Bad Stepmother: Stepmother Secrets and Lies
As a mother, I’ve felt tremendous relief and validation as writers (whether they’re blogging or publishing in traditional print media) have recently blown the lid off the secrets lives and feelings of mommies. They have all my gratitude and respect for letting the cat out of the bag regarding the aspects of motherhood that were not spoken of much until recently. Like how mind-numbingly dull it can be sometimes to keep up your end of a conversation with a five-year-old, how infuriating it is to sunblock a toddler, and how you’re ready for a drink (or at least a massage) by 10 a.m. some days.
Whether it’s It Sucked and Then I Cried, Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay, Ayelet Waldman’s Bad Mother, or any of the dozens of mommy bloggers telling it like it is, our romanticized and sentimental notions of motherhood have been replaced with a new honesty. We love our kids, but some days motherhood stinks.
When will it be okay for us to write with such brutal honesty about how much it sucks (sometimes) to be a stepmother? Why are mothers allowed to let it out, while women with stepkids are still supposed to keep it zipped? It’s hard to be a mother, sure, but it’s harder, much, much harder, to be a stepmother (I’m not going to cite the half dozen studies that say it’s so. Look them up yourself if you don’t believe me. And those stepmothers reading do believe me…). It’s hypocritical to expect women with stepkids to keep up a wall of silence about it for much longer, while we’re giving mothers the latitude they need and deserve to re-write our social script about what mothering is and what mothers “should” think and feel and do. A stepmother who bitches is considered unseemly, a cliche, not an interesting and important mouthpiece for a cultural shift like the mommies who bitch. This is not a competition, of course. I’m not saying Ayelet Waldman doesn’t have to take a lot of crap. Sure she does. All the mommy writers are putting themselves in the line of fire for telling the truth about how they feel about motherhood some days, and quite often they are berated for it by those who would prefer that that the veil of sentiment that distorts our concept of motherhood remain in place.
But can you imagine if a woman with stepkids dared to be that out there? It’s hard to fathom. And it doesn’t often happen. Women with stepkids are careful, I learned in my research, very, very careful indeed, about telling the truth, about disclosing how much they struggling, about confiding their ugly and taboo (but perfectly normal) feelings, and speaking honestly about less-than-perfect lifetime outcomes with His Kids. That’s why our blogs are so often anonymous or carefully edited, our conversations so hushed, our blood pressure and rates of divorce and substance use so high. We have learned the hard way that when we speak of our stepmothering experiences publicly, we will be excoriated, often viciously, if we are anything less than tactful, diplomatic, and utterly ladylike in our descriptions of life with his kids.
“You sound like a lobotomized Stepford Wife!” a friend, also a woman with stepchildren, chided me after she had watched one of my TV interviews about my book Stepmonster and stepmother reality. She was right. Like most women with stepchildren, in many of my TV appearances and radio interviews I had bent over backwards to seem reasonable, so fearful was I of being branded wicked, bitter, and all the other stepmother cliches. Which I am anyway, many times, in spite of my best efforts. It seems that advocating for women with stepkids at all is profoundly disturbing and unsettling for some tv viewers and radio listeners.
Meanwhile, over the last few months, I have received over a hundred emails from women with stepkids who confide, “I can’t blog about this because I don’t want my husband and his kids to know”; “I’m a stepfamily therapist but I have to tell you…”; “I counsel couples for a living but I’m at my wit’s end about my own remarriage with children”; “As a psychiatrist, I am just starting to accept that it makes no sense for me to make any more efforts with my husband’s young adult son”; and more. During a Canadian call-in radio interview I did last Spring, the host told me, “Something really odd is happening. No one’s calling in, but in the last 10 minutes I’ve received about 50 emails from women saying they want to call in and talk about what stepmothering is like for them–but they’re afraid someone listening will recognized their voice.”
