Like a piece of sand in an oyster, the name irritates, aggravates, annoys.
It’s anything but me. I am not a "STEPMOTHER."
Up until this point, I’ve been a beloved aunt that celebrates you, surprises you, spoils you. I’m that aunt that sings you silly songs and tells you stories, that lends you something to wear for your high school’s weekend retreat.
But more than that, I’m the aunt that gets you. You can complain to me about your mother, your sister, your spouse. I’m the aunt you call not because you have to, but because you want to. I’m the aunt that's there for you. In this role, I am beloved.
Stepmother seems like an entirely different can of worms. After Cinderella, no PR company can do sufficient damage control on this term.
So while I accept this role, I shun the nomenclature.
Maybe I should be called a dubstep mother, as in mother that brings dance into this situation. Or maybe a step-up mother, as in a mother that has stepped up to the plate.
All I know is that I will bring into this situation gifts I’ve honed all these years – my ability to listen, to love, to hold space for these children who are transitioning through grief into a new reality. I’m ready to be there, to take it on with an openheartedness that will certainly banish all this stepmother-ish-ness into the awful fairytale where it belongs.
Except as I try to do this through corona, through holidays, through simple family get-togethers the automatic mindset underlying the term stepmother seems to be wearing itself through the fabric of our interactions.
I perceive the children’s reality: A stepmother's first step is to take your father. Then she takes your house. Then she replaces your mother.
I discover that no matter what I have to give, no matter what gifts I wish to bring to this situation, there is a child's perspective that no amount of giving can change. I perceive the children’s reality: A stepmother is automatically someone who takes from you. Her first step is to take your father. Then she takes your house. And these enormous losses are minor compared to the fact that she has taken something so gigantic from you that she could never give enough to replace it. Just by being in your life, she has taken the place of your mother.
That seems to be the unspoken starting line in which I find myself.
And I’m not a taker. This is not my bailiwick. How to reconcile this constant giving with the feeling like I’m constantly taking?
I attend plays bringing gifts – but what I bring is pain. I’ve shown up in the place of someone who was supposed to be here – I’m proof that she is not.
I attend the celebration of birth, I welcome the guests, host the party but once again all I do is provide proof of her absence.
I work on my relationship with a teen only to have it come to a grinding halt.
"What’s up?" I ask as together we assemble an Ikea cabinet.
"You’re not my mother," says Mr. Hyde.
The temperature in the room plummets.
"When did you realize that?" I ask lightly, trying to interject some humor in the situation. Then: "Can we be friends anyway?"
He just grunts.
And so it goes.
Maybe I should call myself the out-of-step mother. My actions and my reception feel so out of sync. What more can I do? I wonder.
A small shift occurs.
There’s a wedding. The children need help getting ready. I don’t offer to step in. It seems too complicated. Besides, I’m regrouping – not consciously, but with all the misconstrued giving, I don’t have the extra emotional strength to energize myself in that direction.
Then someone throws an impromptu birthday party for one of the grandkids.
The party is relaxed. There is no strain. I bring a gift. Children are children and the grandchildren have easily accepted me in their midst. I give loads of hugs and get lots of hugs in return. The children run off to play.
Everyone is together, sitting around the living room. Someone mentions gowns.
I’ve heard through the grapevine that they need help. And I offer to step in.
Maybe stepmother simply means a mother, one step at a time.
They seem relieved. We throw around gown ideas. Colors. Fabrics. We share links. I give my two cents (highly sought-after two cents, in other circumstances, I might add). We make a commitment to make a date to go fabric shopping.
I leave the party, my step lighter than it has been.
Suddenly the moniker stepmother seems not so cruel, not so removed, perhaps even apt.
Maybe stepmother simply means a mother, one step at a time.
I haven’t carried you in my heart, nurtured you with my blood. I haven’t soothed you through broken gums, broken dolls or broken hearts. You haven’t relied on me with your wedding gowns since there was weddings in this family. And yet here I am.
And as I learn about you – your needs, your hopes, your fears – you learn about me, my needs, my hopes, my fears. As your life continues to unfold, I can, as necessary, step in. Whereas mother preceded consciousness, every act of mine is fully conscious, fully a choice and it unfolds steadily over time, over events, over milestones.
So that I become a mother – one step at a time.
(14) Anonymous, November 19, 2020 4:15 PM
Insightful
I’ve never liked the word stepmother, either. Therefore, I used the term bonus mother when the mother is still alive or second mother when the birth mother is deceased.
My sister obm role modeled , “bonus mother” with her second husband who had joint custody of his daughter from his second marriage by meeting with the birth mother to discuss parenting practices to be consistent with the daughter, when the daughter lived with my sister and second husband in the summer.
My “second mother” role model is an aunt who married her best friend’s husband, after the friend died, leaving three children under the age of ten with one being physically challenged. Since, my aunt was the godmother to all three children, she did not feel the need to give birth to a child, so her new husband had a vasectomy in case my aunt changed her mind, later. My aunt didn’t change her mind and they’ve been married forty-five years. The key to the success of this family was my aunt being proactive with acquiring tools for the family through therapy, support groups to navigate the challenges that came their way. My three cousins call my aunt either , “Auntie Bee” or “Mother Bee” and the six grandchildren call her , “Queen Bee”, while the two great-grandchildren call her ,”Nana Bee.”
It’s up to us in society to reject negative media PR ,even if it’s imaginary and turn it around and use creative positive words that symbolize love.
