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First Person: April 2, 1997
The evolution of a stepfamily into a "real" family BY ROBERTA A. ISLEIB '75 In any event, real life has born little resemblance to that childhood game. My stepchildren came into my life born, named, and shaped by someone else. I met my stepfamily-to-be when invited by my future husband, John, to play in a doubles tennis match. When I arrived at his rented home, his daughter was throwing a serious tantrum, having been thrown out of a whiffleball game. Over her furious protests, he explained that she had shoved her younger brother out of the batter's box and threatened him with the bat. I knew that John and his ex-wife were immersed in a difficult and contentious divorce. It soon grew clear that his children had absorbed the hostility and were reflecting it through the prism of their temperaments. Molly, seven years old and a raging hellcat, fought for every scrap of attention she could collect. Andrew, at four, tended to appear withdrawn, depressed, and pathetic. John did his best to meet their considerable needs, while he himself adjusted to increased parental and housekeeping responsibilities, his own emotional turmoil, and a substantially reduced standard of living, including multiple moves to shabby rental apartments. At a distant pole of experience, after seven years of single life, I had acquired a small, but cozy, cape house, two cats, and a well-established affinity for peace, orderliness, and solitude. I had a predictable schedule, complete control over what was in the refrigerator, and very little back talk from the cats. Over the next year and a half, John and I dated, spending quiet time at my house and chaotic time at his. As we became more seriously involved, I considered the possibility of acquiring a stepfamily with the tools I bring to most unknown quantities after too many years of education: I read everything I could get my hands on. All the authors agree that making a stepfamily work is a Herculean task. With the divorce rate for American couples hovering at 50 percent, second marriages involving children have an even higher rate. The reason cited most often is the challenge of living with other people's children. We were married two years after our first date. The wedding pictures show a slightly middle-aged couple, sporting wide, relieved grins. My pretty stepdaughter is dressed in the white eyelet dress with blue-ribbon trim that I had sewn for her. She leans gracefully against her brother, the ring-bearer, with his matching, heart-shaped pillow. The pictures give no clue about the many mornings we would awaken to the children engaged in high-pitched, physical battles as ferocious as any two alley cats. And in spite of my "research," I was not prepared for the tensions we have struggled with as we work toward becoming a family. One of the clichés of stepfamily psychology is that we are families born of loss, whether through death of a parent or divorce. In our case, Molly and Andrew have had to come to terms with the loss of their original family, and to learn to negotiate between two sets of parents who are civil to each other, at best. John, too, lost his intact nuclear family: his wife is not the mother of his children and doesn't share the identical feelings that he has for them. My china-doll fantasy also evaporated, replaced by the reality of a cumbersome extended family in the same town, including John's ex-wife, her new spouse, and the children who bear her a very close resemblance. We are all stretched to the limits of our flexibility as we navigate our bipolar existence. One third of the week revolves around Cub Scouts, soccer, homework, and sibling rivalry. The rest of the time John and I lead a quiet, intimate couple's life. The transitions between the two have often been difficult. For the children, it's been hard to manage the differences in climate and discipline between the two homes. Upon arrival at our house, their energy and argumentativeness is often at a fever pitch. In response, my level of tension is often high, and my resilience low. It's challenging for me to switch from childfree wife to stepmother several times weekly: I have had to steel myself for the blast of childish intensity. There is very little black and white in a stepfamily. Without any question, I love the time alone with my still-new husband. Other couples look on enviously as we go out to dinner spontaneously or take golf and tennis expeditions on free weekends, without having to make complicated babysitting arrangements. On the other hand, I can feel inadequate and disappointed during grocery-store conversations with other mothers who seem to have less ambivalent relationships with their own children, and who know every detail about their lives, as I cannot. I wonder: Am I a real mother if I cook dinner and negotiate chores, curfews, and the acquisition of pets, yet don't want to attend PTA meetings or regularly cheer at soccer games? And how do we maturely respond to decisions made in the other home about the appropriateness of R-rated fright movies or long, slinky black gowns worn to eighth-grade classes? In many ways we are learning lessons about letting our children go, well before nuclear families have to face these issues. The stepfamily literature cautions that adjustment and integration of the new family takes from two to five years. As our fifth wedding anniversary approaches, we see more signs that we have become a family. The children seem solidly convinced that they have two homes and two sets of parents. We have family jokes, a growing family history, and memories of family vacations, both good and bad. The kids have begun to feel attached to my extended family, as well as John's. And Molly has fallen in love with the coast of North Carolina, where I have many happy childhood memories. On the first ski trip I took with John and the kids before our marriage, we stopped for a quick bite at Tad's Family Restaurant, in Brattleboro, Vermont. Five-year-old Andrew began to cry, fearing we wouldn't be served because we weren't a real family. Now, each time we pass through Vermont, we retell that story, able to laugh, more sure that we are a family. I recently lent Molly a book of stories from the American Girl, which I read over and over as a teenager. When I asked her which was her favorite, she identified "The Crowded House," a story about a girl's mixed feelings as she makes room in her life for a stepmother. She asked: "Did you see why I liked it?" I did. We're beginning to realize that being part of a stepfamily closes some doors, but opens others. Unlike the game I played with my sister, the rules are murky, the players are unruly, and control is tenuous at best. Still, I'm glad there's no turning back. Roberta A. Isleib '75, of Madison, Connecticut, is a clinical psychologist and a freelance writer.
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