Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, November 11th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife Dennis Rainey and I’m Bob Lepine. We’re going to talk today about how to navigate the sometimes choppy waters of being a stepmother.
Welcome to FamilyLife Today thanks for joining us. We get a lot of emails from listeners but one of the things I’ve seen listeners say a lot that has been encouraging is we appreciate the fact that you guys don’t put a veneer on what’s going on in families.
Dennis: Right.
Bob: You tell it like it is.
Dennis: Try to be authentic.
Bob: Now we do get some folks who write from time to time and say sounds like it’s just a Beaver Cleaver perfect family when we listen to FamilyLife Today.
Dennis: I’m not sure what broadcast they’re listening to because I’ve shared enough of my mistakes on this broadcast that I don’t think the Cleaver’s ever experienced. But we have a pair of people joining us on the broadcast today who know about a different type of family other than the Cleaver’s. Ron Deal and Laura Petherbridge join us FamilyLife Today. Laura, Ron welcome to the broadcast.
Laura: Thank you.
Ron: Thank you.
Dennis: You guys collaborated to write a book on step-families. You’ve written a book called The Smart Stepmom. Ron you’ve been in this area ministering for now close to two decades, had a vital ministry counseling, writing and training in churches across the country. Laura you’ve done a number of divorce workshops and have created material there and this issue is a relevant issue today. Ron, you were telling me that over ten million stepmoms today?
Ron: And that’s a conservative estimate in the United States. Over ten million stepmoms and it actually could be quite a bit higher than that but with the census doesn’t keep the kind of records that they used to. Stepmoms are very, very common within the church and within the communities in the United States.
Bob: And Laura you are one of the ten million, right?
Laura: That’s right, for more than twenty-four years.
Bob: Tell us a little bit of your story, how did you become a stepmom?
Laura: Well, I went through a divorce in 1984 and then a couple years later, I remarried. The man that I married had two children and they were 11 and 13 at the time.
Bob: Did you know what you were getting yourself into?
Laura: Absolutely not.
Dennis: You actually grew up in a home that had. You had two stepmoms as a child.
Laura: That’s right.
Dennis: And as an adult growing up, right?
Laura: That’s right. I’ve had two stepmoms of my own. So I assumed I falsely assumed that that would prepare me for being a stepmom and that was wrong.
Dennis: What one word would you use to describe your stepmoms? Pick two words, one for each just as stepmoms.
Laura: Oh, for my own stepmoms.
Dennis: Yes, from your own experience.
Laura: The first stepmom I would say, jealous. The second stepmom I would say, compassionate.
Bob: So you did have a little bit of a picture of what not to do and what to do when you became a stepmom. But you said you still weren’t prepared for it.
Laura: Yes, I knew some basic things like trying not to become their mother, but I was older when my dad remarried the third time so my second stepmom his third marriage was a little different because I was an adult so I approached it a little differently. But, yes, my first stepmom she just, I realized as time went on that she was just very jealous of him having two children with a former marriage.
Dennis: Ron, is that the number one mistake stepmoms make assuming they can step in to be a mom?
Ron: I think so, we have in our society and our culture what we call the motherhood mandate and that is simply the idea that women are the emotional connectors in the family. They’re the ones who care take and they’re also the ones who connect emotionally with people in the family and kind of the centerpiece, if you will.
If a stepmother comes in and tries to take that center place there’s already a mother, even if she’s deceased. There’s already a mother. So, she may feel like the expectation of her is that she become the emotional connector. She may believe that that’s really what she wants and also by the way that takes care of her because she moves from an outside role to an inside role once she’s emotionally connected with everybody. But as she tries to move into that place and move mom out, that’s a huge mistake.
Dennis: A lot of resistance occurs there.
Ron: Absolutely, it just emboldens the resistance I think within children, whether they be children or adults.
Dennis: As I was reading through your book, I was struck by the quotes from stepmoms that you have in there. Every one of the quotes it seems drips with emotion.
Laura: Absolutely.
Dennis: Disappointment, discouragement, unmet expectations, this is really what you were attempting to do as you wrote this, you wanted to come alongside stepmoms and help them understand what normal is.
Laura: That’s right because stepmothers typically feel very lonely, they feel very isolated, they feel ostracized and outside of the family circle. And they feel very rejected. Sometimes even by their husband and so what the goal is, particularly in the beginning of the book is to show other stepmoms we understand your pain, these feelings are perfectly normal and there is a way to overcome them.
