Becoming a Step Mom

When I met and later married my husband, Ron, he came with a little extra gift.  That little gift's name is Rachel.  I met Rachel when she was just 2-1/2 years old.  She was just a little blond cutie, she smiled all the time and she was the apple of her Daddy's eye.  The very first time I met her, she was holding on to a kitty just as proud as she could be - the poor cat dangling from her chubby toddler hands.  She wanted to show her Dad what she was holding.  He nervously said, "Rachel, this is my friend Laura."  To which, she replied, "I caught this kitty," and then left the room.

Truth be told, I fell in love with Ron in part because I saw the kind of Dad he was to Rachel.  One of the early established 'rules' of our dating life was that I had to be willing to accept that he was a father and that Rachel came first.  I was fine with that - I appreciated that he so guarded his daughter.  As our relationship blossomed, I tried to interact with Rachel as a loving friend of her Dad's.  She was so young, there was no point in trying to explain our relationship to her - more important to just be a nurturing adult.  Rachel, from the start, was an openly loving little girl.  She hugged and cuddled and wanted to be around us all the time.

By the time we married two years later, we were a happy family unit.  Rachel was four years old when we got married.  I remember laboring over every detail of her involvement in the wedding.  She was a flower girl for us, we made sure to have a family picture of the three of us, I wanted her to have a special Daddy-Daughter dance but we decided it was too much for one wedding to do everything.  So instead, she danced with both of us and played with her cousins in her white flower girl dress and her hot pink tennis shoes.

Time, as it does, marched on and we brought first a sister and then a brother for Rachel.  By the time she was eight years old, she had two siblings with our family and another two on her mother's side. She was surrounded by younger children!

As I think back on those busy first few moments of dating, marriage, new step-parenting, babies, etc., I am struck by how many years have gone by!  Rachel is now 16, she is driving and she is a fully-fledged teen.  Our once warm relationship is cooler, partially by her age, partially by the physical distance between us - we live some 90 miles from her now but still try to see her every other weekend if she'll have us (remember - she's a teenager) and of course on school vacations and holidays.  But there is a coolness, too, fueled because I am her step-mom.  I think back on all the moments we've had with her and I miss so much of her when I think about how her as a child instead of the teen in front of me.

I remember going to pick Rachel up on her first day of Kindergarten.  We were so proud of her.  I took her picture at the school and I cried because she was so big.  We took her for ice cream to celebrate her accomplishment!  She was such a great kid, always helping with whatever was going on - always wanting to be with us.  I remember those times and held on to them because as time goes on, those opportunities get smaller and smaller.

I have always tried to treat her like my own child and I believe in my heart I've done that.  But that doesn't always cut it for a step-parent.  Step-parents (at least this step-parent) don't have the built in luxury of unconditional love from the child.  Rachel has always been more stand-off-ish with me as she has gotten older.  She's afraid of disappointing me, or upsetting me in some way (afraid, mainly, of a potential lecture if I am disappointed, I suppose), but what she doesn't realize is that even though she may not feel unconditional love for me, after all - I am not her Mom - I do love her unconditionally.  I have always loved her, which makes the teen distance all the more painful for this StepMom.  We don't see eye to eye on much these past few years, and it is hard for me.  I feel I don't have a say, don't want to impose my opinion although I find it very often choking the very air out of me to not speak up.  Particularly as she looks ahead to college, a subject I am afraid to broach with her because I have upset her so many times already.

I want so very much for my step-daughter.  I want her to know what success feels like, how wonderful life can be.  She has had a rough go in life, what with not having her parents together and then watching new children emerge from other relationships.  Having to get to know and understand new step-parents; watching a step-father go and another take his place. This has not been easy for her.  When she was little, she would creep closer to me, hoping for a hug, never asking.  I would often get frustrated with her quiet need, wanting her instead to just give me the hug.  I wish now I could go back in time and give her 100 hugs for every one I ever gave her.  I think what she needed was even more reassurance that I love her.  I try now to let her know through other ways that I love her.  I clean her room while she is gone, I encourage her to drive me around while she is here.  I get upset if we don't see her on our appointed visitation because I know that too soon, that will be gone.

Becoming a Step-Mom has been the most difficult thing I've ever done.  It is by far the most thankless of my roles, at least so far.  I don't know if I'm doing it right or wrong most days because I get just marked indifference at this point from our teen.  I just hope that when a few more years have passed we can look back on these years as something that eventually brought us closer.  Otherwise, I'll be just another one of the Wicked StepMothers for the fairy tales.  Only time will tell.