You know what is a mixed bag? Step-parenting: all the responsibilities of a
parent and none of the control. I have
been doing this gig now for thirteen years and I am still struggling. There are
times when I am awesome: cookies for her class, rides to wherever she needs to
go, forgotten items run up to school to save the day. There are also times when, quite frankly, I
suck: not ready for the level of
parenting her age requires, being so frustrated by her lack of planning I am
angry at her all week or just not wanting to drive her somewhere she needs to go.
I met Maizy when she
was just about to turn three. She was
small, vivacious, and verbose and liked having her Dad to herself. She will turn sixteen, God help us, this
weekend and I find myself thinking of the first birthday I shared with
her. On that third birthday, Bill and I
took her to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate.
I had no idea what I was in for as far as lights, noise, cracked out
kids and primary colors. Maizy and I bonded
as we watched a girl pee right next to the ball pit, shake her leg and go back
in. We were united in horror. We were also united in sobbing as we left:
Maizy because she didn’t want to go and me because it was the most horrible place
I had ever been to, I never wanted to go again and this meant I hated kids and
never wanted to be a parent but loved this man who had a kid and
wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Bill wisely put us
both to bed when we got home and I was pregnant six months later and the whole
thing was a moot point.
Maizy has spent most of her growing up spending one week at
her mom’s and the next week at our house.
When people ask how that works, I tell them that it is hard work to
share a child. Think about it, you have
two people who had a relationship and had a child, but the relationship did not
work for various reasons and now they are confronted with those reasons again
and again as they work to raise a child.
Good times. It is hard work for
the kid who is coming back and it is hard work for the kids are there the whole
time to adjust. It is hard work for the
parent who is missing her and it is hard work for the parent who is trying to
do everything for her the week she is there.
When she was little, she used to come back and touch everything she had
left behind as if to say “I’m back”. Now
that she is older, she takes everything with her each week back and forth. I have tried to talk her into keeping boring
things like socks at each house, but even those get shuttled back and
forth. She wrote a story for English
once on how she liked having two houses to be at and how she liked the
different dynamics of each. However, she has recently told us that she finds it
easier to lie when writing anything autobiographical. Hard work, indeed.
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| Hard shoes and hair to fill |
I wish I had friends who were also stepparents – we could
commiserate and help each other through the sticky spots and understand truly
what the other was going through. I don’t
though. I know very few real life stepparents.
I still think Carol Brady and Joseph when I think stepparents and that
is intimidating. Carol Brady? She took on all those boys and never batted
an eye, just smiled and drank coffee with Alice in the kitchen. Joseph?
He raises the human form of God willingly and obediently. And I make cookies for bake sales. I remember when Maizy first played soccer and
Bill was coaching and I introduced myself to the other moms as her stepmom;
they almost recoiled. Feeling slighted,
I thought, just wait. Law of averages,
half of you will be divorced in five years and dealing with your own stepparent
situations. Ha! I am not always a nice person.
I want Maizy to know I think she is an amazing young
woman. She is independent and smart and
so funny. Like laugh out loud
funny. I want her to know that I think
her situation stinks even when I am being indifferent to it. I want her to know that saying things she
doesn’t want to hear is not yelling. I
want her to know she is a part of our family even when she is at her mom’s. I want to tell her to be as nice to her
sister as she is to her brother because when she is not it makes me want to be
mean to her. I want her to know and
appreciate how much her Dad has done for her and because of her. Basically, I want her to know exactly what is
in my head and heart and agree with it and think I am fantastic. However, that will probably not happen until
she has a child of her own so until then, if she just knows that I love her and
mean well, even if I am “yelling” all the time, that will have to do.
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