Bob: It seems like there are almost ought to be a surgeon general’s warning on the side of being a stepmom. Somebody who is considering a blended marriage relationship whether they are bringing their own kids in or they’re stepping into an existing family structure, there almost ought to be a time out to say, you just need a real sober assessment of what you are about to do because the dynamics here, Ron, are really significant aren’t they?
Ron: Yes, really what we are saying is you can be a great stepmother have a wonderful step-family relationship it’s something you grow into that the family will grow together over time. We just want to get your expectations set for that woman who is in the dating experience looking down the road, thinking about marrying a man who has children.
What’s my role, what’s my place going to be? We want her expectations in the right place so she understands that there is a process here. That she may not ever in the children’s heart take on that mother figure kind of role. She might, but she may not. Or even more confusing, she might have that role with some of the children but not with all of the children.
So just to understand that and to go in with her eyes open and her expectations in the right place sets her up for greater success. Here’s something I believe more stepmoms are successful than they know, but they are trying so hard and …
Dennis: And more than likely their standards are so high.
Ron: That’s right, they’re trying to fulfill that motherhood mandate and what we want them to know is there is just a different standard, a different dynamic for a stepmother’s relationship. Again it can be great, wonderful even beyond your expectations, but don’t assume that you’re going to become mom.
Bob: And you said it’s going to take time, are you saying months, years?
Ron: Well, we’ve talked in this program before about how it generally takes step-families five to seven years to really kind of integrate, to pull the family members in. I call it cooking, it takes awhile to cook. How long does it take a stepmother to really get into a place where she feels some peace and feels connected emotionally and knows what her role is, well that depends.
It depends on so many factors, the age of the children, whether they’re part-time or full-time children. All kinds of things make a difference there. Again what I would wish for stepmothers is that they would enjoy what they have today rather than living and longing for what they don’t have today.
Dennis: Yes, look at the glass and it’s half empty.
Ron: Go with what God has given you and grow with that.
Dennis: Laura as you started your journey as a stepmom undoubtedly well you admit in your book, you had high expectations and you were instantly disappointed. How did it manifest itself with your husband’s children?
Laura: Yes, I really think I was going to come in and be this wonderful Christian role model in their life and influence them and get them in church. I just had all these expectations of what a wonderful Christian example I was going to be for them. And then when it gets down to the day to day stuff it’s just so different than what you think it’s going to be. It’s just so much harder than you think it’s going to be and a stepmom often feels guilty that they don’t love their stepchildren as much as they either think they should or as much as they love their own children.
Now I didn’t have my own biological children so I didn’t have that comparison but other stepmoms tell me all the time, I feel so guilty because I don’t love his kids in exactly the same way that I love my own. So I think that’s one of the first things is to lower your expectations for the role that you are going to be or become in the lives of these children. So that’s what I had to do.
Dennis: Take us to early in your marriage when you had to learn that. What was one of the first situations that occurred at the grass roots level on the mundane, everyday life that stepmoms face that you had to face?
Laura: Yes, I had to realize that certain things were not a hill to die on. For example, I was going to get us all eating really healthy and having these really healthy meals. Well, my step-kids weren’t doing that in their other home in their biological home, so of course when they came to my home there’s going to be resistance to that.
It wasn’t my job to try to change that in their life, they have a mom, they have a dad those are the two people in their lives that should be seeing that they’re eating healthy or going to church or any of those things. It wasn’t my job and so I had to learn to let go of the things that were not my job as a stepmother and to only focus on becoming as godly of an example and influence and role model in their lives as they would let me become.
Dennis: So take us to the dinner table, you got kids who won’t eat it pushing back, do you engage your husband at this point and ask him to step in or do you call a time out, step into another room and have a little caucus between husband and wife and say, how are we going to handle this?
Laura: Yes, it has to become between the stepmom and her husband how important is this in our home to you as the dad? Then depending on how important it is to him that’s how much further you can take it.
Ron: Laura has just introduced one of the most foundational concepts to a successful stepmother and that is, she works with her husband. What she’s saying is it wasn’t her job to get them eating right, well if her husband wants his kids eating right, she can partner with him and she can make that happen.
But if the stepmother is trying to assert new rules, new standards of conduct, new ways of behavior and none of the biological parents want that, meaning the biological mom in the other home or biological dad, he didn’t really care about that then it’s not going to happen. It’s just going to create more conflict in this particular situation.
For her to go kind of behind closed doors as you suggested and have that pow wow with her husband and figure out what the standard is going to be and then together present that standard that position of unity if going to actually get things done and it’s going to empower the stepmother to be able to follow through.
Bob: So if he says, you know this healthy eating thing, it’s really not that big of deal to me, I’m thinking you’re saying, well, it ought to be.
