I am the step mother of a 14 year old boy. I have been his step mother since he was five. I had two children myself when I met his father, and my kids were much older. I didn’t know if I wanted to start raising a boy all over again. I remember taking Michael to his first day of kindergarten, and looking at all the other mother’s experiencing that same sad little feeling that I had when my kids first left me for school. I didn’t have the same feeling watching Michael as he walked up the gravel path.
I liked the kid just fine. He was smart and funny, and my own kids got along with him really well. I began to wonder if there was some thing wrong with me.
So began a long journey of trying to find my place with in a step parent family. Now my husband was going through the same thing with my two kids, a boy and a girl, ages 13 and 11. There were times when our parenting techniques varied greatly and we had some hard lessons to learn.
The first one was that we were not the parent. As much as we like to pretend we are, we will never take the place of the missing biological parent, even if we (and the children) get along with them well. I know most step parents go into this relationship knowing that they are not the parent, not even wanting to be, it falls into that place, just the same.
Our role as step parents is to support the biological parent. That was a hard thing for me to learn. We had such different parenting techniques when it came to discipline, teaching, etc, that I had to hold my tongue on several occasions, and even more often got into full blown arguments. We had to accept that we had different styles, and while we could agree on most things, some areas were theirs alone to pass onto their child. We had huge fights over why one kid seemed to get more than the others-attention, toys, time-and over they way the kids talked to each of us. There was an adjustment period for the kids as well, remember. Michael and I got into many arguments regarding who he should have to listen too, and like any teenager, played us off each other.
Michael is 14 now. He plays football and I go to his games. He respects me as his step mom, and I try to stay out of his business, like any parent of a 14 knows to do. At one of his first football games I decided to go say hi to him. He was standing with his teammates and as he saw me coming he waived his hand-ever so slowly- at his side. I laughed and backed off, not coming any closer so he wouldn’t be embarrassed.
Just like any mom would do with her son.