A Healthy Stepmother . . . and the boy/girl crisis in the U.S.

Have you seen these two books by Leonard Sax, M.D.? They might be considered required reading for every parent and step-parent. That we are in a cultural crisis and our children are suffering is certainly supported by Sax’s thesis, complete with research and outcome studies.

Boys Adrift

&

Girls on the Edge

These are not soothing books, despite my focus on self-soothing lately. In fact, you might be alarmed at some of the things you’ll learn.

If a nuclear family struggles with issues of appropriate boundaries and structure for the children and teens, then it’s even more troubling to see how those boundaries and structures fall apart amidst the discord between divorced parents. Sax does not write specifically about children of divorce, but he lays out enough research that you can make the obvious conclusion even if you aren’t looking for it.

Divorce, in and of itself, doesn’t seem the culprit here. The toxic environment for kids is created when their parents are out-and-out fighting or maintaining their version of the Cold War. Neither one of these is healthy and both create incredible stress on any child.

But, there is hope. There is hope that divorced parents mired in the pattern of blaming the other will open their eyes and see that the child is the big loser. The child is the one who needs the structure and loses when he or she is brought up without it.

There is hope that a mother will read these books and decide that setting boundaries like bedtime and computer use are vital for her child. There is hope that a father reading these books will discover that his child needs him to step in and interrupt negative situations instead of going along with the status quo.

I hold hope for my friends’ son who is on a serious downward spiral, nearing the bottom with his negative lifestyle. He began a four year college and transferred away to a community college and now that isn’t working. He’s failing all of his classes and spending his evenings partying. May his mother let even the tiniest bit of the evidence touch her heart so that her son can get help that he needs to grow into a healthy and mature adult who can be in sustainable and sustaining relationships. May his mother let his father guide the way to something more healthy as the father is attempting to do. May his mother drop the warfare about who is the winner of the children and who they love more. May she stop smothering her children in her pursuit of being loved.

And, I hold hope for my other friends’ stepdaughter who struggles to keep up with the competition from her mother for clothes, fashion, looks, and the perfect body. Clearly the daughter will never be like her mother, thus she’s caught in a perpetual negative competition, repeatedly reminded of how she can never measure up. That type of warfare is heart-breaking to watch. I want to whisk the girl away and let her spend time among women who are loving and accepting and understand that the body is one aspect of our lives but that there are a multitude of other characteristics that matter just as much or more.

Sadly, I could keep listing children who struggle among my friends’ families and it would get to be a very long list. Divorced or not divorced, this is the time for everyone to work together, for the mother’s child’s future and the father’s child’s future. They are one and the same.

A Healthy Stepmother . . . on belonging.

Belonging isn’t automatically granted except by birth. Even then, in some families, there’s a huge power and control dynamic that keeps some members out and others in.

Belonging is granted after a stepmother has been through the fire. After she’s dipped her hands in the molten rage of a marriage dissolved and walked on the coals of everyone’s grief and longing and leftover anger. Of course, you’d think she’d anticipate this gauntlet but that would be giving her superhuman powers. As far as I know, most stepmothers are mere mortals destined to live as the other mortals do in her extended stepfamily.

Today, I’m thinking of tribes and groups and clubs and PTAs and even gangs. Always there is a period of getting to know one another. Then there’s an initiation act, do something really huge and you’ll be accepted as part of the group. After the initiation, there will be still more observation and waiting to see if it’s really true who you are. Then, after more time goes by, you might get to a place where you realize it feels as if you’ve been in this group forever.

The point is, the process takes time. Years. Likely, it’ll take the 7-12 years that the experts suggest for a stepmother (with or without children of her own) to be integrated into her new family.

What is interesting is that the moment of awareness of that integration isn’t a victory. It isn’t about the stepmother winning and someone else losing, or even about everyone winning. It is simply another phase of the process that is just what it is, not good or bad or negative or positive.

One day you don’t belong.

Another day you do.

A Healthy Stepmother . . . paces herself through the holiday gatherings.

The number of holiday functions we attend in December is a bit mind-numbing. In the last week, we’ve hosted four of five gatherings in our home. Over the years we’ve done the math, tried to consolidate or condense, but it’s nearly impossible to find the right balance. Not only are the kids with their mom and we work around that schedule, but my husband has divorced parents who don’t celebrate together. Most recently, my aging father is preferring to celebrate with us at a quieter time and we’re creating a new ritual around that.

I’ve discovered a few things that have helped me calm through this last week and keep my center. Super happy to report that my husband and I have had one quote-unquote discussion and we are so in sync this year it makes my heart sing.

