Stepmom Overdrive
At thirty-seven and a half years old, I wonder about the years I’ve spent raising my two stepchildren, a girl, 14, and a boy, 11, and if it’s been time well-spent or if it’s been wasted years.
From the vantage point of my husband, it’s been time well-spent. My efforts have allowed him to concentrate on his own devices without the guilt of feeling like his children have been neglected of a mother-figure. I do all the mom stuff; the cooking, the cleaning, the nagging. It comes by instinct and I didn’t need any serious direction to get the essentials done. So, he lucked out in that department.
From the vantage point of my mother-in-law, her beloved grandchildren gained a surrogate mother to do the same things listed above. Add in the quotient of genuine love I have for my stepkids and the backbreaking labor I have performed for them, and she was able to rest assured her son and grandkids were receiving the best care I could possibly give them.
From the vantage point of the kids? Well, I guess it depends upon which era of their young lives you look to for an answer. When they were both younger, like, nine and six, they had someone to tend to them, mend their boo boos, fix them food, shuttle them to school and doctor’s appointments, work for their teachers, and basically pay attention to them.
My stepdaughter began to age as children are wont to do, and she started to look for more solidarity with her real mother, a woman who did not seek custody outside of an every other weekend visitation scheme, and my stepdaughter’s discontent and frustration began to manifest itself in new ways that I found very disconcerting. She didn’t want my micromanagement or constant tending, and although that was what had been the status quo for a handful of years, it was not going to play well with the emerging personality of my stepdaughter, and I had to reconcile with that after some painful reflection. These were the cards, and I could either play them or fold. I was not ready to fold.
My stepson on the other hand had only grown under my wing. Ironically, I did not believe that he and I would become close and when that relationship evolved into something much more intense than a step-parent/step-child stereotypical relationship I felt unprepared on a number of occasions of how viscerally protective I felt about him. Even to this day I am not sure where the line between biological parent and stepparent is drawn. I understand I am not his mother, but I sure do feel like his mother. I suppose it is as close to the real thing I will ever get.
The kids’ mother has had two additional children in the last four years, and although I do not want to focus on her for the duration of this essay, it is impossible to ignore her role in my life. It is also very easy to sling arrows at a person whom I disdain and have such judgmental feelings about, but my happiness is based upon my personal choices, and I only have control over my own choices. A couple of old friends wrote some essays about self control and I’ve recently reviewed them, leading to this narrative. So to them I’d like to offer my gratitude and hopefully again evolve and grow from this reflection.
See, although my steplife has not been perfect, it has, by comparison to others’, been quite ideal. The biological mother may rear her head Putin-style every blue moon, but her invasion is mostly psychological through the brainwashing she does to my stepdaughter who desperately needs to believe a redeeming narrative about her mother. A narrative that excuses all past transgressions, explains away all the non-cohesive story lines, fills in all the gaps. Generally these narratives portray the mother in a victim’s light, with my husband, and I guess by association, me, in the roles of grand oppressors and truth-benders.
This is where being the custodial stepmother has been my greatest asset, along with my natural drive to nurture and protect and love. My stepdaughter has history as her guide to the future, and her history with my husband and me is one of consistency, fruition of most promises, constant support and involvement. If anyone, including my stepdaughter, wants to challenge me, I will refer to our track record and rest most content upon those laurels. There have been times, of course, wherein we have demonstrated our faulty humanity, but show me an intact first family where that hasn’t been the case and I will eat a bat.
I have sat literally for hours weaving explanations about why things aren’t as complicated as they may appear to a teenage girl. I try very hard to speak to her on a level that will not be considered condescending. Unfortunately, my stepdaughter must believe much of what I say, even though what I say often times are half-truths. Her mother has transgressed against her father in myriad documented ways (from third-party financial sources), court judgments have ruled against her, and finally, ultimately, the prima facie evidence that her mother has chosen not to pursue more custody of my stepdaughter and her brother. But am I allowed to communicate this evidence as a means to explain the strain between the households? No, I am not. As much as I would like to, especially during moments of duress, I cannot. It is not my place, and even if I did, this information would be received as hostility, jealousy, and a means of revenge. Some things children should not have to know about their parents, maybe not ever, maybe not until they are much older.
That doesn’t make living with it any easier. Especially with the mother placed on so high a pedestal. I could hold up the thousands of loads of laundry, dishes, trips to the doctor, school volunteering efforts, as evidence that I had nothing but the best interests of my stepchildren in mind. But all that effort seems to disintegrate the moment my stepdaughter boasts about the next big thing her mother has promised her. It is only within the dignity I try so hard to conduct in my own mind that it does not consume me.
I did not grow up from childhood thinking that my epitaph would read “Martyr.” And I do not want that to be my epitaph. Some days I have to tell myself that doing what I’ve been doing has helped my own mental health, that being with my husband is the redeeming factor in this arrangement, that I do live in relative comfort, and that I can take or leave my stepchildren’s loyalty and love. But this sense of injustice brews whenever I’m forced to hear their mother’s name or latest accomplishment. Because I’ve been doing what she should have been doing. And had she been responsible, her jet-set lifestyle would have had two very consequential burdens compromising her ability to just pick up and go whenever her job or social life called for it.
From my vantage point, almost six years in, I can say that I’m not quite a veteran, not quite a newbie, but still finding my way through a veil of confusion that has enough consistency as not to make everything a surprise. I know the tricks the mother will play, I know how to predict how my reactions will play out, I know when my husband will understand me and when he will be at a loss for words. What I cannot predict, however, is possibly the most painful: If the love and investment I have put into these children will show fruition beyond their needs they had as children and if when they are adults if I will be acknowledged in their upbringing. I can tell you from the pit of my soul this is what concerns me. I have no biological heirs, and it is possible that my personal possessions and legacy will be left in their hands. Since I am an atheist I know that when I am dead I will not have any faculties to feel rejection or the amnesia that exists with our dead loved ones. But I have no one to pass along the legacy of my own ancestors, and I fear that the mother’s impressions upon them will prevail to the point that my positive influences, traditions, idioms, and idiosyncrasies will have been in vain. And most importantly, that they were raised by a childless woman who wanted nothing but to be devoted to them, and that they are worthy of love from a woman who did not owe them that love.
Maybe you, Dear Reader, could construe this to be a selfish tirade by a childless woman, but I do not consider myself to be childless in that I have held the lives of two precious children in my hands. In all honesty, I am not very concerned about my legacy. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Soon all of us will be nothing but a number in some dusty annal kept on a digital file. And after that, in four billion years, the sun will devour the earth. All that matters is love.
I try very hard to remember this as I labor over dishes and laundry. If this is my purpose, then I will bear the burden of that. It’s just hard to believe that this was meant to be my fate. So much angst tethered to so much love. And that someone would so willfully give that away. I just can’t fathom it.
Evenstar
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