Confessions of a Wicked Stepmother

Reflections on Steppiehood

2011-06-30T23:12:00.000-07:00

It's now well over a year since I ceased to be a steppie. I thought I'd post a few reflections on how I feel about step-parenting now, as opposed to a year ago, and see how things have changed.

I feel like I've had some different perspectives thrown at me too, from working with young people, my now-partner's experience of his parents splitting when he was in his early 20's and his struggle to accept the man his mum is now living with, but most of all, the part time job I had whilst studying. I worked with families in crisis, as an advocate for the children and young people within those families, and brought them into a mediation process called Family Conference. A hell of a lot of the cases I worked on were custody disputes, and boy was that tough, given what I'd been through with my ex and SD.

A lot of these families had additional needs in addition to separation based conflicts, such as drug or alcohol dependency, and it was a way to get those families the help they needed. Often the conflicts were more related to those issues, particularly where one parent was not caring adequately for the children and knew it, and there was a tendency to lash out at the other parent, blame the other for their own failings, and try and make the other parent look bad because they didn't want their own issues exposed. What I felt the process did was take away the blame and animosity and look towards solutions, and also encouraged family members, including children, to take personal responsibility for their behaviour. This is something that litigation, courts and solicitors cannot do for a family. I became even more convinced that our adversarial system is wrong for families and wrong for children, and that all families should absolutely HAVE to try mediation and conferencing first, before they are allowed to apply to Court. Although of course, it would cost to provide this service free, and currently it is only being piloted in a few areas of the UK, so it will depend very much on whether this government decides to extend it or scrap it in 2012. Whatever the cost however, I cannot believe it would cost more than extensive court sessions, CAFCASS workers, court-appointed psychologists, and whatever costs there are, it is worth it so that fewer children have to go through what my SD did.

Would it have worked with my former SD's BM, I have asked myself. Months ago, I'd have said no. But I've now met parents of both sexes who came across initially every bit as irrational, unreasonable and hate-filled, who are now co-parenting perfectly adequately with hardly any arguments, because they were given the tools and strategies to do it. And crucially, there were child welfare professionals involved, TO WHOM THEY WOULD LISTEN. The professional "hat" carries more weight than we realise, and I was actually able to be fairly blunt with some of these families about some of the things they were doing without being given the finger back. However, crucially, it was put in their hands to find the solutions, not given to them. Again, the Court system cannot facilitate a reflective process that results in behaviour change. Solicitors make more money going back to Court time and time again, because they're making money off the clients sticking in their own trenches! My ex's ex wife milked the system, but it was because she was allowed to do so. Nobody ever suggested to her that she needed to do anything differently, and to be fair, nobody ever suggested it to my ex either. The solicitors working for them told them they were right, that they SHOULD have sole custody, that the other parent sucked - all they wanted to hear, to keep the chequebook open. Hello, misery and extensive debt. There are no winners except the lawyers.

My boyfriend experienced his family splitting up as an adult. From what he says, his childhood was pretty normal and happy, but when he was in his late teens, his oldest brother died - suicide, from a mental illness. He then found out, at the age of 17, that his brother was his half brother, and his mum had had a child with a previous partner - his dad had been a stepdad all these years. The impact on finding out that he had been, as he feels, lied to for 17 years, was devastating. 3 years later, his parents split up and his mum moved in with another man, which coincided with my boyfriend, the youngest, moving away to university. He hasn't coped with the split well at all, and believes his whole childhood was a big lie. So it really is no easier as an adult to cope with a divorce. In some ways, I think I adapted easier, as a child, and certainly as an adult, I just accept that this is the way my family is, but for my boyfriend whose parents were together all his childhood, adapting to a split family has been extremely difficult for him, and it's only now, nine years on, that he will engage with his mum's partner beyond hello, goodbye. He doesn't visit often. But I have a suspicion that with him, the problems and resentments lie in the untruths that he feels were presented to him during his childhood, rather than the separation itself. So I guess the morals for parents are pretty clear - be honest with your children, and don't present a situation differently than what it is. If you are a stepfamily, where half and stepsiblings and step-parents are present, explain the relationship clearly and truthfully, though obviously sensitively. I wonder if my boyfriend's parents somehow saw the idea of being a stepfamily as "less than ideal" and therefore tried to present a nuclear family image, but they never could have predicted that the eldest would develop schizophrenia and they would have to end up telling the younger two the truth. The reason it had to come out was because my boyfriend and his other brother were scared they might develop it, however the history of mental illness was on the side of their half brother's father. I watched the final episode of Brothers and Sisters recently, and saw the impact on Sarah when she found out that she was not, in fact, her father's biological child, and it reminded me of what my boyfriend had been through, and what a burden it also must have been for his brother, keeping silent and not telling his younger siblings. I also know through my steppie network, of friends' stepchildren who have half siblings and are forbidden by their BMs to tell them they have a different Dad. It's utterly wrong.

The big question: Would I do it all again?

Hmm. It's not a complete no. I prefer being with a man without children, it's far less complicated and much more enjoyable, but then I also don't have kids. If I do go on to be a mum (undecided about that too at this stage, but if it happens) and separated, then I guess it's got to be considered that if you have kids, you can't automatically reject a potential partner with children. While I'm childfree however, I would be very guarded, and give any relationship a LOT of time to develop, which is what me and my ex didn't do. I'd want to see what the relationship with the kids and BM is like and how they parent. I'd want to establish whether they had healthy boundaries with their ex and kids - that the ex wasn't still pulling strings, and that they were a parent to their kids, not a buddy. And I'd much prefer a situation where the mum was reasonable and pleasant, parented well, and not high conflict, so I didn't have to have a lot of involvement. With my ex-SD, her BM wasn't parenting, so I felt that some things did fall to me, because I wanted the best for her and didn't want to see her in scabby clothes or not eating properly or being bad mannered and having other people think ill of her through her not knowing how to behave in certain places. I wouldn't want a situation where I feel that I have to do parenting, and that the bio parents could handle it.

I also wouldn't get involved with a man with kids who didn't want/couldn't have any more, unless I was past childbearing age. Been there, done that, too emotionally difficult. I wanted kids so badly with my ex. I felt less valued because I didn't have his child, I wanted to share the parenting experience with him because being a Dad was so important to him. I also felt excluded, and thought that if we had kids together, somehow I'd be on an equal footing with his first family. But if we had a baby, the guilt could have got worse, not better, and I might have found myself coping more or less alone with a child and financing a child alone because all my ex's resources were directed towards SD. Unless he dealt with his guilt, that had resulted in the overindulgence and permissive parenting, that situation was not going to change. I don't think that my ex did value me less because I wasn't a mum, or because we didn't have children and he did with his ex, but that was my perception, seeing as to him, being a Dad was the be all and end all. He also criticized my childless twenty-something friends who liked to go out and party, saying they were selfish and immature, and he didn't have anything in common with them, so I guess I assumed he thought that about me too to some degree, and that he'd love me more and treat me with more importance if I had the maturity conveyed by parenthood. But maturity isn't something that is magically achieved when you become a parent, since I've met a lot of parents who are less mature than a lot of my so-called selfish, immature friends, who might not have kids, but they're smart, have good jobs, good relationships, degrees, salaries, cars, some own houses and pets, and some do voluntary and charity work - I have one friend who is a volunteer sports coach and another who is a Samaritan. I firmly believe that one should do one's maturing and growing up before inflicting oneself on a child that didn't ask to be born in the first place, but hey, that's just me and my crazy ideas huh.

I know that in some respects I didn't do so great at the step-parenting thing either. I fell into the trap of competing with the BM, and like Peggy Nolan said of her early step-parenting days, she "needed to be a better stepmom than she was a mom". I definitely felt like that. I also felt that my step-parenting "performance" if you like, was the key to my ex's love and respect, because he seemed to have so much more respect for parents than people without kids, so I felt I had something to prove, and that I wasn't good enough as I was. I could have done less. I could have shut out the drama and drawn my boundaries, and focused more on the relationship I was in. Put simply, I didn't need to do so much.

Whatever happened to Wicked Steppie?

2011-06-28T00:00:00.000-07:00

Wow....I was browsing a friend's blog today and I found a link on her site to one of the stepmum blogs I used to check out. And there, on that blog, was a link to mine.

I've just spent the past half hour re-reading everything I posted on there. Remembering what my life was like back then, and thinking how different everything is now.

First of all, Wicked Steppie is no longer a steppie. Not long after I posted my last blog post, my ex and I split up. I honestly realised I couldn't do it any more, and I needed to quit, for my own sanity and wellbeing. I felt like my life was an endless round of self-analysis and navel-gazing, just trying to figure out the best way to bloody cope with it all. But I wanted to enjoy life, not just cope with it.

My ex is OK, now. He didn't cope with the split well, he quit his job in an attempt to get me back (you might remember he worked an 80 mile drive away and the commute was a real damper on our relationship) and then spent 6 months unemployed and ran up debts, including on our joint account. That has now only just been sorted out, and partly because the bank agreed to write a good portion of it off, because they had been completely incompetent in dealing with it and failed to respond to a complaint through the FSA within the designated timeframe. He is now working again, and finally contributing to payments on the personal loan that I took out in January 2010 to sort out his mortgage arrears, among other things. I had to play dirty and threaten to claim on his house, which I didn't want to do, because I'm not a money grubber like his ex, but I simply couldn't afford to be left with those debts alone. So this week, I finally get to close our joint account, and that will be the last tie gone. Things aren't acrimonious by any stretch, and my ex hasn't been malicious in any of this, I just think that in some ways, he is irresponsible, especially with money, and doesn't always think of the consequences. Looking back, I can see that he was irresponsible about a lot of things, despite being a person who was saddled with a lot of responsibility early on - caring for a disabled mother in his teens, becoming a father young. I don't know if he's learned from it, but hopefully he might have.

As for me, I did go back to university, and have just completed my Postgraduate Diploma. I'm now qualified in youth work, and next week, I start a new job as the manager of a project that works with unemployed young people, to try and get them back into work. It's been a big year of change for me, but for the most part, I've absolutely loved it. I spent 6 months last year living alone, which I had never done before, just me and my beloved Rottweiler, but I'm now living in a friend's house, because I needed to cut my costs while I studied. I did two placements during my course, both of which I loved, and went on a learning curve that was steep as hell, but I can honestly say that professionally I've never been happier and it's better than working in IT. I'm looking forward to transitioning to a managerial role and having more choice and control over my work. It's slightly scary at the same time though, because I'll also have the responsibility!

And the other thing that's happened to me since the split is that I have met someone else. He's the same age as me, and get this....DOESN'T HAVE ANY KIDS!!!

I guess I've spent the past year recapturing some lost youth really....we've been to festivals, which is something my ex would never have done, been out on epic nights out, been to lots of gigs, took a trip to Berlin for my birthday, and sometimes we just get up on the weekends and decide to go somewhere random for the day. I even put my piercings back in and got a tattoo! I'd forgotten what spontaneity was like, because most weekends with my ex were oriented round his daughter, and even if she wasn't there, the trauma of the Sunday night phone call that rarely happened (phone off, not answering) used to ruin the end of the kid-free weekend. I also have someone now who puts me first - I'm his number one girl, and it means that throughout this year I have been supported, emotionally and at times financially as well, if I've been skint and needed petrol, he's quietly taken the car off to the garage and put a tenner in. If there was a night out and I couldn't afford it, the drinks were on him. At every stage he's encouraged me to believe in myself and what I was doing. I feel loved, valued, and like this man cares about my happiness and wants to do things that will make me happy. Likewise, I want him to be happy, but I won't compromise myself in the same way that I did with my ex, and completely subdue my own needs in order to serve someone else's. We don't live together yet, but are planning to next year. The relationship feels like it's been allowed to develop organically, without any undue haste or pressure. I'm actually his first serious girlfriend, so I have wanted to make sure he isn't rushing into things, and that I'm not either, after having the experience with my ex where everything happened too quickly, and then I realised I'd let things happen to me instead of making them happen.

And what of my former SD?

I have only seen her once since the split. My ex told me she missed me, and in some ways, I missed her for a bit, but I did not miss the conflicts, the reminders of the ex, and the unpredictability of the weekends we had her - the capriciousness of children is somewhat amplified in a young girl who has those kinds of pressure placed on her. I also realise that I had a huge problem with the way she was being raised, both by BM and also by my ex. I think my ex was far too permissive, and also inconsistent - discipline happened when he could be bothered, not when it needed to happen for the child's own learning. A few months ago, I saw that SD had tagged me in some photos on Facebook, and there were nasty comments attached to the pictures, which were aimed at me. I told my ex about it, and asked them to get them removed from his daughter's profile, and it took him a month to get around to tackling it with her. In the meantime, I had blocked her of course, but holy hell, if that had been my child doing that, they would have been banned from Facebook altogether! I would never have dared call an adult names, let alone in a public arena like social media!

In photos I have seen of my former SD since the split, I see her wearing tight, short clothes far too old for her 12 years, with a face full of makeup, and I breathe sighs of relief that I don't have to tear my hair out over it. I don't know whether I managed to have any positive influence on my former SD, but for once, I'm not beating myself up over it. Her primary influences in life were a mother who made very dubious life choices and had questionable morals, and a father who didn't have enough confidence to question them and provide a consistent alternative. It was never my job to fix all that. I still hope to have a positive influence on young people in my professional life, but it's a different thing, you don't have to take it home with you, and you're not invested necessarily in these young people liking you or developing lasting bonds - you work with them for a set amount of time, usually with set goals, and then hopefully, they leave your project ready for the next phase of their lives, and even better, take something positive with them.

So...if anyone's still reading, I'm still out there, and happily in a much better place than 18 months ago. I'm aiming to start a new blogging project when I start my new professional venture, about working with young people in a difficult climate - we're in a recession with record high youth unemployment, so it's going to be a tough gig. Watch this space!

Hope everyone is doing well, and happy xx

My new experiment

2010-03-02T11:13:00.000-08:00

There are big changes afoot in the Wicked Steposphere.

As regulars will know from my recent postings, 2010 is the year of change for me. It's also the time that I decide to stop putting myself last, and go out there and be responsible for my own destiny and happiness.

I've been finding myself getting increasingly angry and wound up lately. BM up to her usual shenanigans of course....she can't seem to leave us to get on with things. She still seems to think that she has a right to tell DF what to do, but in my mind that ended with the decree absolute. And I've become really, REALLY angry about it. I can't let it go, to the point where it's eating me up from the inside.

I am also pushing SD away because of BM's behaviour. Because of the loyalty bind I know she is putting the poor girl in. I feel it would be easier for her if she didn't have to deal with me much, because then she won't feel so conflicted and won't have to go home to BM and answer lots of questions about what I've said and done this weekend. All she has to do is say "Wicked Steppie wasn't home much" and surely that's easier on her - not having to dish the dirt to BM for a quiet life and approval. The last thing this poor child needs is another person pushing her away because of her mother, but I fear I am doing it, because BM and SD have become so enmeshed for me now, I feel as if BM walks into my house 2 weekends out of 3. I feel as though it is BM's eyes staring at how I do things, listening to what I say. SD cannot seem to stop talking about BM and her family these days either, and I simply don't want to hear it, but how do you tell an 11 year old child to stop talking about her mother? So it's easier for all I figure if Wicked Steppie just kinda vanishes on those days.

So no wonder I feel so damn resentful, because I am allowing BM to dictate how I live my life and run my home, where she has no place in it!

So, I'm on a mission to take back my life. And on a mission to take back my identity. I feel as though becoming a step-parent sort of stole it, actually. But only because I let it.

Thankfully, there is a wealth of support out there these days for step parents, and it seems a burgeoning community of online support for stepmums. I have been part of one such community for 2 years now and am extremely grateful I found it. I have made some lifelong friends in that place, who are not just fellow stepmums but also lovely human beings.

However, there is a danger with any community that you can get a little too sucked in to it all and base your identity too much around it. This is why I have decided to take a break from all things steppie related for a month, and actually blog and write about being me, not just a stepmother in waiting.

My experiment is called The Grateful Diaries and you can find it here if you want to have a look. For the next month, that's where you'll find me. My experiment is, to find three things, every single day, that have made me feel happy and/or grateful, and write about them, and do this for a month. The aim? Make me whole again, and try and bring the fragmented parts of my life and identity together once more. And perhaps to cultivate more of a sense of perspective, as well as looking at the positive side of life a little more. We Brits do have a tendency to get a bit glass half empty about everything. It's how we feel safe - don't be optimistic, you might get disappointed. Better to be pleasantly surprised when something goes well....

Feel free to follow the experimental blog and feed back to me what you think.

Ushering in the winds of change

2010-02-11T12:45:00.000-08:00

The latest from Wicked Steppiesville is that I am to be an ex-IT support engineer sooner than I had anticipated!

I finally hit the wall with the job that has been doing my head in now for more than half the time I have been there, cracked in spectacular style in fact, involving a diatribe that turned the air blue within the earshot of at least 2 senior managers. I then proceeded to write my resignation (in slightly less profane, more articulate fashion) the following weekend. It was accepted, but of course, they want to "talk about it". Erm, the point of me resigning was that I don't want to work for you any more. What exactly is there to talk about? This isn't a relationship, we don't have kids, we don't need mediation or ongoing contact. I.Want.To.Leave. Simple. The only thing I would like to talk to them about is their ridiculous notice period. 3 months, for an IT support monkey? Come on.

I am of course off back to university in September. I am now working for 2 hours a week for a local youth organisation, setting up and running (from March) a youth club/drop in centre in one of the most, um, charming areas of this fair city, shall we say. Tonight we had to meet with the local Neighbourhood Watch and the Police Community Support officers to assure them that we were not going to be running some kind of crack den and that we had the ability to deal with any incidents that might arise. I did have a brief moment of "what am I doing" when one of the other youth workers told me about the resident pyromaniac - a diminutive 13 year old who prides himself on his ability to, well, burn just about anything. But the local residents are apparently not that bothered so long as it's the youth service's stuff that's going up in flames, not theirs. Oh and did I mention the ADD kid who needs to be frisked for spray paints at the door otherwise literally, the whole building will be covered in graffiti tags. So far, so good then. I thought dealing with stroppy managers whose computers didn't work was tough.

Maybe I have this weird kind of masochism going on somewhere in my head, I don't know. It was pointed out to me recently by a friend "so you have a pre-teen stepdaughter at home, and you want to spend your working life....working with teenagers" and suddenly I saw how that would probably look to others. I am never backwards in coming forwards about my Issues With Step-Parenting, and in fact, my rantings often extend to "Kids These Days" (are ungrateful/lazy/rude/materialistic, insert adjective here). So why on earth would I want to surround myself with.....kids? I clearly sound most of the time like someone who doesn't really like kids! But I know from previous experience that working with kids and young people professionally is a whole different ball game to having them at home with you. It sounds lame, but you have a chance to make a difference, but with the benefit of a bit of distance and perspective that parents and even step-parents don't have, because they're too close to the situation.

Oh and did I mention you get to give them back at the end of the session?

So this is kind of a scary but good time. I'm not quite sure after the end of April how I will be earning a crust, but I do know that I'm not going back to corporate office life if I can help it. So long as the bills get paid and we have food in the house, even if it's beans and toast, we'll be fine. I've been offered some work football coaching at my club, and the youth organisation where I work part time is hoping to have more work for me by the time I finish up in the madhouse. So we're not going to starve or be homeless.

