A Joyful Place Called Home

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   As an “older” mom and stepmom (my teens are 13 and 16, I’m 45) I am regularly directed step mom questions that as my natural children reach this age I realize are simply questions ALL parents of teenagers are facing.

“my stepson doesn’t want to be in this family at all”

“It is as though an alien has taken over my already strained relationship and now we’re zombies living in one home”

“somehow its all my fault…yet she’s doing nothing to work on our relationship”

Sounds like teenage years to me.  As a high school teacher for many years, I was amazed that children could act appropriately in my classroom, yet their parents would come into the room and about half of them would say/do/act in such a way I would have never tolerated it on a regular day without their parents present as their teacher. One of our boundaries as parents is to say to our children and adult children…”the way you speak to someone, whether it is a family member or someone outside our family is expected to be respectful, kind, and in a manner that allows for relationship, its not okay to blow up, emotionally jab, or use words to attack period…whether at home or at school”

 hmmmm

Teenage union rules somewhat work somewhat like this:

1) regardless of how you feel about your parents, during teenage years you should push all boundaries just to see where they lead to….regardless of it being where you want to go…

2) Hold parents accountable for everything, but do not introspectively examine your own faults or motives

3) When life gets hard, and poor choices are made, then remember Mom and Dad are your “fixers”

Oh…you didn’t know there was a union?  Your child was a member long ago….remember the first childhood union rules?

a) If mom or dad is on the phone, you MUST talk to them regardless of the conversation

b) If mom /or dad is late to church, this will be the morning you are to be most difficult.

Sound familiar?

Teenagers are teenagers. Period.  I happen to have two in residence, two who have moved on to college and life. The first two were my step children…my first experience with teenagers…when my original two were still 5 and 8.  As a teacher then, I thought I had a handle on it….after all I was a youth leader….a high school teacher…a lover of all things youth….

then came my own two stepchildren…..they could go from happy to sulking in 2 minutes flat….and it didn’t take much….then in the same body turn into a 4 year old needing affection in the ssame 15 minutes.   It helped me tremendously to realize we were somewhat repeating age 4.  A need to have independendence.  a need to have supervision, and yet a need to have boundaries enforced when they weren’t capable of seeing their own exhaustion.

 

Round two is going on at my home now.  The teens are 13 and 16.  Mr. I’m six foot four and capable is in residence as is Miss Oh So Mature yet enjoys playing with her childhood things still (for which I am thankful)  What we find as a family is firm boundaries are accepted.  e.g.  dinner will be at 6:30 p.m. every night. They are welcome to bring friends, but dinner is at home except Sunday nights.  Bedtime is non negotiable…they need rest…I’m not above bribery and setting the scene to troll for their desire to be home. Cookies are baking many afternoons when school is out. We feed the masses regularly for breakfast and dinner….but my theory is that what my teenagers need most of all is my time, our influence, our presence in their lives…and that doesn’t happen when they are gone somewhere else all the time. Thursday nights every one of their peers knows its family night at our house, and they are invited to cook , eat, and movie or game with us that night….and they regularly do…

Do they find parental involvement intrusive……probably….but the truth is, our children know that doing our best to be there for them. When the count is down and someone is in trouble, they bring them home to us….when our own are in trouble, they find comfort in knowing we’ll listen, work together, and solve the issue….its gotta be safe to be honest with your parents.  Its asking alot…but they have to know that when they have messed up, and they will…that its “safe” to tell you anything….without a blowup.

and so….eight years after my first run as a parent of teenagers….I find that so much of what I thought were step children issues were actually teenager issues….universal experiences all parents of teenagers…and with the experience of the first two….we know that most of all what our teenagers need is our love, our boundaries, and our listening to them….whether they appear to listen to us or not…..we know they are.

 

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…

Tonight I was the band mom. We enjoyed thoroughly the two hour concert by our oldest son, my stepson. I knew that the night would be a parent recognition night and was mindful and sorry his natural mom couldn’t be there. What I didn’t know is that he would present me a rose on stage for being his support person. There are simply moments that take your breath away as a stepmom. I always want to be as involved as he’ll allow…..as any teenager will allow….yet I am always mindful of the reality that he is often sad his natural mom lives so far away and cannot attend such functions….that she has missed almost all of these moments in his life. Mother’s Day this son of mine surprised me again by giving me a charm for my omega that said #1 Mom.

 Its a badge of honor for me…..and tonight again…..he had me introduced as his Mom….not his stepmom….a purposeful thing for him….and meaningful to me…not that he doesn’t have a natural Mom who is dear to him, but an acknowledgement that I too, am his mom in his heart.