Laura: Yes, that’s what I did, that’s what I did wrong. I would try to push the issues that I felt were important, now when you get into moral issues that’s where it gets really, really difficult. As I get emails from stepmoms constantly their issue isn’t food, they’re not dealing with a food issue, they’re dealing with something like the teenage son is looking at pornography. Or the stepchild is coming into the home and calling, swearing at her, calling her terrible names and she doesn’t know how to respond to that.
Dennis: Let’s take the teenage son looking at pornography and a stepmom, what’s she to do? At that point, it is a moral issue and you know what’s best for him at that point, do we follow the same scenario of you and your husband getting off caucusing again, talking about it, and what if he doesn’t do anything any different, doesn’t think it’s a big issue?
Ron: Let’s take this in layers because it’s an excellent question. Again there is not one single answer and let’s remember that a stepmother’s role is going to develop and change over time. If this is a stepmother who has been in the life of this child for many years and they have a good bond and relationship and she feels like she has enough money in the bank with this young man, she can address him directly.
If, however, she’s in the early years of this experience and this young man really doesn’t give a rip about her opinion about this, then she simply doesn’t have the power. She wishes she had it, but she just doesn’t with this young man. At that point she really has to go to her husband and she really has to work with him. If he embraces this and understands this is something that needs to be addressed they can figure out a plan as a team. If he doesn’t, if he doesn’t think it’s a big deal, or if he says, yes, it’s a big deal, but he won’t follow through.
Dennis: Or if he kind of dismisses it because he’s got a problem with pornography.
Ron: Yes, exactly. She is again she’s in a very disempowered place. It’s not hopeless, but the reality is how much influence does she have? She has to try to work with her influence where it is. In this scenario that we’re talking about that would be through her husband, but if he’s not willing to do it then she has to, I think, assert some boundaries.
I think she could say things for her own personal space. There may be younger children in the home so she may have to say some things like, I’m sorry; you’re not going to be allowed to use the family computer. I guarantee it’s going to create conflict and a battle in the home and ultimately what this comes down to is whether or not dad will deal with his son.
Bob: Now I want to draw attention to something you said earlier because it was one of those ah ha's for me as you were talking about this. A stepmom feels like she ought to have a level of authority in the family structure because after all she’s an adult and she’s a mom.
Ron: And she’s paying for a lot of stuff.
Bob: That’s right.
Dennis: Well, there’s not just the authority, but there’s the heart of wanting to be a mother and maybe the dream has been realized.
Bob: But you said that rather than seeing her position as one of authority, she really needs to reframe it as one of influence and start to look at how can I be an influencer in the lives of these children and even in my husband’s life if there are some of these issues that need to be worked out. Again not from a position of here’s how we’re going to do it but from a position of how can I help and how can I influence and change the climate and adjust the thermostat around here?
Ron: Essentially the stepmother’s role comes down to relationship. The more relationship she has, the more influence she has with the children. And that will come with the passage of time as they grow together as a family.
Dennis: Say that again, Ron.
Ron: Essentially, step-parenting and for the stepmother it comes down to relationship with the children. The deeper the relationship, the more authority she has with the kids. The more influence she has with the children. It’s a matter of timing. Being an active, engaged what we might call an authoritative parent is a matter of timing for the stepmother. She has to earn the relationship.
See here’s one of the foundational issues we discussed in this book and its attachment. A lot of people just don’t understand how attachment works. If two parents have a child, they have a God-given blood bond with that kid from the day he or she is brought into the world and it is an indescribable relationship with your children. It is the kind of thing that never goes away, never passes away, and it affords you certain things with your relationship.
You have, for example, what I like to call automatic love from your kids. You have automatic grace and forgiveness you never have to apologize to one of your children. I’ve had to do that more often than I’d like to admit. But you know what they take me back they don’t even blink they forgive and they throw their arms around me and we move on. You get automatic respect with this attachment bond you get automatic affection with this attachment bond, now stepmother comes in and she doesn’t get automatic anything she has to earn every bit of it.
Dennis: Now she may get automatic.
Ron: But it will be push back or resentment.
Dennis: Yes
Bob: Or rejection.
Ron: Yes.
Dennis: Because she’s the new person on the block at that point.
Laura: Yes, and she’s often viewed as a person I don’t want in the circle. Dad and I were getting along perfectly fine before you entered the picture and you have actually become the stepmom in their eyes in the children’s eyes has come between the relationship that the child had with the parent. So she is not viewed as an ally, she is often viewed as the enemy and the person that it is my job as the child to get you out of this family. And so there is usually a mission in the eyes of stepchildren to get the stepmother out.
