A mom and a stepmom share stories, ideas, friendship and family
Posted in Perspectives, Stories on May 3rd, 2008
We played a game once at work called “The Saboteur”. We were divided into teams. Every team would have a saboteur — someone whose job it was to secretly undermine the team’s project without being caught. One by one we were called up to the front of the room to be shown a card telling [...]
Posted in Peacemaking, Perspectives, Quotes on Feb 11th, 2008
“All appears to change when we change.” — Henri Amiel
I didn’t always know Kathy the way I know her now. In the second half of our interview at Continuing the Stepparenting Journey, I told Karon that Kathy is “flexible, warm, open, willing to keep showing up and trying, and willing to start over and over [...]
Posted in Links, Perspectives on Feb 4th, 2008
A little history from Lori at the real world:
“Part of what I felt in the marriage and after, was abandonment. Not where he would leave for days on end or anything, but rather that he was constantly at work. It seemed to me that he did not want to make time for me or that [...]
Posted in Perspectives on Jan 20th, 2008
It’s really, really hard to be a stepmom. The level of challenge is huge compared to the skills so many of us have going into the gig. And the sacrifice is perpetual. Some of us won’t end up having babies, even though we want them very, very much, because it’s part of the bargain of [...]
Posted in Perspectives on Jan 11th, 2008
Kathy and I see G differently. G and I see Kathy differently. It used to bug me when one of them would describe the other in way that was different from the person I saw. Trying to get Kathy to see G through my eyes or G to see Kathy through my eyes didn’t change [...]
Posted in Love, Perspectives on Dec 29th, 2007
We get a lot of comments about how nice it is that we work together for the sake of the kids, and it’s true — it is nice for the kids that we work together, but it’s not just for the kids — at least from my perspective. It’s for me, it’s for G, and [...]
Posted in Holidays, Perspectives on Dec 27th, 2007
Sewing new pictures and details on the stockings is my favorite part of the holidays. Sewing quiets the worry part of my brain. My brain follows its rhythms, thinks a space ahead and generates ideas as I need them. I’m in flow. Sewing is my own. It’s not a holiday tradition in any of our [...]
Posted in Perspectives on Dec 20th, 2007
At first it’s like two straight men waking up one morning to find their hands superglued to each other’s balls.
You’re intimately connected in places that feel downright wrong to be connected. She’s connected to your guy and you’re connected to her children in ways that feel fantastically uncomfortable at a gut level.
And you’re surprised. You [...]
Posted in Divorce, Miscellaneous, Perspectives on Nov 24th, 2007
Chilling.
I just looked up some statistics on second marriages and, boy, they are not good. When Jill and I first started talking about this blog, we tried to figure out roughly how many marriages were second marriages and how many ended in divorce. We both guessimated — based on what? a hope that humans can [...]
Posted in Perspectives on Nov 21st, 2007
From Step-Family Talk:
“When I went to pick them up from their dad’s house last night they were all moppy and depressed to have to be going home with lame old mom. I can’t even begin to describe how that makes you feel. Honestly unless you’ve been in this situation it is just not a feeling [...]
Posted in Discipline, Parenting, Perspectives, Tips on Nov 18th, 2007
I think one of the trickiest paths to navigate between mom and step-mom is this issue of how to “discipline” the children. Jill and G and I are extraordinarily lucky in this regard because we all have very similar notions of what and how much “discipline” should be doled out.
Basically, the answer — for [...]
Posted in Links, Perspectives on Nov 17th, 2007
My favorite find of the weekend: DivorcingDaze. Two women, both named Laurie, live in the same building in New York. One of the Lauries is a divorced mom, and her kids’ dad — who she co-parents with — also lives in the same building. The other Laurie is a gay woman who it sounds like [...]
Posted in Boundaries, Perspectives, Tips on Nov 9th, 2007
One of the very hardest things Jill and I ever had to negotiate were our “boundaries” — which is rapidly becoming an overused word to define just about everything that annoys us about another person. Boundaries are those indefinable barriers between people that are only visible when they are crossed. If not very [...]
Posted in Links, Perspectives, Quotes on Nov 4th, 2007
That And Two Dimes wrote a post recently that made me think in a new way about how the stepmom/stepkids relationship might feel sometimes from the kid’s perspective:
“…how did we ever forget what it feels like to be a child, to need to love our biological parents fiercely and unquestioningly, and how weird and scary [...]
Posted in Perspectives on Oct 31st, 2007
Before I begin, I really need to confess something to you: I am secretly somewhat elated to learn that Barbara Kingsolver (my literary idol for many years) has gotten divorced. This is mean-spirited and small, but I’ve always related to her: a passionate writer who worked for years doing technical writing, eeking out her [...]
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