We’re nearing graduation in a week or so….a time of growth and change for our family. In the mail today came a Mother’s Day card from my stepdaughter,22, who lives far away and hasn’t been home in two years….another special moment reading the words she shared….there were many hard days when we first began….but God has indeed restored the family I so longed to have…and given me children not of my womb, but certainly of my heart…and for that I am thankful

Recently I reflected about the last six years of my personal life….particularly about the changes I have made regarding some of my feelings on how my husband’s chldren call my name. When we married, I had only met the two children twice….TWICE…and they were to be with us full time after we married. I couldn’t imagine that being a stepmother would be any harder than being a single mother to the two I already had, I loved many children that I taught each year as my own, often spending more time with them than their own parents…..after all, my theory and belief that you could never have too many adults loving your children….what would be hard about loving his children?
The first year I was absolute about not being called a stepmother. I cringed when that title was used, I simply wanted them to feel as though they were wanted, a part of our family….the same……by saying I was their stepmother, it seemed to set them a part from our family. I didn’t like being called by my first name, encouraging the children to find some name, a pet name, anything but my first name. It simply didn’t feel right and I didn’t like being Mrs. B to them either. My stepchildren came their senior and seventh grade years. They had been accustomed to having their dad all to themselves, no girlfriend or wife nearby to interfere with their lives. The older child given much freedom and seen as the together one and the younger one very much the baby of the family, and in the awkward years between man and child.
You have to understand the premise that neither my husband nor I left someone to be with each other. Both had ended marriages years before we were introduced much less married.
That first year the six of us lived in a two bedroom historic townhome duplex, quickly converted into one home with a staircase about 200 yards from my parents antebellum home. I taught at the same school the children attended. It was in a rural school where there were only 12 high school teachers and 16 teachers and 100 children overall. The stepchildren had no way to escape me….I was at home, at school, at church….and it was hard for them. They were accustomed to much more freedom in the city, things to do, as well as no one right there to know what had gone on. In their old life, no one opinionated on how they dressed, what they ate as their dad was a single dad. The whole year was a struggle between dh and I as we figured out how to parent together. He with a much more no nonsense demeanor and me with a much softer hand and many more chances. It was a year of alot of trying to spend time with a child you only met at 17, trying to mother a young lady who didn’t want a mother, and learning a son who didn’t know how to let you love him. Seeing a baby of his family become the 2nd oldest, seeing my oldest become the 2nd youngest and the confusion the baby of mine went through at having now five bosses in one house was tough on most days.
It really bugged me that there was so much mistrust of stepmothers by the community, family and extended family. I could not imagine not loving any child much less his children….so why in the world would I be automatically put in the same line as Attila the Hun or Cinderella’s wicked stepmother? Every phone call questioned if I were treating them well, did they get as much stuff, were the other children preferred? It was hard, for the children are children and they played it for all it was worth….despite realities of busting our behinds to make sure all of them got what they needed as well as alot of what they wanted on a newly tightened budget.
My own family was cordial and kind to our children, but there was always a subtle difference of them being “his” children not ours…….I lived with all four children full time, raised three children in our home, ….they are all my children…including the one who is grown and on her own…I love them all.
That first year I thought I would be the bridge between the two families. I used to email their mother, try to update her on their lives….not understanding that to hear of their lives so candidly was simply too painful for her to bear, she loved them…it wasn’t about me or my writing, it was about her own loss of rearing them….but that year I thought it was simply she couldn’t stand me.
By year two and three, I became accustomed to being announced as “my stepmother” or “his wife” or what have you. It embarassed me to be called their stepmother, or when someone would correct…”oh, you’re the STEP mother” Some days I was just plain thankful to be acknowledged. A little further in the roads of dealing with the children’s other families, I began to trust that they were just worried for their own, not so much out to mistrust or dislike me. I could understand it more somehow. I still didn’t want to be called by my given name by the children, so mainly they didn’t call me at all….it didn’t come up alot…and the house began to buzz with normacy for a while. I was perfectly good enough for help with homework, cookies, holding hands and staying up when one was ill, but I didn’t rank for Mother’s Day cards….Birthday or Christmas gifts or anything that might signal disloyalty of their own mother….and that was okay, I got to live with them every day…see them grow, watch them in church, see them perform…it was simply good.
