Journalist Jacque Fletcher never expected her happily-ever-after story to begin with a package deal. Sure, she anticipated the great guy — but not necessarily his three kids.
The children, then 3, 5, and 8, were “happy, open kids,” says Fletcher. She had been living the single career woman’s urbane life and could hardly imagine plunging into their suburban world of playdates and a house accessorized with plastic toys, not to mention the fact that another woman — the children’s mother — would always be a presence in her household.
“I panicked,” she admits.
Furthermore, Fletcher, whose parents divorced when she was 10, brought her own “challenging” experience as a stepdaughter to her new kitchen table. “I figured [my] stepkids would automatically hate me; we would have years of torture before we even came close to being friends, let alone family,” she said.
So she looked for advice books, assuming that today, when more than half of first marriages and between 60 and 70 percent of second marriages in the United States end in divorce, helpful resources would abound. But she found little that seemed relevant.
“I basically had a meltdown in the bookstore because there was nothing there for me,” Fletcher said. Then she remembered her father’s “Rule of 20.”
“If there is something you don’t know how to do,” she explains, “you go ask 20 people who do, and then you’ll know.” That’s how she ended up writing A Career Girl’s Guide to Becoming a Stepmom, recently published by HarperCollins, a compendium of real-life stories, information, and advice based on her experiences and interviews with stepparents, researchers, and marriage and family therapists.
She learned that typical sources of conflict stepfamilies face include children’s divided loyalties; different parenting styles among biological parents and stepparents; and, depending on the nature of the divorce, hostile relationships between ex-spouses or between an ex- and a present spouse. Kids feel tremendous loss and guilt if they actually like a stepparent, while stepparents can feel “powerless in their own home,” as the biological parents’ priorities and parenting decisions override their own opinions or preferences.
Fletcher knows she’s “lucky” that her young stepchildren were open to her and that their parents divorce was amicable.
Stepfamilies with children already in their ’tween and teen years may face more hurdles due to the kids’ developmental needs. A new stepfamily situation can exacerbate normal age-appropriate testing about how to relate to family and parental authority. Teens may react with particular vehemence to a stepparent. It’s one thing for parents to divorce; it’s another for a new stepparent to be a visible, daily reminder that their parents will never get back together and life will never be the same. Stepfamilies may move to a new house, kids may enroll in a new school. All these changes add up to a huge loss for kids. “Let them go through that grieving process,” suggests Fletcher. “Back off. Let the kid know you know how important their parents are to them.”
Stepparents must also understand they might become the target for children’s normal anger and hostility.
“Whether you are a good stepmom or a bad stepmom, it doesn’t matter,” Fletcher explains. “You are just a symbol to them. A lot of stepmoms don’t understand that.”
But you don’t have to simply accept the role of scapegoat without asserting your own needs. “Be absolutely consistent about not taking things personally. Don’t rise to the bait,” Fletcher advises. “Maintain your own life so you are not relying on validation from the kids. And, incredibly important: work on your relationship with your spouse. That is who you will be alone with eventually. Your spouse will model to the kids how to treat you.”
Fletcher says it’s very important for stepfamilies to understand normal stepfamily phases and dynamics that differ from those of a first family. For example: “There comes a time, when the stepparent will suddenly put their foot down. They’ve kept quiet and suddenly they will say, this is not acceptable to me! What am I getting? How am I part of the family? So renegotiation has to happen.”
Renegotiation is indeed the name of the game when it comes to parenting any kids. The family dynamic is always in flux as their needs and stages change and members come and go. Indeed, Fletcher’s headlong pace of instant zero-to-three (kids that is) will soon ratchet up to zero-to-four, as she and her husband expect a baby soon. But for now, she’s found her groove as a stepmom, pleased to be a positive influence in her stepkids’ lives and to promote their good relationship with their father. Still, Fletcher probably speaks for many a stepmom when she confides that she occasionally breathes a sigh of relief while she closes the door behind the three, now 12, 10 and 7, when it’s time for them to head for their mother’s house.
Kris Berggren is a Minneapolis writer and mother of two teens and a tween.
Resources
National Stepfamily Resource Center
StepFamilies.info
A Career Girl’s Guide to Becoming a Stepmom
By Jacquelyn B. Fletcher
HarperCollins, 2007
BecomingAStepmom.com