I feel for all these women –who wouldn’t? Everyone lives a partially closeted life in some ways–there are secrets we keep and little polite lies we tell every day because it’s part of the social contract. “Nice to see you.” “Everything’s great, how about you?” But I can’t help but wonder what would happen if we relaxed our expectations of women with stepkids, allowing them the freedom to say, privately, publicly, in conversations, in print, what’s really going on with them. Is it possible for us to allow women with stepkids to describe stepmother reality without jumping on them every time they deviate from the Big Lies of stepfamily life–that it’s easy if you just love them, that it’s really worth it, that it necessarily gets better with time. Disliking stepmothers who speak up seems to me the last hold out of a kind of ugly misogyny that has otherwise waned in our culture. And as Elizabeth Church has written, the fear of being branded a stepmonster or a bitch is a tremendously effective gag.
Tags: Ayelet Waldman, Bad Mother, Elizabeth Church, hypocrisy about stepmothering, It Sucked and Then I Cried, judgment of stepmothers, Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay, stepmonster, stepmother, wednesday martin, woman with stepchildren
August 10th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Indeed.
And that’s why I keep my parental venting sessions to a minimum of once a week and sheepishly label them as “Stepmom Confessions.” In reality (or is it “in a perfect world”?), the “confessions” part shouldn’t be necessary. Regular moms don’t have to call their venting “confessions.” Why do I feel the need to mask my own venting in this way? Because I’m terrified of the possible backlash from everyone who’s never been a stepmom.
August 10th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
I call my sister, a “more experienced” stepmom than I am when I need to vent. She is the only person I know who can truly understand what is going on and doesn’t see me as some sort of monster who suddenly and incomprehensibly doesn’t like kids — especially my own husband’s kids. Maybe someday we all can speak our real feelings out loud. In the meantime, thank God there are people like Wednesday who speak for us in print and allow us to breathe again knowing we are not abnormal or wrong or wicked; we’re just stepmoms.
August 10th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Another brilliant post Wednesday. You are to be commended for your work in helping all stepmoms realize that they are normal and justified in their feelings. Thank you – again – for opening the door to the closet we’ve all been living in!
August 11th, 2009 at 6:03 am
Brillant post Wednesday! What my own husband is just coming to realize is that his youngest son has more issues than he was ready to acknowledge. In fact, only now are other members of the family realizing that Junior has some serious issues – I blog about Junior and my struggles with him, but like you say, I carefully edit. I am fortunate the Junior’s mother’s family is 100% behind me when I told his mother at the end of July “school starts Aug 31″ – she wanted to only take him for a week – and I stuck to my guns. I NEED a break from the young man who puts the H in ADHD.
And since Junior is the youngest of our combined six kids, I have Empty Nest syndrome in reverse – I want the last little birdie out of the nest and I’m counting down the days until June 11, 2010 – the day he graduates from high school (Party at my house!)
August 11th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Great post, so true. I remain anonymous for the same reasons. The BF knows about my blog but no one else does and I intend to keep it that way. I love the fact I have met so many great women throughout this process and more then not find we all feel the same way. So nice to know I am not as crazy as I thought!!!
Thanks for being our voice!
August 11th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Excellent argument! So well said and absolutely correct.
I hope you don’t mind, but I excerpted this post on my site. I think EVERYONE should read this.
Best,
IR
August 11th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Thanks again, Wednesday. As you know, Sally is not my real name and I feel more comfortable responding in this “nom de plume” than my real name. I will never respond to one of your facebook posts because it would be too public for me to expose my total support of some of your posts which I can see will be viewed as controversial…by my husband, stepkids and also my own adult kids. So, we will still are judged for our feelings but so good to have this community in which to speak.
August 11th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Wednesday, as always, you are right on the mark!! But years ago it would have been unacceptable for the mommies to be truthful about their difficulties and now it’s not so hopefully our time is coming! Lets all keep up the campaign – spread the word!!
LBM x
August 11th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
P.S – I may also link to this in tomorrows blog post if that’s ok?