As I write this, we’re headed into the last of the suppers and I’ve snuck away to my room to write and get out of the fray. Fortunately and amazingly, I’m not dreading this last dinner and am actually looking forward to some time with my mother-in-law and the kids.

How in the world did this come about . . . well, I’m as amazed as you!

First, we opened most of the presents a couple of days ago and tonight feels calmer and more about being together. That has been our dream, that our gathering time with the kids would be about being together.

Second, we made sure to have more gaps between events. It used to be that our Christmas Brunch was not even done and the kids came over excited to see about their presents. We had barely cleared the dining room table from our morning guests and we were into the next frenzy and activity. Some years it’s been suggested that I not have my Christmas Brunch and I’ve stubbornly resisted. We are now in our 8th year and it’s my favorite time of the holidays. This one is for me. Some years we have my father, some years my husband’s father and stepmother, another year my husband’s mother, always our neighbors who don’t have young children, and often a few friends. This morning as we laughed over our mimosas, I was reminded of what a great group of people I share my life with. It sustains me to feed my friends especially at a time of sharing and caring.

Third, we let go of worrying about what we would have rather had. We didn’t get our way with all the plans about where we were and when or who was with us. In some ways, once we let go of it, we really were able to relax and enjoy our time. There were less politics and more connecting with the people we were with. Last night especially, at my sister-in-law’s house (shout out to you, lovely Patti), we visited and Skyped with our nephew who is married and living in Japan. I noticed that he looked very good and my summary is that marriage agrees with him.

Fourth, I anticipated a difficult evening a couple of times and I took a handkerchief with a few drops of essential oils on it and inhaled deeply. I repeated and repeated and even if you don’t think essential oils do anything, the deep inhalations sure helped. And, it smelled wonderful. I felt like one of those women from the past with a vial of smelling salts. You can order the Adrenal Support blend and do the same. I highly recommend it for part of your daily self-care routine.

Fifth, I kept checking in with my husband and making sure we were on the same page. A couple of times we were not. And, I finally noticed and admitted that when the stress came crushing in, I was found to be wanting to change the plan. Postpone this, speed up that. And, that all seemed like so much work so I let it go and we stayed with as close to what we usually do as possible. Had we tried to make changes, it felt like turning around a train hurtling down the hill.

Sixth, we opened presents early to take pressure off of Christmas Day evening, as I mentioned earlier. Because of that, we were able to release one of the kids from feeling obligated to come and eat a meal with us. We will visit with him tomorrow or another day very soon and it will be more fun than if we had pressured him to be with us this evening. I even told him I was a little jealous that he could sneak away with his friends and have some chill time. Oh, how I’d love to do that myself sometimes.

I can hear the noises from my kitchen below and I’d better scoot. My husband’s other kids are here and so is my mother-in-law, so I’ll go and enjoy their company.

Blessings to you on this season of change. I hope this fall of self-soothing has been useful for you. Stay tuned because when I get back to the edits my editor made in these posts, I’ll be compiling them into an ebook. You’ll be the first to know.

And I slipped away to have time to calm myself but also to connect with you, so maybe that’s a number seven, to stay connected to other stepmothers that you know. All the best to you.

Merry, merry, Happy, happy!!!

Kim

A Healthy Stepmother . . . digs down.

Image via Wikipedia

This is the time of the year I dig down, deep. I dig down to find the bone I buried on another day when my energy and enthusiasm were over-flowing because I knew I’d need it and want it for these days around the holidays. My dogs do that. They actually bury their bones, at least on occasion. Mostly they gnash and chew and thoroughly enjoy them. But once in a while, they bury the offered bone.

Here we are on the 21st of December in my family that celebrates Christmas. My husband and I usually have three Christmas’s, this year we’ll have four. I’m not depleted right now, but I’m beginning to feel my expectation of being depleted ramping up into higher gear remembering the many ways I was depleted in the last few years.

So far, this year has been . . . not perfect, but good. Even fine on some days. So, what to do about the increasing sense that it’s all about to fall apart? The dread of some of the patterns from the past years has crept through my resolve to enjoy Christmas.

Indeed, I am enjoying Christmas this year. My husband helped me decorate and we had a great time. We used a live Douglas Fir tree we had in a pot in the yard and moved it to our porch outside the front window. We dressed it in lights and basic red ornaments. That combined with our usual icicle lights strung across the front of the house and our Boy Scout wreath, and we’re definitely in the spirit.

We used an old card tree that cards slid out of almost every time a new card was added. It’s in the shape of a tree anyway so we hung it up and draped it with ornaments. I also set up my Santa collection. Finally, there’s the slew of candles on the mantle that I light every day. All combine to leave me satisfied and contemplative about the contemplative things of the season.

