BIG LIST: My Steptale Life

A true story.

I’m a stepmom and I’m pretty sure I’m not evil (though there’s still time to change.) Thanks to the abundance of stepmothers who actively ruin the lives of protagonist princesses, I did not grow up aspiring to help parent a child my partner conceived with another person. It’s too bad because it would have been an appropriate and achievable dream. Unlike Mom culture which claims to be all-inclusive - no matter what, do NOT mom-shame! - stepmom culture, if there even is such a thing, can be chalked up to two things: sexualization (we’re a popular porn category, at least) and being somehow less-than the “real” mom. The heroic stepmom is yet to be conceived. 

There are three stepmoms from pop culture that immediately come to mind (I’m sure I’m missing some, I hope I’m missing some). Two of them are the villains in Cinderella and Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs and the third is Julia Robert’s character, Isabel, a stepmom, in the 1998 Hollywood movie about a father, stepmom and mother navigating parenting, creatively titled, “Stepmom.” When I first watched this movie as a 12-year-old I remember identifying with Julia Roberts’ Isabel because she is a successful photographer and I wanted to be an artist. But I also remember thinking there was something a bit dirty about being a stepmother, so I concluded I’d just be an artist without the stepmother part. Luckily for me, life took my best laid plans and laughed, enough so that I can tell jokes about it on stage, which turns out to be my art form.

In case you haven’t seen the movie “Stepmom” - and, wow, good job - Julia Roberts’ character, Isabel, is depicted as a career-obsessed photographer. Despite her admirable professional success she is somehow unable to pick up her two stepchildren on time, perhaps this is some sort of stepmother-onset amnesia. Isabel is the younger second wife of the hunky lead man and father (Ed Harris, obviously) who is always away at work, leaving the parenting, rightfully, to the women - what else would we women bother about? Isabel is positioned against the revered mother of two, Jackie, played by Susan Sarandon. Jackie never forgets snacks and is always game for a spontaneous dance party like all good moms. The son and daughter idolize Jackie and then - spoiler alert, but are you really going to watch this now? - we find out Jackie is dying from cancer, in case we didn’t already empathize with her enough. The movie ends on the sad yet uplifting note that because Jackie is going to die, it is now acceptable to embrace Isabel as a stepmom. After all, the kids don’t have a better option.

Though the word “step” originates from the Old English word “steop” which means “orphan,” most stepparents become parents because of divorce or separation, not because someone dies. That means stepmonsters like Isabel and I are out there co-parenting, desperately clinging to new, more positive-sounding terms like “bonus mom,” which, apparently, is the best rebrand we can come up with. It’s all quite a pathetic attempt to redeem this growing population of ‘step people,’ which I realize sounds like a subset of characters on Game of Thrones but let’s go with it, it’s better than bonus something.

The good news about step parenting is that it can make a you a better parent and human. It can also make you a worse parent and human. Initially, I struggled to accept that my husband made a baby with a woman who - well, to put it simply - isn’t me, the love of his life and greatest person to have ever lived (what I imagine he’d say about me if asked). Even though it was in the past and my husband didn’t know me then, my thoughts swirled around one central immature sentiment: how dare he make a baby with someone other than me. It took a while to focus on what mattered, my stepson, whom we would have to be mature enough to raise together with my husband’s ex-wife. Friends and family, well-intentioned but uneducated on the life of step people didn’t make it easier. People would say things like, “having children is the most intimate thing you can do with another person.” I’d stare back, thinking, “if you were a stepparent, you probably wouldn’t say that.” Co-parenting can be intimate and romantic but it also can be all-business with all parties attempting to achieve a common goal - the best possible outcome for the child.

After I was already a stepmom, my husband and I had a son. People said “welcome to motherhood.” I was confused. I’m already a mother, I thought. I didn’t say that because I didn’t want to take away from the mothering that my stepson’s mom does. Also, maybe it would feel different than it does with my stepson. I waited until my son was born to see if I was missing something. I wasn’t. The love I feel for my sons is the same. Before we get too barfy, let me say that there are differences that are important to acknowledge. Sometimes I see more of my own traits in my own son. Oddly, sometimes I see some of my own traits in my stepson, a budding comedian who likes to tell jokes at the dinner table. The only difference being that one can be explained by nature and the other potentially by nurture. The main and real difference is that it is a simpler process to parent my biological son because it involves fewer decision makers.

Luckily, there are additional qualities to my relationship with my stepson that have taught me how to be a more balanced and logical parent in general. And if I weren’t a step parent, I wouldn’t have learned these and other lessons. Here’s a few of them:

1. Parenting with another person can be all-business.

After a while, I realized that the formal conversations we had out of necessity with my husband’s ex-wife, I also needed to have with my husband about how WE will parent. Parenting can be done with formal decision-making and fun things like PowerPoints presentations with titles like “Establishing Common Ground.” We didn’t do PowerPoints but I sort of wish I had. Formality doesn’t make parenting unnatural or devoid of love.

2. Unconditional love isn’t everything.

My stepson taught me that love that’s earned between children and parents is an important aspect of the parent-child dynamic. Now, with both our sons, I know I want to earn their respect and the love that comes from that. To me that means that the conditional kind of love, based on both parent and child upholding shared values, is important too.

3. Every household has a unique rhythm.

Kids of divorce get emotional whiplash going back and forth between mini-cultures we call households. That may be helpful life experience but it is hard on children in the meantime. Before helping to handle transitions for my son who is partially raised in another house, I assumed many of my choices were commonplace, but now I’m much more aware about the habits of my day that influence our children’s daily routines.

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All of it is in progress. Maybe I should write a movie about being a stepmom and ask Julia Roberts to play me, since we’re basically twins. But this time we’ll call it “Multiple People Work Together To Raise a Child and It’s Hella Awkward Sometimes and Imperfect Yet Ultimately Rewarding And, Also, Check Back With Us In a Few Years.” I’ll work on a more catchy title. I am a mom and a stepmom. I’m glad I am both. It’s my revised, much more realistic, Steptale life.