I've talked before on this blog about Steppie Guilt. I actually think that I'm leaving that behind now. I need to do what's best for me, and so long as that doesn't involve a £50 a day coke habit or becoming a hitman, I think it's legitimate for me to act on what's best for little old me. Why should I be last in the family pecking order, and more importantly, why should I put myself last? I actually don't think that anyone ever said I should be last on the list, I put myself down there, because I had this idea that somehow, as neither parent nor child, I somehow mattered less, and my happiness and fulfilment was not as important as theirs. Worse, I had the idea that my job was to facilitate their happiness and comfort rather than look after my own. That way lies madness! I and I alone am responsible for my own happiness in this world, and if I don't look after it, nobody else will - because they are far too busy looking after their own, having worked out a long time ago what I've only just worked out recently. Something else that made me even less comfortable was the thought that the BM has spent her life waiting for others to fulfil her needs and not doing it herself, and though she is doing this less through misguided altruism than pure selfishness and entitlement, the net effect is the same. When we have no agency over our own lives and allow ourselves to be driven by the agendas of others, we become helpless, and helplessness breeds anger and resentment. I don't want to be that person. So I've made the decision to stop bobbing along with the tide and actually take the helm and steer the craft in some kind of a direction. I hope that my family see that taking ownership of my own happiness in this way doesn't mean I don't care for theirs. It's just that I am much better able to look after theirs, that is, in the parts of it that I have influence over, if I am actually happy and whole myself. I would very much like to be happy and whole. It sounds like a nice place to be.

Sometimes you just have to enjoy being smug

2010-01-19T12:47:00.000-08:00

The start to the New Year had been a slightly fraught time in the Wicked Steppie household. We were definitely all suffering from the disorder I explored in my last blog post, Post Christmastic Stress Disorder. The BM had been up to her usual tricks, and Christmas for us had been beset by illness, too much racing around trying to please everyone and a stressed and unhappy SD (thanks to the pre-Christmas BM shenanigans). I had to have a minor gynaecological operation right after New Year, and I just wasn't in the zone.

It's funny how things can change in the matter of a couple of weeks. After doing pretty well in the latter months of last year, Christmas sent me into a steppie spiral of doom - and by the time SD went home after we had her over New Year I was back dreading the next visit. Christmas these days just seems to make kids act more spoiled, and the more they get the worse it seems to be. Every Christmas BM goes into full on "lets compete with Dad and Wicked Steppie" mode, and SD invariably comes over full of the mountains of things she got from that side of the family. How on earth she affords it all on welfare I don't know, but that's a whole different story, and one that raises my blood pressure far more than I need today - I don't need to think about how my taxes bought her 42 inch plasma. This year she got a netbook, after getting a laptop last year. Funny, since she also got a Nintendo DS Lite last year, after getting a DS the year before! It seems BM's idea of a good present is just one that's the latest model of the last one. Yes, she has imagination in spades, this lady. Is it electronic? Check. Is it shiny? Check. I swear, she's as discerning when shopping as a magpie in a jewellery store.

We just had SD for the weekend, and in my PCSD-induced state, I approached it with dread. I am afraid to say I'd had a major steppie meltdown over the Ipod Affair just after Christmas. After getting the netbook, a new bike from us (I did find a reasonably priced one in the end) and a whole load of other stuff, SD decided she also wanted an Ipod Touch. Now, why on earth she needed that is beyond me - she already has a mobile phone that does everything bar wipe your bum for you, a netbook for the internet and her beloved MSN, the DS to play games on, but she wanted this Ipod. So, she counted up her Christmas money, and was £40 short. DF and I drew the line - we'd spent enough on her over Christmas and she'd just had all this new stuff, so we said we were not stumping up the extra cash, and it would have to be saved pocket money and paid chores if she wanted it. She was a little disappointed, but seemed to understand. The next minute however, she was telling us once she was home at BM's that BM had bought it for her! Funnily enough, the day after her monthly maintenance goes in. I was livid, for many reasons. BM's cheap attempts to buy her daughter's love after traumatising her over Christmas. SD not being taught the value of money. Undermining us and our attempts to NOT spoil SD completely "oh, nasty daddy and Wicked said no, never mind darling mummy will buy it for you". DF did actually tell her this weekend that it actually WAS us that bought it, in a roundabout way. I find it hard to see SD going round in ripped school trousers and with scratty trainers that have been chewed up by BM's latest pack of scraggy mutts while carrying a brand new Ipod and mobile phone. It really does seem incongruous, and it makes me resent the money DF has to pay her each month even more. What is this child learning about what's important in life?

But the weekend brought new revelations, and proved to me once again that while BM might triumph in the skirmishes, there's a long way to go yet in this game.

It's taken us some time to build up a relationship with the parents of SD's best friend. They were friendly with BM, and therefore were very wary of us, having been told God knows what by BM. It has taken us a LOT of effort to show these people that we are not monsters, and that their child is safe in our care, and I'll give them the nod for giving us a chance - some of the things BM told them were pretty awful (and very untrue). We never said a word about BM to them - not our place or our business to, and whether we think it's right or wrong BM is SD's main carer so their main relationship would be with her since she has SD more. But they brought up the subject of BM this time when they were over. It seems that their little one doesn't want to go over there any more, because last time she was there, BM and her partner were blind drunk and she was scared and upset by what she saw. They don't really associate with her any more, aside from dropping SD home when she visits them. So we never needed to say a word - BM's true colours showed through. Sometimes, the best thing you can do or say is nothing, and let things unravel.

For the first time this week, we were also allowed to see SD during the week. SD asked BM if she could come over, purely of her own volition. She said no to staying over, which was expected because she is neurotic about losing a penny of child maintenance, but, let's take the positives - she agreed to SD spending more time here. I don't know if she senses that now SD is getting older, it will be harder to justify why she can't see Dad, and also harder to contain her if she does decide she wants to and she can't give her a valid reason why not. It was nice to see her and chat about her day, and hear about all the silly things that happened at school and what happened on the instalment of the Diary of Anne Frank they watched. These are all the things DF has missed out on for so long, that everyday normality.

So despite feeling over Christmas that SD was becoming ever more BM's creature, it seems that 2010 has brought a breeze of change with it after all. BM's total power seems to be on the wane. She no longer has her exclusive friendship with SD's best friend's parents as a bargaining chip, because SD's friend can come to ours now. She would frequently offer SD sleepovers with her friend on DF's weekend to tempt her away from coming here, but that can't happen any more thanks to her own vile behaviour. And SD finally has the confidence to ask BM to spend more time with us, even if at the moment it's but a few hours a week, it matters. I'm also sad (but not surprised) to say the charm bracelet SD came with on Boxing Day that was the best thing she'd ever had and she would never take off got broken 2 days after Christmas, and BM never took it back to get it fixed or changed, so it remains broken in SD's jewellery box.

BM doesn't, and never has looked at the bigger picture. She thinks only about the small triumphs, those that are cheap and easy to gain. It's easy to throw money at a problem, but much harder to solve it, and harder still to admit you were wrong in the process, and that's what BM will never do in a zillion years. So I'm kinda enjoying this moment of feeling a shift in the tide for the first time in the whole time I've known DF, and dare I say it, allowing myself a teensy touch of smugness!

PCSD - the new disorder on the block. A Study, Part 1.

2010-01-02T03:10:00.000-08:00

You've heard of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, right? Well, I'd like to introduce you to Post Christmastic Stress Disorder.

This is a relatively new phenomenon, usually seen early in the month of January each year. From the studies we have done, it appears that women tend to suffer more than men, being more susceptible to social and familial pressure to creat the "perfect" Christmas. The explosion over the last 10 years or so of Christmas as a commercial, rather than religious or cultural event, can be said to have contributed to the prevalence of this new disease. In this first issue, we will explore the symptoms and contributing factors to this illness as well as identify the demographics most likely to suffer.

The symptoms of the disease often present themselves physically, in the form of reduced immunity or a bug that the patient cannot "shake off". Of course, under normal circumstances, the patient may take a few quiet days at home to rest if they are ill with a cold or tonsilitis, for example, but at Christmas not partaking in the perpetual rounds of either entertaining or visiting would be unheard of. Hence, the patient will often push themselves to join in with everything and not give themselves any chance to recover, resulting in a persistent illness that may last well into the first weeks of the New Year.

Other symptoms of PCSD may be less obvious, that is to say more psychological and emotional. Trouble sleeping, or disturbed sleep patterns have been reported, due to anxiety, relating to seasonal worries such as whether all purchases have been made for the ever burgeoning present pile under the tree, or indeed whether the festive meat is properly defrosted, lest Aunt Ophelia be struck down with a dose of salmonella from undercooked turkey. Concerns occur as to how to keep children entertained during visits to relatives, and indeed which relatives to visit and when can be a source of strain.

I wish to examine a particular demographic which seems to suffer from PCSD more than others, and that is those in blended or stepfamilies. The normal stresses and strains of the holiday season seems to be exacerbated in these circumstances. If we examine why that is, it may be attributed to the additional concerns that these families have around their holidays. Where the children in the family will spend their time and how this should be divided. If this cannot be agreed between the children's biological parents, this places additional stress on all concerned, particularly when arrangements are changed last minute. Step-parents in these families, particularly those without children of their own, frequently report pressure to prioritise their partner's family over their own at Christmas, because of the need of their partner's family to spend time with the children, particularly when their partner is a non resident parent. The effects of stress are also notably seen in the children in such families, who may be getting pressure from one or both parents to prioritise one side of the family over the other at Christmas, and may feel stuck in the middle or unable to please anybody, as of course they cannot divide themselves in half. In such families where high conflict exists between the former partners, stress is likely to be exerted in many different ways on all members of the family. Children can be caught in bigger loyalty binds at Christmas than at other times, because of the social pressure mentioned at the start of this study to have the "perfect" Christmas, and of course how can it be perfect when the child is missing for some or all of the time? High conflict exes can be resentful of any time spent with the other parent, and incidences have been seen of these high conflict exes actively trying to ruin the time the child spends with the other parent, often with incessant communication and "guilt trips" or frequent calls to remind the child what they are missing at the other home. This is most stressful for the child, but also creates unnecessary dramas and interruptions on top of the usual tasks of cooking, cleaning, entertaining guests and visits.

The other contributing factor to PCSD is also the financial strain of Christmas. It seems to get bigger every year, and as children get older, the expense of the presents they wish for gets greater. It has been noted by our experts that in split families, the pressure is greater, as competition may exist between the two households for where the child has the "best" time (which of course in modern terms is defined by how materially spoilt they get). There may be a certain self-exerted pressure on non resident parents to spoil the kids more at Christmas time as a compensation for seeing them less during the year. The temptation to do this is great, but overspending can lead to relationship conflict when budgets are exceeded and cuts must be made in other areas to accommodate it. As a society, we appear to have become very preoccupied with measuring quality in terms of quantity of money spent, and feel guilty or stingy when we do not splurge for the festive season. But the consequences of such splurging, where families cannot really afford it, are a major contributor to PCSD. It is worth noting that it does not just occur in stepfamilies, but I mention them specifically because of the added pressures on those families that make this more likely.

In our next issue we will explore how we can treat existing PCSD, identify the warning signs and stop it developing further, and even prevent it completely.

Let the truth be told....and the healing begin

2009-12-22T03:06:00.001-08:00

Today, I want to talk about the Gospel of John 8:32.

I am not religious, that is to say I do not follow organised religion. But, I do admire and revere Jesus Christ, as many other figures in the great history of our world, who had a mission to make the world a better place for others. Today it is his words that ring in my head, after reading this post from DragonflyMama

Jesus said "You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free".

I've always admired Dragonflymama's tenacity in the face of complete and utter hostility and contempt from her stepdaughter's mom. She has resolutely tried to do the right thing, to shield the child from any hurt or conflict, and to love Buttercup despite the obstacles in the way. It is how so many of us try to be as stepmothers, because we DO want the best for those kids. Especially if we have grown up in the blender ourselves and experienced family conflict as children. We continually put our own feelings aside, time and time again, and put ourselves in the firing line, sacrifice ourselves rather than let the children suffer. We smooth things over when there is conflict. We back down rather than make a scene. We let the mothers walk over us and our families time and time again, and still we try to put on a brave face, treat them as we wish they'd treat us. And to love the kids, even when, in Dragonfly's words "she feels saddened by her love for me".

My SD does not get much joy from her relationship with me, because she is not free in it. The loyalty bind her mother has put her in leaves her wary to discuss things we have done together, admit that things she has gone home with have been bought by me, and means that as soon as she leaves our house, she is self editing constantly lest something slip out that BM may fly into a rage over. She does love me, I think, but I don't think loving me makes her very happy, because she has been told that to love me is to love her mother less.

I was very moved by both of Dragonfly's recent posts, because I have got to the same point myself with the step game. The point where I am no longer willing to pussyfoot around BM or appease her in the hope that one day she might see that DF and I are not bad people, that we don't want to "steal" SD from her, that all we want is peaceful co-existence and for SD to be able to enjoy and love both families equally. I have never had a lot of communication with BM, so I wouldn't write to her telling the truth about what I think of her and what I think of what she's doing to her daughter, but I can see how cathartic this experience must have been, and how much stronger you sometimes feel for just admitting the truth instead of trying to play the game by the unspoken rules that we feel we "should" play it by. Why on earth should we put up and shut up and keep going back for more? If you put your hand in a fire, it burns your skin and it hurts, doesn't it? Would any sane person, once they had realised what fire does to the skin, go back and do it again?

I too am done respecting BM and her precious role as mother, because she does not respect DF as SD's father and she does not respect me either. She does not respect our home, our rules, or the fact that we care for and love her child. To her, SD is a possession and weapon, wielded as leverage and power over her ex husband. She thinks she is fighting some kind of war - well, BM, you can only fight a battle if you have an opponent who is willing to engage you, and if you don't, you'll be standing on the battlefield alone looking pretty damn silly with all your armour on while your hated enemies are off enjoying themselves and getting on with their lives.

Like my fellow steppie warrior Dragonfly, I am done shielding my SD from her mother's actions. I am done trying to fight for extra time with SD, to take her on holidays, to do the things that kids should be able to do with their families. From now on, we are simply going to say "sorry, we can't take you on holiday, your mum won't let us have you" and she can take it up with her mother why she's missing out. I am done bending over backwards to provide the kind of life for SD that I think she SHOULD have and her mother isn't providing, and trying to cram all that into 7 days a month. I actually have my own life to get on with. There, I said it. I'm done fighting.

Sometimes you have to do this in order to let the battle wounds heal. When you no longer know WHY you are fighting this war, what the outcome of it is meant to be, and whether it is even a just war any more, you have to put down the weapons and actually figure out if the reasons you are still there are the same as when you entered it. None of this means that I will stop loving or caring for my SD of course, but it does mean that I'm going to do the one thing you're not supposed to in Steppiesville and put myself first. Because if I don't, I've realised that nobody else in this game will if they're too busy on the battlefield to see that there's life beyond hiding in the woods in your camo gear waiting for the next attack.

The uncomfortable truth for so many steppies is that we have little control over how the step-life pans out for us. We can be Mother Theresa-like beings who never say a cross word to the kids, but that won't help if the kids are in a loyalty conflict, in fact as Wednesday Martin has pointed out on numerous occasions, it may actually make it worse. We can set the best example to the kids, but that won't help much if the kids are spoiled and indulged by guilty post-divorce parents. We can insist on respect from the kids, but if kids are being told by their other parent that they don't have to respect you and the parent you live with isn't challenging it, you're the lone voice.

So here's the better truth, and this is, in those immortal words, the truth that will set you free. We still have control over OUR lives, and there's no rule book that says you have to keep putting your hand in that fire. Sometimes, we need to be reminded of that truth when we're deep in our steppie trenches, that actually, we do have the choice to let it set us free.

The Presence of Presents

2009-12-21T04:27:00.000-08:00

I had hesitated about posting this, but I have noticed that a few of my fellow stepmum bloggers have posted about how difficult they find the materialism of Christmas, so I thought I'd add my own "Bah Humbug" to the chorus.

I've said before that it worries me how materialistic SD is becoming. Despite the fact that the BM is always pleading poverty, she seems to have no trouble buying SD the latest laptops, gadgets and toys, which often make our offerings seem like not much. In the past, DF has vastly overcompensated by buying a ton of stuff that she neither wants nor needs, and has often remained unused. We had a blazing row last year about the amount of money he spent, and this year, to avoid a repetition he agreed to me setting the budget and buying the gifts for her. I have stuck largely to things I know she needs and will use. A new fleece blanket for her bed in the cold weather with her current favourite Hello Kitty on it. Some nice new clothes, some funky socks and underwear, the fluffy slipper socks she likes, and a book on recycled crafts seeing as she loves to make things.

We had also talked about buying SD a bike. She has a bike, but it's not a very good one, the brakes aren't brilliant, she finds the twist-and-click gears hard to use, and of course as she's shooting up at a rate of knots it will soon be a bit small. We'd said we'd get her one if we could afford it.

At the moment, we can't afford it. I have been doing some selling on Ebay to try and get some cash coming in, because neither of us have had pay rises this year due to the recession. I'd originally planned to save some of that money from selling to get her a new bike. However, a few things have changed. Firstly, I got into my university course so all being well, I'll be starting it in September next year. Which means our income is going to drop considerably, and we really could do with throwing extra cash at our debts in order to try and get outgoings as low as possible for next year. And secondly, given our financial situation, I don't think we should be spending £200+ on a new bike for a child who spends 7 days a month at our house. We can't let her take it back and forth to BM's, as we can't trust that it will not get damaged or "lost" aka sold, at BM's. So what it will largely do at ours is sit in the shed, certainly during the winter months. I'll admit I am also a little influenced by the fact that SD has chosen not to see us on Christmas Day, but has nevertheless expressed a keen expectation of presents when she does choose to come, which has more than a little ring of spoiled child to it. It transpires she wants to stay with her Mum's family on Christmas Day because they are having a party, it's more fun, and there will be of course lots of presents from all the relatives.

I have tried over the last year or so to instil in SD a realisation that she (and other children like her) are actually lucky to have what they have and get what they get at Christmas and birthdays etc. I sponsored a child with SOS Children's Villages, a child the same age as her, who is orphaned and growing up in a foster family in Tanzania, in the hope that this might help, but she has expressed no interest in the sponsored child or writing to her or anything like that. To be fair, DF predicted she wouldn't be interested, he says kids these days just aren't interested in "that sort of thing" and he was right, she is far more interested in cute baby animals and sponsoring a dog through Dogs Trust than she is in the human cause. OK, so maybe it's an age thing, but surely parents have a responsibility to teach their children about the less fortunate and about doing things for others? I can forgive SD for being 11 years old and not interested in kids less fortunate than herself, but I can't forgive DF for thinking it's perfectly OK to allow his child to grow up materialistic and self-centred and not challenge it.

On one of my stepmum boards recently I came across another steppie whose teenage SD has a boyfriend whose family are not at all well off, and he goes without a lot of things. Said lovely steppie and her partner had bought the BF a winter coat and some decent warm stuff for the cold weather, which I thought was just lovely. She said how appreciative the BF was of anything that was done or bought for him, in comparison to most kids who think it's their right to get what they want. She also commented on how seeing her boyfriend's underprivileged upbringing had also started to make the SD a little more grateful for what she had. So maybe it just needs to be a little closer to home than Tanzania to make an impression?

I don't really know what the outcome of the bike dilemma will be. No doubt DF will want to buy her one regardless of whether the money could be better used elsewhere, but I wonder if we might be able to reach some kind of compromise on it, such as waiting until the better weather when she will actually be able to make use of it, or even finding a decent second hand one. I'm a mountain bike nut, so I know plenty of good sources, and people who will check a bike over for me for safety and durability. When I was a student, I bought a secondhand mountain bike for £50 and it lasted 3 years of cycling round Edinburgh nearly every day, so surely it would be acceptable for an 11 year old to use a few days a month? One thing I do know from bitter experience is that buying things you can't really afford is a recipe for misery, and from a selfish perspective, my eye is more on how we are going to manage in a few months time when I'm a fulltime student and only earning a fraction of what I do now. I just don't think DF will see it that way, and will think I am the epitome of steppie Scroogedom!

