Your Not-So-Zen Step Mama
Being a step-mom is hard. At least for me. I would love to be one of those gooey-love-spilling women who feel totally at peace and natural in their role as step-mom, but I don’t. It is hard. My step-daughter is a wonderful, kind, compassionate, bright ten year old girl and as step-kids go, I have won the lottery. Hence why I feel so much guilt and shame around these feelings. My highest self, who deeply loves Carl Jung, knows that these feelings are normal and a part of my path and opportunities to explore the underbelly of my psyche. But, man, it does not feel good sometimes.
I consider myself a highly sensitive person who values alone time, quiet time, and being in my own head a lot of the time. My inner world is a big thing to me. It is challenging to live with a kid who is constantly wanting to be involved or hang out and you struggle to feel okay setting boundaries for yourself and your time so you can do your own work. You know, the work that makes you You. I am currently working at a restaurant to pay bills (outdoor dining a la Covid), I’m an out of work actor, I’m in online school for holistic health, and I need to do creative writing, actor submissions, and semi-regular exercise in order to maintain my “well of self”. My husband and I also have two dogs that need a lot, and I am trying to get pregnant! I feel pushed to my limit a lot of the time and it can be hard for me to relax. Even when I am doing something “for myself”, I feel this clock ticking over my head and it’s like I can’t even BE there. I still have so many personal dreams that I am pursuing and constantly serving someone else can feel like ‘Wait! What about me?!” I so wish I felt like this mama-goddess who is happy all the time, at ease all the time, that gives freely without any inner tension, and feels simply playful. Joyous. Loving. Capable. Peaceful.
The truth is, my step-daughter and I have always had a really great relationship. We are good friends, good movie watchers, good face maskers, good dog walkers, good cookie bakers, good nail painters, good music listeners, good bedtime chatters, and lots more. I really am lucky. But I have often craved the support of other step-moms - I’ve dreamed of a women’s circle where we share about all the darker, harder, more uncomfortable feelings we are experiencing. Even though my Psychology Lover self knows there is no shame in them, the archetype of the “evil step mom” floats into my mind when I feel them. I’m afraid that anything other than parental bliss means that I’m the evil step mom. It’s okay for my husband to be occasionally annoyed and frustrated with his kid, but is it okay for me? I don’t feel like I have the safety net that he has, because as her dad, he doesn’t really have to worry about her liking him or being upset with him, where deep down, I know being firm or setting boundaries for myself makes me worry that she won’t like me or will be unhappy with me. It’s like my role of step-mom puts me on this pedestal where I have to be super-human or ELSE. It feels like a double standard and I work daily to feel safe in having these feelings.
It’s also hard when you have desperately wanted your own babies for years. It’s hard being a mom without your own baby. Being a mom to a kid from your partner and his ex. Is this talked about enough? I don’t think so! It feels incredibly taboo and I feel nervous even writing it. I actually believe that being a step-parent is maybe the most valiant type of parent as you are expected to have all of the same behaviors and responsibilities as a parent without the biological warm fuzz that you’d have with your own offspring. Can we please talk about this?!
I try to process my feelings and see them as little stones on the beach. The sun hits the top of the stone and at the same time the bottom of the stone sits in darkness. The inside of the stone is always the same. The sun and the dark sand beneath equally are the stone’s reality. I know that it’s all learning. I know that the feelings and sensations and experiences in my life right now were of my own subconscious choosing, a choosing designed to aide my own growth. But it is hard! And a trap I can fall into, one that I see running rampant in today’s culture, is the mentality of “should it be this hard? If it is this hard, does that mean something is wrong?”. My anxiety could tell me that maybe I’m just not cut out for this. Maybe I can’t do it. Maybe I’m going to lose everything - including my husband - because I’m having such a hard time with this. Our culture is currently getting high on a “follow your bliss” faux-self-help hit. In reality, in the Real, Good work of life and soul, relationships are hard. Offering of yourself requires Vulnerability and activates her bratty little sister Fear’s coping mechanisms. Real relationships, real commitments, real responsibilities ask so wholly of us that our own past traumas and fears are triggered, that our projections strive to help us avoid or take the easy way out. We’d much rather run towards an idea of bliss than fully accept that we - currently, presently, deeply in our most innate soil - are bliss just as we are. So I try to turn in. To take big breaths. To cry if I need to. To write. I reach out to what female community I have, to my husband, to the trees on our nightly walks. I try to schedule time where the house knows that it’s my writing time, or to make the few minutes alone every now and then become like holy rituals, luscious and perspiring with acknowledgement that what I am doing is hard, that my feelings are evidence that I’m alive and doing big things, and that I am doing the best that I can.
* PS. If any step-mamas out there have advice or words of wisdom, I would really love to hear from you in the comments!