the deal with stepmothers

I didn't believe the fairytales when I was a child. Honestly, I thought stepmotherly disharmony was a big fat hoax until I was twelve and got one of my own. Okay, she was young, my stepmother--twenty-nine, I think--and she wanted desperately to be one of our incredibly hip family, with our ridiculously handsome father and his five orphans, among whom I was #2. To me, it was only a matter of good manners to welcome her, listen to her stories, and befriend her two dorky little daughters. I thought they'd all be on their way after a few months, like the stepmother who came before her and the four would-be siblings who I liked much better because they were older and into rock and roll. But this one stuck, the wedding took place, and I came to understand one day that I was no longer the beloved of my earthly father. How did I lose my exalted position? Pressure. Very subtle pressure from the step, who demonstrated in so many whispered conversations late at night that my natural mother's children were lacking in one way or another or fifty. She suggested Charm School, suggested that our dad's attachment to his daughters might need reigning in so as not to appear unseemly, suggested that my declarations of love might be less than sincere. In my confusion, I practiced the art of flirting with boys, gained through careful study of the step, and got myself pregnant a week after turning 18. In short order, I was drummed from the family, married for a short term, and set free to engage in the struggle of unmarried motherhood in a society that really didn't want to deal with people like me.

For years, I thought things just happened. I almost accepted the idea that I'd brought my struggle upon myself, that it was okay that I should be a bit embarrassed about my child, my delayed entry into competent adulthood, the shabby apartments that I could afford to live in, the druggies who wanted to know me and play daddy to my little girl. One day, my step told me I was the only one among my siblings who ever dropped around to say hello without asking for a handout. I accepted the implied warning there: don't ask for anything when you drop around.

I kept things simple and never asked for anything, until twenty years later. I'd moved across the country to start anew in the West, where nobody worked in the auto industry and nobody knew me or my family. After divorce #2 and then #3, I asked my dad for a loan--a gift would be even better--of four thousand dollars, so I could get situated in a safe home with my second daughter, finish my college degree, and get rolling independently. The letter I received two weeks later, signed by my dad but so clearly written by the step, said I could take three years to repay the loan of one-half the cash I'd asked for, with a reminder that my dad's first duty was to the woman he'd married.

It sounds like a complaint, doesn't it? Neither my dad nor my step could put themselves in my place for ten minutes to guess at how it felt to be pushed from the nest too young with too few resources, to learn that I had no one to count on for emergency assistance? Well, it does sound like a desperate situation, unless you take into account that somewhere along the way, I too was a stepmother. I didn't dislike or sabotage the four children, aged fifteen to twenty-one, born to the man I intended to live with forever. I thought we'd be a fragmented family with a pieced-together sense of unity, common memories, and traditions all our own, including my then four-year-old daughter. The problem was that I didn't love them, nor they me.

I hadn't planned on that snag. The lack of love and commitment made things harder than I'd expected. I did figure we'd all sort things out, but the time went too quickly. By the time my relationship with #4 ended, the step-kids were as removed from me as the original dad and step from whom I'd learned the art of family-making. Five years later, I believe I'd have nothing to say if I came face to face with any of the steps, much less the horrendously cruel mate who perpetuated the idea that I am undeserving of happiness. Listen, I haven't given up entirely on family connections. I just don't want to know my stepmother anymore, nor do I ever want to be one again. The payoff is negligible, and the persistence of disappointment and heartbreak is ongoing. One more lesson learned.