Step families

I Am Not an Evil Stepmother


At least, I don’t think I am evil. Or all that bad as a step-mother. And as a result, I take offense when I read stories where step-mothers are villanized or watch movies in which they are reduced to fairy tale stereo-types.

Being a step-parent is not something I ever considered. When I was single, I refused to date men with children from previous relationships because as a teacher I’d never encountered a blended family where the adults made even the slightest effort to be adults and parent cooperatively and it was the horror of that which compelled me to nix daddies as date material.*

Even as a widow, when I had almost nothing but men with children from whom to pick, I still didn’t give much thought to step-motherhood. Or step-fatherhood even. I was determined that Dee have a father who would love her like his own. There would be no “step” because I don’t buy into the notion that love can only blossom biologically where offspring are concerned.**

I don’t claim to have some magically family blending powers or secret recipe. Rob and I have always approached it as a united front and with the attitude that everyone around us will adjust if given time, love and attention, and things go well for us on this front.

Last night Dee and I watched the horrid A Cinderella Story with Hillary Duff and some boy-toy flavor of that particular moment. The story began with a little girl and her widowed father, who was just shy of utter perfection and loved by all. He marries, inexplicably and without much warning, a  woman who made me shudder before she said a single word. Name the stereo-typical affliction and she had it. Plain to homely face. Overweight. Shallow. Materialistic. The mothering skill set of a magpie*** And, of course, two mini-me’s.

Assuming that one can put set aside their disbelief at this point, or swallow the idea that remarriage – for a man anyway – spells certain doom by way of untimely death, then the rest of the movie makes sense.

But I kept coming back to the evil step-mother thing because I am not evil nor do I know any woman who is a real life step-mother who is.

The first blended family I encountered belonged to elementary school friends, Karla and Patty. They’d lost their mother and father respectively and their parents found each other and remarried when they were in the second grade. They were the second youngest with several much older siblings and a younger brother apiece. In all, there were about 10 or 11 children ranging from 6 to late teens. There were ups and downs, but they considered themselves a real family and their step-parents “real” parents.

Sam Baker wrote a post for The Guardian this last week about literary step-mothers which provoked an interesting give/take on DoubleX.

Since I am tired of the only comments I receive being spam, I would like to hear your opinions. I yield the floor.

* I knew many children who regarded their step-parents well and had warm relationships. It was the “grown-ups” and their issue that was my issue.

** People who do think this should be avoided as romantic prospects. jmo, but idiot thinking like that is simply the tip of an iceberg best left to some other intrepid soul.

*** Edie’s downstairs neighbors rescued a baby magpie last fall and are keeping it as a pet. (They are from B.C. – seriously people without sense where animals are concerned). They feed it raw hamburger.  Magpies have been known to carry off small kittens to feast on.

Things in The Night Pt. 1


I know it’s Tuesday and from a fresh news perspective Dee’s first day of school yesterday, the “growing” push for Texan succession and the latest Glenn Beck YouTube parody – except it’s really him and not terribly funny – will all pass the smell test and what I want to talk about won’t. And I’m sure at least half of you are tired of the blending and the widowy, but things come up. They run around the rooms in my mind before burrowing in and blossoming with the rapidity of qwack grass after a soaking rain.

Saturday was the hamlet wide garage sale and hockey swap meet. There is nothing like a dozen or so neighbors displaying their junk and the lure of hockey equipment to bring out the crowds from The Fort. Rob and I, being us, worked until after 10 on Friday night setting up. Other people toss their unwanted onto tables and are done. We treat it like it’s a real business or something. Consequently, other people get more sleep than we do.

By the time we’d cleaned up and were in bed it was after midnight and the plan was to be up by eight to finish the remaining pricing.  At 4:30 I woke. My right leg was stretched across Rob’s side of the bed and the toes were dangling off which is something that can only happen if Rob is not there.

The dimmest bit of light was straining to lift the blinds and I headed downstairs in search of my husband (and to use the toilet because I am old).  At this time of day the sky is bruised by the indirect light of a sun still too far east to do more than send word of its impending arrival. Such a difference from just a few weeks ago when the sun never seemed to set at all.

I found Rob wrapped in our old comforter on the couch.  He was grumpy from lack of sleep and the fact that the sadist train engineer had just crawled past the hamlet with the whistle at full throttle.

“I’d just managed to fall asleep too,” he said.

He’d been up since two. For reasons he didn’t explain until much later, he was up and couldn’t fall back to sleep. He hadn’t wanted to wake me tossing and turning, so he’d gone downstairs, fiddled about on the ‘Net until his eyes burned and tried to catch a few winks on the sofa.

I got him to come back to bed. He was so exhausted by this point that he fell asleep quickly, but I was awake. I got up at 5:30 and was out in the garage by 6:45 and that is mostly where I remained until 3P.M.

But I did come in a bit before 8 to wake Rob who thought perhaps I had a birthday present  for him despite the fact that he’d issued a no present edict earlier in the week. The next day he would say,

“It was probably one of the worst birthdays ever.”

So much for birthdays not being a big deal.

We’d planned dinner in the city with the older girls for seven that evening. It should go without saying that neither of us was energetic enough to really be looking forward to the 45 minute drive – each way – but the sitter had been booked. Last minute sitter cancellations can lead to difficulty finding willing sitters, so we headed into the city.

