Stepmother Day

 

   When I looked back at my Facebook memories today, I noticed many years of Happy Stepmother Day posts. An internet search back then had told me that Stepmother's Day was on May 1. ( It's actually the Sunday after Mother's Day.) I decided that since I am a stepmother, I should recognize the day. I did for many years, in 2019 the posts stopped. I quit celebrating Stepmother's Day.

    A bit of backstory is in order here. When I got married almost 20 years ago, I not only gained a  husband, I also gained five stepchildren who ranged in age from early twenties to early teens and a granddaughter. My joke was that I went from zero to five kids in 30 minutes the length of a standard Lutheran wedding ceremony.

   It was important to me that my stepchildren feel welcome in our lives. The three older children were part of our wedding party. I had hopes that in time we would be a family. During our long engagement we discussed the issue of stepchildren and formed a few ground rules. There were a few rules that I set up for myself. Whatever sort of relationship the kids wanted with me would be up to them. All I required is that they treat me politely when the visit my home or when we are out in public. I would never lie to them. I would tell them I don't know or that something wasn't their business, but I was not going to lie. I was also not going to prevent them from having access to their father or vice versa.

   For awhile I thought my hopes could be realized. The older ones were coming to visit and spending parts of holidays with us. They seemed to have a good time when they were here and I was happy about that. When they needed help of various kinds, usually financial, we would help them as we felt appropriate. I thought it would be nice to have family pictures taken of us with the kids and began looking at various locations.

   When C retired, he decided that it was no longer appropriate to continue to give the kids money whenever they needed it. The Bank of Dad is closed. We would continue to help when we could, but C felt we needed to be mindful of our finances now that he wasn't working. In a short period of time they had minimal contact with us. 

   My stepson and his wife chose to completely sever their relationship with us after several misunderstandings and assumptions. Challenges with our youngest stepdaughter cause us to have to cut off contact for our protection. 

   My hope of a family was gone. 

   In retrospect there were several signs that I missed or just ignored. A few months after our marriage, one of my stepchildren posted a family picture with C and his former wife with all the children. Under the picture was written, "I want my family back." The  other children commented with, "Yes" and "Those were good times." I was hurt, very hurt. The person who posted that had to know that I would see it. I was friends on Facebook. When the kids came to visit they would thank me for cooking whatever and tell me how much they liked the food, then they would ignore me. They had inside jokes that I knew nothing about. They never reached out to me or attempted to get to know me in any way. They knew that I had kept my family name, but didn't know what that name was.

   In the past few years I have given up hope that they would accept me as part of the family. Maybe it was naïve of me to have that hope in the first place. It wasn't like I was the other woman that broke up their parents' marriage. Their mother was married to someone else when C and I got married. The reality is that I seriously misjudged the chaos that they experienced during their childhoods. There is no way they would ever accept me as part of the family. It seemed silly to continue to celebrate Stepmother's Day when I had a miniscule relationship with my stepchildren.

   I'm of two minds about this. On one hand, I'm sad because I really like C's children and think that we could have had a wonderful relationship. I could have been a wise aunt or mentor to the girls. On the other hand, I also feel a sense of freedom. All these years, I've been staying quiet for the sake of family peace. I rarely objected when I felt that C was being treated badly by his children or voiced my opinion. Now that I no longer care if they accept me or not, I'm not going to stay quiet. I'm not going to be mean, but I'm not going to stay silent and I'm going to be me.