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WHAT'S NEW
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Navigating stepmotherhood
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One stepmother embraces her new role as parent, wife and friend.
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By Jocelyn Laurence
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Learning together, one step at a time
One evening, I decided it would be fun to teach them the tango (don't ask). There was much striding across the living room and giggling and me commanding, "Turn now! Aggh, help!" as we crashed into one another and the furniture. Another evening, as I was tucking Julia in, I told her I had to go downstairs to make coffee for her dad and a dinner guest. She shot up in bed. "What are you," she asked accusingly, "their slave?" I was deeply embarrassed by my unthinking attitude -- me, one of the original feminists. It never happened again.
Above all, both girls reminded me of a reality beyond what I came to perceive as my pre-Meredith-and-Julia life: full of media gossip, office intrigue and other assorted wastes of time. Watching them enthusiastically dance and sing along to a Gilbert and Sullivan number was way more fun than an evening at the latest groovy restaurant. One day, somewhere between the lettuce and the skirts and the French dictionary, between bedtime stories and eating biscotti and dancing to Blondie, I woke up to find these two children had taken over my life. At work, I found myself musing about what I could make for dessert. Îles flottantes? Ha! That would floor them! I wanted to make them happy. I was in love.
This couldn't have happened, I should add, without the girls' parents. Their father was inclusive and supportive, and their mother, whom I rarely saw but liked, was admirably hands-off when it came to my relationship with her daughters. She chose to see my arrival in their lives as a plus, not a minus, and by doing so, gave all of us a huge gift. Mind you, I had always been clear in my own mind that the girls had involved, caring parents. Their mother and father were the sun; I was merely the entertaining and (I hoped) supportive moon. Perhaps this thinking prepared me for some less-than-idyllic moments.
There was the night one of the girls was hustled off to the ER for what turned out to be something minor. I stayed home because my presence clearly wasn't needed, but I worried nonetheless -- by myself. On the other hand, I had always tried not to be a total parent to the girls. That might sound odd, but I believe step-parents can carve out their own territory in which they behave as parents in many ways but can also relate to their stepkids as people, simply because no one in the equation comes burdened with mutually held expectations, tangled family history, hopes and regrets. As a step parent, my goal was to be there for them. To give when it was asked for or clearly needed, but not to muscle in on territory that wasn't mine; to be as nonjudgmental as possible; and to treat them as the individuals they clearly were.
That was all very well, but a year after my mom died, when the girls were still fairly young, I stood in our kitchen, thinking about parents and children while the girls and their dad talked in the living room, and I was feeling very lonely. It hit me that I shared no blood tie with these girls and relatively little history, yet there I was, hoping my own life would be valued by kids I'd embraced as my own. I could only trust that they had equally embraced me. I was fortunate -- it turned out they had.
When their father and I separated (the girls were in their early teens), I gave Meredith and Julia a key to my house, and they still have it -- and use it from time to time. I remain in frequent contact with both of them and always feel privileged to have their friendship and affection. While I made mistakes with them, as all adults do with children, the girls gracefully rescued me from my worst excesses. They brought out the best in me and had no idea they were doing it (still don't).
Thanks to them, I climbed the mountain, navigated the path and have ended up living in the world with them in a makeshift Shangri-la that is better than I had ever imagined. I could never have done it alone.
Page 2 of 2
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