The wicked step mother?

I’ve come to realize two things: Motherhood rarely gets a thank you and stepmo-ing is the ultimate thankless job. Maybe when they are older…


I have to admit, the World’s Greatest Husband often thanks me. He really is good about it. Sometimes he will even make an announcement at dinner, “Can everyone say thank you to Mom, for making dinner”. (7 people and our picky eaters – which I keep meaning to blog about is never easy) So I know I am ahead of the game on many different fronts… but honestly maybe when they are 39, I will feel the appreciation and love….

The Step Mo – never wins. Since day one - I’ve decided I am going to take the high road when it comes to my role as Step Mo. It isn’t easy; I often want to explain my reasoning, my thinking, and my motives to the World’s Greatest Husband’s ex-wife. Often I even want to ask her about her reasoning, thinking and motives. I want to feel like we are a mothering powerhouse, working for the common good of the children. But it doesn’t play out that way. It is often silent, I get the back story through a few trusted paper peeps, I hear tid-bits of life through our children’s stories but the face to face co-parenting interaction is limited. Maybe that is a good thing. I understand I am the Step Mo, not the mother. I take the backseat sometimes willingly, sometimes bitterly. I do have the self confidence to know I play a role in their little lives and they do count on me. We work together and our relationship is trusted and valued most days. It’s taken some time to figure these roles out but my philosophy is this big blended family blender: take the small victories.

I will share one small personal story. During the recent puke fest that lasted a week, I had to take three days off from work to care for my family. I basically caught everyone’s vomit with my bare hands, ran to the bathroom with them each time, didn’t sleep, felt shaky and weak from the smell and clean up duty, I had to wash every darn piece of linen in this house. I cried over the pain that this caused in all of our lives, from my little guy pleading,” Why is this happening to me”, to holding back the puked up hair and bangs of our 13 years old as she vomited some more. I worked hard, and I was sick too. Unfortunately, I felt like all the “other camp” could do is judge the level of toxic germs that must be living here in our home. I heard inklings of it with my own ears and I found it to be extremely hurtful. Honestly, I didn’t find the germs and infect our kids because I needed to take a three day vacation…. Let’s be serious here, if I can’t win on germs, is this a level playing field? The bottom line is this. I love all 5 of our children. Each one needs different things from me at different times, I have made a commitment to love them and provide for them. Sometimes it nearly kills me, I am working my tail off now so that someday I can enjoy them the way my mom and I enjoy each other today…. I know I’ve had a good teacher. The ultimate kick in the pants will be to have all five of them with their families standing around the kitchen on a Sunday afternoon visit - laughing about the puke fest that happened in 2010 knowing that we survived, that Mom and Step Mo was there helping them through.

Small victories people, some may take a while to laugh about… I can’t wait.