Let me digress a minute. Earlier in the week, Rob noted that I had been commenting a bit more on widow blogs. He wondered if I was okay. I was heavy into the memory mode with purging old things for the garage sale. On the surface I felt fine but after a bit of reflection, I realized I was a bit blue about Rob’s birthday. Not that it was his and not mine. I actually love planning parties for other people more than I like celebrating my own birthday. It came down to the fact that we were having two celebrations to accommodate the children. We took Dee out for dinner on Friday night and had cake upon returning home. Saturday was with the older girls because their adult schedules sometimes make it too difficult for them to always be traipsing out to the country.

The thing was that Rob has three daughters, but I have one. As much as I love Edee and Mick, they are not my daughters. I am not their mother. My birthday doesn’t mean anything at all to them. Which is not to imply that I think it should or that they are not wonderful or that we have a contentious relationship. But where Dee becomes more Rob’s child than Will’s, they remain Rob’s daughters.

It’s not something I expected to bother me. I knew perfectly well that, with their being adults, we would not have the relationship that Rob and Dee have formed and will continue to form. And I get it. I really do. One of the reasons I have shied away from searching for my birth parents – my birth mother in particular – was that I didn’t want to feel bound to love her like I love my mom or to have expectations of any deep connection.

And though we get along quite well and the girls are genuine and warm, I know they struggle with just who I am in their lives.

The word “step-mother” is not used. I am introduced as “Ann” or sometimes “This is Ann, Dad’s wife.”

And to clarify further, no one uses the “step” prefix in our family aloud really. Dee doesn’t even know what a step-dad or step-sister is.

I am ever conscious of my actions and words. I don’t want to push or encroach or presume or give the impression. I walked into this with more knowledge than Rob, who at one point declared himself willing to be Dee’s father figure but that he could never be her father father.

We stopped by Edee’s to pick her up. She’d been home with her cat, one of Bouncy’s brood if you recall, who was at death’s door from a blood parasite she’d picked up. And I mean the literal door. Pandora was at a point where she was using her reserves to try and crawl away from wherever Edee put her – looking no doubt for a place to die. Even I know enough about animals to know that.

Dinner was back and forth between pleasant conversation and tearful worry. There was hugging and reassurance and I never know when I am doing too much or not enough.

We’d told the sitter we’d be home between 10 and 10:30 and it was 11 because after dinner at Edee’s poor Pandora was no better. We finally left after assuring Edee that whatever she decided to do concerning Pandora’s care  we would support. The naturopath vet had prescribed an antibiotic with herbal back up and instructions to bring the cat in on Monday if she was no better but still alive or a trip to the emergency vet clinic, an expensive affair that makes a jaunt to the human ER in the states look affordable by comparison.

Rob called me from the car after dropping off the sitter to let me know that Edee had texted him and needed him to go along to the ER with her and Pandora. He didn’t get home until about 2:30 where he found me still awake.

Why? The ghosts are back … but then he already knew that.

Blending


Rob and I had a conversation last night about being a blended family now. And though we are that, aren’t all families really? Even when there are no children involved, there is still a coming together of two sets of relatives that somehow have to learn to exist within the same sphere even if it is only at holidays and children’s birthday parties.

Jordan and Farron, Rob’s girls, have done a tremendous job with making Katy feel as though she is their little sister. Neither one has ever disputed her when she has announced their sisterhood to whomever was listening. They listen to her. Play with her. And tease her as though she has always been a part of their lives. They have made me feel welcome too, and I haven’t felt as though it was just politeness on their part even though it more than likely was in the beginning maybe still is sometimes. A friend of mine whose husband has a now grown daughter from an earlier marriage told me that from the very beginning she resolved to think of her husband’s daughter as her own and treat her accordingly. The girl lived with her mother, but my friend felt that using words like “stepdaughter” implied a difference that was negative. Her “daughter” does not call her mom nor did she ever expect her to, but she references the girl as “my daughter” or “our daughter” because she feels that terminology is reflective of attitude. I took that to heart. She is right. “Step” is a prefix that has been demonized in fairy tales and movies. It’s a “bad word” even with good intentions. When I talk about Jordan and Farron, I say “the girls” or “Rob’s daughters”. I don’t ever plan to use “step”.

Katy, my little girl with Will, does not know the correct terminology for blended families. She references “Daddy Will” and “Rob” or “Daddy Rob” and lately she has been calling Rob just “Daddy” on and off. She is not confused. She knows who everyone is and how they are related to her, but in her simple (and it’s never really been) reality, things are what they are. Rob and Mom are getting married which will make him her father and his girls her sisters. Small children have such wisdom it makes you wonder what awful things we do to them that empties them of so much of it as they grow older.

I don’t want to imply that all this merging has been easy or will not have bumps as we continue through the years. As I have blogged before, nothing is simple about moving forward. It’s difficult when it is just you and moreso when there are others involved, but life and living are primarily about our interactions with others, spouses and children being primary and branching out in importance from there.

Once upon a time it was just me. And then I married Will and we added Katy. Will died and it was just Kate and I until Rob and with Rob I gained his girls and he gained Katy. And now there are five.