Even so, the dread is mounting and it’s doing me much good to remember that I am not the only woman going through the holiday scramble. I send this shout out to all you stepmothers who’ve been reading the blog. Dig down. Not to be the perfect woman. Not to look like a Barbie for Christmas. Not to make the most perfect meal a woman ever made. Dig down for the whiff of yourself you buried on one of those last days you were sensing a surplus of you. Go find that self, that bit of you you buried. Bring it back out into the light and carry it with you, either in a locket around your neck or in your pocket like a talisman.

You can find it.

It’s there.

Dig down.

A Healthy Stepmother . . . accidentally discovers a new dream.

The First Thanksgiving of 2011, successfully celebrated.

For my husband and I, there’s Thanksgiving dinner with the mom side and post-Thanksgiving with the dad side, later will come my side of the family. For the kids, there’s the dad’s dad side, the dad’s mom side, and the mom’s side. We will repeat all this at Christmas without complaint. We’re glad for the time together and grateful when everyone is gracious about which day we gather.

Waiting at home.

Of course, my husband and I were guilty of trying to make holiday gatherings super special and nice for the kids when we first got married, as if to help them adjust to the fact that their dad wasn’t alone any more. I look back on that newly-married couple with fondness. They were us, naive, even in our late 40’s. We were still holding on to a dream that if we shared our lives and our good intentions, then everything would feel good for the kids.

Sadly. It didn’t feel good. Not that first year, not the year after, not the year after that. The holidays were marked by an incredible amount of stress and things were never quite right, seemingly for anyone. I was overwhelmed about the fact that I was suddenly spending most of my holiday time with folks who either didn’t care about me or didn’t know how to incorporate me into the family. I grieved for my single life when I attended wonderful holiday gatherings with friends and relatives and we freely hugged and shared how much we meant to each other. Married, it was no longer an option for me to be with those others and I missed the warmth. Without that warmth, I struggled to offer warmth to others.

I withered inside and I almost gave up on them. The holidays, I mean.

Almost. This year I decided to reclaim my love for this time of year. No longer will I let myself be pushed out of my own life, and that this is my life now. I will remain by the side of my husband, the man who chose me and I’ll celebrate with him. We’ll celebrate that we are in love and loving one another after nearly eight years.

Welcomer.

A Healthy Stepmother . . . perspectives on letting go.

About once a month, I look at my horoscope, in particular Rob Brezny from Free Will Astrology because I really like the analogies he offers. The horoscope for the week of November 10 really caught my eye . . .

In Mongolia there’s a famous fossil of two dinosaurs locked in mortal combat. Forever frozen in time, a Velociraptor is clawing a Protoceratops, which in turn is biting its enemy’s arm. They’ve been holding that pose now for, oh, 80 million years or so. I’m shoving this image in your face, Sagittarius, so as to dare you and encourage you to withdraw from your old feuds and disputes. It’s a perfect time, astrologically speaking, to give up any struggle that’s not going to matter 80 million years from now.

And, it reminded me that none of the struggles I’m experiencing now are something that will matter in 80 million years. For sure, no one will remember that my father and I disagreed about his healthcare and that we were in a big huff with one another for weeks while he let go of the idea that I was trying to control him. In 80 million years, it won’t have mattered that I divorced or remarried or was a stepmother or that my sister got in touch with me after nearly 12 years of not speaking to me.

Image via Wikipedia

80 million years is such a long time, it’s hard to imagine anything will matter. But, in your children’s children’s children’s lifetime, that might matter. What will matter are the big social issues, like how the larger society has treated people. Everyone, from mothers and fathers to stepmothers and stepfathers. It will matter to the children who needed us all to talk out loud about these things instead of moving on as though life was normal.

Looked at another way, how many decades will it take for society to move beyond the idea that divorce equals trauma and figure out a way to support all parties respectfully? How many decades will it take for society to stop tolerating divorce poison (see Warshak) which might actually be harming children more than the fact that their parents aren’t living together? How long until we can build a community that supports one another when things don’t go according to Plan A?

Personally, I think we have to move beyond the individual, me-me-me century that we’ve just come from. We’re going to have to get it that we will survive to the degree that we work together to create something better. See The Century of the Self, but be forewarned, it’ll take a century to watch because it’s almost 4 hours long.

The horoscope helped put it in perspective for me. I can use the Velociraptor and Protoceratops image to help me decide which struggles are worth hanging on for and which ones are not going to matter in the grand scheme.

