Wednesday Martin

Any multi-tasking mom or woman with stepkids might relate to this…please have a read and post a comment on my newest piece for the Huffington Post!

huffingtonpost.com

Am I the only one going crazy?

Much is written about Mother’s Day being a difficult day for women with stepchildren. Especially for those who came into the lives of those stepchildren when they were very young, took an active role in parenting them, and are not acknowledged on The Day. Anyone who has read my book Stepmonster knows that I am the last one who would tell those women how they “should” feel on Mother’s Day, or what is “right” or “wrong” to expect from their stepchildren and husbands on that charged and overdetermined day. Women with stepchildren hear enough lectures and shoulds. It gets old when it’s your feelings at stake. Time to let stepmothers just have them, without promptly shoving a list like “Ten Ways to Be a Better Stepmother” into their hands right after.

The sting of not being acknowledged on Mother’s Day might be especially sharp for a highly involved stepmother who never had kids with her husband. For many of us, motherhood is the buffer against some of the occasional insults and indignities of stepmotherhood, a safe place and a terrain of comparative ease, at least on That Sunday. Those without the buffer are likely to feel, well, exposed and unprotected.

Then, seven days after, belated and second-best, comes Stepmother’s Day. You weren’t thinking it would come first, were you? Or that it would be a big deal, taking up 25 pages of advertising in the New York Times? Even though stepfamilies outnumber first families in the U.S. Even though half of all women in the U.S. will become stepmothers or stepmother figures. You weren’t thinking anyone would really know about it, let alone celebrate it, were you? Get real.

Stepmother’s Day? I’ve never heard of that, a number of people, including some women with stepchildren, have told me. Don’t let that stop you. You could tell your husband or partner that on the 17th you want a card, a massage, or some kind of recognition for doing the stepmother thing. Whether you think of yourself as a stepmother or not, whether his kids are grown and living halfway across the country, whether you embrace or ignore your role as “stepmother,” it is, in fact, your day. So for all the times you bought into the myth that, when you’re a stepmother, your happiness counts less than anyone else’s in the family, on the 17th, make sure you put your happiness first. It will probably be a very strange feeling, and a very unfamiliar one, particularly if you are in the eye of the stepmothering storm at this point, but you might find you come to like it. And that you want to make putting yourself at the center of your own life a more-than-once-a-year thing.

We can only hope. Happy Stepmother’s Day.

Stepmother’s Day is May 17th. Would you like a little acknowledgment?

If you’d like Oprah to do a show on stepmothers–email her!! Cut and paste this link:
https://www.oprah.com/ord/plugform.jsp?plugId=216

If this link doesn’t work, go to oprah.com, scroll to the bottom of the page, click on “contact us” and then “suggest a show idea.” It couldn’t hurt!

You might know about Jacque Fletcher’s terrific book, A Career Girl’s Guide to Becoming a Stepmom, and her smart and popular blog, becomingastepmom. Jacque has been featuring Stepmonster of late–I’m so excited to have her support here, and grateful that she’s helping spread the message about the emotional reality of women with stepchildren. Check out her reviews and mentions of Stepmonster, and access to a podcast she and I recently recorded at:

http://becomingastepmom.wordpress.com/

I recently spoke with Susan Davis-Swanson of The Stepfamily Center in Beverly Hills. Susan is a therapist and stepmother herself, and she has a truly expert, compassionate sense of what women with stepchildren and stepfamilies go through. On Mother’s Day, I found her thoughts about the (impossible?) task of building a family culture where no one is an outsider especially insightful and reassuring. Susan is here addressing her remarks to those of us who are stepmothers and then have a baby of our own. The birth of a baby is an exciting, exhausting time for the mother–and a stepfamily flashpoint.

The only thing I would add to Susan’s remarks here is that, on Mother’s Day especially, don’t worry about not loving your stepkids “just like they’re your own.” It’s not a reasonable standard for the majority of us, because they’re not our own, and luckily they likely already have two parents who love them like crazy. Susan’s website (see my resources list) is full of great information, too.