Christmas sucks in blended families

2009-12-20T12:57:00.000-08:00

I know DF and I won't be the only ones in this situation this Christmas. Because, as the title suggests, Christmas in stepfamilies just aint fun. Especially when you have a BM in the mix hell bent on making sure that her child doesn't see her father at Christmas.

There is supposed to be, by court order, an arrangement that Christmas Day is split. Last year we had SD from Christmas Eve into Christmas Day and took her back on Christmas Day. We had pantomime tickets booked for Christmas Eve so SD wanted to come, and BM agreed to having her back by 4pm. So this year, DF suggested he collected her at 4pm on Christmas Day.

Not happening, apparently. SD has allegedly made the decision herself (but did not want to tell DF this herself so BM's hag of a mother did it, and took great pleasure in doing so) that she does not want to see us on Christmas Day and doesn't want to come until Boxing Day. We know full well that if SD had the choice, she'd see both parents, so this is undoubtedly the result of pressure, manipulation and guilt trips on the poor child. We can't get her until 10am on Boxing Day.

I don't get how this woman can stoop so low as to keep her child from seeing her father on Christmas Day. I KNEW they had been working on her for weeks - I could see it in her eyes, and when I said to her last weekend when she went home "See you at Christmas" she looked away. I knew then we would not be seeing her, but I hoped against hope I was wrong, for DF's sake. But BM's family make a big deal of having a huge family party at Christmas and I knew there was no way they'd agree to her leaving half way through the day. Their view is that their family is SD's main family, therefore they are the most important - as far as they are concerned, DF can go hang, he's nobody.

It's hard not to get frustrated on his behalf - and I get upset that SD can treat her dad with such disregard as well, even though logically, I know she is just a child, and faced with the kind of pressure BM and her family are probably putting on her, most children older and more mature than SD would cave. SD knows that though DF will be disappointed, he won't unleash the kind of hell that BM would if she stood her ground and said no, I want to see my Dad on Christmas Day. She knows DF will never withdraw love from her. But it's hard to see that the unshakeable confidence she has in DF never turning his back on her results in her treating him badly - because she isn't afraid of losing his love. It's hard for me to see it because I was once in the exact same position - I know how it is being between a rock and a hard place, you always end up hurting someone, because you cannot make any choices without disappointing one of the people you love. And it is one of the things that SD will have to live with as she grows up and becomes more aware of the impact her choices have. Sadly, this is the lot of children growing up in split families, I know this all too well.

There is no solution to it either, but next year I am seriously tempted just to book tickets for DF and I to the Caribbean, let BM and her cohort have their family Christmas that's so important to them they are happy to ruin ours, and we won't even show up for the battle, which would spare SD from being piggy in the middle. Of course, if we did that, they'd say we don't care about her and don't want to see her, so we can't win....but at least WE would have a peaceful Christmas knowing we won't get a phone call a few days before saying SD doesn't want to come, and having to rearrange all our plans around when BM and GrannyHag will release her to come and see her own father. Yes, the Caribbean sounds tempting. Travel brochures for 2010 anyone?

Things I wish I'd known

2009-12-13T09:35:00.000-08:00

Inspired by Stepmum of the Year and Nine Kinds of Crazy, I decided to put together my own "If Only I'd Known" list.

This is probably going to be particularly apt, since it was revealed last night that a friend of mine has just started dating a 38 year old divorced man with a 5 year old daughter. I remember having a somewhat inebriated conversation with this same friend at a party a few months back, just about the general hazards of dating warfare, and the subject of men with kids came up. During this time, things were rather difficult, it was when BM was kicking off to the max over the summer, and I counseled her to run as fast as she could if approached by a man with kids. As mentioned, the conversation was slightly inebriated so I don't remember the finer details, but I definitely gave her no illusions about the possibility of happy endings when taking on a man with kids - they are few and far between.

Obviously the advice didn't rub off, because I saw her last night and she told me about her new flame. I guess I didn't really take my own advice either, because I showed up a few months later with a ring, and on my way to "official" stepparent-dom, rather than doing what I advised her at the time and getting the hell out. To be honest, had it been a man less special than DF, there is no way I'd still be here now. One thing you've got to be sure of if you're going to put yourself through the steppie mill is that the guy (and the rewards) are going to be worth it.

So, for my friend, and all the other newbie and potential Wicked Steppies out there, here's the list of Things I Wish I'd Known When I Started. And I hope this advice helps a little more than "run as fast as you can in the opposite direction".

Remember your own life.
This may seem like a no brainer, but when you're in the first flush of love, on the honeymoon period where you want to be with your new love ALL THE TIME, not to mention keen to get to know the kids and be accepted into the unit, don't let your identity get swallowed up by it. Retaining your own life, interests, hobbies and most importantly friends will help you to stay sane through rockier waters. Stepmum of the Year wrote in her list "your non-step friends will struggle to understand why you seem so obsessed". When things get overwhelming, it can become quite all consuming, and it's easy to get a little one-track minded when wading through miles of step-shit, but sometimes, what you need is not to talk step. Much the same as if work is bothering you, distraction is a better tactic than talking shop outside work and keeping your focus on the things that are pissing you off!

It's OK NOT to join in with every single kid-activity. Even if the kids seem keen to have you around, they still need time with their Dad and to know their Dad still values their company and there are special things that they do together. By the same token, as your relationship progresses, I can honestly say that my SD and I have benefited from having some time alone together as well.

Discuss how things are going to work BEFORE you think about moving in.
Especially if you're not buying/renting a new place together and you're going to be moving in with him. The child will see the house as theirs and Dad's, and the dynamics will change for everyone when you live together. Do the kids come in the bedroom at night? Do they knock? One of the things I have seen many steppies struggle with is the lack of privacy in their own homes, but by the same token I'm sure a lot of stepkids feel resentful when suddenly they can't go in Dad's room any more without permission. Open dialogue prior to combining lives is extremely important to help avoid these situations.

Take a genuine interest in the kids and try to see them as individuals.
I guess this comes as much from my experience as a stepchild as it does from being a step-parent, because it was something I felt my stepmum did extremely well. She was interested in me, what I thought, what I did, who my friends were and who I was as a person. Especially if there is a high conflict situation, it's an easy trap to fall into to align the kids with the other parent, particularly if that's where they spend the most time, and even more so if there is alienation going on, and just see them as components of the former life with the pain in the ass ex. But they are individuals, people in their own right. Think about yourself in relation to your parents. How like them are you? Do people in your life and family treat you exactly the same as they treat your parents, or do they treat you like you? I have traits of both my parents, I'm sure, but there are a lot of things about me that are very different and not like either of them. It will mean a lot to your stepkids, not to mention helping your relationship with them, if you're prepared to see them as John and Lucy (or whatever their names are), not "My partner's kids from his previous marriage".

Kid Free Time is important!
I apologise to both aforementioned stepmum bloggers for stealing this one a little....but, it's a point so important it merits repetition, so I hope they won't mind.
Keep in mind that your partner is likely to be at his happiest when he has all his favourite people around him - ie, his partner and his kids. For you, you're likely to be happiest when it's just the two of you together. Don't feel guilty about that - you're in the relationship with and for him, not the kids. Let's not forget that even in first families, parents need time out. And we're not talking about collapsing in front of the telly after a full day at work and getting the kids to bed, we're talking about planned activities, dates, time to talk non-shop and non-step. And make that time where you don't discuss the kids, the ex-wife, the holiday contact arrangements, the state the kids' bedrooms were left in on their last visit. This is time for you as a couple, to reconnect, and I couldn't have put it better than Nine Kinds of Crazy did in her list "You need to remember why you did this in the first place".

Which brings me back to one of my first points - the guy HAS to be worth it!

Has it really been that long?

2009-12-10T09:28:00.001-08:00

My God, it has! I can't believe I haven't been here since October 27th! Bad Blogger!

In my defence, I had to rebuild my laptop, because it was running so dog slow that I couldn't do anything on it, and kept losing all my work when it crashed. But, since I do IT all day, I did the ultimate procrastination on it and kept putting it off, because the absolute LAST thing I feel like doing when I get home is fixing a computer! Some days I even feel like banning them from the house!

Well, all is relatively well in Steppiesville. I am trying to ignore the fact that we are in the run up to Christmas, which is often a stressful time in the steposphere. Peace reigns in our household right now, so I'm enjoying that and trying not to think about what potential havoc Ye Psychotic One may have planned for us for the festive season! I find it best not to dwell on such things, as it is a waste of valuable thoughts. She will do what she will do, whether I think about it or not....

And I guess I just have more in my life to think about these days. I applied for my university course in Youth and Community Development Studies, and have an interview on the 17th December. I've applied to join a community volunteer programme, and am just waiting for my criminal records check to come through before I can start working with them. I'll be helping to run a young people's peer development programme, which aims to give young people a voice in the local community and the services that are provided for them.

AND......DP and I got engaged!

So DP is now DF....and I am now wearing a lovely titanium ring in a modern design which I love. The proposal, it must be said, was not exactly romantic, Yorkshiremen are not known for their romance skills, but they sure do know how to fix brakes on a car and fix radiators and boilers and those kinda things, and I know that doing those things is my OH's way of showing his love, as opposed to poems and roses. The only time a guy wrote me a poem I laughed. Maybe I'm not a poems and roses girl....or maybe that was just because the poem was crap.

To mark our engagement and part early Christmas present, DF also agreed to redecorate our bedroom. The leap for joy I did nearly put a hole in the roof, do you have ANY idea, seriously how long I have wanted to strip that room down? Men, unless of the homosexual variety, should NEVER be let loose on interior design, and Yorkshiremen should DEFINITELY stick to cars and boilers. Yellow and green in a bedroom? Bogies and vomit anyone? And I'll say NOTHING about the horrendous curtains. If in doubt, paint it magnolia, for the love of God! But now the room is purple, and very gorgeous, and we've finally got a fabulous orthopaedic mattress with memory foam. I felt like the bloody Princess and the Pea, DF was so attached to that damn mattress, he thought it was the comfiest thing in the world, but for me it was awful! It was pretty much moulded to DF's shape, so much so there was a concave part where he lay on it, and he's nearly twice the weight of me, so when he lay on it it would sink down in that part, and all the springs would be taut against the top, meaning they stuck in places you just don't want springs to be. He overlaid it with a duvet in an attempt to make it softer, but it just didn't cut it.

Being engaged has actually helped things. And I'm kinda ashamed to admit it, being a modern gal and all....I was brought up to think of marriage as an outdated and silly concept, that rarely works for anyone (yes, my parents did get divorced, and yes, it was messy). So...it's not really the done thing among some members of my family to get married. DF has of course gone through quite possibly one of the worst marriage FAILs ever, so he wasn't actually that keen to go there again, until recently that is. But psychologically....it HAS made a difference. I'm no longer just girlfriend - I'm future wife, and I think that's made a difference to how DF considers me within our family unit. I definitely feel I have equal status to kiddo now, whereas before he would tell me til he was blue in the face that we were equal, but at times behave very much the opposite. Kiddo was fine with it, well I've been around a fair while now, so I guess she knew I wasn't going anywhere anyway, but I'd say "Can I be bridesmaid" is a good reaction from a potential stepkid, as opposed to some of the horror stories I've heard about kids bursting into floods of tears, locking themselves in bedrooms etc. I guess I'm not too much of a wicked witch after all!

Another year, another landmark

2009-10-27T05:51:00.001-07:00

My SD turned 11 last week. She's turning into a little lady before our very eyes!

And I'm happy to say that things there are on the up. It seems that SD is getting a little fed up of the BM's anti-Dad and Wicked Steppie campaign - it's getting a bit old now, she's kept it up for 2 months. So I can start to see my relationship with SD improving, little by little. She asked me if I'd take her to the hairdresser to have her hair done nice at some point. This was after I'd come back from the new salon I've tried after mine closed down, with THE most fab haircut ever - genius extremely camp hair-man managed to tame my thick mad hair into a funky edgy bob. BM cuts SD's hair, and more often than not, doesn't do it very evenly, so she's asked if I'll take her to have hers cut properly.

Now this is a difficult one. SD is growing up fast, and rapidly becoming interested in beauty related stuff - she's got more Impulse sprays than there are days of the week, she's always wanting me to paint her nails, and asking me for advice on what outfits she's wearing. BM isn't really into this sort of stuff, she's gay - not that being gay precludes an interest in nail polish, but BM's just not into girly grooming. I wouldn't have said I'm especially girly or high maintenance but I do like to look well turned out. However, I'm a little bothered that taking SD to the hairdresser might provoke World War Three.

DP is fine with it. He thinks it is another life skill SD will need to learn eventually so she might as well start getting experience now of going to the hairdresser, telling them what she wants, having her hair washed and dried all nice will be a nice experience for her. She only wants a trim, she is very proud of her long blonde hair so we wouldn't be doing anything drastic, no funky edgy bobs or coloured hair dye, just getting it even, getting rid of the split ends and she can have it styled nicely. But, I'm still worried BM is going to go mental and that I'll be guilty of serious overstepping of her motherly boundaries. I do try and respect that while I'm fond of SD and want the best for her, I am not her parent, and don't try and do "parental" things like parents evenings or medical appointments. But hairdressing is less clear, especially as now SD is suddenly turning pre-teen with a vengeance, she needs a female role model to teach her about that stuff, and BM doesn't seem to be doing it - as DP said, I'm filling the gap in the market right now! But - does that mean we should let her go have her hair done even when BM has said no and prefers to do it herself (no doubt a cost saving exercise, child's haircut or a pack of fags and a six pack of Stella, hmmm tough choice). We had a big hoo-haa last year about SD's Christmas play at school, BM wanted SD back on Sunday night so she could do her hair for the play, as she thought it was unacceptable that I performed that task. Like many other things in split families, even something as innocuous as a hairdo can easily become a stepfamily West Bank.

Well, I've done the Steppie's Cop-Out and left it in DP's hands. As far as I'm concerned, he's the parent, he makes the decision and he takes any flak for the decision he makes. I'm happy that SD has come to me and wants to do this, but DP has got to decide whether getting rid of a few split ends are worth the potential row.

Groundhog Day

2009-10-14T11:48:00.000-07:00

So it's been a stink day at work.

Manager stomping round huffy, complaining that I didn't put enough information on a purchase order, annoyed with me over having 2 physio appointments next week and the sarcy raised eyebrow because one of them happens to be on Friday afternoon. Well actually, I made it that way because DP's physio appointment with the same guy is at 4pm, and I know if my appointment is right before his, he can come get me on his way back from picking SD up from school, and then give me a lift home after, because I can't drive myself and I can't walk, you jerk-off. I also don't have unlimited money for taxi fares, because you lot pay me such a bloody pittance. But never mind, I'll just wave a magic wand and make my knee better shall I, because clearly my torn ligament is inconveniencing the company too much. And while it may seem to you that most employees would craftily make their medical appointments for a Friday afternoon so they can get home early and crack open the bottle of red, what you don't realise is that most employees are not stepmothers, and you have no idea what the Friday evening adjustment period is like in the house of a weekend father. Put it this way - it's not something you hurry home to, let alone finish early for extra exposure.

I sometimes feel that I am reliving the same day over and over at work. The same finger pointing snippy crap. The same nitpicking over stupid things while ignoring the really big things that we have to get sorted. Staring at the same screen, and repeating the same stuff over and over.

I decided while I was away in China that I really wasn't cut out for the corporate office environment, and that I am going to change careers. Gulp. A very scary thing, especially when re-training involves an unpaid year of study. When I thought back to all the things I'd enjoyed doing in the past, all of those things were when I was working with young people. I used to work in a wacky arts centre, doing an after school club for local teenagers with behavioural difficulties, and I have honestly never enjoyed a job so much in my life. I did it part time, as a student, and I wanted to go into some kind of youth work or work with special needs after uni, but went down the safe career path I did because it paid better and offered the steady and reliable career trajectory, instead of an uncertain life working in the nonprofit and badly funded public sectors. I thought I'd made the right choice for a while - good income, paid off my debts - but now I find myself in this eternal Groundhog Day scenario, and feeling like the place I spend most of my time in not only has no meaning and benefit to humankind, but is completely sucking my soul dry.

Now I work with a few people who LOVE IT. They like nothing better than to go downstairs to the canteen in their lunch hours, and discuss the finer points of TCP/IP networking, Linux versus Windows, and how many cores their processors have. I hobbled downstairs for my lunch today and overheard such a conversation, and it really made me smile. Why? No, not because I love all that stuff and am vastly interested in it. Precisely the opposite. Which is great - because it affirmed to me that I am not where I am supposed to be. I love seeing and hearing people be passionate about their work, and I wish that I could be one of them. But IT is not what I am passionate about. I've made the right decision to make this change to my life. Thanks, ubergeeks.

So, having made this decision, the scary part is setting about the How. I have started to do my application for the MA course that I am interested in, which is Youth and Community Development, which also carries the Professional Youth Worker accreditation for youth work in the UK. Assuming they even like my application (although the cynical part of me says that these days so long as you're willing to pay full fees they'll have you) I will have an interview to get through, in which I will no doubt have to explain why I am doing this since I haven't really done any work with young people for the past 2 years. Yes, I got swallowed up by the corporate machine and became more interested in spending my salary than the greater good of humanity for a while there, okaaaay? But I'm ready to give a shit again!

The other and infinitely more scary thing is how I am going to fund this. We're not exactly rolling in money - and although DP is firmly behind me and wants more than anything to see me happy, it is a slight worry. It kinda hinges on our mortgage going on to a variable rate next year and being able to take advantage of the very low interest rates, which will free up some funds in our kitty. The other thing it will hinge on is getting a Career Development loan, to fund day to day living costs while studying.

Now while I am excited about this potential new direction I'm going to take, anyone reading this who is a stepmum will probably also relate to the sense of guilt we often feel when we do something that is solely for us, especially when that may have repercussions for the rest of the family. I know that SD won't come to any harm if money is tight for a year - her needs will always be met, we will both make sure of that, but we won't be able to indulge nearly as many of her wants. And I've expressed concern on here before that my SD is, like many others of her generation, quite a materialistic child, and she's heading towards teenagerdom, when they are no longer so amused by simple free pleasures such as kicking through the autumn leaves in wellies, bike riding or playing board games. I worry that she'll blame me for a drop in our living standards, and resent it. While DP has quite rightly pointed out that I would be setting her a very good example by sacrificing some material pleasures for a while in order to study for my MA, which will provide me with the means to hopefully earn a better salary in future, doing something I enjoy, I doubt she will see that when she isn't able to buy the new Miley Cyrus album.

But none of this means I can't do it. Nowhere in the Manual of Stepmotherhood does it say "thou shalt sacrifice all thine ambitions at the altar of his children". It would be a sure-fire recipe for resentment if I was to carry on trying to plod on at this job for the sake of SD being able to buy a few more DS games. And at the back of my mind, there is also the situation of us having our own family gnawing away at me - I might never have children, that is something I may have to ultimately accept, but could I live with that AND knowing that I'd never fulfilled my career ambitions and found something that I loved to do with purpose and happiness? As stepmothers, we already sacrifice quite a lot in our lives. Our weekends. A carefree courtship with our loved ones. Money. Holidays. Being the first wife, having a first child with our partners, in some cases having children at all. And in some cases, our sanity! Bearing all this in mind, why is it we have such an issue when we need to ask for something for us?

But - something that actually has a massive bearing on how happy we are as stepmothers is how happy we are with ourselves. My other "Eureka" moment in China came when I realised that I'd actually be a better stepmother, role model, support, to SD if I was happier with myself, and followed the path I was meant to, rather than the path I thought others wanted me to follow. By plumping for the safe career with the reliable salary and job opportunities, I thought I'd be happy, but all I have is more stuff - and still no money at the end of the month. More than anything, I want to be able to teach my SD to listen to her heart, and I can't teach her that if I don't live that example myself.