Even though I’ve been practicing letting go of my struggles for a long time now, I seemed to find yet another issue that was really big, as if it was so significant I needed to hang on to as tightly as I could until I figured it out. But whenever I try to hang on, the thing softened and I was forced to let it go. There was another new one just last week and when I saw this horoscope, it reminded me that almost nothing is that big.

And, I laughed and had a cup of tea.

A Healthy Stepmother . . . knows the season to feeeeline. (more self-soothing)

It’s not too early to prepare yourself for the November-December embers. You know what I mean. The time of year when the expectation is for happy, merry, and thrilled-to-be-alive from all the family members. A few of them have permission to play that out a different way and others do not.

It’s a vulnerable time of year for a stepmother because she’s expected to show up and pay attention, but not too much. Pssst, it’s a vulnerable time of year for most, but not everyone is willing to admit it. It is expected that a stepmother will act happy, but not be too involved. She is expected to witness. almost like an audience member, but not show her emotions. She is not one of the family members with permission to behave other than happy, merry, and thrilled-to-be-alive.

And, there’s plenty of pain that she might feel and see. The pain around where a child is on a certain day and at certain special times. The pain of a dad not having time with his child. The pain of keeping silence because you really don’t need or want to add more pain to the child’s pain, and the child does have pain.

No matter how much a stepmother mentally or physically prepares for the non-stop six-to-eight week bandwagon that is the Thanksgiving/Winter Holiday, she needs some alternatives to the go-go-go that carries the season. It’s during this month and a half of the year that I recommend you take on the behavior of a cat.

Consider the cat. My cat has passed on, but if he was here he’d be sitting on the back of the couch looking out at the world in his calm and dignified manner. He was never overly-ruffled unless he went outside where the young cats came to challenge his authority. When he had too much of them, he’d come back inside and have a bath and a nap. For a cat, there is no humility in taking a break or retreating to regroup and rejuvenate. For a cat, this is what life is, one long nap interrupted by breaks to play and check things out.

I’m not suggesting you nap all day, but you can intersperse being ready 99% of the time to participate in family activities with a daily nap or rest time to bring yourself back to level and steady.

Depending on where you are in the process of integration into your stepfamily, you might need or want more or less of the cat experience. This doesn’t mean you can’t behave like the dog (allllwwwaaaaays ready for a walk or a fetch, see this post) and go out looking at Christmas lights and have a great time. But, if you keep connected to your cat-like needs, when you get back home it’s okay to slip away for a cup of tea. Or, you can sneak away for a scan and some time to balance your sensing, feeling, thinking, and doing (remember this post?).

Hopefully, it’s not just you who can get some cat time? Maybe your guy can also have his moment to lick his paws and take a nap in front of a football game. And you? What would give you that feeling of sitting on the back of the sofa basking in the sun with a regal countenance? When you know what it is, you’ll have yet another tool for your self-soothing process.

 

A Healthy Stepmother . . . gets used to not-knowing. (Self-Soothing #12)

For most of us, stepmothers and mothers alike, knowing what is coming is one of the ways we cope with our lives. We grew up learning to anticipate others needs, we jump up and get something for the company or the family when others are just as capable of playing the role of host. We schedule, plan, problem-solve, organize, and evaluate, all in the name of efficiency and being a good woman.

And, we had better look pretty damned good while we’re doing all that too, as Bette Midler says. Recently saw this video and found it coincided with my worries about young women and the messages about being female in our country.

But, back to the coping and doing it all . . . said stepmother sails along making sure she’s got all the just-right foods for kids lunches, makes herself available for carpool and after-school homework sessions. She plans and schedules meetings and work around the stepfamily and extended stepfamily she married when she married the man.

And, it all comes crashing down when things go sideways or the unknown and unthinkable happens. For most of it, it happens in the form of, “Oh, did you hear there’s a play tonight at 7pm?” Well, no, I didn’t hear there was a play. No, I didn’t hear there was a doctor’s appointment tomorrow and Johnny needs a ride. Nope, didn’t know we needed 3 freshly ironed white shirts for that new after-school job.

A Healthy Stepmother . . . soothes her furrowed brow (self-soothing #11).

The wrinkle in her forehead was about as deep as it ever got. That wasn’t saying much since she worried a lot. Never mind those articles and books and Dr. Phil telling her and legions of women if they would just stop worrying, life would be nicer. Doh, call her Homer Simpson. Do you think she chose to worry?

