“Naïve” could’ve easily been my middle name when I first became a stepmother. Shortly after I married my husband, my then 10-year-old stepson came to live with us. A year later, my 14-year-old stepdaughter followed suit. I knew that there would be an adjustment period for all of us as we got used to living under the same roof together and worked toward becoming a full-fledged family. Never in a million years, however, did I think that I would not be viewed by society as a real parent.
It would take nothing less than solid parenting for me to care for my stepchildren during some of the most awkward and developmentally challenging years of their lives. Both my husband and I were working full-time, and he had made the decision to advance his education by taking night classes, which would make me the primary caretaker of our children. I was petrified by the thought of instant parenthood. At the same time, I was also excited by it. But as I began to embrace the concept of motherhood from the vantage point of a stepmother, I had to face the reality that in the eyes of some people, I was still childless.
Conversations with bio parents at work never ceased to enlighten me about the way society views stepparents. I’ll never forget the year my stepson Adam decided to spend Mother’s Day at home with me, instead of with his biological mother, who he usually spent it with. “Why would he want to do that?” several of my coworkers asked. “Maybe he carries some deep-seated resentment toward his mother,” someone stated. This couldn’t have been farther from the truth, as Adam loves both his mother and I very much. It was just a choice that he had made because we had grown so close, and we had never really shared this holiday together.
With my oldest stepchild away at college and her brother now back with his mother and stepfather, my own husband and I are “empty-nesting” and settling into life with just the two of us. We miss seeing our kids every day but are also enjoying the one-on-one time with each other. Yet few people that I have conversations with about this seem to understand why I don’t feel a tremendous void. “There’s nothing like having your own children,” they tell me. “You still have time,” some say. Then there are of course the rumors that I perhaps am simply unable to conceive or have a healthy pregnancy. “You can always adopt,” a couple of people have said to me out of the blue on separate occasions.
It is very frustrating to tell people about my stepchildren and subsequently be asked, “So do you have any children of your own?” For that reason, I often don’t even mention that I am a stepmother – I just say that I have kids and avoid any clarification. Fortunately, I was raised in an environment where family is viewed in less rigid, traditional terms. Perhaps that is why I went against the grain of society and deliberately chose to embrace my stepchildren as my own – without adding any biological children to the equation. And while there were many experiences that I didn’t – and will never – have with my stepchildren because I was not there from day one and did not give birth to them, I feel privileged to have had a hand in their upbringing.
Do I think that everyone who marries into a stepfamily should automatically be considered a parent? I would have to say no. Like the word “love,” the word “parent” has much more meaning when used in the verb tense. In order to be a parent, one must choose to parent, and willingly and lovingly assume the responsibilities that parenting requires. One can even give birth to a child and neglect to be a parent to that child, and as we know, this happens all too often in our society.
Anyone – whether male or female – who like me, has chosen to roll up their sleeves and provide love and hands-on parenting to their stepchildren, is indeed a parent. I can certainly understand how challenging it is for a biological parent to imagine someone else raising or caring for their children, and probably the mere thought of that makes stepparents seem like a threat to the natural parent-child bond. A good stepparent, however, will never try to mess with the bond that their stepchildren have with their natural parents. They will simply reinforce the fact that the children have multiple parents who love them and will be there for them.