August 11th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
What a wonderful post! Yes, it IS true that we’ve seen a surge of mommy-venting, but it would be much more difficult to pull off something similar as a step-mother. It has been freeing for me to give myself permission to complain from time to time!
August 11th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Very true, oh so very true.
I said this on Izzy’s site though….I do think that women in general are more likely to be criticized when they dare to suggest that the “natural” nurturing role that women are supposed to take to like a duck to water, aint actually that easy, and actually can suck buckets. Whether that be mothering or stepmothering. But I agree that stepmothers who tell the truth are seen as worse. I remain anon for that reason. The expectations of women in our society are still very powerful, which is why women who remain childless by choice are often also vilified.
August 11th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
This is a great post. From my perspective, though, you didn’t quite touch on the real reason I don’t blog 100% sincerely about my negative feelings–namely, that my young stepchild’s maternal family is and has been the #1 source of frustration and anger for me and for my partner, and there’s a chance that if I blog about it, they’ll read it. I know that they have a presence on the internet, and even if I didn’t know that, I’d be cautious.
I’m not nearly as worried about the opinions of total strangers. If I piss someone off who’s never met me and who probably never will, that’s unfortunate, but ultimately it’s not destructive. But my internal conflict about being a stepmom (and really, this could be extended to any parent in a coparenting/stepfamily situation) stems from the fact that a) I have some huge personal objections to the way my stepchild’s maternal family behaves but b) I recognize that I owe it to my stepchild and my family to maintain harmonious relations–to build bridges rather than burn them. Ranting about my stepchild’s mother and her family in public, as much as I would love to do so, would be really counterproductive to our efforts.
The only solution to this problem, in my case, would be to confront my stepchild’s maternal family directly, and if I thought that would do an ounce of good, I would have already done it. The fact is, they are the custodial family, they take for granted that they hold all the power, and from their perspective, they have no reason to be receptive of criticism or suggestions (especially coming from us). It is an extremely aggravating situation, it sucks to keep a lid on it, but I have no choice. I value my stepchild’s right to have a good relationship with all family members and I can’t bring myself to threaten that. Obviously, I’m commenting here, but I don’t blog about it (even anonymously) and I’ve only ever vented to closed online communities of stepmoms.
August 11th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
What a wonderful post!
I have been blogging (perhaps too honestly) for the past three years. I have had others link to my posts about my stepsons calling me “Mom” and as a result have received a great deal of hateful comments. My blog has always been my refuge, and I finally reached a point where I had to moderate comments, block certain individuals and password protect posts.
The reality of stepfamilies is far from pretty. As a teacher, I can tell you that there are some days where I can’t wait to bid farewell to other people’s children and rush to the arms of my family. Never in a million years did I imagine that I would be rushing home to someone else’s children.
I wish I could “come out of the closet” and reveal my true identity (and I have to some people I have grown to trust) but for the most part this would be too risky for my family. Dealing with a mentally ill BM also ups the stakes.
Keep the great posts coming!
Sincerely,
Mrs. H
August 11th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Hi All,
I think Amy is really onto something here with the “confession” insight. As if it’s a sin to have feelings that are anything more complicated than “I love them exactly like they’re my own.”
I certainly didn’t mean to imply that any of us “should” just let it all out–for most of us, there’s just too much at stake. It would hurt to take the kind of lashing we would get, first of all. Judgment is terribly painful. Then there would be the stepkids and their mom and our husband/partner…it’s just not possible to let it all out. I only wish that the culture at large would recalibrate their expectations of women with stepkids. For all we know, the mommy bloggers are actually paving the way for that…maybe we’re next!
xx wednesday
August 11th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Peggy,
Please send an invitation! I know what you mean….xx w
August 11th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
Wednesday Martin, I love you. I do…ever since the day I followed the advice of Carol Marine, who suggested I read your book. True that the book has kept me from sleeping some nights, cause I just can’t put it down, but everytime I read another paragraph, I’m just that much more enthralled!
