Sometimes you simply survive long enough in life regardless of the subject, that later you realize you are the one who has travelled the road where others seek assistance . We’ve been a step family for over seven years, almost eight.  The beginning of our life as a step family was not unlike others experiences….the dad and the bride were so far into themselves and their rose colored glasses, that we didn’t see the crisis our marriage would create for our children.  They were happy we were to be married, excited with us for the new family…right up to the moment where the fantasy met reality.   The older children would face not only a new stepmom, they would face a new community, a new state, and new distance from their natural mom.  My two would face a new step dad, a mom who was not THE one in charge any more, two older siblings that would ursurp their birth order position in the family….lots of changes.
   As a teacher I was aware that children go through alot of emotions with a new marriage…however, being the human I am, I really didn’t consider that my new step children wouldn’t simply accept me as offered a new step mom who adored them…after all, hundreds of my students did each year….lets just say the first year was an eye opening experience…and the view seven years later…well I simply shake my head at my naiveity….but I wouldn’t trade this new, nor old family for the world
…more to come…

You know the story.

On the 26th I picked up the children, but there were reasons and family that meant that they wanted to return on the 27th to their grandparents home for hunting and cousins and time to see the that side of the family. Their parents there had  not really been “off” the week before Christmas so they would like the children to stay for another week.  Our Christmas could wait, I want to “get along” and so I allowed them to stay.

It worked for everyone but my husband and I. We were left with no family Christmas time…which wouldn’t have been as tough except we had savored the first “together” Christmas since fall.

Hard decisions…but ultimately my personal stance is the children need us both, and they live in Alabama every.single.day.  What the other parent often doesn’t realize in the notions that you get to spend “all that time with them” is that  normal life means they are in school from 7:30 to 4 then with school, homework,gym, church, and life you truly don’t see them much at all during the week….and the role you play as parent at that time usually means you’re not in the top 40 to spend time with. Strip away many weekends and holiday and the family relationship suffers….we work hard to create alternate experiences as a family that don’t revolve around a holiday, but it seems often, the very weekend we plan away happens to be the very weekend they are needed in the other household. We pay for dental, school, clothes, food…and while we receive child support, it doesn’t begin to cover school tuition and truck insurance, much less the true costs of rearing two children…..so money that might “entertain” them is used for necessities and other “fun” items like electricity, phone, and water.

I am thankful for my children’s new extended family.  There is value in family relationships, and the new family has gone to effort to include our children in their activities. My words have always been “children will not be hurt by being loved by more people” It is a little difficult though, to have the facebook and other venue third hand comments at time While I recognize we both parent these children, I am their mom, and the new wife is their step mom….I have an adversion to “stepmom” as well, but after 8 years, I realized that truly I am my children’s stepmom, though I raised the older two as my own. My marriage to their father made them my own in my heart, but their mother in Oklahoma is their mom. They can love us both, differently but as their ”mom”. 
 Somehow it seems that it must be assumed that the new wife and I must be at odds.  Somehow there is a question of “is enough being done for the children” that make it harder to simply continue reaching out in friendship. A birth parent, who is not divorced, never has to suffer that way….their parenting, handling of the children are not questioned….nor do they have to always be aware that if a child is angry they may issue the words “well, I’ll just go to Dad’s” which I have faced before when rules were enforced at our home with teenagers. They don’t have to spend legal fees to reaffirm their parenthood….or choose when another parent doesn’t follow through on legal responsibilities… It is  a hard thing to know if you follow through with what you were entitled to, and someone else didn’t do his part, he will be put in jail  for not following through on court ordered debts to be paid. While they would be responsible legally for their own prediction, our children would see is as “mom vipored dad”….a stance I wouldn’t wish that for their Dad, who is working and has begun a new life with someone else….so we go forward without the agreement being fulfilled.

