I was not the greatest “mom” to step into the role of mother – when I inherited my step kids, I was 26 years old. I had been used to being single, to being able to go wherever I wanted – whenever I wanted to go. I had never been “tied down” by children or forced to find a babysitter to do anything. I had never even spent much time around children to understand how they worked.
My oldest step son, now 23, probably got the worst deal in the beginning with me as a step mom. He was the oldest; he remembered his mom being in his life; he probably resented me more as the invader of his home and hopes. He was also the child with whom I tended to struggle the most – with not knowing what I was doing, with not knowing what to do with a 10 year old boy – and he probably worried about how life would be with me in it.
That first year we were all together was probably roughest for him – and me. I was trying to figure out my place among these four people whose family I’d joined, and I had a huge learning curve on the whole parenting thing.
This is an excerpt from Shadra’ s book, Stories From a StepMom, available on Amazon Kindle. Read more or request a review copy.
Loved reading your post. It was real and genuine. I saw maturity in your being able to see what you contributed to the relationship, understanding that your insecurities played into the way the kids reacted to you.
When we can acknowledge what we bring into the relationship, good or bad, can make or break it, that’s when we really start to build strong and healthy families.
Thanks for sharing.
Claudette
The Stepmom Coach
Claudette,
Thank you so much for your feedback. That’s the hardest part of being a stepparent, I think – seeing what attitudes, insecurities, and expectations you bring to the relationship that might be unreasonable or unfair. For years I thought that some of the aspects of the relationship I had with my step daughter were directly related to us being steps – things like when I said no, going to her dad to see if he would say yes, for example. Now that my biological daughter is about the same age she was when that started, it’s easy to see that those dynamics are just kid behaviors and have nothing to do with whether or not biology is a part of the picture. It’s helped me realize how many extra layers stepmoms tend to add to interpreting the situation that don’t need to be there.
-Shadra