Susan on having a new baby–and stepkids:
Like everything else in stepfamily life, building a family culture where nobody is or feels like the outsider can be very challenging. There are so many moveable parts in a stepfamily that you can have all the best intentions but there are so many things unknown (i.e., what loyalty bind the stepchildren are in; what is being said about you and your husband in the other household; their mom’s sadness about this not being her having a baby with their dad, her ex, and the kids knowing this; the children’s own feelings of jealousy and their fears of more loss). Still, if the stepchildren are a part of the family on a consistent basis, they could bond with the baby, especially if they are assured that they are not being replaced (their biggest fear). And if they didn’t get the type of love and attention by their bio moms that they see you giving the baby, there is likely to be resentment and, of course, jealousy.

But, remember, in a nuclear family a new baby can bring up many of these same emotions. So big brothers and sisters can “help” with the baby and play with the baby, and the baby can give them love and make them laugh. These experiences can become part of the new experiences of your stepfamily. Dad can talk to his other children about what they were like as babies and you can all hear the stories or put up everyone’s baby pictures, which can also develop deeper bonds. But if the stepchildren are infrequent “guests” in the house, it will be harder for them to feel like insiders. In fact, it may exacerbate their feelings of being cast aside. Be sensitive to these issues with the stepchildren by talking about them together, as a family.

You will notice that www.steptogether.org is on my resource list. That’s because it is a terrific resource for stepfamilies, particularly women with stepchildren, its main users. They have a helpful recommended reading list, essays like the famous “disengagement essay” and lively chat rooms and message boards. All this for free. Check it out when you need to feel that someone understands what it’s like to be a woman with stepchildren. If you find the site as helpful as I do (and you are sure to), you can support steptogether.org by making amazon.com purchases through them, or by making a donation online.

Steptogether.org has a lively thread about Stepmonster (click on “message boards” and then “general topics” and “New Book-Stepmonster”). The women on these boards have been some of the book’s earliest and most ardent fans–you will notice that I quote them along the side of the blog and under “what people are saying” on the website

You can support steptogether.org by purchasing Stepmonster and all your other books through them. Go to http://www.steptogether.org/books.html to see how. Happy reading!

As I researched my book over the last three years, lots of women with older and adult stepchildren shared with me their sense of frustration upon discovering that stepparenting isn’t just suddenly over or easier once the kids turn 18, or 21, or move out of the house. Sometimes, a father’s emotional commitments and financial contributions continue into a stepchild’s thirties and beyond. We’re not talking about caring and spotting someone $20 for cab fare here. Women have told me stories of husbands who unilaterally decide to pay a thirty-something child’s rent for the long haul, or remain embroiled in unhealthy emotional dynamics more suited to a parent and an adolescent.

It’s hard to watch, and frustrating to live this way, women told me over and over. Please, they asked me, set the record straight for all those people who tell me, “He’ll be off to college before you know it, and you’ll be off the hook.” One woman was outraged that a romantic trip she and her husband had long planned for her sixtieth birthday was suddenly cancelled–because her adult stepdaughter (in her thirties) was accepted to business school, and her husband wanted to use the money they had saved for the trip to pay the tuition. It’s easy to share her sense of being wronged, because she was. From their father’s guilt to an adult stepchild’s financial dependence and failure to separate and become independent, to dealing with issues of estate planning and stepgrandchildren and grandchildren, it’s often tough to be a woman with “adult” stepchildren.

That said, in my recent time on stepmother support boards, I’ve been reminded just how much easier life is once visitation, child support, and regular communication with a husband’s ex are all things of the past. The words I’ve read and heard in the last weeks of time in online communities have taken me back to a place I have been happy to forget. The stories about exes who play “chicken” with visitation; or send kids to visit dad and stepmom dressed like the Poor Little Match Girl in the dead of winter; those awful, angry voicemails and infuriating emails and last minute refusals to meet halfway for drop-off; the controlling notes about what the stepkids should do when they’re with you; the critical remarks a stepchild passes along…I would like to conduct a study about high blood pressure among women with stepchildren, but I already know what I’d find.

As someone who has come out on the other side, with two young adult stepdaughters who are high-functioning and on-target developmentally, focusing on their lives and their futures, I wish I had some advice to impart here, other than “it will get better when they’re older, you’ll see.” That’s cold comfort when you’re in the middle of it all. All I can say is, I’m not the forgive and forget type. But I have most certainly forgotten a great deal about what was difficult in the early stages of stepmothering. Thanks to all the women with stepchildren recently reminding me about what we go through. In return, I promise you that you are due, in relatively short order, for a little more peace.