From Wall Walking to Walking Wounded

2009-10-11T10:59:00.001-07:00

Boy, oh boy do I feel silly.

Here I am going on about how I walked 65 miles of Great Wall, up and down massive steps, near vertical descents and tough inclines....I came back from holiday and played my first game of football last Sunday. Had a bit of a collision with another player. Nothing malicious, just both trying (and failing) to get the same ball, as one does in footy. I went over. Nothing too bad, I thought, and got up and carried on. As the game went on, I noticed my left knee getting sore, and progressively weaker. We had no subs, so coming off the field wasn't really an option, so I struggled through the rest of the second half, not really being any use to anybody but hey, I was on the field at least. Post-game, things really started to seize up, and by the evening it was difficult to put much weight on the knee without, well, agony. I rested it, did the old ice pack bit and a hot bath, hoping things would feel better the next day. Suffice to say, they didn't, and my knee gave out at work, prompting my boss to have to drive me to A&E. Rather embarrassing, having to lean on my boss's shoulder just to walk a few feet from the car to the check-in.

A week later and it's still not exactly clear what I've done to it. Two doctors, two different opinions - one said I'd torn "something" but didn't really have the inclination to find out what and sent me away with painkillers and told me to see my GP. Which I did, the next day, though he was not my normal GP, and after I came in to his surgery on crutches and unable to put any weight on the knee whatsoever, he did a bit of poking and prodding before deciding nothing was wrong except bruising! OK, so a bit of bruising usually renders you unable to walk 48 hours later does it? Hmmmm. He then advised me to take some anti inflammatories which I later found out were incompatible with some medication I already take - as he hadn't bothered to look what I was on. Yes, I'd like some life-threatening haemorrhage along with my busted knee please.

Now I'm all for the NHS. Yes, it's a good thing, universal free health care. A very good thing, and having lived in countries where they don't have it, I think it is better to have it than not to. I don't want to have to worry whether I'm skint or not before seeking medical attention, so I appreciate the fact that it doesn't cost me to see the doctor. However, on this occasion I have had to pay to see a physiotherapist to get any idea of what's wrong with my knee. I might add that I had to pay a physiotherapist to inflict a LOT OF PAIN on me to get any idea of what's wrong with my knee, and said physio is having to write a letter to the GP's surgery saying, actually, yes this person has more than just a bit of bruising and needs to be referred. Well, I knew that, and I could have told Dr Oxford-Medical-Degree-on-the-surgery-wall that there was more than just bruising there for God's sake, I'm no hypochondriac and I am certainly not a frequent botherer of the already overstretched doctors down there, but it's MY KNEE, dammit, and I know when my own knee is a bit more than just bruised. 5 years of football and martial arts tells me I know the difference between just bruising and something not being right.

So the long and short of it is, that after all my Great Wall walking, I am now not walking anywhere. Crutches are my new best friend, as is ibuprofen gel and Sex and the City re-runs. Bless my darling DP, even with all the commuting he is doing, he is emailing me every day from work asking what I want for tea, going and getting the things I like and cooking them for me, doing such a good job of it in fact I might just hand the cooking over to him full stop, his spag bol was that good I could eat it every night - never thought of putting bacon in the sauce, but it really worked, and he remembered the splash of red wine, and the bottle to go with it of course!

All this sitting around has also made me get a slight obsession with this year's X Factor. I'm not one for reality TV normally, and I know, I know everyone says that to justify their guilty pleasures, but my previous reality-show-watching efforts have often ended in objects being hurled across the living room. Seriously, for me it is a dangerous activity. I did start to watch X Factor a bit last year, I told myself mainly for the car-crash auditions, some of which were absolutely hilarious, despite the residual sense of guilt I felt for having a laugh at the expense of the hapless sods providing the entertainment. At least they got their 2 minutes of fame, albeit cut short by the shrilling of Simon Cowell's buzzer and being remembered more for their train wreck than their first steps on to the gravy train. They're braver than me anyway, it takes me several tequila shots to even pick a song in a karaoke bar, let alone get up and sing one, and I'd be more likely to throw a shoe at Simon Cowell than sing to him. In fact, maybe there's an act for Britain's Got Talent in the making....stiletto throwing. The only problem is that there are so many drunk girls in Leeds on a Friday night who can do it that much better than me, they might be loaded on cheap wine and sambuca shots but trust me, they can still hit a cheating boyfriend at fifty paces with a pair of Nine West's finest six-inch kitten heels. In fact, one of my football team-mates had an altercation with a stiletto-wielder recently while on a night out, having been accused of flirting with the girl's boyfriend. She had quite a shiner, I must say. "The cheap ones hurt more" she asserted, adding that these were definitely not Manolos, because some of the cheap paint on the shoes came off on her forehead. Being stilettoed on a night out is definitely the new throwing up, and the plus side is at least if your shoes are embedded in someone else's head, you can't be sick on them.

China Part 3

2009-10-08T02:40:00.000-07:00

On our third day of trekking, we got up to a beautiful sunny morning. Sadly breakfast was more concrete toast and floppy fried eggs, with some kind of spam-like substance, so I made a note to pack an extra Mule Bar for the day. As usual, The Terminator was ready with the warm-ups and stretches, cue much groaning.

Today we would get to meet the local "Wall Catchers". These are locals who live in the villages near the Wall, usually from farming families, who supplement their income by helping tourists and trekkers on the Wall, to carry their bags. A couple of our number decided to take advantage and let one of the wall catchers take their pack for the day, leaving them free to enjoy the scenery and take pictures. They were quite amazing, like mountain goats they scrambled up the steep paths where some of us stumbled and slipped. The joys of knowing the terrain like the back of your hand. They were very sweet, but a little irritating after a while having a shadow constantly grabbing at your backpack and saying "me carry, me carry". But 100 yuan for a day's bag carrying to them was a lot of money. Farmers in China earn very little, and as a result many of the younger generation have deserted the countryside for the cities, overpopulating the main cities and leaving a shortage of people to farm the land and provide the nation's food. The Chinese government has attempted to combat this trend by allowing farming families to have two children instead of the regulation one, and also making farmers largely tax-exempt. This has also gone some way towards combatting the awful trend in some more traditional rural communities of abandoning baby girls, because they want sons, but of course with the One Child Policy they only get one shot. When James the Chinese trek leader was explaining all this to us, he chose the unfortunate phrase "The Chinese, they love their little boys" prompting sniggers from the more sewer-minded in the group!

The Wall Catchers, once those not saddled with a backpack had realised they weren't needed for the day, eventually melted away, and we were left walking the Wild Wall, which is mostly ruins. In some places, the path was only a metre wide, with no sides to the wall this time, which again caused some problems for the vertigo afflicted. The grit and determination of some of those people to overcome their fears and get through that trek was truly awe-inspiring, and it was a privilege to be trekking with them and offering them support or a friendly hand or word when needed, or even at times a verbal kick up the backside!

The scenery began to be stunning, we had perfect clear weather and we were getting a sense of the sheer scale of the Great Wall, the way it snaked across the mountain tops, what a sheer feat of construction it was, and just how many lives paid for its construction.

The Wall Catchers returned at the end of the trek, with bags full of souvenirs. It was bargaining time, as we haggled for postcards and mementoes of our day. We bought a book on the history of the wall, feeling that we should at least buy something seeing as they had walked all that way with their bags of wares. However, once we had done our buying, we got a little fed up with being followed, and to try and get rid of one of the hawkers, DP said to him that we didn't want any postcards but if he could find us some beer, we'd pay him 20 yuan a pop! He sprinted off like a cheetah and in no time at all, he was back with an armful of beer cans. We gave him our 20 yuan notes gladly for the cold beer after a hard day's trekking, happily glugging it down as we walked the final half mile to the hotel in the village of Jinshanling. DP said "Now we'll call you Beer Man!" to the hawker who'd got us the beer, and he grinned with a wide smile, pointed to himself and said "Me, Beer Man!" and skipped off to tell all his friends his new nickname, all the way down pointing to us, chattering in Chinese punctuated by shouts of "Beer Man!"

That night we were all in an upbeat happy mood. So many fears had been quashed, such achievements had been made walking that wall, so we gathered in the hotel courtyards for TsingTao and chat. We had a demonstration of the local traditional paper cutting, which is just incredible, and the shop opened late for us. I bought a traditional Year of the Tiger cutting for SD, as it's her 11th birthday in a couple of weeks, and her Chinese astrological sign is the Tiger. I also found a beautiful little cutting for my Nana, who is in her late 70s, with the Chinese character for longevity in the middle. My eye was drawn to it before the owner told me what it meant, and he smiled and told me it was perfect for a grandparent, because the elderly are revered in traditional Chinese culture, longevity is prized.

Now this was also the night of the Termination of the Terminator.

DP and some of the other lads had decided to get together and buy the Terminator's drinks for the night, and at some point while merry after a few beers, Terminator decided to challenge DP to out-drink him. Needless to say, he wasn't successful - the fitter they are, the harder they fall, and while DP's physique is much more suited to beer drinking than the gym, the Terminator is the opposite. DP earned himself the nickname "John Connor" that night, for being the only man able to defeat the Terminator. Needless to say, he wasn't up to leading any energetic warm-ups the next morning!

China Part 2

2009-10-06T02:24:00.000-07:00

Our second day of trekking took us to the beautiful Black Dragon Paw National Park in Beijing Province. The Terminator started the day with one of his usual "light" warm up sessions, leaving us breathless and wondering if trekking could, really, be any worse than our morning gym sessions! Eager to get trekking, we started out past a few smallholdings where local subsistence farmers peered around the corn at the strange group of foreigners stomping past with their big boots and poles. Used to walking the terrain every day, the local Chinese were sometimes seen ambling up the hills that we found so difficult just in flimsy canvas shoes.

The sun came out for us on Day 2, illuminating the surrounding mountains just before we disappeared into the undergrowth. Several cries of "ooh, I feel like Indiana Jones" were heard as we battled through the overgrown path. Some parts were very steep and slippy, nothing to grip to but loose earth, needing our hands as well to scramble up. DP and the other guys were chivalrous in helping the ladies down the steep descents, and we reached our first stop quicker than expected at the mouth of the gorge that we would be descending the side of next. At the bottom of the descent we found what seemed like a popular destination for local families. There was a pool at the mouth of the cave with old truck tyres that had been turned into boats floating there for kids, and an ice cream stand. Chinese characters had been carved into the rock all along the side of the stream.

Finally, we had some reasonably flat walking along the side of the stream to our lunch stop for the day. There was a hairy moment for some when we had to come down a long metal ladder into a cave, and there were a few who had to put many fears aside to do it with the help of their comrades. The lunch stop was welcome relief - a mobile noodle kitchen this time, noodles and veg with a Chinese version of KFC. I don't think I have ever eaten so quickly in my life, as soon as I saw that food I realised just how hungry I was.

The afternoon was the piece de resistance . We had to climb up to a watchtower that used to be part of the Wall. We had noticed it on the way in, but not thought for a minute that we'd actually have to climb it! It was steep, tough and slippy in places, and considerate DP stayed with the back of the group to help a few of the less sure-footed up the steep bits bless him. The view was worth it, we could see for miles across the Hidden Dragon Valley and Crouching Tiger mountains, OK, so a lot of the scenery was sweetcorn fields, but they were Chinese sweetcorn fields, OK?

Strangely enough, the toughest part of the day was walking back down the road. The hot tarmac was unyielding on our already well worn feet, and the hot sun was unrelenting as there was no shade, unlike when we had been scrambling through the shade of the undergrowth or had the cool of the water nearby. It was also a very bad time for Beijing Belly to strike, and there being a choice between some dubious toilets at the end of the trek and some bushes, I opted for the bush. Having snuck off quietly, I managed to escape the humiliation of one of my trek buddies who "mistook" the shed for the toilets, and earned herself the nickname "Shitty Shed" for the rest of the trip. Thankfully she's a good humoured Geordie lass so took it all in her stride - and she might have been pointed in the, ahem, wrong direction, by one of her so-called trek buddies!

That night, we spent at the Longevity Travelling Palace just over the border in Hubei Province, which used to be a place of rest for the emperor and his entourage once. It was traditional, with proper kang beds, which looked very lovely but were, being made of concrete, not that comfortable. They told us in the olden days they used to have a fire burning underneath the kang to keep the bed's inhabitants warm, but as far as I could tell the only benefit to that would have been that while your bum might have been numb, at least it was warm. And the shower in this place at least worked. There was a 60th birthday that night in our group, another tooth-rottingly sweet Chinese cake, and of course, plenty more of that fabulous local beer.

China Part 1

2009-09-30T11:55:00.000-07:00

It's difficult to know where to start describing what this trip was like, so I guess there's nowhere to start but the beginning!

DP and I have been fundraising since the start of the year to do this trek on behalf of Scope, a leading UK charity who campaign for the rights of those with disabilities to lead a full and inclusive life in society, and help those with disabilities to do just that through schools, support for families and independent living support for adults. On the 17th September, we got up for an early start, after a few days of frantically running around for our last bits and pieces (lots and lots of handy packs of tissues and alcohol hand gel), and made our way to Leeds and Bradford Airport for our flight to Gatwick to meet our trek buddies.

As it happened, we met three trek buddies early - a girl with stunning red hair caught my eye, and I wondered aloud how on earth she managed to get her hair that colour. I also noticed that she was wearing hiking boots - as were her two companions. They turned out to be the first of many great people we were to meet on the trip, and we all headed towards the Emirates check in desk at Gatwick together, where we all met our rather subdued fellow trekkers - all of course on best behaviour, since we were all strangers and no beer was flowing!

A couple of hours killing time at Gatwick and we were ready for our flight to Dubai. The food on the plane was surprisingly not inedible, though there was the inevitable bread roll that you could bounce off the walls. We arrived in Dubai at silly o'clock, all with red eyes, but after a bit of idle duty free browsing some of us gathered at the coffee stand for a chinwag, so the ice was broken. I can't say the flight to Beijing was as pleasant - DP is 6'4", and while the London crew had given him a seat on the emergency exit, the Dubai crew could not, because the plane was full, so poor DP had to cram into the sardine seats with his knees pushed against the seat in front for 8 hours.

We arrived in Beijing mostly tired and red eyed, and fairly aghast at the sheer scale just of the airport - you have to get on a train to get from the terminal where you arrive to the baggage collection point! We were scrutinised by the impassive masked officials for signs of the dreaded swine flu, our passports peered and frowned at, before being impatiently waved through to start our incredible Chinese journey.

Meeting us at the airport was Fiona, our trek leader, and the Chinese crew - James/Yao Di, Grace, and Jenny, and not forgetting the bus driver Mr Han. James tried to cram some Beijing facts into our tired heads, but we were all too busy fighting sleep enough to take in some of the sights of the new city. Bikes everywhere, people pedalling rusty trailer bikes perilously balancing all sorts on the back, little kids sitting calmly on the handlebars of a parent's bike while the traffic whizzed past. The contrast of ancient Chinese pagoda-style buildings with utilitarian Communist austerity was everywhere, and the modern opulence of the Olympic village and surroundings seemed to spring from nowhere.

Our first hotel was located just near a large reservoir that seemed worryingly low. James told us that they used to have a problem with it bursting its banks, so they let some of the water out, but the water never came back to fill it, and so all the riverbanks are now being used by local farmers for growing corn, which seemed to be the favoured local crop. We headed in to check out our rooms, and get a much needed shower, ours was disappointingly just a dribble and impossible to get the temperature between freezing and scalding, which was not good as there is not much worse than long haul flying for making you feel completely, well, disgusting. But we managed to get clean, or, well, clean-er and made our way to the courtyard for the first of many local beers with our new "brothers and sisters" for the week. James called us all "brothers and sisters" as because of the Chinese one-child policy, he never had any siblings growing up. Bless!

The Tsing Tao local brew loosened tongues somewhat, and while DP headed to the table with the lads to do some boy-bonding, I went to a table with some of the girls where I quickly found several like minded lovers of innuendo and dirty jokes and soon we were competing with the locals for loud laughter. We had our trek briefing for the day ahead, and met our trek doctor Nina who extolled the many virtues of alcohol hand gel and blister plasters.

The night was tough - while we went to sleep straight away, the cicadas started up their chorus in the wee hours and I could not get back to sleep. I dreaded the first day's trekking on only a few hours on top of all the flying, but there were many of us in the same bleary-eyed boat, faces white against our red Scope T-shirts as we trudged through for breakfast. Breakfast was odd, to say the least - the Chinese seem to make their bread very sweet, which was a little strange with the fried eggs and sausage. Having travelled in Asia a fair bit before, it all had the familiar smell and taste of the Asian versions of Western food, which looks like Western food and yet has that distinctively Asian flavour. I made a mental note to seek out the Chinese breakfast when I could do. At least the fresh watermelon was lovely.

Our first day's trekking took us to Mutianyu, where James informed us that this was our "warm up day". One of our members, personal trainer Lloyd, took us through a warm up, of some stretches and general doing of silly bouncy things, much to the amusement of some locals. He earned himself the nickname "Terminator" for his so called "light warm ups" but more later about how he was eventually terminated....

"Warm up Day" once we got to the wall, consisted of steps, steps, and more steps. We climbed 16 watchtowers, and at the end tackled the "Oh My God" steps - 450 damn near vertical steps climbing up to the final tower, but it was so misty that day we couldn't see a thing! The vertigo sufferers had their first challenge of the day coming down those, and we were all glad to stop for lunch, though I have to say another thing that the Chinese cannot do is sandwiches. For the love of God, stick to the rice and noodles! We can deal with not eating bread for a week, I think they have this idea that it's all we eat here!

The descent from the wall on Day One was a luge, in other words a big metal slide running down the mountain, where you sat in little dodgem kart type things with a stick in between your legs (oo-er missus) that either made it go or stop. The boys were discouraged from playing bumper cars by Fiona, whose inner teacher came out complete with wagging finger, but of course, like boys, they didn't listen. The Chinese also don't really do health and safety, and I did have a "whaaaaaat" moment when I got on to this little plastic thing and held on to my stick and realised that there wasn't really much keeping me on this thing.....but hey, I'd paid my 40 yuan and didn't know the Chinese for refund, so off we go....a few "oh shits" later and I was thoroughly enjoying it, and would gladly have walked the wall again just for another luge ride!

Our first taste of haggling came at the market at the bottom, where DP secured himself a "I Climbed the Great Wall" T-shirt for 20 yuan for himself and one of the other guys, and was pretty chuffed with his bargaining skills until one of the others announced he got one for 10 yuan (about £1). It was here that we also got our first taste of Chinese public toilets, and the Art of Squatting and Aiming. A few of the girls had bought "she-wees" which are meant to allow women to pee standing up, but most chickened out of using them, and I don't blame them because one of the reasons I didn't get one was Overflow Fear - peeing into a plastic funnel just doesn't seem right, and what if you pee quicker than the thing can empty? Mess! I think we just need to accept that we are not men, and we don't have the appendages to pee standing up. End of.

Day One of trekking also happened to be DP's birthday. I had been organised and brought his card out with me, and in the evening, our Chinese crew had organised a birthday cake for him and got all the trekkers to sign a picture of where we had trekked as a birthday card. Of course, he was bought more than a few birthday beers, but what better way to spend your birthday than trekking one of the most amazing sights the world has to offer, among people who were rapidly becoming good friends.

That night, we slept peacefully, having been donated some earplugs by some of our charitable co-trekkers. Trekkers 1, Cicadas 0.

Belated Bloggy Award Acceptance

2009-09-29T06:17:00.000-07:00

It's official! My Blog is Swank!

Thank you to the amazing dragonflymama for bestowing this upon my humble blog! You're not so bad yourself, dontcha know! I do apologise for my lateness in accepting and passing on this award, you thought I'd forgotten now didn't you!

