childlessstepmoms.org

I thought it might be nice to share a shattering conversation that I had with my mom not too long ago. I was crying on her shoulder about how hard it was to be a stepmom, how I didn't feel like my DH and I had a "real family" and how I longed for the fairy tale marriage that I always dreamed for as a child, the kind of "nuclear" family life that I grew up in.

My mom looked me square in the face and told me that marriage is not a fairy tale and that I needed to grow up a little and get rid of my naive expectations. After I picked my jaw up off the floor, she went on to remind me of all the times she and my dad fought - over us children, money, in-laws, household responsibilities and more. She told me that if I thought dealing with a BM was bad, try dealing with an overbearing mother-in-law who never learned to cut the apron strings and a husband who never learned to stand up to his mother. She told me that I forgot about all the times we had fought, sometimes pretty badly, over things like curfews and accepting responsibility and dealing with punishments. She told me that it took a lot to forgive a husband who had never strayed, but came close enough to it to have the whole neighborhood talking. She reminded me of all the times when I had slammed doors, talked back, shoplifted small items, cussed, treated my younger sister badly, broken precious items, refused to apologize, and had just acted like a general horse's ass.

She told me that I was getting a taste of what it means to be a parent. Not a step parent, but a parent. The terms are all relative here. She told me that all families go through hardships, trials and tribulations that question the definitions and stereotypes of what a "real family" should be, and you either roll with the punches and learn and grow, or you give up and fail. But most importantly, she reminded me that my loving, warm and nuclear family had gone through its fair share of bad times. I'm still here. I survived. We are all still close and tight-knit.

Now that I think about it, it doesn't really matter if we come from a close "nuclear" family, a dysfunctional family, or no family; we all strive as mothers to provide a better, more perfect family life than that which we grew up in. We all believe that no matter how good, or bad, our families were, that we can do better. It's true that stepfamilies have some unusual barriers to cross, but we're still a family, maybe not the perfect nuclear family that we grew up with, but a family of survivors. We are survivors of the pain of infidelity, of divorce, of the loss of a family, of the loss of a dream.

That evening, my SS12 talked back to me in the kitchen and said something sarcastic when I asked him to put away the dishes in the sink. Instead of getting angry, instead of seeing his reaction as a personal affront simply based on the fact that I am a stepmother instead of a "real mother," I just laughed. He looked at me really weird, and then smiled and put his dish away. Why did I smile? Because I remember that I was a smart-ass when I was his age, and I remember all the times that I sassed back to my mom. Maybe I'm sometimes especially sensitive to all this stepmom stuff because of the implied "evilness" that we feel comes with the job. Moms are sacred. Stepmoms are just plain evil. They're regarded as a bad imitation of the real thing, and I think that's enough to put anyone slightly on the defensive.

Marriage is hard. Parenting is hard. There are guidebooks up the gazoo to prepare you and guide you, but experience is the only way through it. My friend, plan your wedding and hold all your hopes and dreams close to your heart, but go in with a healthy dose of realism too. Life throws you curveballs: bad in-laws, bad finances, illness, job upsets, bratty rebellious children, and more. Stepfamilies are just another bump in the road.