I HAD fallen, against all advice, for a father. Robert had two sweet and adorable children, a boy and a girl. They were 6 and 9, with little blond heads and big blue eyes, and eyelashes so long they seemed fake. To friends, I referred to them as “The Poster Children.”
When I started dating Robert, he was legally separated, at the beginning of what would become a two-year arbitration/negotiation/divorce odyssey, but despite this, the children and I got along spectacularly.
At least, we did while I was living in New York City and they were living in Seattle and we saw each other only during the rare weekend visits I made to their dad.
I regarded them as beings to be wooed with all my strength, and so I made cookies, sculptured with clay and read them fairy tales, convincing myself that those stories about evil stepmothers (and those equally traumatizing stories about wicked stepchildren) had been invented to discourage “step” relationships and thereby keep them from upsetting the balance of the universe.
A friend of mine, herself the product of divorced parents and a stepmother, warned me that Robert’s children would never really love me, or that if they did, it would not be until they were in their 20s and had gone through years of therapy. Even now, she told me, she referred to her stepmother as a “stepmonster.”
I laughed. She was so wrong.
Two years later, when the girl and the boy were 11 and 8, and the parents were officially divorced with a shared custody agreement, I packed up my 15 boxes of books, rented an apartment in Seattle and made the cross-country move to be with Robert, convinced, at the tender age of 23, that stepparenting came naturally to me. No one had kicked me in the shins. No one had opened a fangy mouth and chomped me. The boy and I had even played blocks together. They were little; why wouldn’t we get along? I couldn’t think of a reason.
I had the idea that once I had won the children’s hearts, they would stay won. I had no concept of the secret truth of stepparenting: that you must win their hearts again and again, every morning, every night, for at least the first five years. And that even then, the slightest misstep puts you back at the entrance to a labyrinth full of booby traps.
During our first dinner together, when Robert raised his glass to toast my arrival, the boy spun adorably in his chair.
“When are you leaving?” he asked.
“I’m not,” I said, expecting a cheer. I had, after all, brought puppets and candy in my purse. Surely, I was everyone’s favorite adult. “Isn’t that great? I’m never leaving!”
The boy, alarmed, looked toward his sister, who slit her eyes in my general direction.
“What do you mean by never?” she asked.
Presently she informed me that she had thought I was a “business colleague” of her father’s. The boy, displeased to discover that I had not been imported as a playmate solely for him, decided that if I was not his friend, I was no one’s friend.
He wasn’t wrong. I had left my entire life behind in New York, and the only people I knew in Seattle were Robert and his children. Now that two-thirds of them had started hating me, the other third was forced to constantly shuffle his schedule to keep the children and me from encountering one another. When we did eat dinner or see a movie together, I sat as far from the children as possible, and even so, I could feel them spitting venom.
It wasn’t their fault, I reminded myself, they were children. Alas, I was apparently a child, too. I clenched my teeth to keep from spitting venom back, and discovered that I was hyperventilating.
I always had a vision of myself as a very nice person, the sort who would never think murderous thoughts; the sort who, when making peanut butter sandwiches for her boyfriend’s children, would not suddenly find herself wishing they had peanut allergies.
I wondered if maybe I should bail out of the relationship entirely, before I ruined everyone’s lives. The three of them were a family. I didn’t belong. What had I been thinking?
When I started dating Robert, he was legally separated, at the beginning of what would become a two-year arbitration/negotiation/divorce odyssey, but despite this, the children and I got along spectacularly.
At least, we did while I was living in New York City and they were living in Seattle and we saw each other only during the rare weekend visits I made to their dad.
I regarded them as beings to be wooed with all my strength, and so I made cookies, sculptured with clay and read them fairy tales, convincing myself that those stories about evil stepmothers (and those equally traumatizing stories about wicked stepchildren) had been invented to discourage “step” relationships and thereby keep them from upsetting the balance of the universe.
A friend of mine, herself the product of divorced parents and a stepmother, warned me that Robert’s children would never really love me, or that if they did, it would not be until they were in their 20s and had gone through years of therapy. Even now, she told me, she referred to her stepmother as a “stepmonster.”
I laughed. She was so wrong.
Two years later, when the girl and the boy were 11 and 8, and the parents were officially divorced with a shared custody agreement, I packed up my 15 boxes of books, rented an apartment in Seattle and made the cross-country move to be with Robert, convinced, at the tender age of 23, that stepparenting came naturally to me. No one had kicked me in the shins. No one had opened a fangy mouth and chomped me. The boy and I had even played blocks together. They were little; why wouldn’t we get along? I couldn’t think of a reason.
I had the idea that once I had won the children’s hearts, they would stay won. I had no concept of the secret truth of stepparenting: that you must win their hearts again and again, every morning, every night, for at least the first five years. And that even then, the slightest misstep puts you back at the entrance to a labyrinth full of booby traps.
During our first dinner together, when Robert raised his glass to toast my arrival, the boy spun adorably in his chair.
“When are you leaving?” he asked.
“I’m not,” I said, expecting a cheer. I had, after all, brought puppets and candy in my purse. Surely, I was everyone’s favorite adult. “Isn’t that great? I’m never leaving!”
The boy, alarmed, looked toward his sister, who slit her eyes in my general direction.
“What do you mean by never?” she asked.
Presently she informed me that she had thought I was a “business colleague” of her father’s. The boy, displeased to discover that I had not been imported as a playmate solely for him, decided that if I was not his friend, I was no one’s friend.
He wasn’t wrong. I had left my entire life behind in New York, and the only people I knew in Seattle were Robert and his children. Now that two-thirds of them had started hating me, the other third was forced to constantly shuffle his schedule to keep the children and me from encountering one another. When we did eat dinner or see a movie together, I sat as far from the children as possible, and even so, I could feel them spitting venom.
It wasn’t their fault, I reminded myself, they were children. Alas, I was apparently a child, too. I clenched my teeth to keep from spitting venom back, and discovered that I was hyperventilating.
I always had a vision of myself as a very nice person, the sort who would never think murderous thoughts; the sort who, when making peanut butter sandwiches for her boyfriend’s children, would not suddenly find herself wishing they had peanut allergies.
I wondered if maybe I should bail out of the relationship entirely, before I ruined everyone’s lives. The three of them were a family. I didn’t belong. What had I been thinking?
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