Ron: How many kids have you ever run into that have said you know someday I hope I’ll have a step parent? It’s just not part of the fantasy we have of life. By the way that works the other side. How many women do you know that have ever said, someday I hope to be a stepmother? It’s not necessarily a role that is embraced and welcomed. What Laura is saying is that children don’t have the same commitment to the success of the marriage as the couple does.
Bob: Here’s what your acknowledging. The reason that kids don’t say, I hope someday to have a stepmom or a woman doesn’t say, I hope to someday to be a stepmom is because when that happens we have to admit something’s broken. Now the question is what do we do with this broken thing to bring it to a place where God is glorified where we’re loving one another where we’re living according to biblical precepts in a broken structure.
Dennis: And we’re getting along in our marriage so that our marriage can go the distance and outlive the child rearing years. I want to summarize with three quick points here. Number one – lower your expectations. You heard that over and over and over again in here. You don’t have the ideal situation. It is going to be less than ideal, make the best of it. Learn how to apply lots of forgiveness.
Secondly, heighten the relationship just like you talked about. Influence comes as a result of your hearts being knit to one another. Third, communicate, communicate, communicate. Talk to your spouse.
If you’re a dad and you’re listening and you’re married to a woman who is the stepmom of your children, understand that she needs your ear and your heart and she needs to know you’re on her team and on her side. That you’re not sparring with her and I can really see, Bob, in a situation like this how a husband and a wife can end up in opposite corners of a boxing ring. Kind of the bell starts at the beginning of the day and its one issue all day long after another that pits them against one another and they need help and they need some hope and some encouragement in the process.
Bob: Well I don’t know how many married couples I’ve talked to who are in second or third marriages in a step-family setting and I’ve had to pull them back to the idea that this relationship, the marriage relationship must be the primary relationship. It must supersede the parent-child relationship and if that’s not put in place you’re never going to have the kind of healthy step-family relationships that you want to have.
I know, Ron, you emphasis that in your The Smart Step-family book that you wrote a number of years ago that we’ve got in our FamilyLife Today Resource Center and it’s a part of what you talk about. In the new book you’ve written called The Smart Stepmom and we have that book in our FamilyLife Today Resource Center as well.
Let me encourage our listeners, go to our website FamilyLifeToday.com. If you are a step-parent, or if you know somebody who is, if you want to do something really special for somebody you know who is in a step-family situation particularly for a stepmom. Go to our website, FamilyLifeToday.com and buy for her a copy of the book The Smart Stepmom by Ron Deal and Laura Petherbridge. Again our web site is FamilyLifeToday.com you can order from us if you like or call 1-800-FLTODAY, 1-800-358-6329.
If you know other step-families and you’d like to get together with them and go through some small group material Ron has a DVD series called, The Smart Step-Family, it’s eight sessions on DVD, you can watch it together there’s a workbook you can interact together as couples. That may be the best thing you can do for your marriage and for your relationship with your children. Again, information about that resource is also online at FamilyLifeToday.com or you can call us toll-free at 1-800 F as in “family,” L as in “life” and then the word TODAY and we’ll let you know how we can get these resources sent to you.
You know November is the month of Thanksgiving and it’s a good month for us to remember to say thank you to those of you help support the ministry of FamilyLife Today. Some of our listeners are regular what we call legacy partners, folks who make a monthly donation to help underwrite the costs associated with this program. Others of you just contact us from time to time when you’re able to make a donation to help support FamilyLife Today.
And whether you give each month or just from time to time we appreciate whatever you are able to do in support of this ministry. In fact this month if you can make a donation of any amount, we’d like to send you a copy of Barbara Rainey’s brand new devotional guide for families called Growing Together in Gratitude. It’s a seven day devotional with seven great stories designed to capture your children’s hearts their imaginations and help them understand what it means to be grateful in the midst of adversity and how to give thanks in all things.
The devotional guide is our thank you gift to you again when you support the ministry of FamilyLife Today this month with a donation of any amount. You can make your donation online at FamilyLifeToday.com and if you do that, type the word “GRATITUDE” in the key code box that you find on the online donation form, or call 1-800-FLTODAY make your donation over the phone and just ask for the devotional guide Growing Together in Gratitude. And again let me say thanks for your partnership with us here in the ministry of FamilyLife Today. We appreciate you and it’s always great to hear from you.
And we hope you can be back with us tomorrow when Ron Deal and Laura Petherbridge are going to be here again. We’re going to talk about how to be a smart stepmom and I hope you can join us.
I want to thank our engineer today Keith Lynch and our entire broadcast production team on behalf of our host Dennis Rainey I’m Bob Lepine. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.
FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.
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