No, her worry was a natural by-product of living in a situation where others made decisions that affected her life and she often had to self-soothe and find new ways to handle and respond to things than she had before. As a stepmother, the rules weren’t written down anywhere, but they were there, unspoken, unseen but loud and very, very clear. Problem was, you couldn’t know them or hear them until you did something wrong. It reminded her of driving in France where the rules of the road were slightly different from the United States and you knew if you were making a mistake when the person behind you laid on the horn insisting you move.

She didn’t mind learning new ways of doing things, she didn’t mind going along with the flow, and she didn’t mind letting go of her old ways. She was as adaptable as anyone. It was more that the pressure of that elusive “will everything turn out alright?” that got carried into every single situation was taxing. At some point, she didn’t care if it all turned out right. She didn’t mind saying no and listening to some whining. She was ready for the time when she and her husband would make a decision that fit their life and just let it be that way. If others didn’t like it, oh well.

It was with all this resolve that she pondered the subject of sleepovers. Every time the subject came up, she felt herself contract. She stopped breathing and her shoulders got closer to her ears. She could feel the clamp around her heart increase in intensity. She would rather just say no and move on. No to sleepovers. No to the mess that followed. No to the last-minute requests. Her body said no, it was as simple as that.

A Healthy Stepmother . . . and the soothing of connection. (Self-Soothing series #10)

I’m coming to the end of my 10 posts about self-soothing and I can think of about 5 more ways to look at the issue, so keep an eye out since I’m keeping this topic open to add more.

Let’s assume we’re still thinking of self-soothing as the ability to work with yourself until you can find a place of calm to make a decision, aka the use of multiple strategies to take care of the self so the self isn’t left hanging out to dry on the line, helplessly wafting in the wind when the rain and storm approach.

I’ve been studying lately but I’m always studying. I study human behavior for a living and I help people to shift out of old habits. I study my own behavior and work toward letting go of the legacy left to me by my family. This time, I’m studying Dr. Brené Brown’s work on power and vulnerability, connection and resilience, and shame. It’s amazing work that has so many parallels to what we stepmothers need in order to come into our new lives and find our place.

I’m still processing what I’ve learned from Dr. Brown’s work, I Thought I Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame and The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are, but I’ll do my best to describe what it is that is so valuable.

First, it’s all about connection. Everything we humans do is toward seeking a connection or feeling a connection to what is going on around us.

Sound familiar?

All that angst, panic, or anxiety that you feel in your stepfamily home, it’s likely brought on by your gut level reactions to the fear of the disconnection. I’ve often thought that our ability to navigate the first few years of a re-marriage is all about how comfortable we are with not knowing where we stand in the family constellation. It’s all about our ability to handle the disconnections.

The fear of disconnection and the shame that comes when feeling the disconnection can explain our drive toward perfectionism and wanting to make everything okay, at least according to Dr. Brown. She does not speak directly about stepmothers, but that is the anatomy of the process. In fact, she says perfectionism is “the birthplace of shame.”

Think of it . . . why does it cut so deep when his child tells you you’re not his mother? I finally get it, it’s the shame of not being chosen first, the shame of not being connected. The shame of being rejected. There’s more, so much more, but if you’re a stepmother reading this, you know what I’m referring to. There’s a very long list of what cuts deep.

If we’re all looking for a sense of connection and our indignation is about not finding a way in, that might explain our frustration and distress when the counselor says, “you knew what you were getting into.” It’s okay to go ballistic. That counselor is not even close to considering what is going on for you. You are sitting there in the shame of not doing it right, even if your outward behavior is toward anger and blaming. Dr. Brown cites anger and blame as two of the most common reactions when someone feels shame. We immediately begin to offload onto whoever is the closest to us.

I used to think that a stepfamily was born out of grief, the grief of the dissolved marriage that the children came from. Now, I think there is a ton of grief and also a ton of shame. The shame that things didn’t work out. The shame that the children have to go through this. A shame so intense it needs to be put off onto others because we don’t live in a culture that talks about this shame. We don’t live in a place that acknowledges that everyone is trying and everyone needs reassurance and comfort.

This post isn’t going to wrap up with a catchy moral for you to consider. It will just leave you with the processing of the issues, that shame is universal and every has it, that if we work with ourselves and bring things out into the open, shame has a chance to calm down and lessen. There are so many reasons for a stepmother to feel alienated and alone and there is plenty of shame wrapped up inside it, whether or not we are comfortable labeling it as such.

Just knowing that our reactions are normal goes a long way toward helping loosen the shame bonds (and move toward self-soothing). What if you could loosen these bonds by even three-quarters of an inch? How would your life feel if you had that much room to move around?

Note: I strongly urge you to check out the work of Dr. Brené Brown. She can be found in countless YouTube videos. All worth watching.