Year three brought an abrupt change as our oldest daughter left our area and college. It was a hurtful leaving and one that brought much pain though we know and knew she had to find her own way. The public fallout and rumored opinions always questions if it was something about a new stepmother. Other older stepmothers came out of the quiet to ask if I was relieved she was gone….sharing that they had bided their time unti their own stepchildren had left…..I wanted to yell “No!!! NO!!….how could I be happy that my husband’s child had left us???……” but they would not could not understand that for me it was like being personally ripped from a child I had chosen to adopt to my heart as one of my own. College years are hard for all, my own were not an exception , but the silence and lack of making up shadowed the year like there was dark storm that never let up. I began to realize that stepmothering was more about choosing to love no matter what…and that by and large…it would rarely be returned. I had a hard year, my mother was dying, my school district was consolidating, my nephew died unexpectedly and my brother fought cancer….it was a year of nightmare after nightmare….my world seemed to crumbled and the definition of it all seemed to always go back to a child who was missing from our lives at home still…
Year four we were more a family. Not exactly like the nuclear ones…but no more different in a mixture of oil and vinegar sort of way. We often blended well, forgot for moments and even days that we weren’t always together. Friends of our children began to hear me being referred to as “mom” as long as I wasn’t around…..and every now and then a triumph when I was…..however, I knew by now in my heart I was not their “mom” I was their stepmother, one that they had not invited into their lives four years ago, but one they had learned wouldn’t go away and perhaps was one that their father loved..a forever kind of love. A long year again with only occasional calls from our daughter and only two personal sightings the whole long year. A huge day when I received Mother’s Day card from her…I miss and missed her so…but I understood somehow that she had to have her own time and way to find us again. Dh was in Iraq for most of this year and the next January was the hardest of my life. Misunderstandings and miscommunications, I was played like a fiddle by one of our children against one of their other family members and it was very painful…..but we reminded ourselves often that family was about loving our children, forgiving others, and letting the strife go.
The fifth year….I worked with other stepfamilies more heavily and while learning and leading realized that its okay for me now to be referred to as the stepmother….I have chosen this path. I have chosen to love my stepchildren as my children, to accept them, to nurture them, to fight with them and for them at times…..It’s almost a badge of courage as well as honor to recognize that no I didn’t have to do this. I could have chosen to not get involved as much or at all…to send them to other parents early on….or later..or even now…but we didn’t, I don’t, and I never wanted to. I am more aware that their own birth mother isn’t with them every day as I am. I have this extreme privilege of knowing them, of raising them of being with them. I look back at the last five years and I think we’ve done really well all in all…..we have a peaceful household, we almost always have….and the strife is a minimum. The issues we face are never from within, always begun from an out of our household conversation…..at times the children even correct the outside callers now…”no, its not that way, she’s okay” or something of the like…its like another sargent’s stripe…one that I have earned when its heard.
This year, the sixth, we have moved to a neutral territory after a second six month deployment for dh to Kuwait. One where we need each other in all the newness….suddenly the distance and needed definitions of who I am no longer are used by my older stepson…..”Mom” has just happened naturally, not a deference to his own birth mother, whom he dearly loves, but no longer needing to stand out….to just accept that I love him too…and it is enough. The boys are nearer in age now that they are older, for both in high school share peer groups at church and at school. Their banter is easy, though they are still not very similar, but they have achieved a peace together. Our older daughter hasn’t been to our home in three years now, and moving this far away probably won’t help that…but we know that she is well, and she calls from time to time and its okay I think that she has chosen to be her father’s daughter and perhaps not mine…..but she is loved and that is all that is required at this age.
Stepmothering.
If you knew what it would demand of you, much like motherhood, you would probably think twice or three times over before entering its twilight zone. While the rewards are there, unlike traditional parenting, the children come with preset prejudices and no matter who or what you are, you will most likely be not welcomed at least at first, never be thought of as “Mom”….not in the same way your birth children think of you….but…if you are fortunate, and you’ve lived the way you hoped, they will come one day to at least appreciate you tried, and maybe even love you despite you….and you will realize that it was all about loving them through their pain and loss anyway….after all they didn’t choose you….even those who are asked do you want so and so in our lives…it is a minor victory, for the didn’t choose to not have their natural parents not love each other and themselves at home without you….and it is a fantasy that is hard to deal with within their hearts…the wanting the hassles not to exist.
that is indeed what the deal is….taking it step past mothering….stepping past those who lost them…..stepping past that which they have been through, stepping past those who would judge you….just taking the step to love them whether they love you or not….and you know deep in your heart, no matter how hard it can sometimes be, it is what God wants you to do.
and so hello…I am Sweetie….Les’s wife….Kimmy and Lesley Jr.’s stepmother….Chase and Madison’s natural mother….
and its okay.

Edit:
And Hello…. This I am Les. Husband of my beautiful bride of whom I am quite pleased. I thank God daily for her and hurt for her quite regularly when we find those bumps in the road. It’s not always easy being the stepfather either, not just my dealings with my step children but even watching my own children at times reject the love that is offered at times is quite painful. I suppose we all do things that aren’t exactly the most loving to those who love us the most at one time or another, its part of being in a family….
God bless you one and all.
Les