In spite of the brief snow flurries in Manhattan today, Spring is in the air. I know this because I am woefully underprepared for both Passover and Easter (sometimes, being part of an interfaith marriage means bungling two traditions). If memory serves, they are to be followed in short order by May weddings and graduations, after which there will be the long Memorial Day holiday, followed by June weddings and graduations, and along the way, sometimes as early as late April or early May if they’re in college, the kids are off for a three or four month summer holiday.

If frantic emails from stepmothers I met in the course of researching my book are any indication, this is a stressful time for stepfamilies in general–and stepmothers in particular. “Great,” one stepmother emailed me. “My college-aged stepson is going to pull his usual ‘I’m-coming-oh-no-I’m-not-oh-yes-I-am-oh-mom-will-be-so-upset-if-I-go-to-you-instead-of-her’ stunt for Easter. I’ll be annoyed because I see it all as a bid for attention and power, and my husband will be stressed, then morose if his son doesn’t show.” Holidays, it’s true, are a stepfamily flashpoint of sorts. Many of us know first-hand the repeated drama of promising to be there for the holiday dinner or brunch, then not making it. As a way to sort of steal the spotlight by default, or twist the knife a bit. “You got married again and had another family. So take that.” It’s not just about bunnies in baskets anymore, stepmothers know. The holidays can be rife with power struggles.

After these antics, many women who complain  of holiday/summer event stress tell me, it’s hard to get excited about driving several hours to go to someone’s graduation. “They sort of say ‘Eff you’ about Passover, and I’m in a frenzy trying to figure out how many people will be at the seder. And after that song and dance comes a graduation–theirs, or their cousin’s, or someone’s–where their mom is going to be, giving us dirty looks and telegraphing to her kids that if they’re polite to me there will be hell to pay,” Darcie lamented to me recently. It’s true: at these kind of life transition ceremonies, stepmom is as likely to be treated to some “you’re the outsider” behavior as she is to be hugged and welcomed. Even women who feel they’ve made real strides with their stepkids dread the acting out that so often colors events where mom, dad, and stepmom come together.

Our stepchildren’s weddings can be an interpersonal landmine of sorts for the same reasons. You may or may not be involved in the planning; there may or may not be fireworks with your husband’s ex over  your and your husband’s level of involvement, money, and other details. Here’s a suggestion: once you’re there, you’re almost home free. If it’s a whole long-weekend affair and you’re subjected to excluding behaviors, get to know the spa. You don’t have to participate in every brunch, campfire, afterglow, and cheese tasting. Sometimes it can be hard enough to get through the “I-Do’s” with all the nasty looks flying around. Have you tried tai massage?

On the other hand, with younger stepkids, you likely have summer break on your docket. Whether they’re six or nineteen, your stepkids are probably going to spend some sunny weather time with you. And you’re probably going to find it unseasonably stressful. If I had a dime for every woman with stepkids who told me that the summer break negotiations make her break out in a sweat, I would be posting this blog from my compound in Fiji, my friend. What makes summer break tough is the “burst of togetherness” aspect. Just when you’re used to a rhythm of alternate weekends and every other holiday, you suddenly have a stepchild with you full time, eating all the Cheez-Its and leaving his towel on the floor. It’s an adjustment, to put it mildly. Three or four months is a very. Very. Long. Time. We’ll talk about it in another month ladies, I promise. Meanwhile, have a glass of wine.

Spring holidays and the spring/summer event season are no holiday for stepchildren, either. For the younger ones, there’s the stress and loyalty binds that can feel torturous, especially if they are grilled about “What’s dad up to” or “How is mom’s new boyfriend?” Older stepkids don’t get much of a reprieve, either. One friend who’s an adult stepchild told me she’s just about at her limit. Her husband is also an adult stepchild, and she reports, “Every Easter, Passover, you name it, we’re in the car with our kids, driving and driving to keep everyone happy. We have to go to his mom and stepdad’s, his dad and stepmom’s, my mom’s, and my dad and stepmom’s. I swear I’m going to have a nervous breakdown. The holidays are NOT relaxing.” It’s certainly not easy or fun to placate a bunch of demanding codgers who want their “fair share” of time with their stepkids and stepgrandkids, and it’s hell on the adult stepchildren.

Maybe that’s payback of sorts, something to look forward to in our old age!

