As I navigate my second decade of parenting kids who I did not create, I have come upon many moments of discovery and joy as well as many moments of sadness in my role as Step dad. Despite the growing rate of blended families in the last 20 years, there remains a painfully vacant resource list of how to be a step parent. Even rarer is the guidance on how to be a step-child. It’s a road that we step folk seem to walk down blindly; hoping that pure logic, love and understanding will get us by. The logic is there for our taking…if we can see it and hold ourselves accountable for the lack of it. The love is ours to give freely but it’s the understanding, I think, that gets us all into trouble.
Unlike the majority of people I know and associate with, I will never know what it’s like, conceptually, to co-exist with another person that is biologically a part of me. I can only imagine. I’ve never had that “ah-ha” moment in the delivery room, holding a newborn that my wife, my partner and best friend, excruciatingly labored over to complete that traditional nuclear family. I will never pretend to understand that kind of love, that lightning bolt of knowledge that says, “Holy crap…this life really isn’t about me. Not anymore”.
My experience was much more like global climatic change. Slow. Very, very small, incidental changes over long periods of time. Changes of perception from every angle. I never saw myself as a Dad from the start. I classified my role more as a “father figure”, which at the time I thought was all I would ever be. My four step kids, at the time of my marriage to their mother, were 13, 10, 5 and 2. My wife and I had been together for a year and a half. A year and a half is not that long in terms of getting to know someone in a romantic relationship as two adults with relatively sufficient communicative skills. Not to mention children who don’t have the skill sets yet to communicate properly…with language, anyway. The kids and I had a warm affinity from the start, so I figured it would all work out in the end. It was too ideal and a tad bit naïve. I truly didn’t know what I was in for. The only foresight I had to show that was 100% correct was when I told myself that I had enough love in me to share. I was never wrong on that one. What I’ve had to learn how to do was show that love in a more complete, constructive and unconditional way.
I’ve had to learn how to understand my new kids. I’ve had to learn that a step child is going to be far more cautious to love and accept you, for they have been hurt or felt “abandoned” before. They cannot put into words what a divorce, or a death, has done to their ability to trust those that say they love them. They cannot say, “OK…you seem like a nice guy, but I’m not sure I’m willing to trust you with that power to hurt me.” Instead, they just smile at your smile. They allow themselves to play with you for a short while and then they move on. They don’t understand that their heart and their mind are treading lightly. They just do that. Tread lightly. Even after years of nurturing, it still takes them a split second longer than other kids to believe that your heart is true. There is always that fear way back in the recesses of their mind that asks “Are you going to hurt me, too?”
Even though I’ve spent over a decade raising, loving and nurturing these kids, it took me way too long to admit to myself that I was more than a father “figure”. Maybe it’s how I was raised and the lack of understanding I had about blended families. It wasn’t in my circle of experience. Not with my family or my closest friends. Maybe it was too much insecurity on my own part, and way beyond the concept of humility that robbed them of “all of me” for so many years. That is where the sadness comes from. I know that I could have shown them even more happiness and provided even more guidance if I had been able to admit to myself that I was their Dad. Blood may be thicker than water but Love trumps all. If I had only said to myself years ago that, “yes, Michael, you are doing a good job”. Everybody around me was saying it to me, but I never gave myself the credit that they so generously allowed. And what I am left with now is an awakening. A realization that regardless of how much I feel I “could” have done better, the truth is, despite not knowing how to do any of this “step-parenting” business, I did a damn good job with what knowledge I had. I’ve finally reached a point where I can honestly say that I am proud of the Dad I’ve not only become, but the Dad I always was. I, too, realized that this life is not so much about me anymore; I just took a different road to see it. I’ve discovered that I am a Dad…and I’ve earned the title. I hardly ever say “my step kids” anymore, barring technical situations. They’re my Kids. Period.
But the challenges remain present for all step-parents, including me. It is always a work in progress. It's one of the advantages we step-parents have over traditional families. If we can do it right, we're always working on our relationship, improving it and never taking a blood or non-blood connection for granted. It makes it more difficult, perhaps, but immensly rewarding. But that same dynamic makes it even harder for the extended family, as well. Research has shown that over 50% of marriages will end in divorce. Over 60% of remarriages will involve the custody of at least one child. Going further it will make 33% of people 65 and older “step-grandparents”. The research is new but thus far the data shows that “extended blends” (families with step-grandchildren, step-uncles and aunts) experience a much harder process of acceptance and understanding. Its one thing for a new parent to accept his or her own step-kids but the process of acceptance from extended family members is hampered by a variety of problems such as age of children, distance, religious and social views, and specifically noted, how the extended family reacts to the new spouse. If Grandma or Grandpa doesn’t accept the new daughter or son-in-law, it makes it 10 times harder to accept his or her children from their previous relationship. Even when there is genuine warmth towards a child it is much harder for that child to be perceived as “one of the family” based on purely primitive instinctive psychological developments. It takes going beyond the constraints of what cultural, religious or social stigmas have been placed upon the familial dynamic to be able to create an environment of unconditional love. It takes real connections to make those kids feel like you count them. It is not an easy task, but it is very possible and its success depends specifically on the adults involved as the kids are only relying on their protective instincts.
I truly believe that learning to love a child who is not your own, and it is a process, is one of the greatest gifts that I have ever received. I know that only I and others like me who have raised step-children know what it is like. No one else can ever say they do. They can only imagine.