So....in time honoured blogging tradition, time for me to pass this award on to three other blogs that I think are particularly noteworthy, and of course, fabulously Swank!

First award goes to that very swanky feline.....The Smirking Cat!
I love her mix of heartfelt honesty and kitty anecdotes, and her sense of humour so sharp that she could be an honorary Brit!

Second award goes to the lovely and swanky Eyes Wide Open.
Apart from the fact that I love the art on this blog, I love how laid bare and honest she is, with of course more than a sprinkling of wry humour.

And last but not least, my third award goes to the uber-swanky Tool Box Girl
Peggy is an inspiration to me on my quest for stepmotherly wisdom, she has an unfailingly positive attitude and an arsenal of fabulous tools (hence her Tool Box moniker) to help us on the way. Reading her blog is like my daily dose of therapy!

There are countless blogs that I love, and I wish I could give an award to you all, but I'm on here in my lunch break so unfortunately I can't keep going, or my boss might start to get suspicious and ask me what exactly reading blogs have to do with IT Support...well, maintaining my sanity of course!

I have begun to piece together my musings from China and will be putting China Part 1 up very soon...

Love you all - Mwah!

Long Time, No Blog

2009-09-28T00:26:00.000-07:00

Yes, fellow bloggers, I know it's been a while. I couldn't believe it myself when I saw my last post was on 31st August! Whaaat....

But shortly after that, things went spectacularly downhill. I was rejected for promotion at work, things with SD and the BM continued being difficult, and things at work got more manic, and seemingly nastier, although I'm sure that was partly my perception of it, because I was so devastated at the prospect of remaining in the job indefinitely with no prospect of any change. It became an odd but lethal cocktail of boredom mixed with intense pressure, and it eventually resulted in a massive 3am meltdown, DP pretty much marching me to the doctor and the doctor signing me off with stress until I was due to go on the China trip, from which I have now just returned.

The 8 days I was off work, plus the trip to China gave me a lot of chance for contemplation about where I am, what I'm doing and why. Suffice to say, I don't really know what I'm doing in that job, other than earning money and paying bills, going through the motions and taking shit from people who think their computer problems amount to the dawn of Armageddon. Surely, no job and no amount of money is worth crying for 3 hours in the middle of the night because you can't switch your head off enough to sleep for dreading the day ahead? I also read Oliver James's Affluenza, which was enough to remind me that no, it is not worth it, and that life is not meant to be like this. The more you earn, the more you want. The more you get trapped into thinking that if only you could afford this car or this TV, you'd be happy. But you get them, and a short time later there's a new model and yours is no longer the best....so you want the next one.

Don't be alarmed, fellow bloggers, I'm not about to pack it all up and go live in a caravan, turn Freegan and go dumpster diving. But it is time to make some changes in Wicked Steppie world, and I look forward to sharing those with you all over the next few days as I try and write about my incredible experience trekking the Great Wall of China with some of the most fantastic people I could ever wish to meet (including of course my own beautiful DP) and some of the things that I've learned about myself and about life over the past few weeks. I'm not sure I've processed it all quite enough to write about it just yet.

I have to warn you though, this is not going to contain any major revelations about how to deal with stepmotherhood. The Great Wall held no mystical secret answers on that front, and when we got back yesterday, and DP phoned SD, I still felt the familiar bubble of annoyance when the first thing she asked was "did you get me a present?" and "what are we doing at the weekend?" expressing disappointment when DP told her that we had only just got back and nothing was planned as yet. But, SD is a product of a typical Western upbringing where being materially spoilt is the norm, and I can't really blame her for that, though I do feel sad that sometimes, she looks at us with pound signs and not love in those wide blue eyes. Would she want to come to us if we couldn't afford the horse riding lessons, the new bike for Christmas, the trip to the cinema? I am not so sure that she would, and I don't think DP is either, which is why until now he has ensured that SD remains pretty indulged, and it's sad that the poor kid can't separate the spending of money and love. For her, the two are inextricably intertwined.

Dig Deep for Victory

2009-08-31T10:52:00.000-07:00

DP and I have spent most of the bank holiday weekend trying to sort out this allotment plot that we took on. As I mentioned in another post, we took this plot on last year, but didn't quite know the amount of work that we were letting ourselves in for. The soil is stony, weeds flourish in no time, and I don't know what was there before but we are digging all sorts of stuff out of there including bits of an old toilet. Go figure.

We started off enthusiastic, as most do. But it tailed off, and as the weeds grew, our enthusiasm waned. We spent less time up there, and did less when we did go up. The whole task just started to seem too daunting. No matter what we did, the weeds came back in a matter of days. It's a wonder we got anything out of there really, but we did, when we pulled back the weeds, see that the onions and squash plants had actually done really well.

This weekend, we hired a mechanical digger to dig the plot over again, we've dug in some horse manure and the plan is to cover it over so that the weeds don't come through and we can, bit by bit, uncover and dig beds and paths and so on after the winter. We've strimmed back the overgrowing grass and weeds, DP and my
Dad have mainly done the digging, me, my Dad and SD have harvested the remaining potatoes and SD and I have picked stones out of the newly dug soil and raked the manure over it. Just a quick note on the manure - when we took SD for her horse riding lesson on Saturday, DP and I stood on a mighty mound of horseshit and shovelled no less than 20 bags of steaming poo. Yummy....

DP is now in the bath soaking his aches and pains after the weekend's work. SD has gone home to BM and the Hatchet Face, they insisted on having her home at 9am this morning, on a bank holiday no less. Not one extra minute is allowed any more. Oh, and by the way, we put the clothes BM wanted back in one of those Bags for Life, not a binbag! And I'm contemplating the allotment, and the fact that this year we are going to actually have to put more than a halfhearted effort in. We have been spinning too many plates this year to actually be able to concentrate on any one thing properly. I think it's time to get back to basics and figure out what it is that we want to focus on. DP and I both enjoy working outdoors, and we like the idea of growing our own, and being that little bit more self sufficient. But it takes work, and commitment, and it means that you have to be disciplined and devote time to it, or, like this year, it quickly gets overgrown and you can't see your veg for the weeds.

Things between DP and I are a little strained at the moment for various reasons and with all the dramas relating to SD/BM, I think the veg of our relationship might be buried under weeds at the moment. Pleasing each other and seeking out each other's company has certainly taken a back seat of late, that's for sure. And like visiting the allotment when you know it's going to be covered in nettles, reconnecting with one another when it's been tough isn't always the easiest thing to do, so sometimes it feels easier to stay away and stay busy doing other things. But that only makes the carpet of weeds grow thicker, and it's harder to see where the good stuff is, or was, or maybe you're even afraid to peel back the thicket of weeds in case the good stuff has all withered and died underneath. The bio-mama-drama certainly does choke the life out of everything around it sometimes, that's for sure.

I just hope that we can do a little work to find each other again, with our trip to China coming up soon, and that it won't take the same amount of effort to get back on track that it did to get that allotment back to a usable state. Like everything else, relationships need nurture, care, and effort, and it's not enough simply to abide in the same house side by side when both of you have your mind on other things. We've got to find a way back to each other somehow, and stop this ongoing crap with BM having the ability to drive us apart and make us forget why we are both here. An embargo on discussing her would be a start I think - she's had far more airtime over the last few weeks than either of us would like. Instead, I think we need to talk more about anything that ISN'T anything to do with her, actually. I have a feeling that our best inoculation against her is to concentrate on anything but - in other words, our future and the things that we want to achieve as a couple, as just us for once.

The Binbag Kid

2009-08-28T16:03:00.000-07:00

SD turned up this weekend with 2 binbags full of clothes that have gone from ours to BM's over the last few months. BM's latest edict is that SD is to come back in exactly the clothes she came to us in from BM, and that none of her clothes are to stay at ours, and none of our clothes are to go to hers, apart from school uniform.

Well, I guess this means that less of SD's half decent stuff will get chewed up by BM's feral dogs, and we have an excuse to offload all the horrid chavvy "Golddigga" stuff back to BM.

I just felt so sorry for her when I saw her dragging the binbag of clothing in from the car. She looked so unhappy - all her stuff in there, basically any reminder that SD has a life with us has been ejected from BM's house, and the two lives forced to be completely separate. And of course, the whole life-in-a-binbag is a big sign from the BM that she thinks that her daughter's life here is trash that she wishes she could just throw away for good.

She mentions her mother cautiously now, looking for any sign from us that we are going to reciprocate the trench warfare that BM is now engaged in. But we will not. We sympathised when SD told us BM's beloved car had been stolen (although secretly thinking, boy, aint Karma a bitch) and that as a result, she hadn't been able to get to her allotment to care for her chickens and had had to give them away. We let her talk about what she's been doing all week. What kind of life would it be for her if she wasn't allowed to do this and she was constantly having to watch herself in case some reference to Mum slipped out? We could not do this to her. Much as I have a thorough distaste for the woman, BM is still SD's mother, and she won't get another one of those. I just hope that we will do enough to show her that just because one side decides to play dirty, doesn't mean that the other immediately has to follow suit.

BM and the Hatchet Face are now on permanent alert for any minor transgressions from us, and they are upping the ante with all these rules so much now that they are making it more and more likely that something will go wrong - will SD come home in a pair of socks that aren't from BM's? She won't have put the wrong pair of socks on by mistake of course, this will be us trying to get one over on them, us DELIBERATELY waging sock-war, we will of course have thrown her rightful pair of socks away, or something of the kind, and sent her back in these just to spite them. Sure, because we don't have full time jobs to worry about or anything, we just spend all our time thinking up elaborate plans to one-up the BM....

See this is the trouble. Because they care so much about this stuff, they automatically think that we do, and that we will be keen to engage in this charade of subterfuge and skirmish. They could not actually conceive that all we wish for is for SD to be able to move freely between the two homes, love both parents and both sets of step-parents, without remorse or guilt, and for everyone to, if not get on with one another, at least be able to show some degree of civility. If we ever express these sentiments, it is not seen as being genuine, but some kind of game-plan or strategy. But this is a CHILD'S LIFE that is being played with as though it is some kind of war-game! SD is not a pawn, she is not a trump card, she is not the spoils of battle - she is a human being. Why is it that the one person who professes to love her more, and better than everyone else in her life, is the one person who cannot see how much she is hurting, and thinks it's OK to stand her child on the street in the rain surrounded by binbags to wait for her father to pick her up.

My Car Smells Like Feet (and other tales of procrastination)

2009-08-27T13:46:00.000-07:00

It is undoubtedly true that I am a master of the art of procrastination when it comes to certain things of the life-administration variety.

Filing my paperwork is one of them. I hate doing it, and so it piles up and up on all available surfaces, and I kid myself that piling it up is a form of ordering it, so it kinda counts. I have a mammoth pile of it to do this weekend, and I really have to not put it off any longer.

DP and I also play the game of "Bathroom Cleaning Chicken". Anyone who has ever shared a house with a bloke knows that we never win. DP would say that I have the annoying bathroom habits, like leaving my make-up on the side of the sink in the morning, and forgetting, when I have used up the loo roll, to replace it. But we know that man-bathroom-habits top ours in the gross stakes. DP is nearly 34 years old, and he still can't aim that thing right. And don't get me started on the not cleaning the sink post-shaving.

Other favourite targets for procrastination in our house are, predictably, the ironing pile, descaling the kettle, and defrosting the fridge. It's meant to stay cold, isn't it? Surely turning it off is anathema to it's natural function?? And let's not mention the subject of the allotment plot we rented, started out enthusiastically earlier in the year, and then let it get overrun with weeds....it's amazing that we have had anything from it really, but at least we've managed to grow a few potatoes among the nettles.

This weekend is a bank holiday weekend and largely needs to be spent confronting our procrastinations head on, and actually doing some of these less palatable tasks that we have put off the last few weeks in favour of doing more fun stuff. The allotment needs digging over ready for the winter, we need to go up to the riding stables and bag up a load of horse manure ready for digging into the soil so we might have something plantable next year. Not sure I'll get round to descaling the kettle, but the game of Bathroom Chicken does need to be decided at some point this weekend too. Maybe we could do "Paper, Rock, Scissors".

By far the thing I am looking forward to the least, however, is addressing the state of my car. I realised today when I got in it at the end of the day that it does actually smell like stinky feet, which is distinctly unappealing. And then there's the collection of parking meter tickets fading and curling on the dashboard, the boot that's covered in streaks of mud and chain oil from when I've thrown my bike in there. My windscreen is covered in a layer of grease on the INSIDE, now that's disturbing! So this weekend, I need to wash and clean my car.

I don't know quite why I am so averse to doing it, or why the task of cleaning my car makes me cross. I guess I just see it as a chronic waste of time, and that I could be doing much better things - I've always figured, if my car works mechanically, then it doesn't matter if I haven't cleaned it for months, right? It still does what it says on the tin, and the birds have to have somewhere to shit. But, when even YOU don't like getting in your own car, it's time to bite the bullet and get out the Auto-Glym.

I think it's because the idea of actually planning to use my precious leisure time to clean my car, instead of going out until 3am and sleeping til 3pm and having a vodka for breakfast, makes me realise the uncomfortable fact that I am officially No Longer Young. All those people I used to laugh at as I staggered home from the pub at 8am on a Sunday morning as they carried buckets of soapy water out into their driveways - oh my God, I am now you. On Sunday morning, or whenever I get up and schlep out to do the deed, I will stand there with my buckets and probably watch some panda-eyed students wobble home while shaking my un-hungover head and tutting. I.Am.So.Freaking.Old.

Ah well...maybe SD will be up for making some pocket money on Sunday and I won't have to clean the car after all. Stepkids have to be useful for something, and she will probably be more preoccupied with the smell of money than the smell of feet.

When you get it wrong

2009-08-22T05:30:00.000-07:00

Firstly, I'm going to apologise for my posts having been on such a downer lately.

Unfortunately, it's not been happy times this week, either in the steposphere or otherwise. After some umming and ahhing, SD did come over this weekend and we got to find out some (I fear only a fraction) of what's been going on the past 2 weeks.

Turns out that Hatchet Face Granny's blowout was partly because the Social Services have been round to BM's. Apparently there have been no less than 12 complaints made about her. We, of course, have got the blame. OH HAS gone to them with concerns in the past, but not recently. Of course, the finger was easily pointed at us, because of what SD went back and said to Hatchet Face about us saying she isn't keeping clean at BM's. I suppose given that we have expressed those concerns about the, ahem, quality of BM's parenting, it might be a reasonable assumption that it was us, but it wasn't. No use telling them that though, would be an utter waste of time, they wouldn't believe us, and anyway, the fact is DP's quite pleased that the authorities are taking an interest, and he plans to ring them on Monday and get the details of what's going on. If it concerns his child, he's got a right to know. We know SD has been interviewed, but we did not wish to press her for any details, as it seems the last two weeks have been very distressing for her. BM has been on angry rants about us several times a day, putting a LOT of emotional pressure on the poor kid, and we are mud with Hatchet Face too. SD is banned from even mentioning our names with them. We told her that nothing's changed with us, that she can talk about BM or Granny if she wants to, that she can talk to us about anything she wants, we won't get angry with her or shout at her to shut up (OK, I really HATE hearing about BM this and BM that, but I am not going to tell a ten year old she cannot mention her own mother).

There's a bit though that I have to confess to here. I messed up with something, and that, while not the main cause of the troubles, has certainly added fuel to the fire and upset SD. It seems she overheard part of a conversation that I had with my friend one of the days she was with us, and I didn't know she had been there listening. DP and SD had just had an argument, in front of my friend, about her having a bath when she got home. SD was telling DP she didn't want or need a bath and why does she have to, Mum doesn't make her. My friend and I walked off to go to the loo, and my friend asked me what all that was about while we were in there. I gave her the Cliff Notes version - that BM thinks it's OK for her not to wash for days on end and that she'd started to suffer from BO as a result so we were really trying to get it into her head that she needs to keep herself clean as she's approaching puberty. And - I may have slipped in a comment about thinking that BM is a sub-standard parent as well. Unbeknownst to me, SD came in the bathroom while we were in there and heard it. She was upset, and she told Hatchet Face when she got dropped home that I was calling her smelly to my friends and slagging her mother off to everyone.

DP talked to her about this and poor SD said that she'd been upset, and embarrassed that other people outside the family had been told about her not washing at BM's and she KNEW full well that telling Granny Hatchet Face would get me in trouble - which was what she wanted at the time. However, SD did not know that the social services had been in touch, and that it would escalate in the way it has done.

I feel just awful that I let my anger towards BM get the better of me and SD heard me speak this way about her. I wanted to apologise to her, but DP said she didn't want me to be told that she'd done this as she was afraid I'd be mad at her. But - I'm the adult here, and I'm the one who should have been more discreet, or at least more careful there were no little ears around. I feel that I've let SD down and that she's seen a nasty side of me that I really would have preferred she didn't see. DP has done some damage limitation on my behalf, saying that I wouldn't have said anything to be nasty, but that I love her very much and I would have said it because I was concerned for her, that we both are concerned, we want her to be happy, safe and healthy and we worry sometimes that her mum doesn't always do the things that as a parent, she should. DP told me that SD said "I wish that Mum was more like you and Wicked Steppie". Bless. He's tried to discuss with her as well that if we do ever say anything that she doesn't like, or doesn't understand why we said it, then she should ask us - we won't be cross, we'll explain things, and that adults get it wrong sometimes too so if we say things that upset her, she needs to say so. Boy, did I get it wrong on this occasion. I have to say, DP is not my number one fan right now, and I'm not really surprised.

But one thing you have to do when you get it wrong in life is LEARN from it. I realise that I allowed the red mist to descend, and that I let being angry at the BM for being such a slack-arsed parent get in the way of doing and saying what was best for SD. In doing so, I feel that perhaps I was no better than BM herself, but the difference between her and me is that I will learn and do things differently in future. It's sad that BM's had no wake up call from the visit from the Social Services, and that all she's done is use it as a reason to be more angry with us instead of look at herself and focusing on being a better mum. I wish she would do that instead of blaming everyone else for her problems, because in the long run, it won't help her and it won't help the child who is getting more and more stressed out with all this conflict.

The other thing that I have learned from this, is that the bonds between SD and I that have been built over the last couple of years, are actually stronger than I realised. I had a view of them as being tenuous, and easily broken by a few choice manipulative words from BM. I know she won't stop loving her Dad, but who is Wicked Steppie after all - just Dad's girlfriend, no relation, no long history with her - I figured I was easily dispensed with and no big loss to her. But this is the first time that we've actually hurt each other, and that those bonds have been under any kind of test, so to come out the other side and for her to sit happily with me this morning laughing and putting sparkly nail polish on, I've realised that the bonds are stronger than I ever knew, and that we've survived. She doesn't know that I know this, but DP told me that she'd said to him yesterday that she still loved me. Knowing that despite my faux pas, she was still able to say that meant the world. And I'm able to say that I still love her too, and that silently, we've forgiven one another.

I might have got it wrong this time, but it seems like I've got it right often enough for the scales to balance. Not such a wicked stepmother after all, perhaps....and I am still very useful for shopping!

Meltdown in spectacular style

2009-08-18T11:03:00.000-07:00

This morning, I woke up with a banging headache. When I stood up, I got a wave of nausea, nearly lost my balance, and then went off to the bathroom to talk to God down the big white phone. My old friend the migraine was back.

Pounding head, my eyes started to go funny....I had to text my boss and tell him I couldn't go to work. I have sumatriptan, from the doctor, but it takes a while to kick in and while it relieves the pain, it still leaves me tired, drained and sometimes dizzy.

It was then I just started to panic. My heart started to race and I felt my chest cavity closing in and the room starting to spin. It was as if everything just started to come crashing down. I am, at this moment in time, completely overwhelmed by everything that's going on. I feel like I have very little escape from sources of stress, and it all just piled on at the same time.

