well, there goes my notion of The Brady Brunch.
Back home, an adult would have slapped a child for talking so rudely to an adult. Here, nothing was done.
Toto, I don't think we're in PA anymore...
That entire summer was filled with lots of ugly crying calls to my husband from the bathroom, lots of "hidden stash" chocolate consumed(and not all of it from me), lots of screaming, and lots of feeling "WHAT THE HELL DID I GET MYSELF INTO?!?!"
No. I did NOT know what I was getting myself into. And I'm not alone- most stepmothers today say the same thing. This quote is a horrible quote to say to a hurting, confused stepmother. None of us had a clue as to what we were getting into.
Sure, there are(so I am told) adults out there that marry, have kids, get divorced, get remarried and everything is peachy-keen. Co-parenting is done swimmingly. There's rarely a disagreement, the kids know their place, and adults think and interact with the best interest of the children. If there's any anger towards one parent's way of doing things, it's resolved or discussed without one person feeling attacked. Stepmother and Biological Mother even become friends, taking pictures together with hashtags along the lines of "this is how adults do it" or "This is what REAL co-parenting looks like".
But for a bulk of us...it is not this way. For whatever reasons, Biological mothers or fathers are bitter about how the divorce(or split-up) went down and use the kids at every opportunity to make their former spouse miserable. They're hurt their relationship didn't work and take them to court for EVERYTHING. Or use the kids as instruments of power, to control their ex-spouse and their new partner.
Kids are left in the dark. They don't know why their parents split or want to blame it on one parent unjustly. Most of these kids don't get therapy(and trust me, some NEED it) or have a healthy way of expressing their frustrations. They are transported from one house to another, never really getting comfortable, truly comfortable in either. They have to abide by two sets of house rules, two ways of life, and they can't always keep it straight which rule/way of life is for which parent/house.
No. I did NOT know what I was getting myself into.
I know if people who come from divorce in these sort of situations were honest...COMPLETELY honest, there would be no second(or third or whatever) marriages. Any potentials would have been run off and freaked out by their dynamics.
I had NO CLUE that my husband's ex-wife was ACTUALLY freaking crazy. Not just the "I can't stand that woman, she's nuts!" crazy, but the "oh, she's medically confirmed as bipolar and sometimes chooses not to take her medications and does illegal things from time to time" sort of crazy.
(and please...before I get hate mail from people that are bipolar and "I'm clearly stereotyping and how dare me", unless you've lost you're kids three times and have CPS knocking on your door at least once every two to three years, sit down. If you can relatively function as an adult on a regular basis and take your medications as prescribed without self-medicating with what our state considers an illegal drug, then I'm not talking to/about you. I'm talking about the one person I encounter that has it, NOT all of the people that have it. )
I had NO CLUE my stepchildren were being neglected, or that they were special needs. That first(and second) summer, I thought they hated me and (by their actions) letting me know it every chance they got. I wrongfully called them "little heathens" to my friends because I didn't know the extent of what they've gone through/the way they were processing the world. I didn't know there WAS such a thing as adults that didn't really make children a priority. I mean, I guess I did in the grand scheme of things. But those are the parents you usually see on the 6o'clock news, getting their kids taken away from them. Not, you know...being given visitation and summers together because well, that's their mom, whatareyagonnado?
No. I didn't know what I was getting into.
I had only seen step-parenting as a stepchild. And, my parents(and stepmother) did a whole lot of adulting, and adulting well, because I thought despite not liking each other, they shielded me from an awful lot. If there were fights between them, or disagreements, or bitterness, I rarely saw it. If my stepmother didn't like me because(let's be real here), I was a total BRAT, she hid it awfully well. I only recall one incident, when she called her relatives and spoke Spanish(which I don't speak fluently) in an angry tone after getting into a fight with my dad about something I did. If she cried and ate chocolate in the bathroom, I never knew it. If she ever wished someone, anyone would take me instead of her and my dad, I never heard it. If she ever wondered what she got herself into, she never voiced it within my earshot.
Please don't assume that when someone marries another person with a child/children, that they KNOW what they're getting themselves into. Just like people who decided "let's have a baby" or "let's get married"doesn't 100% know what they're getting into...step parents are no different. There are unspoken dynamics, there are messy, imperfect people(and more of them) involved. There is assumptions of how it's going to be, and expectations never fully met. There are sides of people never seen until thrust in certain situations-sometimes good, sometimes not. There are children one(or more) adults didn't raise or give birth to, and there's the expectation we're supposed to just get this internal instinct upon saying "I do" that these kids are supposed to feel JUST like ours, we're supposed to treat them as if they are our own(until the Biological mother finds out), when society is screaming at us every chance they get that they're not.
When becoming a step-parent, no one completely knows what they're getting themselves into. NO ONE.
So, please, stop saying this when a step-parent comes to you in frustration. It does nothing to help them feel better, and often times, makes us feel worse. We feel like we SHOULD of known without you telling us so. We feel terrible when we weren't handed whatever wisdom should of been given by the step-god-mother fairy upon putting on the ring. We often feel like we're the only ones sucking rocks at this, something must be wrong with US, because, look at so-and-so, they're totally nailing it and I'm totally NOT.
Instead, just listen. Be a good friend. Pray for us. Stepmothers need those more than your opinion of what knowledge we should have received beforehand. And by all means, if you ARE a step-parent and have some wisdom to impart, TELL US. Not in a condescending way, please; but an "I've been there and I can relate to your feelings" sort of way.
And most of all...give us chocolate.
I'm not speaking for EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US. There are poor unfortunate stepmothers that are allergic to the stuff.
Pray harder for those stepmothers.
But for the rest of us....having chocolate and tissues on hand helps.
Having a sympathetic ear to listen...helps.
Not throwing shade on their feelings by saying "You knew what you were getting into..." that REALLY helps.
Until Next Time,
~ Mama Jenn
No comments:
Post a Comment