Waltz - Blended: writers on the stepfamily experience

BLENDED

Blended

Writers on the Stepfamily Experience

Copyright 2015 by Samantha Waltz

Published by

SEAL PRESS

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

1700 Fourth Street

Berkeley, California

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Blended: writers on the stepfamily experience / edited by Samantha Waltz.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-58005-558-1

1. Stepfamilies. I. Waltz, Samantha, 1945-

HQ759.92.B547 2015

306.8747--dc23

2014038097

Cover design by Faceout Studios, Kara Davison

Interior design by Kate Basart/Union Pageworks

Printed in the United States of America

Distributed by Publishers Group West

To those whose love brings families together

contents

samantha waltz

More than a decade ago, when I was working as a family therapist, I hadnt yet become part of a blended family. I looked into the faces of thirty stepparents gathered for my workshop on step-parenting, all of them leaning forward on folding chairs, eager for the new insights that I would surely offer to help them in their family relationships.

At the time, my book on parenting styles had recently been released. I was confident my information on setting appropriate expectations, improving communication skills, and utilizing effective problem-solving tools would help them. After all, Id keynoted a regional early childhood conference a few weeks earlier, and Id previously presented numerous workshops on parenting topics. True, this was the first workshop targeted to stepparents, but I wasnt expecting it to be that different from the others.

I was so wrong.

As I taped large sheets of butcher paper to the walls, I asked the participants to call out the issues they most wanted to discuss. The words flew at me from every part of the room: loyalty, jealousy, displacement, grief, guilt. How to deal with biological parents, visitation schedules, multiple parents at holidays, different surnames? What to do about expectations from a spouse, the kids, society, and oneself? How to set boundaries with children one wants desperately to win over?

When I listened to the fears and heartache of these parents, I began to understand the unique difficulties they faced. Part of every stepfamily members memories and even his or her heart is often in another home. The words stepfather, stepmother, and stepchild exist in Old English forms related to the word stieped, meaning bereaved. Visitation is not the same as having the mother or father a child bonded with in infancy living with him or her on a daily basis, tucking them in at night, and sharing a story or secret. When a parent passes away, all possibility of playing ball or making Christmas cookies together is gone. So despite a tremendous desire to please, a stepparent can come off as a poor second to a beloved birth parent.

A stepparent can also become the target of a stepchilds displaced anger with a mother or father. Unfair? Of course. A difficulty that can be overcome? Sometimes, but not always. The stepparent has usually done nothing except stand in the line of fire.

And then there is the power of the mythology about evil stepmothers and wicked stepfathers that has existed since before the Brothers Grimm. Family problems feel clammy on stepparents skin and they arent sure what theyve done wrong or how to proceed, but they must somehow prove themselves the good guy over and over.

Every step situation is different. The family may have a traditional or nontraditional configuration. A childs age and experience with a biological parent will bring a unique perspective of the stepparent. Irrational as it seems, a child may choose to like or dislike a stepparent before ever meeting him or her.

Until I taught that workshop for stepparents, I envisioned stepfamilies as bigger and better. Complicated, sure, but worth it. I had wanted to be part of a large family since the spring break of fifth grade when I stayed on my cousins farm. I could still picture those mornings when I joined my ten cousins, ages three to twenty-two, forming a line down the hall outside the farmhouses single bathroom, toothbrushes in hand, everyone cracking jokes as we waited. My stomach had ached from laughing so much.

Years later, when I became a stepmom, I learned that more is not always merrier. A patchwork family needs extra effort and care, and even then there is no guarantee of happily ever after. Today I have more wisdom and less advice.

As a stepmother to six adult children, I care passionately about the challenges and successes of stepfamilies. More than half the families in America are living in step. Some work beautifully, but more than 60 percent are torn with conflict and will end in dissolution. Parents and children currently living in stepfamilies, or coming from them and making their way in their own families, have stories that will entertain, inform, perhaps trouble, but ultimately inspire us.

When I met and fell in love with my husband Ray, I asked the officiate for our wedding if I could plan a ceremony that united not only Ray and me, but also my three grown children and his six, three each from his two former marriages. I assumed that although we wouldnt all live under the same roof, our new family would be a big, bustling, jovial brood like my cousins. I arranged for all our children to precede me down the aisle, except his oldest son who couldnt be with us because of health issues. Each of my children was on the arm of one of Rays, with a daughter from his first family on the arm of the son from his second. Tears of happiness washed down my face at the celebration of our marriage and blending of our families. I hadnt a clue what challenges we would face.

My first hint came when Ray and I bought a house together and showed his youngest daughter and my youngest son, home from college for the summer, the two bedrooms they could use. One bedroom had a double closet and both our kids wanted it.

Lets flip for it, my son suggested, taking a quarter from his pocket.

Im sorry, but I want it. My stepdaughter flashed a smile of self-reproach, but her tone of voice was firm.

Ill pay extra on the mortgage, Ray offered.

My breath caught in my chest. Would this stepdaughter always insist on her way, and would her father always jump to her defense, ignoring what my children and I might want?