Stepmother: One Step at a Time

After being married to my husband for 28 years, I never expected that on the fifth day of Shiva that I would get a letter from my oldest stepdaughter's new lawyer telling me to sign papers, I never signed those papers and now it is from July 12, 2012, date of my husband's death to today that I am still in litigation with this stepdaughter. I have tried to compromise with her, but to no avail. I am 82 years of age and she is 68. Unfairly, she has been made the sole trustee of the case. Even tho the judge said it was because of the fact that we could not get along, I believe it was because she is younger than I. I am the second stepmom that she has had. I believed that she felt that now that her father died, she was entitled to his money. I have lived with her father in a community property state since 1985. My income comes from Social Security and an annuity. Stepdaughter wants more than half of her father's and my money. While her father was alive, she would say that she loved me. I believed her. I am very Jewish and she was born of a Christian mother. I will answer questions if I am able. I appreciate it that you are reading this comment. Thank you.
I would like to educate other stepmoms before they become widows and I promised God that after I win this case, I would. Because I am Jewish and a first generation American, I persevere. Thank God I can because I am frail but in good health and happy.

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.

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.

Thank you for putting into eloquent and sensitive words exactly how I feel. I don’t feel so alone, now.

Home run article- way to step up to the plate!!

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.

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.

You made me have a strong emotional response, very good writing!

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

So refreshing to hear this perspective and very spot on. Thank u

Beautiful

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.

I tink the same , actually i have the same question , so i wonder if tje author (yaffa , a exelent author), can ex0lIn me that??

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.