This article is AMAZING! I emailed it to my husband. I wish I could email it to the ex-wife, my husband’s family, my stepson’s school, and so many others…
Being a stepmom really sucks sometimes
August 12th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Wednesday, thank you so much for this post – you put it so well. Case in point, I am posting under a pen name.
I think there are a few reasons why it is still taboo for stepmothers to speak honestly about their experiences, whereas bio-moms are making strides in breaking through the taboo-ness of speaking honestly about motherhood. One is that there is still such widespread ignorance about how much of ‘mothers’ we really are as stepmothers. People often react to me as if my relationship with my stepkids were one of a babysitter – since I don’t have them ‘all the time’ folks will assume I don’t think about them, worry about them, feel concerned about where they are headed in life, when they are not with me. They think I have the same bond with my stepkids as a temporary caretaker would – that when I’m not presently looking out for them, I don’t feel bonded to them because they have parents who are responsible for them.
The reality of course, is very different. My stepkids are with me and my husband half of the time. So HALF of my life is consumed with family meals, family shopping and errands, school activities, pick ups and drop offs, bedtime and breakfast routines, potty training, doctor’s appointments, after school activities, family travel, the list goes on. On the nights when the kids are not with us, my husband and I are still planning kids’ schedules, making family budgets that include the kids, washing the kids’ dishes, laundry and peed-on bed sheets, etc. I think if any bio-parent who had never had an experience as a step-parent would think about what it would mean to do half of the child rearing they had done, they would recognize that it is still a most significant element of their life. And when their bio-kids have a sleepover at a friend’s house, or go to overnight camp for a few weeks, or go off to college and are not physically sleeping in their home, it does not mean that they suddenly convert from parents to out-of-work babysitters. My stepkids are a part of my family, now and forever, period. Whether society at large recognizes it or not, I have assumed enormous responsibilities by marrying their father and I AM a parent and a mother, though not a biological one.
I think if people realized and accepted this reality of stepmothers, that we are parents just as biological, adoptive, foster, or any other kind of parents, then our honesty about our experiences would not be considered so taboo.
Another reason I think stepmoms stay hushed about the truth of their lives is the viciousness they unfortunately often encounter from their kids’ biological moms. For whatever reason, biomoms often feel justified in being hateful towards stepmoms long after they have overcome the fear a stepmom might “replace” them. In my case, it’s not for my sake that I worry about the nasty things biomom says about me. Sticks and stones can break my bones… And I’m an adult who has the wisdom to use therapy, good friends, and exercise to cope with random hateful verbal attacks. But I worry about the ways those negative behaviors affect/change/confuse/punish my stepkids. I fear saying something that sets off biomom’s temper, which gets taken out on the individuals in her home – ie, not me, but my stepkids. And she has the power to speak negatively of me to my stepkids, potentially influencing my relationship with them. When you’ve worked hard to positively build that relationship, you don’t want it to be torn down. The difference between bio moms and stepmoms is that kids are actually chemically wired to seek the approval and love of their biological parents, no matter what the bio parents do. When a bioparent says indirectly to a child, “You’ll get my approval/love if you decide to hate step-parent,” guess what happens. The work that step-parent has done to build a relationship is undermined. So step-parent will do whatever he/she needs to do to keep bio-parents from airing the above-quoted sentiment, including keeping his/her mouth shut.
In many arenas of life, silence between women about the truth of their experiences (whether related to parenting, sexuality, domestic violence, etc) is always detrimental. Women find strength and calm in honest sharing, and are weak and anxious without it. I hope the taboo-ness of sharing honest stepmom experiences changes in the very near future. Thanks, Wednesday, for taking us in that direction.
August 13th, 2009 at 8:33 am
Wow, like the topic of jealousy, the topic of secrets, lies, and self-censoring seems to really strike a chord with all of us.