I was worried as well about work, because they aren't exactly sympathetic when you're ill or stressed or have difficulties in your life. They like to keep piling the work on, and just thinking that you will magic extra time in the day to get it all done. My manager is also fond of the really helpful phrase "Just get it sorted" when he comes to you at 15 mins before home time with an urgent job that you don't even know how to do. I don't feel that anyone really supports us, or cares that we are firefighting all the time. We are just expected to suck whatever it is up and get on with it. We've asked for an extra staff member, a junior or something to help field the calls, and take care of little things like when people forget their passwords to stuff, but this is apparently too much to ask, they are hiring right left and centre in other areas but we don't get any help. I've also got a, ahem, debate on my hands with the HR dept right now, which is always fun. I got called out on Sunday night just after I'd gone to sleep as well, and I slept like shit last week so I've been tired as hell.

If you mix a stressful and conflict-ridden job with a stressful step-situation at home, you kinda tend to feel like there's nowhere to run. The walls are, literally, closing in.

Ugh. I haven't got much positivity for the blogosphere today! But - when in the midst of another attack I decided to make bread, so that I'd at least have the kneading to do with my hands to calm me down. It did help, and I bet DP won't be unhappy to come home to a fresh loaf!

Why Dogs Are Great (and better than stepchildren)

2009-08-17T10:25:00.000-07:00

So life is sucking right about now in Wicked Steppie Land. There's a million and one things I could go into, trust me - it all seems to have hit the fan at once.

But I don't really want to turn this blog into a whinging platform. I deal with enough whingers at work. IT Support is not a job you should ever do if, like me, you have a low tolerance for whingers. You'd think the sky had fallen in when they call up to tell you that something is not working. And by the way, what exactly does whining "It's not working" tell me about the exact problem in hand? "Not working" can mean anything from the computer won't switch on to a bunch of psychotic monkeys just raided the office and trashed all the PC's. You ask them to tell you some simple details - such as "is there an error message?" and they sigh, and huff and puff and say "Can't someone just come over?" Well, sure. I don't have anything else to do, it's not like I'm sitting here with a massive list of IT problems just like yours to fix or anything, so why don't I just pause my game of Solitaire and wander on over to your desk just because you can't be arsed to take a screen shot and email it? And the great irony is, by the time they have finished righteously complaining about why they are Far Too Busy to provide you with this simple piece of information, you could actually have had it fixed if they had Just Co-operated. And then, by the end of the call, it's YOU that gets labelled "unhelpful"! Oh, and never tell a middle manager that their request to have their screen saver changed might just not be as important as the server crash that's just brought down critical systems and you might need to ask them to wait a few minutes while you try and make sure the company doesn't lose a couple of million quid. Yes, I'll put your lovely picture of flying ducks on your screen while I call in the tribe of psycho monkeys to come fix the servers, numbnuts. I hope the flying ducks shat on your head as you took that picture.

Oooooops, I said I wasn't going to turn this into a whingefest. FAIL.

So anyway....as I was saying, one thing I didn't want to do was write on here every day about life in the suckosphere. I actually don't really enjoy that, and it makes me feel bad that anyone who has made the effort to click the link and read the blog has to read a big outpouring of negativity. So today, I wanted to write about the one thing in the day that actually made me smile. That was, coming home from a stinking day at work and being greeted by my two happy slobbery waggy-tailed mutts. Hey, it was the first time someone today has been happy to see me!

Dogs are great. Until I moved in with DP, I had never owned a dog, but I became "stepmum" to his cross collie Poppy when I moved into his place. 8 months later, we adopted our beloved cross Rottweiler Bertie (formerly known as Beethoven, but who wants to shout that across the park) as company for Poppy, as she was suffering separation anxiety. Well, she got company alright - an annoying little brother (though MUCH bigger in size)! Bertie is a real mummy's boy, he no longer realises that he is not a little pup any more and still fond of trying to bounce on to mummy's lap - ouch!

So here are my top reasons why doggies rock, and why I'm afraid I have to say that I like being doggie-mama far better than step-mama!

1. Dogs will always be pleased to see you
2. You can tell a dog off and they won't sulk for the rest of the week or go to their other owner and try and get a different response.
3. Dogs don't talk back. Nor can they understand other dogs, or humans, telling them not to like somebody or not to do what they say.
4. Dogs know their place. And are much easier to train than children.
5. Dogs will defend you when someone tries to hurt you, not join in.
6. Dogs are pretty easily pleased with a bone and a pat on the head. They don't have any awareness of trends or how much anything costs. Did a dog ever care if the collar was Gucci?
7. Dogs mean you HAVE to go out and exercise every day, no excuses.
8. Dogs are good judges of character. My dogs growl when they see BM. 'Nuff said.

There are a few drawbacks however. Here are some of those.

1. Having to pick up dog poo in a placky bag which always seems to happen just as that cute guy you keep seeing in the park walks past. Ah well, he's probably a flasher anyway.
2. Clothes and house permanently covered in hair
3. Bathing dogs gets you wetter than them.
4. Dogs pee when they're scared. Be afraid for your carpets in a thunderstorm.
5. Difficult to go away spontaneously, hard to find places that will take dogs. This also applies to renting property if you have dogs for many of the above reasons, landlords are not too keen.
6. Ticks. UGH.
7. Dog farts absolutely stink and are bound to happen when you have dinner guests.

If you're a dog lover, feel free to add your own!

Suspending the self-obsession

2009-08-12T23:11:00.000-07:00

Inspired by the lovely Georgina at Dad's Second Whatever I have decided to take a break from blogging about Moi today in favour of the greater good!

The daily grind does reduce your enthusiasm for championing social issues, I find. Because sometimes, life does feel like one giant social issue. But it's worth remembering, sometimes, how comparatively lucky we are. And the following three organisations are being put up on my blog as a reminder of that.

Scope is a UK charity working with children and adults suffering from cerebral palsy. They are passionate campaigners for disability equality, through the "Time to Get Equal" campaign and help as many people as they can with the disease to live a full life, achieve independence and focus on their abilities not their disabilities, and they also support the families and carers of sufferers. DP and I are off to China in September in fact, to walk the Great Wall in aid of this charity and so far we have raised over £3000 this year. DP's mum is a sufferer, so this cause is close to his heart. I visited Scope HQ in London back in May and was completely blown away by the energy and enthusiasm of the team there. There was real commitment, real passion, these were not just people doing an everyday job to pay the piper.

Seedlings for Christ is the charity run, among others, by the fabulous Jojo at
Tapa Lapa of Life Sponsoring children in Gambia, the organisation aims to give the next generation hope for the future in making sure they can go to school and get an education. Now, I'm not religious in the slightest, but I think where those who are use it to put their beliefs in action and create a better world, it rocks supremely. Just a little look at the community that the charity helps in Gambia reminded me that so many people in this world do not have the things that we take for granted - plentiful food, access to education - and that we really are privileged here. It's a shame that we are so greedy in the Western world, because if we shared just a little more of what we have, no child need die in poverty and misery again. Jojo - hats off to you and your church. We need more people like you in the world.

This one is also for my DP. Mankind is a UK charity who help men suffering from domestic abuse. When my DP was going through this, yes, at the hands of the BM, he had nowhere to turn because all the help was directed towards women. Mankind run a helpline and refuge for men, they fund research into domestic violence and aim to help end the stigma surrounding men who suffer from this either from their female or male partners. They also support the education of boys and young men so that they neither become abusers nor victims. I won't go into the horrific things that happened to DP, but he is not exceptional I'm afraid. The fact is that anyone of any gender can be abused, and anyone can be an abuser.

Sometimes it does us some good to remind us of the REALLY sucky stuff that's going on out there. I had felt that my week had sucked pretty royally so far, but I can't really compare a run in with some irate chav granny, being accused of telling my stepchild she has BO, not making the cut for a sports team and being a bit skint to having no money to send my children to school, living in fear of abuse or living every day with a disability that made everyday life 100 times harder.

So today, I am being grateful. Grateful for my liberty, that clean water comes out of my tap, and thankful for the life I have been given, for whatever reason, whether by accident or design. And perhaps a little bit more motivated to consider these things a little bit more often as a privilege and not an entitlement.

The Soapgate Scandal

2009-08-10T16:06:00.000-07:00

2 blog posts in one day.....it must be Mad Monday!

Well actually, it's Tired Tuesday, seeing as I am still up, and it's just past midnight. I can't sleep.

Poor old DP walked into a right old trap tonight. SD phoned him during the day, asking if he'd drop off the clothes she had come to ours in at her granny's house. We had things to do tonight, but hey ho, DP never says no to these requests, whether convenient, necessary, or not. SD asks in cute little girl voice, he says yes. Every time.

He goes round to granny's house and is met not by cute little girl, but by BM's hatchet faced mother. Who starts yelling at him in the street.

It seems that we have committed a terrible faux pas. SD has had fun with us this week. This is never to happen again.

Apparently, we have "played mind games" with SD and emotionally abused her. This is because we had the temerity to wash the clothes that she came in from BM's. It seems that we have been telling SD she smells all week and telling her that she smells when she's been in her mum's house. Hatchet Faced Granny seems to be totally missing the point - or missing a sense of smell, if she is under any illusions that a kid will NOT stink when she lives in a smoky house (BM is a chainsmoker).

SD tells us herself that she does not wash for days at a time at BM's, and frequently, she has BO when we pick her up that testifies very pungently to that, usually competing with the smell of the secondhand smoke. So, we do tend to chuck her in the bath or shower, despite protestations. SD does not particularly like baths or showers. She tends to get The Face on when told to go clean up (any parents or step-parents of teens will know The Face well). So, we are guessing that BM doesn't bother making her do it, in the same way as she won't argue with her over bedtimes, or teeth cleaning, because she can't be arsed. It does feel like an uphill battle sometimes. Nobody said parenting, or at least good parenting, was always fun, or that your kids would always like you. DP is, unfortunately quite direct. He will tell her she stinks, and march her to the soap. Hell, he does it with me when I come in from football matches. C'mon, who didn't have that as a kid, you come home all filthy and dirty covered in luvverly muck and what do your parents do? Pick you up by your collar with a peg on their nose and throw you in the bath, of course! But these days, it's emotionally abusive to do so....your kids have a right, did you not know, to stink! Parents, be warned! Stinking is the new smacking. Insist on your kids washing too often and you too will find yourself facing Soapgate.

So this, on top of the litany of our other misdemeanours like "forcing" SD on hikes and bike rides, mean that DP is an unfit and abusive parent. Oh, and did I mention that taking SD on a scout camp is totally unacceptable because she will be sexually abused? Hatched Faced Granny is going to set her policeman brother on DP, apparently, because all scout leaders are obviously paedophiles. Yawn, nothing that they haven't tried before....they've kinda exhausted most avenues open to them when it comes to trying to discredit DP. But, on they will go with their tired routine.

All this means, now, that apparently they are withdrawing any kind of co-operation or flexibility towards us (uh, wasn't aware there was any in the first place) and they will be going by the letter of the court order from now on. Well, that'd be a first for them to actually stick to it, wouldn't it! Oh, and of course, I am not allowed to pick up or drop off SD, because I am not named on the court order as a person who is permitted to do this. DP laughed and said that he wouldn't want to expose me to their nastiness, so that suited us just fine.

It's plain to see that this is motivated by the green eyed monster. They can't be happy that SD has had fun for a week. They have to twist everything so that DP is awful, I am the Wicked Witch of the West AND the East, in fact, just about everywhere, and that SD is traumatised as a result of spending time with us.

I realise that there is little point getting worked up about this. OH does not, any more. It does not cause him insomnia - he's upstairs snoring his little head off. I guess he's so used to the periodic bouts of mud-slinging that he lets it roll off him, he's secure enough that he knows SD is not traumatised and that she'll come back next time she sees us and ask if we can go bike riding again. Funnily enough, I seem to remember the last big shenanigans like this were last summer. Ho hum, I guess the sun brings out the mad dogs.

I can't help but feel resentful that our night was ruined by these ignoramuses, and that instead of the nice cosy evening relaxing with a nice home cooked meal and glass of wine, OH had to spend the evening phoning up his Group Scout Leader and warning her that they'd threatened to accuse him of abusing kids. Then he was too cross and tired to cook or eat, so he just necked a beer and went to bed. And I am left, awake and seething. Hatchet Face would love this if she could see it - just the effect she's after! And then I get MORE cross with myself for allowing it to get to me. And cross with OH for having had a kid with that detestable woman. Why do men have this uncanny ability to just switch off? I envy that.

Well, I guess it's about time I bit the bullet and attempted sleep again, though it's a toss up between the sofa with a snoring dog and bed with a snoring DP. Perhaps those clothes pegs we went round with on our noses all week because SD smelled so bad would come in handy right about now....

Crap, I lost my post

2009-08-10T10:16:00.001-07:00

I did write a long post. But it got swallowed up in the Black Hole of the Back Button.

It was quite an irony, really, since I was about to publish rather an Eeyore-esque post about my trials and tribulations of late. I was feeling really rather gloomy, and in need of some blogging catharsis.

And yet somehow, the fact that the computer has eaten my prophecies of doom, has cheered me up. How does THAT work?

Maybe it's because writing about all the negative shite that's happened today and over the past few days just didn't really make me feel better. But deleting it all (albeit accidentally) DID!

Well, in a nutshell, the week with SD has been a little tough - mainly emotionally, on me, because as I have mentioned before, SD is going through a Daddy-phase right now, and Wicked Steppie aint in line for much love at the moment. WS is, in fact, acting the part of the love-rival in SD's life right now. Well, she's too young for boyfriends I guess, so she's doing a little pre-pubescent Electra thing.

I realised earlier today that it wasn't so much the monopolising of DP that was getting to me. It's the fact that SD used to give me spontaneous hugs, tell me she loved me, or snuggle with me on the couch. Now, I am chopped liver, and it's all about Dad. Hard not to take that personally, or think "What did I do?"

Unfortunately, in Steppieland, all you have to do sometimes is exist. Your very existence can stir up a maelstrom, even at times when things seem to be smooth sailing. Let's face it, Steppies are a favourite scapegoat aren't they, for everything going tits up! Perhaps even natural disasters can be attributed in some way to stepmums...bet the Met office hasn't thought of that one!

I'm also a little blue because I didn't make the team that my work is sending to take part in an adventure race later in the year, and I have been busting my ass training. And lets face it, for how many people does failure not suck? I don't take it well, that's for sure, but even those who are able to put a braver face on it than I probably go home and punch walls or something.

I felt that I'd failed at my sports this week and I'd also failed at stepmothering, because it obviously must be my fault that SD is not into me right now. And I wrote this whole treatise about how the human race was doomed! That's some leap, from not making a sports team and dealing with a recalcitrant pre-adolescent (they do hit puberty much earlier these days, I'd say around 3 and a half) to the destruction of mankind. Such is the effect that failure has on me. But, I'm glad the Back button killed it. I feel that there is now some point to my continued existence on this planet.

But lets round this up with a few positives. Out of my training regime over the last couple of months, I'm looking a damn sight more toned and lost some weight, despite actually eating MORE. I've also tried new sports that I probably wouldn't have done otherwise, and even though my fitness was not good enough for the team, it's better than it was. And the things I have done through training meant that we were able to take SD canoeing and mountain biking, neither of which she had ever done before either. OK, I know she'd rather be home playing on her laptop or texting her BFF (what does that even stand for anyway?) but I guess maybe she'll thank us for it one day that we bothered to take her places and do things, instead of leaving her to rot in her bedroom all day talking to potential paedos on the net.

Or maybe she won't. But at least we'll know we tried, which is better than not, right? Better I tried for the team and spent 2 months killing myself, sorry, getting fit, riding over huge rocks on a bike, desperately trying to make a canoe go forwards and running through mud, than didn't try at all and stayed on my couch with a bottle of wine?

Talking of which, seeing as I don't have to hit the trail tonight, maybe I'll go and open that nice chilled Sauv Blanc.....

Wednesday Martin I salute you

2009-08-07T13:45:00.001-07:00

Courtesy of one of my fave SM bloggers, La Belle Mere at
http://labellemereuk.blogspot.com/

I was lent Stepmonster by Wednesday Martin.

Now, I love this book, and Wednesday's blog, so much that I am going to sing it's praises to the rooftops on here and I have not even finished the book yet! After putting the world to rights with LBM on (very fittingly) Wednesday, I then headed to a coffee shop for a bit of peace and quiet to start the book and before I knew it I was 3 chapters in!

Thank you Wednesday, for NOT telling me to put the kid first. I can't even begin to describe how fabulous it is to find a book for stepmothers that's been written for ADULTS. See, I've read a few stepmothering treatises, and just found a lot of it patronising bullshizz. And, like after reading many well-intentioned books, I end up feeling worse than before. Because no matter how many times the book tells me to grow the fuck up and be an adult and realise the kids relationship with their dad is far, far more important than my relationship with him could ever be, y'know what? It's not going to work, because nobody, nobody, but nobody, is ever going to settle for life in second place. And finally, along comes Wednesday, and tells us we don't have to.

It's an intelligent, insightful look at stepmothering, from both an academic and real world perspective, however Stepmonster neither reads like a dry academic essay nor a self-help book. Nobody is going to ask you to make affirmations into the mirror, or to vow to change your terrible ways. Actually, the one thing this book is making me do is ACCEPT myself just that little bit more - and feel OK about the emotions that I have surrounding this whole minefield I'm tap dancing on. Instead of constantly berating myself for not doing better at it.

Check Wednesday out at
http://www.wednesdaymartin.com/blog
and if you are a stepmother, the husband or partner of a stepmother, or a stepchild, or you simply want to understand more about stepfamilies, read this book. I cannot recommend it enough. And if you are a stepmother, lock your significant other in a room and do not let him out until he has read it cover to cover and then again backwards.

Oh and massive thanks to LBM for being my personal SM library!

There, that wasn't so bad was it....

2009-08-04T12:11:00.000-07:00

I am sometimes a little guilty, in steppie-land, of treating the Return of the Stepkid a little like a medical procedure.

Let me explain how this works.

I've written on this blog before about how the bliss of kid-freedom makes it hard to return to the weekendly grind - a little like how it is when you've been off work, that first day back after a holiday. The tossing and turning the night before, thinking about the size of your inbox, and the hell of going back to the same old colleagues whinging about the same old crap round the coffee machine that spews out turd-coloured coffee that tastes NOTHING like the fabulous fresh ground nectar you've been drinking in Italy.....yeah, you know the feeling. But you can't stay in Italy forever, we all have to crash back down to earth, and the anticipation of that crash is far worse than the reality. Because you drag your sorry butt back into work, sit in the car or bus full of dread, resentment and resolve to check the job sites or the property listings for villas in Tuscany, and then you walk in the office, smell the inferior grade coffee, the receptionist gives you a surly snarl as you sign in, and then by 11am you're back in the tight bitching circle round the coffee machine like you've never been away.

You can also apply this analogy to medical procedures. You know the tendency we have to overestimate the pain and discomfort we are surely going to be in (I have this with PAP smears, ick). And then, though it sucks at the time, it's usually over and forgotten fairly quickly and life goes on as usual. Think ripping off a Band-Aid.

Talking of, I have to go get a smear test next week. Ick.

I guess if you're a regular reader of my blog, you'll realise by now that I hate the thought of the stepkid visits more than the actual reality. The reality is, it's usually fine, by and large. She does like me, I think, despite the best efforts of BM, and I do enjoy spending time with her, although she does kinda suck when she's tired and cranky and all over DP like a rash. And those are the times that tend to stick out in my head and make me dread the visits when I've had a bit of a breather from it.

