Step-Parenting

My family has an uneasy relationship with the prefix "step".  In the two plus years we have been a family, it has nearly ceased to be affixed before any noun one would normally expect to find it attached to like "dad" or "mom".  Although all the adults in our family, my husband, the two grown daughters and myself, will sometimes use terms like "step-daughter" or "step-mother", for the most part, it is for the benefit of others because we seem to be personally uncomfortable with the terms in family settings.

I don't know why. Perhaps because our family blending has widowhood and parental death at its roots, we don't feel as though we fit into the generally accepted idea of what a blended family looks like.  We have the prerequisite plethora of extended family.  Aunties, Uncles and cousins who are relatives by default, and the extra grandparents and in-laws that leave outsiders scratching their heads in bewilderment.  My husband's boss had to confirm that Rob had reached the end of his father-in-law allotment when he asked for the third time in a year for bereavement leave to attend another funeral for a recently passed on dad-in-law.

"How many do you have again?"

And the truth is that Rob had three father-in-laws: my dad, his late wife's father and her step-father. Which is not any more remarkable than the fact that our seven year old has three grandmothers or that our grown daughters had four grandfathers at one time.

But despite our reality, no one seems okay with the the "step" thing and this leaves us in a terminology limbo of sorts.

Kat, the seven year old, doesn't even know what a step-sister is even though she has two of them. Her dad and I have never used the term and her sisters don't either. At 24 and 26, they have been wonderful with Kat and have assured her from the start that she is their sister. A generous thing to have done considering the fact that they barely knew her when Rob and I married. I had only met the oldest a week and a half prior to our wedding, one of the disadvantages of international Internet dating/relationships. For that matter, Kat has never been introduced to the idea of a "step-father". Rob has been "Rob" or "Daddy" and her late father is "Daddy Will". 

My husband stopped referring to Kat as his step-daughter within the first six months. At first glance they appear every bit as bonded as a father and daughter should, and it was actually easier to let people assume their relationship was biological than to try and explain after the assumption was already out there. In some ways it felt like repudiation to say, "No, she's just my step-daughter" or "I'm only her step-father." There is no "just" or "only" when it comes to a child who loves you and believes that having two fathers is nothing out of the ordinary.

For me though it is a bit different. Rob has three daughters now. Kat is more like him than she is her late father anymore. It's something I knew would probably happen though it caught him off guard a bit. But the older girls are a different matter. Early on in our relationship, Rob made it clear that I would not be a mother to his children. And in some ways, I knew that he was right, but I also knew that it would never be that simple because you don't stop needing a mother just because you are technically a grown up.

I remember my twenties. A lot of growing and changing goes on, and my experiences as a single woman are far closer to their experiences than their Dad's - and not just because he is male. At 24 he'd been married for five years and was a father twice over. He can't relate to the idea of still finding one's self and purpose/direction at such a late age.

For the sake of explanation I refer to Fare and Jore as my step-daughters to others though the term sticks in my mouth, and I will just as often call them "the older girls" or even just "my grown daughters" to avoid the aftertaste the whole "step" thing leaves behind.

And it isn't just me. They stumble too. During introductions it can be "This is Ann." or more rarely "This is Ann, Dad's wife." The latter usually occurring when someone mistakes me for their mother.

It's hard to know when I am being overly maternal or not motherly enough. I am too full of advice, or will I appear aloof if I merely listen without comment? Should I hug or not? Do I tell them I love them, or does that create an awkward expectation of reciprocation they are not inclined to yet or interested in at all?

I know women whose fathers have remarried when they were adults. While most of them are polite, they have confided that the remarriage made, and still makes them at times, sad and even resentful. For the most part they keep their feelings to themselves for their father's sake and because they have children, who like our youngest, don't understand the complexity of blended familial relationships, but they don't see this new wife as anything other than a new wife.

I don't see my relationship with Fare and Jore as anything more than it is. We are still getting to know each other and define the boundaries of our relationship, and I expect it will grow and deepen with time, but I am only responsible for my role, so I won't make predictions beyond that. It has certainly been less tumultuous than society leads people to believe the blending of families can be. While each of our three children has had her moments, nothing has come up that hasn't been worked through,and it hasn't been the stuff of high drama. 

I wonder if I will ever be comfortable with the "step" thing. I feel about it somewhat the way I feel about seeing the word "adopted" in front of the names of the children of celebrities - that it is missing the point by a mile and in a way that is too redneck trailer park for my liking.

Parenting is work. Family is complex. We continue to be a work in progress with masterpiece potential.

This is an original 50 Something Moms post by Ann Bibby of anniegirl1138.