Did you catch Oprah yesterday? The theme was “Secrets of Motherhood,” and women were cutting loose (http://www.oprah.com/dated/oprahshow/oprahshow-20090311-secret-lives-moms). I laughed out loud at the story of a mom who was driving down the highway with all of her kids asleep in the backseat–bliss! A few moments, perhaps even an hour, of quiet to look forward to! But what to do about the fact that she was dying to pee? If she pulled over at a rest stop the crowd would wake up and make her life hell again, after all. So, like any self-respecting mom in desperate need of silence and a potty, she hauled a diaper out of the nearby diaper bag–and used it. You also have to give it up for the mom who said she thinks the secret of discipline is for your kids to think you’re a little bit crazy and they just don’t know what you might do next. Case in point: she threatened her daughter that if she continued to misbehave, Mom would get rid of ALL her toys. Her warning went unheeded–so she made good on her promise. Swooping into the room with a big garbage bag, she spirited every toy away, Grinch-style: “There wasn’t so much as a Lego left.” She left her kid high and dry for 24  hours, then returned the stash. But the lesson lives on: “All I have to do is get a certain crazy look in my eye,” the woman reports, “and she knows I mean business.”

Newsflash: motherhood is really, really difficult, and moms are imperfect. Sometimes we’re already screaming at 7:30 a.m. We don’t necessarily like doing craft projects or imaginary play with our kids (“Mom, you be Obi-Wan, and I’ll be Luke!”). Trips to the playground can be mind-numbingly tedious (“Oh my god. He wants to go down the slide. Again”).  Trisha Ashworth and Amy Nobile know all about it–they interviewed hundreds of women for their book I Was a Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids. Among the things they discussed: the judgment moms put up with everyday, often from total strangers (“Put some mittens on that baby!”); the loss of your old self when you become a mom (no more dropping in on friends spur-of-the-moment; less frequent forays in high heels; too tired for fun or sex; can’t remember where Prada is anymore); a feeling of failure if you can’t do it all (“There are days when I say, ‘If I can just get out of bed and get them breakfast I’m happy,’” a mom of three explained).

“It was like a bomb hit us,” Amy said of motherhood. “I felt I didn’t have permission to talk abut how hard motherhood really is.”

The whole show got me thinking: wouldn’t it be great if Oprah told the truth about stepmotherhood next? As a mom of two, I know how tough motherhood is. But come on now, as any mother who’s also a stepmother can tell you, you don’t know judgment, the loss of your old self, or the feeling of failure until you marry a man with kids. And talk about feeling you don’t have permission to admit how hard it is and how much you hate it some days!

Kids can make your life heaven–and hell. But they’re yours, and until they’re teenagers, it’s clear how much they love you, even as they palm your droopy tricep and exclaim, “Ewww, mommy, it’s hanging down like a bat wing!” Or harumph, “You’re not my MOM anymore,” when you nix a fifth consecutive episode of Arthur.

Stepkids? Not so much. Certainly not at first. They make your life hell, and then they make it clear they wish you’d just disappear. Sure, you might get close to them eventually. Or you might not. Each of those outcomes is in the range of normal. But have no doubt that you will be judged–ruthlessly, mercilessly, relentlessly–by everyone from your mother-in-law to the people who work at the grocery store if you and your stepkids ever seem like anything less than BFFs.  

Have I mentioned losing your self? And feeling like a failure? Women I interviewed for my book sounded bewildered as they lamented that no one had ever hated them, or treated them like they were more mortifying than an open fly, until they partnered with a man with children. “I used to wonder, ‘I’m nice, I’m fun, I’m cute, why the hell don’t they like me?’” one woman I’ll call Brenda asked me, summing up what virtually every woman I interviewed had been through.

Then come the feelings of failure (“They don’t like me and I don’t like them. This isn’t working and it’s my fault!”) And resentment (“Screw this. Screw them. I don’t deserve to be treated this badly”). And worse–this doesn’t happen with children, but it sure happens with stepchildren–these feelings create a rift between you and your husband, who (if he’s anything like other dads who divorce) has developed selective amnesia, blindness and deafness that kicks in whenever his children do something obnoxious or objectionable.

So there you are, feeling rejected, like a failure, alienated from not only these kids but also your husband, not to mentioned gagged, since talking about it will bring the judgment raining down (“His kids don’t like her. She’s doing something wrong!”)

Oprah, yesterday you did a world of good for moms. Tomorrow, onto stepmoms. Please. We need it, and we’re waiting.