(13) elia filhart, November 19, 2020 1:34 PM
I,m glad to read that you finally started to blend into the family.No one can take place of a mother, however, in my mother's place her mother passed away when she was six. Her father remarried a short while later and they had another five children. My mother became the step child who would take care of these children and the (wicked) stepmother took too much advantage of a little girl who had to grow up much sooner than her years. Her life story pre world war II during the war and afterwards is written in MY EYES LOOKINCG BACK AT ME, by Menucha Meinstein as told by Lea Roth.
(12) Iyrit Alexenberg, November 18, 2020 10:45 AM
The article is more than accurate.
Thank you for putting into eloquent and sensitive words exactly how I feel. I don’t feel so alone, now.
(11) Anonymous, November 18, 2020 4:26 AM
Amazing
Home run article- way to step up to the plate!!
(10) Anonymous, November 17, 2020 8:14 PM
As a mother-in-law, I thought one could easily replace that word wherever you wrote the word step-mother. Each “child” and each situation is certainly different but the similarities and the feelings evoked felt eerily compatible to me. Perhaps one day, your thoughtful and loving approach to your step-children may be realized and fully appreciated. Still, goodness never is wasted. And although I am not a step-mother, my experience as a mother-in-law who struggles as you have, is teaching me that sometimes less really is more, that I don’t need to try so hard to be loved/accepted, and that extravagant and unreciprocated gift giving is not only unnecessary but it obscures in many ways the most valuable gift I have to give (my time, my attention and my generosity of spirit) which oftentimes goes under-appreciated or un-acknowledged. Thank you for sharing your experience in this piece. G-d bless and wishing you well.
(9) Miriam Wolkenfeld Cohen, November 17, 2020 7:58 PM
Good article
My mother lost her mother at a very young age, 9 and her father,remarried when she was 16. But her step mother had also lost her mother at a young age, and her father also remarried,and had another family. So my mother and stepmother had that in common,and they became friends. It was a most unusual situation, and it worked.
(8) RA'ANAN, November 17, 2020 6:30 PM
FINE WRITING!!!
You made me have a strong emotional response, very good writing!
(7) Lissa Goldman, November 17, 2020 3:54 PM
So real, so awesome!!
Growing up with a step-mother (my parents were divorced ) and being one myself in a second marriage (it didn’t work out), I thought the author’s experiences were so authentic and conveyed so honestly , it brought tears to my eyes. Being a step-parent is a thankless task. As you wrote so beautifully , we are glaring examples of who isn’t there, and all of the emotions that entails. B’hatzlacha from Israel.
(6) Anonymous, November 17, 2020 3:52 PM
Children weren't asked the first time either
I realize I might have matured a bit since I was a teenager and it's probably different for me since I was already married with children when my parent remarried. Nonetheless people asked me about my step parent. Your parents did not ask you the first the first time they were married either. Not respecting your parent's choice when they remarry shows great disrespect for your parent. The srep parents deserve the love and respect of all the children.
(5) Anonymous, November 17, 2020 3:25 PM
I'm a step mom - it's not so bad
I'm a second wife and a step mom. We married when my step kids were 6 and 8. Today they're in their 40's with kids of their own. I'm close with both of them, and their families. What's more, my kids (with their father) are close with my steps and their families,, and I'm on friendly terms with their mom. It's different when they still have a mother - better in some ways, worse, perhaps, in others. I always maintained that I was "only the stepmother". They have a mother and I always recognized her place. In the same vein, they recognize that I'm a 'mother' to my own kids. We're a blended family and we've made it work. It hasn't always been easy, but we were determined to stick it out. Good luck!
(4) Frank Adam, November 17, 2020 2:45 PM
The PR has a purpose
Criticising stepmothers in literature of any degree, is a safe way of criticising mothers and motherhood indirectly - given that mothers are God on Earth to young children's reality. Mothers are human and have their faults but it is difficult to deal directly with this reality till you have a certain independence of young adulthood and even then - unless you have a precocious sense of humour/banter.
Rachel, November 18, 2020 3:24 AM
Good literary analysis
The stories Disney turned into films are hundreds or thousands of years old.
Furthermore, in polygamous societies, there was often tension between the more loved new wife and the previous wife, as well as their children. And even as recently as Regency Britain, the firstborn son could disinherit his father’s second wife and her children (see Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility.”)
There is nothing new under the sun.
(3) MK, November 17, 2020 2:39 PM
Beautifully captured
So refreshing to hear this perspective and very spot on. Thank u
(2) Shelley pearl, November 16, 2020 6:34 PM
Beautiful
(1) Alan S., November 15, 2020 11:50 AM
Question.
Please excuse both my naivety and/or stupidity. I am just a bit confused by how the article began with you being an aunt, and quickly segued into your being a stepmom.
Certainly you can first be an aunt, and then married the dad, thereby becoming a stepmom.
I realize of course that the main focus of your article was to talk about the notoriety associated with the name 'step-mom'.
I only wish that this part of the story was 'fleshed out' a bit more for continuity, direction and background.
Anonymous, November 17, 2020 9:36 PM
Im 15 years old , im from mexico sorry if i have bad ortography
I tink the same , actually i have the same question , so i wonder if tje author (yaffa , a exelent author), can ex0lIn me that??
Anonymous, November 19, 2020 3:52 PM
aunt and then stepmom
I understand your confusion but i think the author was trying to convey that she was an amazing aunt- always giving and loved by nieces and nephews and technically it should have been natural for her step kids to love her as well because she was that kind of aunt. But then she married a man with children and she is explaining the fact that she was a stepmom was the reason they couldnt love her.