So why do we have a tendency to latch on to the negative? Oh OK, what's with this WE. I mean me, really! Why the sense of dread? Why the arguments with DP the night before she's due to come about how he is going to ignore me for the coming week (well OK, sometimes he does). Seeing as it's my inner child that comes out during this time, I can only assume that it's a kind of regression back to the days when I used to dread having to take Calpol when I was sick (some people, even adults, actually LIKE that stuff - sick puppies!) and the thought of the taste of it was far worse than the actual taste. Like Calpol, I have a feeling that the SD visits, although at times unpalatable in theory, are actually good for me though. And maybe they are even good for her. I can hope, huh....

Just Call Me Saint Steppie

2009-07-27T13:51:00.000-07:00

Well I've been in line for stepmotherly sainthood this week and the kid's not even here!

A few months ago, I actually had a chat with the BM that didn't involve abuse being thrown in my general direction. BM mentioned their holiday (that they are on now) and could we give SD a bit of spending money for it. Guardedly, I said with my sweetest smile, that I would ask DP but I was sure it wouldn't be a problem.

It came to the trip, and DP and I were skint. DP had manky leg which required prescriptions. Prescriptions cost buckaroos. We had none spare for SD, because we were only just able to scrape through until my payday.

Come payday, I had a moral dilemma. I had money. DP didn't. There was still an opportunity to get money to SD, because Her Supreme Chavviness wasn't joining SD, her cousin and grandparents until this weekend just gone. DP didn't ask me to part with any cash for SD, and I respected the fact that he didn't ask me to, because (repeat after me) not my DNA, not my problem, not my financial responsibility.

So little Devil Steppie sits there on my shoulder. No, this isn't your responsibility to do. She isn't your kid. She gets enough stuff as it is, not having money to spend on souvenir tat isn't a big deal. And why should we provide that money, after all BM doesn't if she comes on holiday with us. If she takes SD on holiday she's responsible for the cost, not us. Shit happens, on this occasion we couldn't afford it.

And then annoying little Angel Steppie pipes up on the other shoulder. SD would appreciate it. And they are probably telling SD right now how mean we are, not being able to give her anything for her holiday. I know DP doesn't feel great about her not having any money, and he would appreciate it too. Just because I hate BM doesn't mean I should not give SD something, right? And surely, acting with compassion and kindness would be better than shrugging my shoulders and going "tough, not my problem". Is that the kind of person you wanna be, Wicked Steppie? Really?

So I drove to the witch's lair on my lunch break and dropped off a tenner in an envelope with a brief note. Pretty damn near crapping myself when I pulled up at the house, so imagine how I felt when I couldn't get the sodding envelope through the letterbox! I heard someone inside, either BM or her partner, shouting and swearing at the dog to get out of the way and thought shit, shit, shit, she's about to open the door....but I was saved by some houseguests who turned up at BM's door and offered to hand it to her. I have never got out of anywhere so fast, drove my Citroen Saxo like Lewis Hamilton out of that street!

When I told DP, to be frank he wasn't really that impressed....though I tell myself I didn't do it for the credit, it would have been nice for DP to acknowledge a kind gesture, and - here's the key bit - SOMETHING I DIDN'T HAVE TO DO. I guess he'd give his little girl the moon and stars if he could, so he's not gonna be that impressed by a tenner is he...but hey, I got a nice Wicked Steppie glow, and no it wasn't the reflection of the fires of hell for once. I felt.....better inside. Better than I would have done had I gone with my first gut reaction. Not giving the money would have had only one outcome - a disappointed SD and provided ammo for the BM to use against us. Whereas giving the money - well, there is always a chance that it could have a good outcome, even though I know that BM will be BM.

Just goes to show that sometimes it's our own inner demons that are the hardest, and there are many times that I've allowed them to take over and prevent me acting in the manner that I would prefer. Self protection and preservation sometimes takes over, and those are necessary things, because we naturally put the barriers up when we sense a situation is threatening to us. But those barriers can sometimes make me act in a way that's more wicked than Wicked, and it felt good to smash them down for a change. Sometimes the same old tired ways we act carry on having the same old tired results, and it's time to shake things up a bit. So, am I on the way to the pearly gates yet? Hmmm, the jury's out on that one, and I'm still quite attached to my hand-painted hell-bound handcart, so I don't think I've turned on the road to steppie sainthood....just slowed down a bit to watch the scenery on the way!

Public catharsis

2009-07-22T10:00:00.001-07:00

As if I'm not already far too addicted to steppie networking and blogging on the internet, I discovered the Stepfamily Letter Page recently.

It's brilliant, moving, and open in that it gives a voice to anyone who is part of a blended family. You can sense the raw emotion in the letters, whether joy, sorrow, anger or confusion. And the anonymity of it means that it could be anyone from the person who served you in Tesco yesterday to the Prime Minister.

I was totally inspired, and my early morning insomnia led me to write this - my letter to the BM, which was published remarkably quickly on the site!

http://stepfamilyletterproject.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/dear-bio-mother/

She is the one person in my blended family scenario that I know I will never, ever get the chance to tell my side of the story to - firstly because she would never care enough to listen, and secondly, even if by some miracle she did care, she's incapable of listening to anyone else's point of view but her own. But to get it out there was incredibly cathartic and I felt something release as I sent the email off and crossed my fingers that it would be up there for other stepmums to read who are going through similar stuff with BMs and realise they're not alone. Since I've been a member of the wonderful worldwide community of step-parents, I've realised that my situation is by no means unique, which is sad, because it means there are an awful lot of innocent kids out there suffering the effects of divorce and parents who cannot move on from their vendettas against the ex.

At the same time, the Stepfamily Letter Project served also to remind me that we are all fallible and capable of making mistakes in our stepfamilies. Handling things clumsily, or getting territorial. And the kids are an inevitable casualty in one way or another, however well your blended family gets along, which is possibly why it's so darn hard for people to embrace the positive side of stepfamilies. They blossom from an initial tragedy. I have a hard time, for example, believing my DP when he tells me that it was worth going through all those horrendous times with BM, if it meant he got me at the end of it. Was it really worth it? Surely, he would rather have been happy first time around, had a simple uncomplicated family, not had to carry the guilt of his daughter growing up between two homes, not suffered years of marital abuse. I cannot help but feel that what we have is somehow inadequate for SD, because surely, the ideal is for the parents to stay together, and that is surely what she would wish for had she a magic lamp and a genie? I would disappear in a puff of smoke, wouldn't I? And so would her mum's partner of some years, I reckon. Bless her, she's a dear considerate little thing, and she knows that her parents are happier with different people now, but the cost to her has been dear and that cannot be denied. It shows on her little face.

"You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear" they say, but an ironic truth of life, unless you are one of the fortunate few who live a charmed life with barely a scrape, is that some of the best things in life can actually rise out of the ashes of the worst things. Perhaps this could be so of stepfamilies, dare I suggest?

Why stepkid visits are like periods

2009-07-21T12:03:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, as I've said before on this blog, kid-free time can have it's downsides for me. The downside is that I like it far too much, and get far too used to DP and I ticking along nicely in our own way. When I think of the inevitable return to normality, I panic a bit.

I admitted today to DP that I like having a break from it. He wasn't particularly happy about that fact, because of course, if he had the choice, he'd NEVER take a break and have SD 24/7 (though I suspect once that reality hit he'd actually be craving a night off after a week). I get one on one time with DP, without a slightly jealous kid trying to hang off his arm all the time. I get to make the food I like, and don't have to cater for the tastes of a ten year old who seemingly doesn't like rather a lot of stuff that I do and has a penchant for all things fried and processed. DP and I can laze in bed in the morning and cuddle, without him having to rush out of bed so he crams in all the paltry time he can with his kid on a weekend. We get to have adult chats and not have to censor what we say in case little ears put two and two together and make five, and then rush off to tell the BM. I feel closer to DP, simply because I'm not always conscious that there is someone who has a greater claim on him during this time.

But I cannot like these things and be open and honest about liking them, because by liking these things, it means by default, I like kid-time less. And yes, that is probably what I'm saying - strike me down if you like, but I prefer having my man to myself. Yes, I'm a bitch today.

I'm not saying that kid time is all bad. It can be fun. When SD's in a good mood she can be very good company, she's not often bratty, and I do consider myself lucky that in general I've been pretty well accepted, barring the usual female territoriality issues you get with girls and their daddies. But when I get out of kid-mode, I get out of it big time, and find it hard to then get back into the rhythm of it.

The other thing I find REALLY tough is letting BM into the house. Metaphorically speaking I mean - hell would have to freeze over a thousand times before BM would cross my threshold! But through SD, BM finds out about how we live our lives, what we do together, what we say, what our opinions are. And through SD I get to find out more than I ever wanted to about this crass woman. Call me a snob, but BM's not the sort I'd have associated with in a gazillion years, and I really have no interest in her menagerie of skanky animals, what dodgy schemes she cooks up, how big the carrots on her allotment are compared to ours, or how she drives all wonky after she's smoked joints. But I can't tell SD not to talk about her mother. My own SM, I know, found this very difficult, potentially being judged by a person she didn't even really know or give a shit about. It was an area where she felt a great lack of control, which is part of why the SM gig is so tough, because there is so much stuff you have absolutely zero control over. And that's the crux of why the kid weekends are so hard - because like periods, they happen whether you want them to or not!

The top five stupid things that people say to stepmothers

2009-07-19T05:17:00.000-07:00

It has struck me over the time I've been with my partner that society has a very negative view of step-parents, and particularly stepmothers. In a world where 50% of marriages end in divorce, and of that 50% a high number of those are likely to have children and go on to remarry or have new partners, it seems that we're still stuck in the Ark when it comes to our perceptions of stepfamilies. They are nearly always seen as a negative thing, and people fortunate enough to NOT have gone through a painful separation or divorce nearly always seem to have something to say about it. I tell you what, those Brothers Grimm have a lot to answer for with those fairytales, because Hansel and Gretel and ol' Cinders set a nasty precedent for how life, and art, would reflect stepmothers (and stepfathers) in the future. Barring Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, not many artists have had much good to say about us, from the evil Mr Murdstone in David Copperfield to My Stepmother is an Alien.

A few months ago, I was out with some friends of DP's, and we floated the idea of getting married one day. One of his friends instantly came out with the comment "oh, poor SD". When I asked her why (as I was quite hurt that she would think my future stepchild deserved pity because I might marry her father, I tend to think of myself as mostly a pretty nice person!) and she said that it would be a permanent reminder for SD that her parents are no longer together. I'm afraid she has that reminder every day honey - I doubt that marriage is going to make a huge difference to that one! But her argument was that we should not get married and celebrate something that for SD, is essentially pretty negative, because it would look like we were rejoicing in the fact that DP is no longer with her mother (uh, why can't we rejoice at that, pray tell? ;)). Now I could probably understand if I'd been the one to break the marriage up, but I came along 3 years post separation. Oh and now we mention the cause of marriage breakup, how many of you stepmothers out there have had to contend with people's assumptions that you caused it? I've had that a few times and had to laugh out loud! "Actually, my partner's ex wife left HIM for the female nextdoor neighbour 5 years ago....." oh, the looks on their faces, muhahaha.....

So without further ado, here are the top five stupid things people say to stepmothers!

5. "The kids always have to come first".
So the stepmother has to relegate herself to a life in second place? I haven't heard anyone say that when talking about an intact family, it seems to be something that always gets trotted out when the family is divorced and someone's started dating. When you marry a man with kids, yes you accept that there are kids who will need your partner's time, attention and energy. But also when you marry, you become a family, and thus the good of the FAMILY gets put first, not just one element of that family. I always find the irony of this one is it's people who have kids who usually say it, yet those same people wouldn't dream of letting their own kids rule the roost at home.

4. "Well he has to go easy on them, look at what they have to put up with, poor kids"
This is usually the stock response to a stepmother who has issues with the kids' behaviour and their DP's lack of discipline. It's generally assumed that because their parents got divorced, the kids are sooooo traumatised that they cannot cope with the word "No". Let's get one thing straight (and I'll tell you this from the perspective of a child with divorced parents) - having your parents divorce isn't a get-out-of-jail free card. It doesn't exempt you from having to be respectful to people, or generally having to behave in an acceptable manner. Nobody is going to pretend that divorce is easy on children, and usually they are the ones who suffer most (personal experience again there) but it does NOT give the parents a green light to stop parenting and become their kids' buddy/bank account. Parents who quit parenting their kids out of guilt are doing their children a massive disservice. It's an unfortunate fact of life that shit happens, and a parent's job is to HELP their kids cope with that shit the best they can - not give them an excuse to use that shit to get out of their chores/visiting Grandma/doing their homework/and most importantly, being polite to their stepmothers!

3. "You knew he had kids"
Ahhh, that old chestnut. Now I don't exactly know what this comment is ever supposed to achieve. Generally, yes, we did know our partners had kids from the get-go. But I'm not sure that the mere fact of knowing that he had kids is supposed to make us feel better about the mountains of shit that sometimes go with that fact. A strange one, this.

2. "Well you wouldn't understand what it's like, you don't have children of your own"
This one is often aimed at the especially vilified species of stepmother, the childless stepmother. Well, half of that comment is just pointing out the damn bloody obvious - no shit, think I'd know if I'd popped an object that size out of my you-know-what, don't you? And while we might not have children of our own, we are spending a fairly large chunk of time around our partner's, and in some cases, there are childless stepmums who do the full time gig. Would they say that to someone who had adopted their kids and were having difficulty? I doubt it, but it's deemed fair game to say it to stepmothers. And it's damn hurtful to those childless stepmothers who want their own kids but for various reasons, can't have them (I'm in this bracket). OK, so there might be a tiny grain of truth in it in some ways, because we are not those kids' parents, therefore cannot fully grasp what it is like to be in the parent's shoes, but that works both ways buster - they can't understand what it's like to be a step-parent either.

1. "You knew what you were getting into"
Ooooh, my favourite. It's not unlike #3, just even more moronic. Sure, we knew during the shiny happy honeymoon phase of the relationship just exactly what was down the line for us. We had crystal balls, did we? I didn't know that these days only clairvoyants could be stepmothers. I doubt that anyone would say to a wife whose husband's elderly parents are now unwell and need a lot of care, "well you knew he had parents, you knew they might get old and sick". I doubt that anyone would say to a wife whose husband got cancer, "well you knew he smoked/drank/ate bacon/(insert vice here), you knew he might get it". But like #2, it's fair game to throw this one at stepmothers!

The above snippets of stupidity are the reason why I LOVE my stepmum support network on the UK CSM site and now, through the blogging community and sites like Stepchicks. We give each other non-judgemental support, and there are even ex-stepmothers who stick around to help others cope. Of course, we give each other the odd kick in the bum sometimes when we need it - but with thoughtful, intelligent and mindful sledgehammers!

Would I be a lady of leisure?

2009-07-16T08:59:00.000-07:00

I've been very frustrated at work lately and getting very fed up. I do a job that I don't particularly like (I work in IT) and find very soulless, and it's quite thankless and relentless at times. Sometimes I get really ground down and wish I didn't have to get up and go into work for more of the same crap.

This week, I got my wish. What with DP having leg troubles and having to ferry him to and from hospital and help him out at home while he wasn't very mobile, and now having been exposed to swine flu (SD's case is now confirmed) I've been home since last Friday. But today, I woke up and realised that I actually missed the structure of work, after a few days thinking "hey I could get used to this!"

I have often wondered how people like the BM can justify not working, when they are perfectly able bodied and healthy. And what on earth they do all day. I know she's a mum, and I've nothing against mums who want to stay home for the kids particularly when they're young, but she's on benefits, her living paid for by people like me who do work, and she doesn't get much money so what she can provide for SD is limited, and I also wonder about the kind of example it shows her. I was raised to take pride in what you do, whether it's toilet cleaning, clowning or being Prime Minister, and I just don't think I could, in all good conscience, not earn my own living, unless of course I was too ill to do so.

It was a surprise to me that I begun to miss work, especially after all the complaining I do about my job. However, it's also perhaps a wake up call for me that it's not working per se that's my problem, it's the kind of work I do. I do fantasise about having a job that I enjoy, and that contributes a bit more to society than fixing computers for ungrateful moaning office workers, but to date I haven't done much about doing anything to change myself from bored IT support worker to something I would have passion for. So I think that might be my next challenge, to find out how over the next 12 months I could make some steps to change my future so that I don't have to dread getting out of bed in the morning. Or heaven forbid, follow in BM's footsteps and have a kid so I don't have to....

Swine Flu Alert

2009-07-14T09:02:00.000-07:00

So the latest is that SD supposedly has swine flu. It's gone from a sore throat to full blown swine flu in the space of just hours.....but of course, she's still fine to go on holiday on Saturday!

I know full well there's a swine flu alert on, and that probably the doctor has said for her to stay home and given Tamiflu or whatever as a precaution, but I always get a whiff of BM-drama when these things happen. At least SD is now of an age where she chats to DP or sometimes me on MSN and tells us what's going on, in her 10 year old way, because DP would never get the courtesy of a phone call to tell him his child is sick. And of course, DP doesn't know SD is sick, so he doesn't call her to see how she is, and he gets a barrage from BM's bitchy mother about what a crap father he is because he doesn't call to see how his sick child is, that he didn't know was sick! And when he does call, usually they don't answer anyway, or switch SD's mobile off on purpose, and then tell her that Daddy never rang her.

It must be tiring, to spend your life on such elaborate machinations - oh, my child's sick, look, a points scoring exercise for me against my ex! Look what a wonderful selfless mother I am, having to care for my sick child and her father just doesn't care....what a way to waste energy! It used to annoy me, and I'd get worked up about it, but now I can stand back and laugh at her daft efforts, because it amuses me that she's actually got nothing better to do with her time. The woman needs a job, or maybe she needs to take up watching Jeremy Kyle instead of creating her own drama out of nothing!

Sadly, it seems to be a common theme amongst these malicious exes. It's heartbreaking to see how many good fathers there are who are cut out of the everyday lives of their kids. DP has, to a certain point, given up, certainly given up on hoping for any sort of cessation of hostilities anyway, and any hope of amicable co-parenting. What can reasonably be done with a woman who berates her ex for not seeing his child enough, and then tells him he cannot see his child any more than his court order permits? Do they not see the oxymoron there? Well, maybe not the oxymoron, but I definitely see a moron!

Tell me why I don't like Mondays

2009-07-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

Are they not just the worst day of the week?

This Monday has been worse than most, with the only silver lining being that I haven't been into work today.

DP has a very infected leg, thanks to an accident with a power drill a few weeks back, and we found ourselves in the hospital for the THIRD time since Friday, since the bloody NHS seem to operate a revolving door system that says "slap a patch on it and hope it goes away". They told DP to stop taking the antibiotics that his doctor gave him, and wait until their test results came through. They kept patching the leg up and it kept leaking and swelling and, well, smelling pretty gross and being very painful so that he couldn't sleep (and neither could I), so DP had no option but to go back to A&E this morning. 7 hours later, he's actually got some treatment for it instead of them just covering it up.

The consequence of his infected, ulcerated yucky leg is that DP now cannot go on scout camp in 2 weeks time because the dressing has to be changed by the nurse twice a week and the wound has to be cleaned. DP has not yet broken this to SD, and she is going to be gutted, as she loves to go on camp with the scouts. The bad news for Wicked Steppie is that DP and SD are going to be at ours for a full week. Never thought I'd say this, but thank F**K I have a full time job.

DP now doesn't know whether to tell SD or not that he can't go on camp. He thinks if he does tell her, she might not want to come for the week, as she does tend towards going where she thinks the most fun is, and also that if BM finds out that camp isn't on, that she won't let him have her, or she will put some temptations in SD's way that will make her want to stay at hers and not spend the week with her dad. I suggested to DP that he get organised and plan a few activities to do during the week instead - some trips etc, and have said I'll see if her horse riding stables is doing any summer activities, so he's got some alternatives ready.

Sometimes it all feels like a military operation - strategies, diversions, planning and anticipating where and how the enemy will strike!

