Mary threw herself on the couch, and if you had to describe her face with one word, it would definitely be “exhaustion”.
Her stepson had achieved the impossible: he managed to erase forever that reproachful look she gave to parents, until she had to be herself one. Little Ben had invaded her life when she fell in love with Patrick, Ben’s dad, and for the last couple of months, she only frowned in front of the mirror.
She was about to call her best friend and scream for the 20th time “I’m dooooomed” but a thought from last night somehow popped in mind. It was a memory of Ben, safely tucked in his bed –a car she bought for him in an attempt to “buy him off”– asking her “Do you love me?” She hadn’t even blinked. “Of course, I do, honey.” But this kid wouldn’t leave it alone. “Do you love me as if I were your child?”
The question was resonating in her head. Ben was outside playing but she was still trying to honestly answer that equally direct and sincere question. Was her “yes, I do” as sincere as his question?
Stepparenting isn’t new. It’s not just a trend or habit of our times. Stepmothers and stepfathers were around before technology. And they came long before the so-called collapse of the social context.
And if you disagree, be my guest and read “Cinderella”. In this classic fairy tale (at least in Disney’s version) the stepmom wins hands down the supporting actress award with her evil attitude. Instead of following all-time-classic and politically correct behaviour, she acts as if she is Lord Voldemort bitten by an orc and stung by an Uruk Hai.
Sorry to break it to you, but life is not a fairy tale where everything is painted in black or pink. And although you may frown upon someone taking his or her time to answer questions like little Ben’s, you should know that it takes a big heart, an evolved person, to be more than a tending stepmom. To be a real mother.
In our troubling times, divorces are more common than ever. But as life goes on, divorced parents are replacing their former husbands and wives with new ones, thus creating new parents for their children.
Regardless of what Hollywood tells you, stepparents are not evil. There isn’t a (dirty) pool where they grow, they don’t come with magic brooms and cauldrons for potions and in most –if not all– cases they come along with the sincerest intentions. But do they all make it to the finishing line? No, they don’t.
Stepparenting is one of the hardest experiences, a man or a women will ever have. Basically, you walk into a family’s house, which is not yours, and at the same minute, you have to throw out of the window the usual newlywed’s carelessness to become a parent at once. Although you are clearly an outsider.
No. It’s not easy-peasy and whoever declares it as such, they’re lying. Big time.
It takes a special, really special person to love their partner’s children as if they were their own. It takes a person with a big heart and not just somebody who is “in love”. Romance comes and goes. You were “in love” with someone before and obviously your partner was too. To love your partner’s children as if you were the one that endured the labour’s pain, you have to love them unconditionally. To love every little part of theirs. Can you do that? Can people do that?
It’s in our nature to be selfish. Even if we’re confident, we can’t help but feel insecure at times. We need to face the truth: in every relationship, especially a romantic one, we need to be told and shown in every way possible, that we are the important ones, the centre of attention. We want to make sure, even if we understand that we’re not the centre of the universe, we are the centre of our partner’s universe.
And this automatically means that although we can be good and loving stepparents, it is not enough to make us capable to be parents to their children.
Don’t get me wrong. Stepparenting is not about replacing a parent. They can’t be replaced, after all. But it’s about making the rights choices, the responsible ones.
If you love a person enough to overlook their annoying habits and enough to never, ever, poison your head with the idea that their kids “come first”, you have a good chance to be more than a stepparent. In any other case, if you end up feeling threatened by the kid and you will never love it unconditionally. no matter how your partner makes your heart jump, turn your back and go your own way, before you take any responsibility that comes with becoming a parent.
Author: Dimitra Tsampodimou
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