Play Your Position
“When
I grow up, I really want to be a stepmom.” Who says that?
Understudy, back-up quarterback, substitute teacher, adjunct. Know the role,
play it when something bad happens to the lead, the star, the tenured one. Get
ripped by critics, commentators, students. Are these all people who missed the
mark? Are stepmoms just failed aspirants?
Mother.
Step-Mother. Real Mother. Wicked Step-Mother. Mommy. Step-Monster. Mommy
Dearest. Dad’s Wife. There is a chasm of difference between a “real mom” and a
stepmom. A mother can fix her identity on her children regardless of her actual
success in performing her role – she is a mother by basic biological fact. Even
if she abandons her child at birth, she is a mom. A stepmother is the father’s
wife. Being a biological mother is a great burden and responsibility, but I’m not
particularly interested in talking about that right now. This is my rant. Mothers
have tremendous presumptive benefits on their side. I’m not debating the
merits of this, just observing. Children, parents, society, we each expect that
mothers love their children. We presume that mothers want their children. We
assume that mothers are naturally good. We know that being a mother is honorable. These suppositions can create tremendous guilt in the heart of mothers and can be
proven false, but it takes a lot of havoc-wreaking to do so. Even in the midst
of the rubble, children long to believe that their mothers love them and
mothers want to believe that all they did was out of love.
Stepmothers
are surmised to be evil. If not evil, at least improper. Certainly inconvenient –
a sign of something broken and, many suspect, the cause of the brokenness. If a
stepmother exists, someone died or got divorced. And you kind of hope they died
because, apart from the burden of following in the footsteps of a now sainted
mother, at least the “I came after death” role has some nobility in it. Some
might say that marrying into divorce is downright foolish and you get whatever
you deserve. Why not do it the right way, like everybody else. Stepmothers are
an unnatural phenomenon. Contrary to motherhood, the presumption about
stepmothers is we do NOT want these children. Instead, we are awaiting, eagerly,
to seize upon the moment when we can lead them into the dark heart of
the forest and leave them there, lost and alone, to be baked in the witch’s
oven.
I
should say we treat stepmothers as if we are an unnatural phenomenon. In
terms of frequency, history, and commonness, we are quite prevalent. But,
shhh! Please do not say this aloud in polite society, or around recently
married women or new mothers. Inadvertently, they can’t help but think a
stepmother is like a black cat crossing their path. A stepmother is an
adulteress, waiting to steal husband and children.
When
mothers snap at their children, we know they’ve had a hard day. When mothers
question whether they really should have had children, we know they are
overwhelmed and just need a break. When mothers mess up their lives we know
they really love and need their children, and if only those children behaved a
little bit better or tried a little harder maybe mommy would be ok.
It’s
a baseline thing. From whence do you commence to measure? Stepmothers
snap and it proves it, everyone knew we were bitches. Stepmothers wish, for a
moment, these children weren’t our responsibility and we are chastised with
the “you knew what you were getting into” mantra. Stepmothers make mistakes and
it confirms we aren’t fit to have children.
These
inferences go both ways – child to parent and parent to child. Some days it
feels as if every interaction is tenuous, a constant striving to be on the love
side, the family side. People imagine that stepkids are going to be rotten. Stepchildren and stepmoms both fear that they won’t be loved, liked, or wanted. It’s easy to perceive every complaint from the mouth
of the child, or, even worse, the teenager, as pointed criticism
of the woman playing the part of Mom. Of course, it’s not always this way – not every day
and not in every stepfamily situation. But this is the reasonable doubt that
must be overcome to prove not guilt, but innocence.