  Sometimes we have to go through a teenager using one or both of us against the other one….as happened this Christmas on the day we were to meet. It is usually simply done in excitement for the holiday, but friction arises when children are allowed to be the third party on planning instead of the adults firmly setting the meet times/dates/etc.  Any child, even ones who aren’t trying to be, will be caught in the middle if the adults do not work closely together….they don’t want to disappoint either of us.

Our children return  home on Saturday, we will meet 3 and a half hours from home, our son driving the first leg by himself for the first time.  The trip is 6.5 hours long…..

Teenagers are a wonderful delight…but they are a handful as well.  This Christmas did not turn out as well as we had hoped, but we allowed the children to see both sides of the family and that matters.

   There is a time when each of my two stepchildren entered their adulthood and needed to leave our area to mend their heart and their relationship with their natural mom.  I know it is not a move out of anger, or upset, but it is hard to see them go. I am thrilled for their restoration of stronger and closer bonds with their natural mom, but its a change never the less.

   This year has brought so many changes for our family. The blended family has to sway and bend with each nuance having divorced and remarried parents brings. I am thankful that in our family the adults have decided to be proactive to find peace among us….at times there are frustrations but all in all we try very hard to keep home a joyful place for all….and room for all of us in our children’s lives….albeit shared between households.

   The holidays are a time of trying very hard to allow everyone to have time with the children…..it is the one time that I do not feel particularly “need to have them home” for I know that I am privileged to have the children most every day of the year except for summer visitations and school holidays and their dad and stepmom love them too!

Sweetie

Being now the “ex wife” more often than the “children’s natural mother” has really been a shift in my role. The children’s father was single for almost a decade after our divorce. We worked well as a team, though separately, without anyone else involved.  Last February though that has changed. The dynamics change with a new wife in the picture…and we are thankful for her. I am blessed that she not only loves our children, she chooses to include them in as her children as well.  This is her first run at motherhood, and the children both are blessed to have her.

What one doesn’t expect when you leave a traditional situation with your children, is that divorce and remarriage gives outsiders rights to have opinions on  your parenting.  Often in the last eight months I have had to carefully think through comments said or offered to my children as most likely not meant as they were heard….and I often wonder how many of my own words are used in ways that may sound “off” to the new step mom.  I am thankful for her, more than she knows, because we are both trying to simply love the children and help them know they are loved. There is enough pressure on children when there are two sets of parents, without unpleasantness between the parents. Extended family members have accepted our children on both sides, and I am thankful that they are seen simply as “the grandchildren” now his or her children.

Who knew though, that after almost a decade of believing that there is enough room in the children’s lives for all of us, that I would have to remind myself of that fact regularly as we readjusted routines and opened calendars to make the new schedules work. We are readjusting the schedules, the boundaries, and the relationships to keep everyone as included as possible….after all, the children have two families, and I want them to love  and participate with all of us without pressure or guilt…..that’s what A Joyful Place Called Home…is all about.

Our children’s households are vastly different. What I do know is we all love the children, albeit differently. My mantra has continued to be our children have enough love for all of us….

Teenage years produce more challenges for step and blended families. Teenagers can definitely push the envelope on communications. In some families, parents are played against one another and living arrangements change like making a bed. In our family, there isn’t an option for our children to choose to live with their other parent without a court requiring it. We’ve been there and aren’t visiting that area again. Children should not have the power or authority to choose whom to live with, which in many cases, is instigated over anger over boundaries….or lack of getting their way. The issues don’t stop with where a child lives. There are authority issues like what are the boundaries for cell phones, curfews, independence with vehicles, dating etc. Unlike traditional parenting, every parental decision may be debated from the chid’s other parent set or grandparents….and while their opinions truly may not count legally, they certainly do count with your child and with the peace level in your home. We try our best to respect and gather input from the children’s other parents on decisions that affect them.

We enter a new season this Fall, one with independent drivers, a new teenager, and many new boundaries to revisit with their coming of age. Each step taken carefully, communicating with our spouse first, then the other parents if something we need to let them communicate on, then the children. A unified front matters….when ever we can.