Thank you for these comments. Many of them are so smart, so insightful, and so dead-on that I have faith that in time, and hopefully soon, it will be much less stigmatizing to discuss stepmother reality, as opposed to How Stepmothers Are Supposed to Feel and Be.
Thank you all for reading and commenting. xx wednesday
August 14th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Wednesday, your book was godsent and together with everyone who has posted here as well as the Stepmother’s group I have found, I feel encouraged and not so alone! I’m a brand new stepmom but it is amazing how I’ve already experienced and had every fantasy and feeling that more experienced stepmothers have. I laughed out loud when I read that you put your stepdaughters’ stuff into big trash bags — I’ve been having the same fantasy ever since I first saw my stepkids rooms.
Most of my friends are supportive and are genuinely interested in my life … and yet. The other day I was told to put myself in my stepdaughters’ shoes and I wanted to scream and stewed over that comment for a full week. It’s hard to defend myself against what other people’s notion of a good stepmother or perfect stepfamily should be. One of the most frequently asked questions I get is whether my stepkids hug me hello or good night. The answer is no and I know what they’re thinking!
But I consider myself very, very lucky to have a supportive fiance who supports me 100 percent and will not excuse acting out behavior against me as typical child development etc. Though I am not using my real name for my blog (http://mimihawk.com) he encourages me to write about my experiences. I think it makes a huge different when you can feel you have a partner with whom you can navigate the stepfamily waters instead of feeling all alone. The book really cemented our belief that most of all, we need to be OK and that not making the children our emotional focus does not make us bad parents!
August 14th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Dear Eri,
I am so happy to hear about the support you get from your fiance. That is the key to your happiness and success and will save you so much aggravation. Congratulations on having a true partnership. It will get you through all the other snags that come with a remarriage with children.
About all the dumbthink and judgment out there regarding women with stepkids: I know how you feel. It is so hard when someone else’s total ignorance becomes our burden to bear. I’m frankly sick of it. Again a supportive partner is, as you know, your best bulwark against all the forces of ignorance out there. Take care and come back soon. Thanks for reading.
August 15th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
I am a new stepmom as of 2006 with a now 12 year old girl who loves and misses her mother. She hates me but will do anything to get me to buy her everything she wants. In the beginning i did, but then i realized her mother is trying not to let me replace her. It is so awkward. She is totally different around her father, but she misbehaves around me knowing her mother will deal with me if i attempt to reprimand her. I hate being a powerless parent. I have no kids of my own, and she and i really got along at first, but her mother who is angry about the reversal of custody, is feeding hate into this poor child about me and her father, such that she doesn’t even want to spend time with us together as a family, only as individuals. Her mother is confusing her, and its painful to watch her father, who loves his daughter, deal with the harsh and negative rebellion of his child.
sometimes I wish she was with her mother. Then maybe we all could be happy, except the father wants to be a part of his daughters life, and i think she hates him. She purposefully makes his life miserable, and i am afraid to say anything to him because i know it will break his heart. This is such a crazy situation. I see why some men are not a part of their childrens lives. Maybe they don’t need a father afterall.
August 15th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Molly,
What a sad and frustrating position for someone as caring as you to find herself in. Your husband is lucky to has a partner who’s so understanding. I hope you will be able to take your rightful place as the head of your household along with your husband soon. It’s really in his hands. Until then it sounds like you are experiencing two classic dilemmas of stepmother reality–a stepkid experiencing loyalty binds due to an undermining, angry mother, and responsibility without authority.
Hang in there and don’t forget to put your mental health, your happiness, and your marriage FIRST.
best,
wednesday
August 17th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Thank you for this. It is so, so true; we are terribly afraid to talk about our less than wonderful feelings for our stepchildren in public. The fact is though that children can be annoying and the problem with our stepkids is, when they do the usual (or not so usual) annoying kid stuff, there is not that visceral mother-love (or father-love, I suppose; I do not know what it is to be a father) to cushion the irritation. We have to put up with it, and we have to put up with it with a smile because they can turn ANYthing we do that is negative against us; whereas mom or dad can express that annoyance and be instantly forgiven.