The ebb and flow of the tide

2009-07-12T13:12:00.000-07:00

Well, it started off as a weekend that I thought was going along quite well. Sometimes, our little unit rubs along OK, and yesterday, we had quite a nice day. We visited my Nan, who SD seems to quite like. She was fine all day - DP was jet washing Nan's patio, because it was quite slippy and DP, sweet thing that he is, worries that she might slip over. SD and I took her to get some shopping done. She was pretty helpful, trotting off to find items Nan needed, and helping to pack the shopping bags. Later, we went to the beach and off to the pier, and apart from her having a bit of a face on when DP told her no more money for the arcade machines, tout allait bien. A good day, it seemed. But then, something shifted in SD's mood last night - I think she got overtired - and she got very stroppy when DP told her it was bedtime, she stomped off and wouldn't say goodnight to us. There have been a few dramas about bedtime of late, as it seems that at The Other Home, she is allowed to pretty much go to bed when she chooses, and she doesn't like going to bed earlier than the adults at ours.

Today she had one of those days where it was all about DP and she's barely said boo to me. She had to be walking with dad, holding dad's hand or sitting with dad. And when DP took my hand once on the walk we did, she had to run round and take the other one. I'll give DP his due, when I mentioned that I felt like a spare part at times around the two of them, he said he hadn't realised how much of a twosome they could be and he has made more effort to ensure I'm more included and that he does still show me some affection when she's about - because I was starting to get annoyed with him for only turning his attention to me when it came to bedtime!

But today, even my Dad and stepsister noticed it - that they were acting like the couple and just leaving me behind. I ended up walking with my dad and stepsister, and a couple of times, when my dad tried to chat to SD, she was really quite rude - one word answer, or she'd pretend not to hear what he said, and then she'd turn back to DP. It was as if she resented the presence of other people today, and would have preferred to be alone with her Dad. I felt a bit hurt, that she was rebuffing my family, who have made a lot of effort with her in the past. At dinner she barely spoke, and was quite sullen, complained of tiredness but after dinner suddenly had lots of energy to play out in the garden with DP and my stepbrother.

It's hard for the poor kid - she doesn't see her Dad as much as she'd like, thanks to the efforts of the witch who just won't budge on letting DP ever have a minute more than the court order affords him. And she is about to go away with the witch and her family for 2 weeks, so she won't see DP for the next 2 weekends, so she will probably be thinking she'll miss him. It's just hard, when you're part of things one day and then persona non grata the next. I mean, she was OK with me - not rude or anything - but she wasn't bothering to chat to me, hold my hand, or walk with me, and while I understand her wanting to be with her Dad, it's not easy to swallow that you have to just fall into line depending on the mood of a ten year old.

I tell myself that this is just what kids do - that even in "normal" families, kids go through Mummy phases and Daddy phases or phases where they ignore their parents when a favourite uncle or grandparent is around. But I guess when you're a step-parent, because you're not related, you tend to read more into it and wonder if the kid is starting to resent you, or think you're in the way, or competition for their parent's affections. I guess kids are capricious though, and maybe they don't always realise how they're acting. I can't assume that SD has the awareness an adult does of what she's doing, but sometimes I wonder if she has more awareness of it than DP thinks.....and I caught her looking at me a couple of times, as if trying to judge whether I'd reacted to something. I decided neutrality was the best option, and just gave them the space to be together.

This stepmothering game is very much like the tide, and like a sailor on the sea, I have to adapt and adjust to stay afloat and not get swept away or beached on the sand and left behind. It can be a delicate balancing act, and sometimes, just when I think things are going a certain way, the tide turns and I have to adapt to a different dynamic. One thing I have learned is that no two days are ever going to be the same, and that analysing each and every nuance is a sure road to steppie paranoia! I am getting better at just sighing and remembering that she's a ten year old girl being pulled in two very different directions and that I'm the adult here.....

Babies are a sore point.....

2009-07-10T06:24:00.000-07:00

One of the things that's guaranteed to upset the Wicked Steppie equilibrium is a social outing to some kind of function where there are loads of young families. Particularly if this happens on a kidless weekend, and I've been successfully pretending we are a normal adult couple with no cares in the world other than enjoying each other's company.

Last weekend, we had one of these functions. I actually wrote this post on Monday, but have been internetless all week, so am only just getting to put it on here now.

Now, Wicked Steppie didn't want kids for most of her adult life, let's get that one straight. Babies? Yucky little puking and crapping machines that scream a lot, and as for nine months of pregnancy without booze, well FORGET IT!! And as for a family home with the white picket fence prison, hell no. Wicked Steppie spent the first half of her twenties hopping around the world having relationships with pseudo-artists (and managing to marry a gay one, but that's another story) who were much happier eking out a living in squalid flats, existing on baked beans, cheap red wine "from more than one country", and spliffs.

But Wicked Steppie grew up, eventually, and met and fell in love with Single Dad. It was something of a surprise to know that there were other kinds of men in this world - men who didn't spend their twenties drunk, stoned and trying to pick up girls. Men for whom the words "marriage" and "family" didn't send them running. Single Dad was devastated when the family that he'd built his adult identity around collapsed around his ears. All he'd wanted was a wife and kids, but he married an evil lesbian gold-digger who'd had a child as a get-out-of-employment-free card. Even after the woman's first affair, my naive sweet boyfriend took her back, in the hope that they could rebuild the family he cherished so much.

As much as I may pick holes in DP's parenting, there's no denying he's a good and loving father. This should be great for me - after all, I can already see he's good Dad material, right? At least I know that if we have kids, he's not going to run screaming from nappy changes or change his mind, leave me with the kids and go get a Lamborghini and a younger woman. He's a family man. This is a good thing, right? Well, there's just one teeny tiny snag. You see for us, kids are a very big IF. 5 years ago, DP had the snip - as a result of the treatment he got from that witch, he figured there'd be no more family in his future. Well, he was right, for a few years - until along comes Wicked Steppie.

I can't describe how much it hurts, at times, even physically. If I see DP hold someone's baby, or at times when he cuddles SD and looks at her a certain way. A couple of weeks ago, I saw some baby photos of SD with her daddy, and also (ick, ick) the BM and him together with their brand new baby daughter. I couldn't stop the tears. As much as the BM is a nasty piece of work, and I can kid myself that they were never, ever happy, those photos obviously lie really well. I couldn't bear the thought that we might never have that together, and the childish "it's not fair" rose along with the lump in my throat, as I contemplated the expensive, painful and very non-guaranteed IVF treatment that we have to go through in order for us to experience parenthood together. Why, why, why, did he have to have the snip? The day he did it, unknowingly, he broke my heart. Is this punishment for all the sneering I did at Smug Families back in my younger days?

So that's why, these days, I hate functions where the floors are crawling with other people's babies. I sometimes feel there is a suspicion towards me, as a childless woman, and a stepmother to boot, and I sense reluctance at times of the mothers to allow me to hold their babies, where they'll hand them happily to each other or to the grandparents. If they do know of our situation, I think they might worry I'll turn baby-snatcher and refuse to give it back. If they don't know why I'm childless, there's an assumption I don't know what I'm doing. It seems that with the experience of birth, along comes some kind of miraculous knowledge bestowed by osmosis (of course, it couldn't be all those nights sat up reading Gina Ford)....and if you dare express any kind of opinion on child rearing, you are looked at like a cricket commentator who doesn't realise he's mistakenly wandered into a football match.

So here's where I get to admit that I WANT A BABY with DP. I want to see him look adoringly at OUR child, play football with our son, let our daughter paint his nails in glittery pink. I'd like SD to be able to be big sister. And for us to be Mummy and Daddy, not Daddy and I'm-sorry-you-are? I can see what a great dad DP is, but it frustrates me that he's Dad to a kid with someone else. I can only take a tiny bit part in SD's life. DP would like to think in his more fantastical moments that we could treat her like our child, and has sometimes expressed to me that he wishes I could think more this way, but I can't do it. Your own child doesn't talk about their mum's house, tell you how her mum grows carrots or does her hair....because you are their mum!

But....I'm not going to be a Mummy any time soon. IVF costs a small fortune, with no guarantees of success, and since our monthly mortgage and bills add up to DP's entire salary, we can't afford for one of us to be home doing the child rearing. We live on my salary, and after DP's commuting costs are paid, it doesn't leave a hell of a lot. Because of SD, we can't live in a smaller place, in fact we'd need a bigger one to accommodate a child of our own - more expense. And I do worry that SD might not take too well to being a big sister and having to share her dad even more. I don't think DP's that bothered - he's got things how he likes it, his partner, his kid. If he could wave a wand, he'd have SD with us more, whereas I'd wish for our own child! I don't think it matters to him whether we have kids or not, because whatever happens, he'll still be a Dad.

I wonder sometimes if it might be better to try and resign myself to childlessness and get comfortable with it. Would it be easier to deal with that heartache now, rather than trying and failing at IVF? If we fail, I may never be a Mum, but he will always be a Dad. He's never going to have to confront being childless.

I find myself becoming envious of those with uncomplicated situations where there are no previous kids and no bitter exes. No worries about will the kids from the first relationship be jealous or feel pushed out. No worries about whether our child will be as special an experience for DP, because it won't be his first. No worries about whether our child will be treated differently by the family. It must be nice, to be able to start your own family from scratch, both of you doing it for the first time. As long as I stay with DP, I'll never know.....

Disengagement - in action

2009-06-30T10:52:00.000-07:00

Well I've had my first taste of a situation that required me to disengage.

Today, I found out that SD has registered on Facebook, with her real first name but her best friend's surname, and a fake date of birth. However, she used her real email address and also kept the month and day of her DOB the same, so it wasn't hard to tell it was her!

I didn't do anything - I rang DP, and I told him what I'd found out. He asked me, as he won't be home for a while, to please report it to facebook, as he wants them notified asap. He then said he was furious and also very worried about SD because of this. I said "well if you want to talk about it I'm here, but she's your child so you need to decide how best to deal with it". DP is thinking that he is going to ban her from the internet while she is here, for a while. What he is most upset about is the dishonesty, he's had a talk to her not so long ago about Facebook, and how people on the internet are not always who they seem to be etc, and she said some of her friends went on it with fake dates of birth. She told him she wasn't on it though, and DP said good, I would not be happy if you were because you are too young.

If she was my child she'd be banned from the internet for a LONG time, and seriously supervised when allowed back on. But in SD's case, BM has probably permitted it, so it's one of those cases where it's difficult, and slightly unfair on her if she's got one parent saying yes and one no. But it's one of those "not in my house" scenarios - if BM is fine with her on social networking sites at ten, then there's not much DP can do about it, but he won't enable her to do it on his time and on his computers. I don't feel that optimistic that DP will be able to keep up the ban for very long, but for the first time, I feel that it doesn't really affect me if he doesn't. He will be the one who has to deal with it if, God forbid, SD encounters an internet predator, and it will be he and BM who have to wonder why on earth were they not stricter and more vigilant about her activities online. Of course I do not WANT that to happen to my stepdaughter, but if her parents will not ensure that her internet use is age appropriate, they are the ones taking that risk, not me.

When it's time to board the Train of Disengagement

2009-06-29T10:10:00.000-07:00

There comes a time in every stepmum's life when she contemplates Disengaging.

Unless you're one of the rare breed that gets it right first time, chances are your relationship with the little darling/s sometimes has to undergo some re-evaluation. And that's just our relationships with our partners!

http://www.steptogether.org/disengaging.html

I read this article some time ago and found it was time to re-read it. Because it seems that my life is waaaaaay too much about stepmotherhood these days. I have become a bit of a martyr, it seems, to the cause of making sure everything is right for SD. Making sure the things she likes and are healthy are in the fridge. Getting her school uniform clean and dry for Monday morning. Checking if she has homework. Reminding her to clean her teeth. Getting frustrated with DP because he still hasn't booked her in at the dentist. Being the one who remembers all the practical things, and takes the action.

It extends into other areas of our lives, too. DP works and commutes long hours, so a lot of the practical things do seem to fall to me. Remembering which bills need paid, what phone calls we need to make, who has what appointments and when. Housework. And I juggle this on top of my own full time job, and other out of work commitments. No wonder DP didn't like it when I announced I wanted to take part in an adventure race this year which would involve a lot of training. Who wouldn't feel lost without bloody Superwoman at home to do everything! I've made a rod for my own back!

DP stumbles in the door at night and the first things he says usually are "Sleep" or "Bed". We get next to no time together as a couple. But the time that we do get, I don't enjoy, because I am so resentful of my situation, I have started to blame him for it. I don't enjoy being us any more. I resent him why? Because his energy goes mostly to his job, and then his daughter. Mine goes into my job and running the household. Our relationship is last on our priority list. Neither of us are putting our energy into being good partners. I thought I was being a good partner by taking care of everything, particularly when it came to SD, but now, I realise I'm not benefiting DP as either partner or parent. Taking care of the mundane stuff - it's part of parenting, and it's what he misses out on when SD isn't around. The problem I've had is that, of course, unless I nag, or do it myself, it doesn't get done.

So let's examine why it bothers me if SD does not, for example, clean her teeth. She's not my kid, but I do have an interest in her welfare, and if she had toothache and had to endure a nasty session at the dentist having teeth out or fillings, I would feel bad for her. So I try to ensure she cleans her teeth. OH sometimes reminds her, when he remembers himself, but more often than not, he's not fussed.

But until he's holding his child's hand in the dentist's chair trying to calm her down before someone goes into her mouth with a bunch of needles and a drill, I don't think he'll actually GET IT. Until he's faced with a child with no uniform for school, I don't think he'll start making that mental note to remember to wash it and hang it out. Until SD says she's hungry and he hasn't bothered to do any shopping, and he has to deal with hungry cranky kid, I don't think he'll remember to go to the shop the day before she arrives.

I do a lot of things that I don't have to, and really, nobody cares if I don't do them. So why do them in the first place, out of some idea that this is the right thing to do? For Gods sake, why on earth am I doing all this for a kid I didn't provide the DNA for, when she already has two parents who should be doing those things? DP has it great, right now, he gets to be Disneydad with the cuddles and treats, and I get to be the one who reminds her to pick her crap up off the floor and brush her teeth before bed.

More importantly, I need him to learn before we have a family, that practical stuff doesn't = Mum's stuff.

I want my relationship back. I haven't signed up for us being Mum and Dad yet. He's a Dad, sure, but I'm his girlfriend, not even wife! Girlfriends have sex, they're fun, they're cool. Girlfriends still splurge on lacy undies on payday, they don't worry about buying school uniform or yogurts in a tube. Nagging stepmothers are anything but fun or sexy!

Bliss...no skid, no family

2009-01-18T10:01:00.000-08:00

Well it's been a while, but at last, DP and I have managed to have a weekend at home, to ourselves, without SD or having to visit any family. Blissful! DP doesn't leap out of bed on these weekends, full of guilt that SD is downstairs on her own having had to pour her own bowl of cereal and watch cartoons by herself until he's woken up. Hard life being a kid, y'know. We've done things at our own pace, what we feel like, when we feel like it. 'Let's go to the pub and have Sunday lunch'. 'OK then' and off we go.

2/3 of the time, we live the life of an average professional couple with no kids, and then 1/3 of the time we have to morph into suburban family. It's weird, feels like living a double life. I have to admit, I look forward to these weekends that DP and I have to ourselves, probably more than I should. It's selfish, I know, but the weekends that we're with SD, DP is just on another planet, and doesn't always remember to remember me, hello, your partner, no, I am a person, not just a cook/dishwasher/rememberer of school uniforms and books. Away on planet parent....wheeeee, off he goes, and it seems like I don't exist beyond being a facilitator of that. And then, come Monday morning, down he comes, and he's back to being my boyfriend again. Maybe it's a facet of the male inability to multitask that they have difficulty fulfilling two roles at a time.

I will be away next weekend, and won't see SD at all. The way I've been feeling lately, it's not a bad thing. I have been depleted, energy-wise, and the last thing I have wanted when I've managed to limp into the weekend is child-noise and debris - I have longed for a few moments of quiet just to gather my own thoughts. I feel bad for this, because I know I haven't been giving SD the attention and the focus that I usually do, but I guess it's how I get when I haven't even got that energy for myself - I start to get a bit protective of my space and time.

But I got a raise at work, and passed an exam, so it's overall been a good weekend. I've had the chance to recharge my batteries, so by the time I come back from my break next weekend, I will hopefully feel more positive, and have some more energy to put into stepmothering.

The confessional is now open for business

2009-01-13T05:56:00.000-08:00

I thought of a hundred and one ways to start this blog. Most of them things that I thought would be catchy, snappy. Clever. You know, like 'the internet is the newest form of therapy' or 'if it isn't on Facebook, it didn't happen' or some witticism about blogs being like the confessional (which I guess they are, but somebody out there, I'm sure, has already said it).

Witticisms, however, are not what this is about. Wicked Steppie's blog is about what it's really like - warts and all - to be a modern stepmother. Well, technically, I suppose I am not a stepmother, as I'm not married yet to my dear partner (henceforth to be known as DP). But - like all 21st century things, the boundaries are a tad blurry these days, and marriage is not the institution of permanent definition it once was, but because we still retain our anxiousness to give things labels, then what I call myself is a 21st century stepmum.

If we examine the word 'stepmother' then we have 2 words. 'step' which implies that we are stepping into something. And 'mother' which meant of course, back in the day, a stepmother effectively became the mother - 'stepped' into the mother's role, as to get a stepmother would have meant that your biological mother (or BM) had died. These days, in most stepmother situations, biological mother (BM) is alive, well, and usually kicking (and sometimes screaming). So, unless BM is completely incapable, the 21st century stepmother is not stepping into anything like a mothering role. But there is no word, label, or role defined for the partner or spouse of a divorced parent. Language hasn't caught up with reality. So we are stuck with being 'stepmother' like an ill-fitting piece of clothing that is full of holes but we can't bring ourselves to discard quite yet.

So who is Wicked Steppie?

Suffice to say that Wicked Steppie is a part time stepmother - that is to say, mostly a weekend one. But just because the kid/s are not around physically all the time, doesn't mean they're not always around. In the life of a stepmother, the stepkids are often either the main topic of conversation, even when they aren't there, or the elephant in the room. I have one stepchild - a girl, ten years old - who manages to take up an awful lot of space in our lives, even when not physically present. One thing as a stepmother that you have to live with is that the first thing people will say when you walk into the room with your other half is 'Where's the kids'?. It's not 'hi, how are you' or 'lovely to see you' or even 'what the hell are you doing here?' it's always 'where's the kids'? And sometimes, it's even your own family doing it!

The other factor in Wicked Steppie's life is that she does not have kids of her own. This adds an extra dimension to the stepmothering experience. There will always be people ready to helpfully point out that you don't get it because you don't have kids of your own, and will be very surprised by the venomous response that comes back. And the head of those helpful people is very often my own DP, who has often been known to run for cover after dropping this pearl of wisdom into an argument. He's learning - perhaps not learning to refrain from saying it, but learning that if he does decide to say it, he needs to be a long way from me when he does. It's an odd thing, you see. I know it's a very true statement that I do not know what it's like to be a parent. It is a fact. I am an odd sort of parent-nonparent hybrid - not quite a complete nonparent, as my life is in part dictated by the fact that there is a child in it in a way that say an aunt's life would not be dictated by the presence of a niece or nephew - there is no contact schedule with a niece or nephew, no child support. But I am not a parent either, as I have no biological tie or legal responsibility to this child. And having to watch DP be a parent to another woman's child and feel completely excluded from a whole part of the life of the man you love - those who say 'you're not a parent, you don't get it' might think twice if they knew what that felt like. Salt, open wound.

So this is the start of the Confessions of a Wicked Stepmother. I liked the word 'wicked' - it seemed fitting with being a 21st century stepmother, that it has a double meaning. The question is, is Wicked Steppie wicked or just plain wicked? ;)