Having two children of my own while having two stepchildren more or less full-time has been interesting. It has made stepparenting MORE difficult (because it is clear to me how the pure, unadulterated *feelings* that I have for my babies are not the same and can never be), but I think that it has made parenting my own children easier.
One important reason that I don’t like to talk about this that I don’t think was mentioned in the other comments (I may’ve missed it) is the fear of legal retaliation. I have a blog which is so totally sanitised that it is more or less now a vehicle for the grandparents to be updated; I would love to vent sometimes but I fear that anything negative I say could potentially be used in court if it came to another custody battle. And if he/we lost this (as yet fictitious) battle, I would forever have the burden of guilt that “you made me lose my kids.” (I’m sure HE would never say such a thing in such a fictitious situation, but I would still feel it and be convinced that he thought it.)
September 25th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
This post and all of the comments ring so true for me. I WANT to talk about my every day struggle with being a stepmother. My two stepdaughters are with us every weekend and the issues we are having with them right now are endless. The issues we have with their mother are also endless. For the last 7 years I have had a great deal of anxiety every time the phone rings and I see their number on the caller Id. ‘What could their mom be calling to complain about now?” I never look forward to relaxing weekends because I haven’t had one in so long. I feel guilty for not being happy and upbeat towards my husband’s children. For so long I have felt alone in the way I feel. Reading this blog and seeing these comments gives me a sense of comfort in knowing I am not the only woman that feels like this.
September 30th, 2009 at 9:04 am
Hi Laura,
You are in good company when it comes to feeling attacked by hostile forces via phone in your remarriage with children. We know from Mavis Hetherington’s research that an ex-wife spells more trouble than and ex-husband for a stepparent, statistically speaking: mothers tend to be more involved, angrier for longer, and more instrusive in their ex’s households than fathers who divorce.
What about a weekend of simply not taking her calls? Can you and your partner go away somewhere phone and email free? I sense that the two of you really need to rest and recharge together. Short of that, I recommend you taking breaks yourself, going out with friends if you have some who understand. Hang in there and thanks for reading, wednesday
April 14th, 2010 at 10:46 pm
what do you do about a stepmother that was so nice to her stepson. Until she brought her little boy home from the hospital, and when she walked through the door all that love she said she had for that little 5 year old boy, went to hell in a hand basket at the drop of a pin. Wanted him gone and was mean as hell to him. And kept telling her he loved her and loved his baby brother. And 8 years later she is still trying to run him off. To the point he quite coming to see his father. No matter what she say he never talks back.
And she acts like she is married to her father not her husband and he is very nice to her. She is not even that nice to her own daughter. Only her 1st born son is she nice to and her parents are the same way towards the stepson & the daughter. I think that this women has some really bad problem. All stepchildren are not bad children and most of the time the biological mother or someone is behind it. What in the hell is wrong with this world. God have mercy on all their soul’s. Because this people live and sleep with the devil. And they all know who the are. God this is so sad help these children.
April 18th, 2011 at 6:22 am
I just happened upon this while Googling “My husband thinks I am a bad stepmother.” It really hit home for me, mainly because I try so hard to give the kids the structure that they don’t have at home, and my husband told me last night, in no uncertain terms, that I should not expect them to clean up after themselves (that’s MY job) and I should just take it when my stepson disrespects me because getting upset with him will only “make his life more miserable.” I was also informed that while my husband is sorry his drivers license was suspended, it is my job to drive him and his kids around wherever they want to go and not ask questions. I would like to know what happened to the man I married, and I would like to know when my time became less important than everyone else’s (we have the children EVERY weekend). I work full time, I am responsible and well educated… and I have no idea how I got myself into this mess!